I'm working on a fanfiction storygame set in the Naruto universe. There are two issues I can think of with the different ways I can display information to the reader, and a couple of options to deal with each.
1. Players who aren't familiar with Naruto at all might be at a loss with certain terminology and concepts that fans of the franchise will know automatically. I want the former to understand what's going on, but at the same time I don't want to bore the latter with lengthy explanations about things they already know in the main text of the story itself. If I took the term chakra as an example, I could either:
a) put a clicky link on the word chakra in the main text of the story, leading to an external source of information like so:
You concentrate, channeling chakra to your mouth, ready to release it in one explosive motion.
b) have a link to a new in-game page to information that I've written myself. In this case you might have links at the bottom of the page saying:
Launch another fireball
Rush in to strike them
What is chakra? (click to find out more)
Preferably both of the above could be toggled on and off for the benefit of people who already know their Naruto, or for those on multiple playthroughs. Neither would be game-breaking, just a little irritating if you don't want to click on those links.
2.Obviously this storygame is going to be in English, but since the original material is in Japanese there could be language issues. Do I use Japanese or English terms for technique names and other jargon specific to Naruto?
a) On one extreme, I could have everything transliterated from Japanese: gufu suika no jutsu.
b) On the other hand, I could have all translated English words: typhoon water vortex technique.
It’s kind of accepted that certain simple or well-known terms like ‘katana’ and ‘shuriken’ are going to be kept in their Japanese forms across all translations, but where do you draw the line? There’s also the issue of many different possible translations for a given term, with there being a balance between translating the literal meaning word for word and giving a catchier, more natural sounding name. I could use translations from various different sources, or even my own interpretation (I speak Japanese), but which version would be best? I could possibly have an option to toggle between different versions, but that sounds like much more of a pain to implement. Am I thinking too much about this?
Anybody that I feel contributes to the creating of this storygame, whether in discussions on this thread or elsewhere, will get their name included in the credits. I'm not begging anyone for ideas or anything, but if you do happen to give me a good idea I think it would be only fair for me to credit it to you. If you have any questions about this storygame (about the above topic or in general), you can ask them here too.
