Drill Dozer - Climbing The Treehouse

It wasn't until fall of 2004 that I became truly familiar with Nintendo's localization team, otherwise known as the Treehouse. At an Enthusiast Summit I met and became familiar with many of the individuals who were busy bringing the likes of Samus, Mario and Link to North American audiences, and I found a newfound respect for them, and the whole localization process in general. That's why when Nintendo approached eToychest and asked if we would like to talk to Erik Peterson, Localization Writer/Editor at the Nintendo of America Treehouse regarding their latest effort, Drill Dozer, I jumped at the opportunity.

First of all, wow, all I can say is Drill Dozer is like a breath of fresh air. It really has a sense of old school platforming that you don't see a lot of today. What were your feelings regarding this new GBA title?

A lot of people have told me that it reminds them of the classic platformers they played back in the day. For me, it's really great to see such a quality 2D platformer-everything about it just feels so polished. I think some of that old-school feel comes from all of the effort Game Freak put into the title. That, and it's a serious accomplishment when you beat some of the bonus stages-they're crazy!

Agreed! As the localization team, were there any difficulties in translating this game for the North American market?

You know, this game was a real joy to work on. Game Freak made the entire process really painless. As with any game, there were some cultural references that needed to be changed. Games tend to be very connected with popular culture and there are some things that just don't translate-that's when I go in and rewrite it to make it understandable and entertaining to gamers in the US. I also ended up changing some little things, like Japanese text in area backgrounds. Of course, as with most projects, I held naming sessions to rename the game, all of the characters, and the various stages.

I'm sure that there are a lot of intricacies that go into the localizing of a game such as this. Can you walk us through how the process normally works for someone in the Treehouse?

In the Treehouse, we localize games as a team. Our teams usually consist of a translator and a writer, but the teams can get bigger with huge games like Animal Crossing. In the case of Drill Dozer, I worked with Thomas Connery, one of our translators. When we start working on a game, we usually begin by getting a playable build of the game from the developer and playing through a ton of it. I don't speak Japanese, so I'm playing to get a general feel for the title. After Thomas translates all of the Japanese into English, it's my job to rework and polish all of the text in the game.

What does that mean?

Well, in addition to making sure everything is well written and grammatically correct, I work hard to make the games I work on very understandable, funny, interesting, witty, and entertaining to people who live in the US. Localization is about so much more than translation-we will do everything we can to make sure the game feels right to gamers in our market. Sometimes, that means completely overhauling a character's voice. Sometimes that means changing a cultural reference or joke that only someone in Japan would get. And sometimes it's doing simple things, like changing meters into yards. It's my goal to make the text even better than the original.

Most people probably have a rather romantic image of what it is like to work at Nintendo day in and day out. What is your typical day like?

It seems like there is no such thing as a typical day here in the Treehouse. Yesterday, I worked on naming items for a game and sat in on meetings. Right now, I'm being interviewed. Sometimes, we travel to Japan to meet with the development teams or fly around the country to do product demos. Tomorrow, I'll be writing text for my current project. We wear a lot of hats. That said, I do have a fairly set routine for the mornings. I'm as much of a hardcore gamer as anyone, so I read all of the forums and news sites while I drink my coffee. I think one of the most important parts of my job is knowing about every game out there, what's fun, what isn't, what people are watching on TV, what movies were lame, what kind of characters make people laugh. That kind of stuff. It all ties in with what we do. It's my job to make Japanese games feel American, so staying up on everything in our culture is really important.

Back to Drill Dozer itself, were you given pretty much free reign with its localization, or did you have to work within established guidelines?

Any time you work with a developer, you want to make sure that you're doing everything to stay true to the spirit of the original game and make sure they're really happy with the end result. Game Freak was absolutely great to work with-I think they have a great appreciation for localization and they were really understanding about the kinds of things we wanted to change. It was all pretty painless, to be honest, and I think the end result is a game that's a ton of fun to play.

What game or games are you spending time playing while not working these days?

I work with handhelds and console games every day at work, so I like to mix it up and play mainly PC games when I'm at home. I'm a huge nerd for Battlefield 2 and play that obsessively. My fiancée is a crazy Animal Crossing fan, so we play that together a lot. There's so much to that game that I'm still discovering things, and I worked on it for half a year. Usually, I'm pestering her about turnip prices in her town. Right now, I've got 600,000 Bells of turnips sitting in my house. I have to get them off my hands soon!

The last time I was out your way was in 2004 for the Enthusiast Summit, at which time those of us in the press spent more than a little time playing against you Treehouse-folk in Mario Tennis. What multiplayer game is the current flavor of choice for friendly competition between you and your coworkers?

For a while, we'd all be typing madly on our projects and someone would randomly scream out "LET SKILL DECIDE," and everyone would grab a DS and race to get one of the coveted slots in an eight-player Mario Kart DS match. We had some crazy epic matches. It was a pretty big deal when Mario Kart usurped Super Smash Bros. Melee as the multiplayer game of choice here in the Treehouse. People in this group have been playing Smash religiously every single day at lunch and after work for years. I mean, they started playing it six months before the game was even out. That says a lot about how much we love Mario Kart DS. But in the last month or so we've gone back to clobbering each other in Smash. There's something really cathartic about it. For me, Super Smash Bros. Melee is just…perfection.

It sounds like there is a lot of camaraderie with your work. Is there any truth to the rumor that you really do work in a treehouse, and if so, are girls allowed?

The Treehouse isn't so much a house in a tree as it is a big open office full of office stuff. It's the great people I work with that make it such a crazy/creative place. We've got a group of really talented women that work in the Treehouse. In our group alone, there's Reiko Ninomiya, Ann Lin, Shino Overaa, and our senior manager, Leslie Swan. Semi-little known fact: Leslie was the original voice of Peach.

Calling 2006 a big year for gaming might be the understatement of the year. What excited you most about the coming year? What can't you wait to get your paws on?

Bring on the Revolution! I absolutely can't wait until I can sit on my coach and swing that amazing controller around. And of course, Revolution games are easily on the top of my most-wanted list. I'm so ready to play something creative and different, and I think the Revolution is going to deliver in a big way. Other than that, I'm really psyched about the new DS Lite-it's drop-dead gorgeous.

Thank you for your time this evening. So now with Drill Dozer out of the way, what's next for the Treehouse? Any games in particular that you are currently working on?

I can't talk too much about what I'm working on right now, but I can say that from glancing at the list of titles we'll be working on this year, it's going to be a huge year for Nintendo.

Feb 10, 2006 - 9:14 pm | 0 comments
Jason Dobson