Hello from Chile + proposal

[Gonzalo]

Hi, i’m new here.
I really like your summary documents for games, i’m not a fan of carrying the books around.
But i have a proposal, i would like to translate some of them to spanish and i’m pretty sure i could find more people who can help translate every file you guys have in here.
What do i need to get editable files to keep your great designs and change only the text? i’d begin with Blood Rage.

[Universal Head]

Hi Gonzalo. While I very much appreciate your interest and enthusiasm, I’ve been asked about translations constantly over the years. So much so I’ve had to direct all enquiries to a blurb on my Boardgamegeek profile page. I hope it explains my policy on the subject – here it is:

Sorry, due to an overwhelming number of requests, I don’t have time to supply original art files to translators. If you still wish to do a translation, go ahead, but please credit my original work.

Let me explain. There was a time when I was happy to supply files to people who wanted to do translations. That very rapidly became a huge drain on my limited time. Not only did I have to organise ways to send people large files, then compress them and send them, but I had to field questions about program versions, export files to match whatever program version the translator had, and answer various questions about the way I’d set them up. Every request became a time-draining chore.

I’d have to be doing this as a full-time, paid job to have the time to fulfil all the translation requests and come up with new summaries and content. I’ve already done 270+ summmaries, and, including all the other gaming content I create for my site, it’s all non-paid work (apart from the very occasional small donation to my website).

I’ve also been asked, why not create some sort of template? Well, the reason my sheets are appreciated, I would venture, is that they are done by a professional graphic designer and writer. There are countless subtleties to each sheet that would not survive ‘templatization’. Did you know that every sheet is the size that best fits the amount of content? That every column of text lines up perfectly? That I sometimes write and rewrite to come up with the most succinct way to express a paragraph of rules text in just a sentence? That fonts and colours usually match the game design? There’s a lot of work behind the scenes. As much as I’d love to hand off some of that work to others, the quality level just couldn’t be maintained.

[Gonzalo]

Well that’s a great answer. I wasn’t aware that of all this work was a one man project, so i clearly understand you.
Anyway, i’ll let you know if i do any translation.
Thank you very much for your work and effort.

[Universal Head]

Thanks for your understanding Gonzalo! 🙂

[Author]

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