Indie Game Gets 'The Best Accidental Marketing' in Japan After Title Mistranslated to 'Sh***y Dungeon'

With each the indie titles being released connected Steam each week, it tin beryllium hard to marque your crippled basal out. Italian developer Fix-a-Bug accidentally gave its 2D dungeon crawler a large prelaunch popularity boost successful Japan by accidentally naming the crippled “Shitty Dungeon” successful Japanese.

Although the game’s English rubric is The Crazy Hyper-Dungeon Chronicles, its Japanese connection Steam Store leafage ended up displaying the rubric arsenic Kuso Danjon. This means “Shitty Dungeon” oregon “Crap Dungeon,” if you privation to beryllium somewhat much polite.

In a caller interrogation with Game*Spark spotted by Automaton, developer Paolo Nicoletti explained that the ‘shitty dungeon incident’ occurred backmost successful August this year, erstwhile the squad was releasing a demo mentation of the crippled and had yet to get a nonrecreational Japanese translation.

When they realized their mistake, Nicoletti says, "Everyone was cracking up, and honestly, I besides laughed a batch astir it. It was wholly unintentional.” However the mishap did not flush the rogue-lite dungeon crawler down the toilet, rather, “It ended up bringing the crippled a batch of attraction and the fig of Wishlists soared." Nicoletti said the sanction alteration was “the champion accidental marketing” the developer could person hoped for.

According to an earlier study by Automaton Japan, the Japanese connection Steam leafage for The Crazy Hyper-Dungeon Chronicles was named Shitty Dungeon backmost connected August 8. By August 13, Japanese speaking users had begun discussing the taxable connected X and had reported it connected the authoritative Discord server.

It’s inactive not wide however oregon wherefore this mistranslation happened, but it’s worthy noting that the pre-release Japanese connection demo of the crippled had immoderate awkward instrumentality translations erstwhile it was picked for Tokyo Game Show’s ‘Selected Indie 80’ successful September. The developers announced that these issues would beryllium fixed successful the afloat release, and it appears the ‘shitty dungeon incident’ occurred astir this time.

This amusing mistake made the indie crippled basal retired from the assemblage of caller Steam releases. It soon became a taxable of treatment connected Japanese societal media. According to Nicoletti, this contributed to an summation successful Wishlist numbers for the then-unreleased game. After all, a rubric that seems to proudly proclaim it's atrocious tin marque radical funny arsenic to whether that’s truly the case.

However, the prime of the crippled did not stink aft all, and The Crazy Hyper-Dungeon Chronicles presently has a 'Mostly Positive' standing connected Steam. Reviewers person been praising its comic dialogue, satisfying gameplay loop and the wide attraction enactment into its development.

Japanese speaking commenters connected X person besides praised the demo and the afloat crippled for being amazingly amended than its archetypal Japanese rubric suggested. “Humor that lives up to the name,” and “great, elaborate pixel art,” are among the plaudits fixed to the indie title. One Japanese connection reappraisal connected Steam noted that, “Despite the rubric Shitty Dungeon making maine deliberation it was a joke, it is really rather good made.” The reviewer said that due to the fact that they'd made a unsighted buy, “It wasn’t rather what I expected but the combat strategy is beauteous interesting.” They besides praised the game’s equilibrium betwixt humorous dialog and tense combat.

Although bully localizations are preferable, translation errors person produced immoderate weirdly memorable dialog implicit the years. If it hadn’t been for mistranslation, specified lines would ne'er person go truthful iconic. Lines similar Zero Wing’s “All your basal are beryllium to us,” and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night’s “What is simply a man? A miserable small heap of secrets,” person endured beyond their root games to go well-known memes.

Verity Townsend is simply a Japan-based freelance writer who antecedently served arsenic editor, contributor and translator for the crippled quality tract Automaton West. She has besides written astir Japanese civilization and movies for assorted publications.