Bruno Faidutti Talks Game Localization and Citadels

In his recent blog post, Bruno Faidutti discusses the fascinating journey games take as they’re translated and localized for sale in other countries. Faidutti’s classic role-selection card game Citadels is a prime example of the sort of contract complexity that comes with worldwide distribution.

“I have three distinct contracts. Hans im Glueck has the publishing rights in German, Dutch and Czech, Millenium in French and Spanish. Fantasy Flight Games originally published the game in English and in the Scandinavian languages.”

Faidutti also reveals a series of beautiful card designs that were part of an ambitious effort to release Citadels in China, Japan, and Indonesia featuring slightly different art styles.

“For each version, [Muka Games] planned to hire local illustrators and have them adapt the original game to local history and legends.”

Though the publisher folded, an Indonesian edition did eventually make it to market with these designs, but with the same Citadels name and box art used in Europe and the United States. The planned Indonesian re-imagining of Citadels, Kraton, unfortunately never came to fruition. Head over to Mr. Faidutti’s blog post to learn more and to see concept images for Kraton. For more on Citadels, check out Miami Dice Episode 91.