Cowbay Entertainment didn’t always plan to become a localisation specialist, but it is certainly helping them out with their first original title. Project Court 2050 (or locally known as 機辯意識) is a typing game where you play as a cyberpunk-style court clerk, tasked with recording various trials as the game throws distractions your way.
We had the pleasure of interviewing Nancy Wang, Marketing Manager of Cowbay Entertainment, at gamescom asia 2024 earlier this year, where they were showcasing an early build that was already localised in English. Even in its early stages, the demo featured fully localised voice acting, which we quickly realised was a necessity, not a luxury.
“The original idea was to make a unique game that doesn’t exist in this world. As you know in the visual novel genre, players may just read a story by clicking their mouse. But we wanted players to play the story, so we thought about mechanics like typing challenges and QTEs to make players engage with the story, and not just read it,” Nancy explained, when asked about the need for voice acting.
After sitting down and trying the demo myself, I understood immediately. The game is hectic by design, requiring you to multitask typing the right characters, listening to both sides of the debate, and making the choice to side with one side or the other. “We wanted gamers to experience moral choices without having any time to think about it,” she added.
Not only that, Project Court 2050 is taking things to the next level with a level editor, which will allow players to stage their own trials with their friends or even the wider Steam community.
“Since our main gameplay is that you are a court clerk, we also want players to create their own arguments, stories, or trials. Maybe players can upload their quarrels with their boyfriends or girlfriends and put it on Steam Workshop for everyone to play, then everyone can comment who was right,” she laughed.
The possibilities are endless with the level editor, and Cowbay Entertainment hopes that players will use it to discuss everything from inside jokes to more serious issues. “One important thing is allowing players to connect with each other. We made the editor so that players can even upload stories about their country, so players from other countries can play and learn about their culture,” she shared.
As for whether the game will be receiving a public demo soon, Cowbay Entertainment hopes to launch a Chinese demo by the end of this year. Due to the requirement of full voice acting, other languages like English, Korean, and Japanese may only arrive in 2025.
“While working in the localisation industry, we got the chance to network with many language experts in the localisation industry. That’s why we want to give them the full freedom to translate Project Court 2050, even using local slangs, idioms, and any other means to translate the game. We believe this will help the localisation industry.”
We’re definitely excited to try the English localisation once it’s ready, especially in Cowbay Entertainment’s capable hands. In the meantime, you can wishlist Project Court 2050 on Steam here.
