The last of goo balls didn’t seem to know that the fantastic World of Goo… has just learned to speak a few new languages!
The World of Goo PC Edition has been officially upgraded to include brand-new translations in Russian, Simplified Chinese, and — for the first time ever — Ukrainian! All thanks to the tireless (and possibly goo-covered) efforts of our excellent translation community. The Update is available on Steam now, and is coming to Epic Games, GOG, Humble Store, and our own site (worldofgoo.com) later this week.
Translating a deeply American-centric game like World of Goo is no easy feat. How does one take all the internet puns, double-meaning jokes, and corporate-speak nonsense and have it make sense in another language? What does YAMAKO mean in Chinese? How can we know?
Luckily, our friends on the World of Goo 2 Russian Translation Team have written a wonderful guest post about their process and all the work that occurred behind the scenes.
Official Russian World of Goo Localization: A Word from the Translators
Hello, dear World of Goo fans and lovers of good translations! Finally, 17 years later, the official Russian localization of World of Goo has been released! The game was translated for you by the same people who worked on the localization of the sequel a couple of years ago. In this article, we’d like to share the reasoning behind some of our translation choices and explain why it’s worth playing (or replaying!) the game in this format.
Let’s answer the obvious question right away: how is our translation different from the old ones? We remember and cherish those translations and even relied on them in a few matters, but we believe they missed many important details. In our translation, we tried to convey the game’s humor, its mysterious and sometimes chaotic tone, the nuances of corporate speak and technical jargon, and, of course, the developers’ unique style as accurately as possible. We also translated all the in-game textures—every single one, down to the most minor. As a result, the total number of translated assets is 1.5 times higher than the average for other languages. You’ll have to look closely to spot some of them!
Now, on to the most burning questions!
Why “Tyaguchki” for “Goo”?
…Believe us, we thought long and hard about what to call these slimy black things in the official translation. It wasn’t an easy task because we needed to convey the multifaceted nature of the original name while also satisfying veteran Russian players in respect to the older adaptations. On top of that, Goo also appears in the game as a liquid, which also needed to be addressed. The second game complicated things further by introducing even more derivatives of this term…
We started by recalling the name variations already used by the community: “Goo” balls, “Гуу”, “Goo-shki”, “Tyanuchki” (from “to pull/stretch”), “slime balls” or “slimes”… These are long-lasting and well-established variants, but none of them seemed entirely appropriate when considering the game as a whole. For reference: Goo is a word that means something viscous, sticky, slimy; a Goo Ball is, accordingly, a ball made of this sticky substance. Using the original English spelling using Latin letters would turn an ordinary word into a kind of “brand” the name of which means nothing in Russian. Of course, the idea of branding is an integral part of the game, but the balls themselves are not a brand—they are originally living organisms. The English “goo ball” is something intuitive, descriptive, like what a child would call them. So, calling a species of creature and a type of ooze by an English word wasn’t the best idea.
“Гуу”, a simple Russian transliteration, doesn’t help matters either. First, it creates an extra repetition of the “u” sound, which, according to Russian phonetics, forces it to be pronounced as two different syllables. It’s also no secret that the English “oo” [uː] is equivalent to the Russian “у”. But even without the doubling, the word “гу” takes on an exotic quality that is completely unexplained and unmotivated, which isn’t present in the original. The same goes for “Goo-shki”—what does that even mean? Beats us!
“Tyanuchki” (Pullers/Stretchers)… Now we’re getting warmer! An understandable Russian word with an obvious meaning. However, the question of its accuracy arose—is the main feature of these balls really that they stretch? After a couple of days of discussion, we had to admit that this wasn’t actually their main property. The release of World of Goo 2, where the balls are processed into liquid, only made the situation worse. What do you call that liquid? “Tyanuchka”? But “tyanuchka” is the creature itself, just its singular unit…
We kept thinking… “Zhizhiki” (Oozies)? A fun option! And the liquid, called “zhizha” (ooze), fits well into the lore. However, we didn’t like the potential association with Russian vaping slang, so we quickly abandoned this idea. And, if you think about it, these balls aren’t exactly liquid… More like viscous… hmm, viscous… And then we realized! Why not “Tyaguchki” (from “тягучий”—viscous)?
- “Тягучий” (tyaguchiy) is the most plausible description for what we see in the game. The blobs are thick, dense, viscous, stringy, and maybe just a little bit fluid.
- It’s similar to the already familiar “Tyanuchki,” which greatly reduces the surprise factor for people familiar with the game.
- The word “viscous” can be associated with something unpleasant (black, viscous rubber, stringy saliva) or with something tasty: nougat, caramel, melted cheese. In the game, the balls are also shown as either nasty (e.g., on the “Drool” level) or as incredibly tasty.
- The word contains the coveted “gu” sound, and it’s even the stressed syllable!
- And we decided to call the ooze they consist of “Tyaguschya” (viscous thick stuff) where the main part of the word is the same as in “Tyaguchki”. Simple and clear!
What about the Sign Painter?
Another tough question! Many remember him as the “Author,” the “Malyar” (“equivalent to House Painter”), or the “Artist,” but… do such adaptations really reflect the meaning embedded in the name? And what meaning did the game’s creators actually intend to embed?
First, we considered several of our own options. “Tablichnik” (Sign-er) – a more “rugged” variant, but it didn’t sound convincing or professional enough, akin to the proud calling of sign painting. “Tablichkin”(Signey) also came up – a funny name, but too unserious. Although we still jokingly call him that among ourselves… “Malyar” (equivalent to House Painter) was rejected almost immediately—it’s obvious that this name is more suited to someone who paints walls with a roller during room renovation. Then we had an ideological battle between “Author” and “Artist,” but…
Finally, we decided to ask one of the authors directly how we should understand the name of our creative friend. We provided several interpretation options to immediately weed out the unnecessary ones. Our list of interpretations included:
- An artist who paints on signs (as a profession)
- The author of the signs (a writer)
- The creator of the signs (the one who places them, roughly like in Minecraft)
The developer answered clearly and concisely: the name should be perceived precisely as a real-life profession, i.e., “one who earns a living by painting signs”—in short, a “sign painter.” This is the option we chose. After all, you’ll agree, there are artists who work with wood, metal, costumes, makeup, lighting—so why can’t there be an artist who works with signs? Of course, throughout the game, we had to come up with a ton of variations on his name. There is also a secret…
(a reference to the “Original Sign Painter” which was localized as “the [Fine Art] Painter”)
OCD? SUPer!
What is an OCD? These are additional challenges available in most levels. To get them, the player must complete the level under special imposed conditions, pretty much perfectly. Satirizing the fanaticism required to obtain such hardcore achievements, the authors called them OCD’s—an abbreviation for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. However, in the game, the acronym has its own decoding—Obsessive Completion Distinction.
Many Russian players from the time of the old translation remember the variant SUPer (“Spetsial’nye Usloviya Prokhozhdeniya”—Special Conditions of Completion), but we decided not to stray far from the original and conveyed what the authors intended. Thus, in the translation, you can see ОКР (OKR) —”Otlichie za Kropotlivuyu Rabotu” (Distinction for Meticulous Work), same abbreviation as “Obsessivno-Kompulsivnoye Rasstroystvo” (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder).
But to pay homage to the beloved old translation, we mentioned “SUPer!” in World of Goo 2—in the name of an achievement unlocked by getting all three OCD flags on one level.
Well, we’ve figured out the main terms—now let’s run through the chapters!
Chapter 1: “The Tyaguchki Hills”
In the first chapter, there is a level called “Tumbler,” which doesn’t refer to a toggle switch (or an acrobat!), but rather to a rotating drum—one of the meanings of the word “tumbler”—in which the entire level is set. Therefore, we decided to get creative and call the level “Tyaguchkomeshalka” (Goo Mixer). Furthermore, in World of Goo 2, there is a similar level called “Stumbler,” which we symmetrically adapted as “Tyaguchkoshatalka” (Goo Shaker).
Open the gates and fly, monkeys, fly! But don’t forget about me, ok?
-sincerely, the Sign Painter
The original text references the flying monkeys and the Scarecrow’s line from “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” Although some players would likely recognize this reference, we decided not to risk it and replaced it with a variation of a phrase from the well-known Russian adaptation of “Karlsson on the Roof”:
We need to open the gates… Fly, tyaguchki, fly!.. But promise you’ll return.
-your friend, the Sign Painter
A new species of GooBall! I must say, they look quite beautiful… Maybe they have commitment anxiety, I’m not sure, but it looks like they can be easily detached from one another. -the helpful Sign Painter
“Commitment anxiety” from the original sounds clunky and not very clear when translated directly into Russian. We replaced it with a more well-known “avoidant attachment style”:
A new variety of tyaguchki! And of rare beauty, I must say. Maybe they have an avoidant attachment style? That would explain why they are so easy to separate from each other.
-the informative Sign Painter
The joke about the detachable green goo balls works just as well!
Chapter 2: “Miss Universe of World of Goo”
The main snag is the chapter title itself. First, we asked the developers if the giant statue towering over the island was called that—the answer was no, the chapter title does not refer directly to it.
The thing is, “Little Miss [Something]” is a type of children’s beauty pageant, especially popular in the central US states in the 90s. The second chapter parodies all these pompous fashion shows and the glamorous lifestyle. After some thought, we realized that in Russia and presumably other CIS countries, only the “Miss Universe” contest is widely known—that’s what we used in the chapter title.
We also had to decide what to call “the Whistle”—the thing that lures the goo balls. This was perhaps the most difficult choice in the entire translation. We had many options: “svistok” (whistle), “svistulka” (little whistle/pipe), “dudka” (pipe), “dudochka” (little pipe), “fleita” (flute), “svirel” (panpipe). Each was good and bad in its own way. We argued until the last moment about what to call it, asked friends—and eventually settled on “dudochka” (little pipe)! … Then we argued again and settled on “svistulka” (little whistle). … Then we argued once more and settled on “svistok” (whistle). In short… “whistle”—though the simplest option, without much flair—doesn’t raise extra questions, is understandable, and easy to remember. So, whistle away!
On the level “Welcoming Unit,” we encounter a scary mechanism called the “Freedom Scraper 3000,” which hooks goo balls from the upper half of our tower and pushes them forward. The remaining goo balls fall down. The device has a hefty name that is extremely ambiguous in meaning. We agreed that the point of the level is to welcome new guests, followed by the “scraping away” of their rights and freedoms. Plus, in the game’s code, the level is called “Immigration Naturalization Unit.” Therefore, the device was named “Integrator 3000” (Inclusion-er 3000) to play along with the theme of migration policy. You probably won’t notice this theme in the game itself, but that’s fine—it’s just as subtle in the original!
Chapter 3: “A Cog in the Machine”
The chapter title isn’t entirely obvious, either. The chapter’s events take place in a factory, dominated by the theme of mechanisms and heavy production of the dirty kind. However, “a cog in the machine” is also an idiom that literally means “a part of the system,” insignificant and subject to that very system. Therefore, we used a similar Russian idiom “a little screw in the mechanism”—this preserved both the meaning and the intended wordplay.
In the third chapter, there is a level with the very imperative name “You Have To Explode The Head” and a very non-obvious subtitle: “the original cog in the machine.” As it turned out, the level name references a small game called “You Have to Burn The Rope,” and the description refers to the fact that this level originally had the name that was later given to the entire chapter. To our knowledge, that game doesn’t have a Russian translation, so we tried to keep the dry tone: “Explode The Head”, and in the subtitle we wrote: “the former cog in the machine.”
Chapter 4: “Information Superhighway”
We were lucky that Russian has such a term (“Informatsionnaya magistral”) and we didn’t have to invent anything!
The chapter is full of various jokes related to computers and internet culture of the mid-2000s. We tried to adapt and convey the spirit of that era as much as possible without becoming overly memey or cringe.
For example, the nickname SignPaintr4evr became XDoznikP0tabli4kam; the expression ROTFLMFAF was replaced with “РЖУНИМАГУ” (Russian mid-2000s’ LMAO); and in one place we added “Khudozhnikov po tablichkam.net” (Sign-Painters-dot-net—common Russian joke about a TLD soundalike). We also tried to keep computer and programming terms like “upgrade,” “brute-force,” “graceful exit,” “traffic,” “to scroll,” and others intact. The phrase “Hello, world,” known to all programmers, was left as is.
We translated the character from the fourth chapter, an email-sending program named MOM, as “MAMA” (MOM). However, we immediately ran into a problem: MOM is an existing acronym for “Message-oriented middleware.” This trick wasn’t possible in Russian, so to justify the acronym, we had to introduce our own made-up decoding: “Module for Automated-mailing of Moderated Actions/Promotions” and carefully integrate it into the existing dialogue. Moreover, the word “MAMA” had to be put everywhere in the nominative case, because otherwise “MAME” or “MAMU” would look like new acronyms. Also, with the authors’ permission, we changed the level name “MOM’s Computer” to “MAMA.exe”.
One of the signature phrases of the MOM system is “Welcome home,” which we really didn’t want to translate literally. In Russian, it sounds too unnatural; it’s unlikely a caring mom would say that to anyone. We liked “Welcome to the family”—this sounds much friendlier and is easy to imagine as the slogan of an overly familiar company.
We especially want to mention the level “Alice, Bob and Third Parties.” Here we had to adapt the authentic nicknames cosmicGrrrl! and laconicCrusadr13. We were very afraid of missing the right tone of the time—a fan translation made back then came to the rescue. We decided to keep the remarkable names “krasivaya34” and “cvas1976” (beautiful34 & kvass1976) from there as a kind of homage, but made an adjustment for time—17 years later, “Bob” became “cvas1993”. You can’t stop progress!
Epilogue: “This Is the End”
Another difficulty with the chapter title. “End of the World” has a duality: it’s both “the end of the world” (apocalypse) and “the edge of the world” (the place where everything ends). We really wanted to kill two birds with one stone—and we succeeded! Because the expression “This is the end” can be perceived as a pessimistic statement, but here it can also be read literally: this is the place where the world and the game itself end.
The last level in the game is called “Observatory Observation Station”—it clearly contains a tautology that wasn’t so easy to localize. The translators were fond of the variant “Smotrovaya smotrovaya” (which can be translated as The Monitoring (adj) Monitoring (n)), but by general vote, “Center for Telescopic Telescopy” was chosen, as it fits better with the scientific-business style inherent in most level names in the game.
Well, that’s it, folks! You can share your impressions of the translation, say what was missing or what turned out well, or just reminisce about a good game. And if you’d be interested in seeing a similar article for World of Goo 2, let us know below!
Thank you for reading! ❤️
The translation was created by Px-Ch and Randold. Max34, MarkWolf and SuperMany provided help.
