You can download Once Upon a Farm here.



As always, please remember to come back and tell us what you think.

Happy Gaming,
Ana

Glitchy, don't buy until you have at least played half of trial.

Some things are worded wrong, eg. tube = smoking pipe, watch = clock, bowl = trophy. About 20 minutes into the game everything went dark, no settings for that. Closed the game and went back, all was bright again for a few minutes then back to dark again.

Uninstalled, no buy for me.

Thanks for posting. I posted about wanting more mystery themes for HOGs so saw this and was excited but those are some unfortunate issues. No way would I think a bowl was a trophy

Another word confusion in this game was mentioned on the Big Fish forums as leaf = sheet. It's a shame that some of these well-meaning developers cannot obtain better English localization before release. I would certainly be willing to help them.

tried the demo - got as far as the farm and froze - left with a crowbar in my hand and had to restart

too bad about language confusion as well - the help option gets past those

I'll wait a day or two for something else to use my bonus coupon on - maybe Lost in Time ??

Janice

I only played several minutes of this demo. Is it purely a straight HOG?

I dont need further confusion over words = I am British and I already have enough problems with your American words

From reading the Big Fish forums, it appears to be an IHOG.

I never did understand why Americans turned perfectly good English words into other words, Rozanne, or why we changed the spelling for some of them too!

I am gradually learning your language through these games, Marian - It makes life more interesting and keeps my brain working...... Now I must remember faucet is really a tap, clothespin is a peg, gas can is a petrol container, scallion is a spring onion.......I could go on and on.....

But a leaf is a sheet or it can be if you take a leaf out of my book. <g>

If we in the US and UK sometimes have trouble understanding one another, just think how hard it must be for someone whose native language isn't English. They do very well, considering.

Gil.

You are absolutely right and I did think of how this could have confused the developers. If I were creating a game in a foreign language I can see how easy it would be to make mistakes like this.

Lol! If I were creating a game and trying to translate it for players in France with my highschool French plus a dictionary, I'd have that entire country confused...or in stitches. <g>

But it does make sense, I agree, to have a native speaker check the translation.

Gil.

The game would not play on my computer.Some games just will not work. I guess it's because my computer is too old?I got it in 2003.

2003 is definitely old for the latest technology I'm afraid. Perhaps Glitches can help you figure out if you can get away with an upgrade on your computer that isn't too expensive.

Ana

@traveler, Thank You!
I could not figure out how they got the idea that a leaf was a sheet. You've explained it perfectly.

I also think that companies should try using USA or at least native English speakers for beta testing if they plan to sell English editions. Many game players would help them out if they could beta the game.

Sometimes I think we in the US are too arrogant about wanting everything in 'our language', but in this case a little correction is justified.

Leaf of paper perhaps. We here in the Southlands of the US of A (perhaps in the olden days of my life) use that quite often actually. Haven't played the game, so is it a sheet as on the bed or a sheet of paper or a sheet of tin or other metal. There are many uses for the words in Americanized English, as there are many uses in the UK and other countries.

I do get caught up in this stuff though, as I wonder sometimes what an object is, and I "dictionary" it...what a waste of time, and yet not, as a learning experience even at the age of 64.

Jody

In the game it was a leaf.
Translation may have gone something like a book has leaves that are sheets of paper so a leaf is a sheet??????????

I love running across words that send me running to the dictionary. The origin of words - and phrases, too - is fascinating. Why do we say, "Take a leaf out of my book" when nobody refers to paper as a leaf anymore? If they ever did. Guess I'll have to google it. <g>

Gil.

Loving the posts. This an interesting topic. I too will go onto google or wikipedia sometimes when I am clueless about what an object is or what it looks like to avoid using a hint. With there being so many uses for different words, it must be a challenge for a developer when it's not his/her native language. I wonder if it's really expensive for them to hire someone to translate.

It might be expensive if they have to hire a person with a thorough knowledge of both languages. A native English speaker might easily stumble over the translation of, say, a Croatian word if he didn't know that language very well, too.

Of course, it would help if he/she played the game and was looking at whatever needed describing. Wonder if they do or if somebody just hands them a list of words and says, "Here, I need to know what these things are in English".

Gil.

Gil, those are great points. Someone would have to be fluid in both languages. It would be a good idea for them to either have the person play the game or give them the screenshots. I bet this might explain why sometimes an item pic doesn't always match the word.

We Gameboomers rock. Just thought I say that.

I am not sure if it was this game or another recent one when you had to look in a HOG scene for a tube and it turned out to be a smoker's pipe!!

Some interesting wonderings--
I recently Beta'd a game. The translation was already done, but I don't believe it was by a native English speaker or at least not USA English. It was something that would have received great criticism if released in the USA that way.

The developers were so great to allow us to correct the language. I think any developer could use "free" beta testers to do this if they wanted to take the time to do it that way.

Of course, there was also a word or 2 that was unfamiliar to me. The artist responsible wanted to leave it that way because he/she thought that it was a good way to teach people new words. I hadn't thought of using HO games that way -- but we do use games to teach children, right?