[MUSAI] The Zoo is Alive! The Friendly Korean Dubbing has users immersed in Planet Zoo

2019-12-06

Recently, ‘Planet Zoo’ by Frontier Developments has become a rising star among Tycoon games in Korea and captured the Tycoon lovers’ heart.

November 5, ‘Planet Zoo’ has launched in Korea. It’s a simulation game to ask users to be an owner of a zoo, take care of animals and manage the whole garden. Well, this is not enough description for this game. Player should not only just take care of animals, but also attract visitors, deal with protesters and even capture escaped predators. The zoo is alive indeed!

The Korean users who experienced ‘Planet Zoo’ mentioned that there are strong attractive points in it. First, the graphic is terrific. The nature of the zoo looks magnificent, also the movement of each animal shows the unique characteristics of real animals – It’s very fun to watch that a lion roams around slowly and a bear’s hairy cute butt moves one by one. “Feels like actual animals lived in the grand garden and I was involved in it as a part”, one reviewer said.

Besides, the game requests users to make a choice for various issues ranging from big to small while playing and it possibly brings millions of the ways to play based on their decision. The close interaction between users and the game has been evaluated as a factor to enhance the deep immersion for playing.

The most mentioned feedback from Korean users was about the quality of the dubbing. The Korean dubbing of ‘Planet Zoo’ was very high quality with the comfortable mood, so that it helped users fully enjoy all the other benefits of the game, they said.

“GGGD! – God Game and God Dubbing!” It’s a phrase that the reviewers and users named after playing ‘Planet Zoo’ about the quality of the Korean dubbing. The one of the reasons behind was that the voice-over helped to reduce the stress from the tutorial, they said. As for a simulation game, especially a game led by user’s choice like ‘Planet Zoo’, it’s very important to complete tutorial. The users mentioned that it must have been a huge fatigue if they had to read all the text for tutorial. “I even felt like I’m watching a dubbed animation or movie, not a playing tutorial when I heard the female voice”, one user pointed out.

As a game sound studio, it’s always pleased that the point of directing is reflected on the contents successfully and delivered to users as it’s intended. The keyword of directing that Musai Studio focused on for Planet Zoo was “comfortable and friendly” as users noticed. The English version sounded like educational and speaking from professional MC, whereas Korean voice actors tried to put more friendly voice. Yu Chang-hyeon, a producer in Musai Studio who took a part of artistic directing for ‘Planet Zoo’, said “We focused on giving a relaxing and comfortable mood like an aunt or uncle’s talking.” And “it was easier for voice actors to express the concept of directing since the script was translated with consideration of the talking style by age beforehand.”, he added.

“The translated script with talking style by age’ means that discussion about the concept and direction has been happened before working on localization and voice-over. One thing to remember about ‘Planet Zoo’ is that it was the project applied ‘Musai Integrated Service’, which means both script translation and dubbing have been done in Musai Studio.

In general, developers outsource the audio script translation and voice-over recording for a same title to different agencies for some reasons. In the case, the project manager of the title will be possibly under a pressure to communicate with several agencies. Besides, the translation can be proceeded without consideration of dubbing process due to lack of knowledge of dubbing process or the text file itself without separation of script and in-game text.

Sound studios usually receive the script translated completely and original audio files, but script adaptation which is a process to edit the translated audio script again in order to fit on dubbing process should be happened. If the script adaptation has been done perfectly in the stage of translation, there are lots of benefits such as reduction of cost from saving the time, the efficiency of process and the quality of results as the most important part.

Musai Studio has been providing an integrated service for both translation and dubbing over 15 years to enhance the quality to the best. The several lines of Bernie from ‘Planet Zoo’, for example, have been revised during recording voice-over.

It usually happens that the length of the line between original and Korean version don’t match each other no matter how fast the voice actor reads, or some lines are fine with eyes but not for ears. It happened while dubbing for ‘Planet Zoo’ as well.  Since the producer for dubbing and linguist for script worked together in the same studio, it was very efficient to find a better line when it sounded awkward. And then they could be back to recording process without delay. If the agencies for localization and dubbing were different, it would take more time and complicate communication. That was how the natural and friendly lines of Bernie have been born.

As we took a look the feedback regarding Korean dubbing of ‘Planet Zoo’,  ‘Integrated Service’ can be an attractive option for developers. More details of ‘Integrated Service’ will be explained in the next posting.

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