Ever since we first revealed doujin localization house Carpe Fulgur’s translations of Recettear, an RPG by EasyGameStation that mixes action and managing shops, there’s been a fair bit of interest around just how the project came about.
We got in touch with Carpe Fulgur founder, Andrew Dice, to talk about Recettear, the localization process, and how the entire project got off the ground, and we were surprised to learn that it all started with a certain other Japanese publisher.
“I’ve been wanting to do something like Carpe Fulgur ever since I was in grade school,” Andrew told Siliconera. “I was a big fan of the early Square and Enix games and starting with even Final Fantasy IV, I began to grasp that a ‘video game’ could go well beyond just being a pair of paddles and a ball — there were real opportunities for narrative and expression here.”
Andrew revealed to us that he was inspired in part by individuals like Ted Woolsey, who is recognized as being primarily responsible for the localization of Squaresoft’s SNES games, and this pushed him to decide upon localization as his career of choice.
“Last year I interviewed with a company that was looking for a localization editor, pretty much the position I’d desired most of my life,” he continued. “I’ll refrain from naming names, but the short of it was, they rejected me. I disagreed with some of the reasons for the rejection — in particular I had a few objections to things that came up during the interview — and I was also told in an impolitic fashion that I’d straight-up ‘failed’.”
“Well, I was hardly going to take that sitting down. After that, [Carpe Fulgur co-founder] Robin and I got talking and we realized that if we really wanted to pursue this idea as a career, we couldn’t just sit around waiting for someone to hand us a job… we’d have to get out there and prove we could do it ourselves. And at that point, Robin introduced me to Recettear, we got in touch with EGS, and the rest, as they say, is history.”
Naturally, getting in touch with EasyGameStation and actually reaching an agreement with them were two entirely separate matters. We’ll be posting that story later in the week as part of our ongoing interview with Carpe Fulgur.
