The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls Requiem

Our Take on a Kickstarter Trend | VR | New Four Souls Challenges Posted
over 1 year ago – Sat, Jul 30, 2022 at 01:42:18 AM

Hi Friends,

Shipping -

English Language and any orders with just Merch: November

Any order that includes a Localized copy of the game: December

A Recent Kickstarter Trend

If you follow tabletop news you may have noticed recently companies charging exorbitantly more than what was stated during the campaign for shipping in Backerkit. Other companies demanding that you pay more to them if you'd like them to ship your game even after charging for shipping once. Others taking a much softer route, asking backers to donate more to help cover the differences in costs from the start of the Kickstarter to the time they shipped. 

There's a ton of different ways to handle differences in estimated expenses and real expenses. I don't fault any company for making tough decisions and we've seen the gambit of responses from companies that have stakeholders, employees, and expenses that need paid. As a whole though, this is hurting the trust and joy of Kickstarter (as are delays, we know and we're sorry!), so we wanted to spell out to everyone Maestro Media (and Edmund's) stance on this topic:

You have paid to help fund this project, you have paid to ship this reward and MOST of you have paid any taxes your government says is due for purchasing this game (if you're outside of the US, UK, EU you still owe these taxes). We knew the risks in charging people and we accepted those. It hurt when we dropped seven figures to pay for shipping containers, but again, this was part of the risk of Kickstarting the game versus taking it straight to retail, and I think everyone on this team would take that risk again.

We will never pass the buck back to the consumer when costs rise on a project and we will always offer 100% refunds (no "processing fees") until the point in which the games are in the fulfillment centers ready to ship to backers.

Please don't lose faith in Kickstarter as a platform!

Four Souls Goes VR

If you are a Kickstarter backer, you may remember when we unlocked the Blasphemous Warp Zone. The creators of Blasphemous, the incredible The Game Kitchen team, have a Kickstarter going on RIGHT NOW called All On Board. It's a VR platform for board games and we're thrilled to say that The Binding of Isaac Four Souls will be a launch title. In certain pledge levels Four Souls is already included as a bonus, but as part of the deal, Requiem Kickstarter Backers will get a code to download Four Souls for free on the platform at a later date. If you're so inclined, go back another fun Kickstarter project from a great company!

Two New Challenges Available

I think I slacked off last month and didn't announce when the Four Souls Challenge dropped on the website. Shame on me!

If you've missed any of the announcements, we've now got 4 Four Souls Challenges available at https://maestromedia.com/collections/binding-of-isaac-four-souls including the 4th one that just dropped this week!

Four Souls Challenges are fun new ways to play Four Souls with your existing game or on the [Official] The Binding of Isaac Four Souls + Requiem mod on Tabletop Simulator. Here's the art from last two that dropped, "Greed's Gamble" and this week's "Masquerade."

~The Maestro Team

Shipping Timelines
almost 2 years ago – Sat, Jul 02, 2022 at 08:40:20 PM

Hello Friends,

Let's just start with the big stuff first. The TL;DR:

• English Language Kickstarter Shipping to Backers: Shipping November
• Localized Language Kickstarter Shipping to Backers: Shipping December
• Global Retail Release of The Binding of Isaac 2nd Edition, Four Souls+ 2nd Edition, and Requiem: February 2023.

English Language Copies

We are currently in Mass Production on the game after the delays from the factory being shut down for two months. The factory is not at full capacity due to restrictions enforced by the government so while we are printing the games, the factory cannot produce as many games per day as they could at full capacity. Printing should be complete by August with current re-opening plan. Freight shipping comes next, the long slow journey on the open ocean to our various fulfillment centers around the world. Once the freight arrives in port it has to go through customs, which can take 3-6 weeks and then shipping to and processing through the fulfillment centers. Once that is all complete the fulfillment centers will start shipping everything to backers, starting November 2022! Kickstarter backers will ship first followed by Pre-orders.

Localized Language Copies

Translations took longer than the localization teams thought and have just recently been finished. As such, the first proofs will be run soon with mass production starting in July. These copies are about a month behind the English language versions and will be on their own sea voyages separate from the merchandise and English language copies. For those with merchandise and localized games, everything will ship together. Once the crates have cleared customs and been shipped to and processed through the fulfillment centers shipping will begin in December 2022! Please keep in mind, that the game in other languages was offered only during KS campaign, pre-order backers only had the option to order in English or to wait and buy the game from the localization company.

Global Retail Release

Since non-backers can read these updates, we felt it was worthwhile to note for those people that the next time you will have to opportunity to buy Requiem will be at the retail release of the game in February 2023! At that time the games will be available at retail hobby stores and at Maestromedia.com.

For localized (translated) copies of the game those will also be available in February 2023 from our localization partners. Some may also do a pre-order, but those games would ship in February as well.

The Next Four Souls Challenge

If you've not been to MaestroMedia.com lately, you've missed out on the Four Souls Collection page, the new home of all things Four Souls, including all past/present/future Challenges. You can check them out at https://maestromedia.com/collections/binding-of-isaac-four-souls.

Be sure to check out the newest Four Souls Challenge: Greed's Gamble. 

Greed’s… well, greed, knows no bounds: he is determined to rob Isaac of every cent he owns - and he’s not far from succeeding! Can you guide your characters to kill monsters, gain cents, and tip the scales back in your favor? Or will you be left penniless by the merciless Greed like so many before you…

We'll see you again soon,

~The Maestro Team

Four Souls Demos at UKGE
almost 2 years ago – Sat, Jun 04, 2022 at 04:39:35 AM

Hello Friends,

Maestro Media is heading to the UK Games Expo, June 3-5, where we’re partnering with Asmodee UK. We’ll have the first few 4 copies of Requiem available to view and demo! Let me be very clear, Requiem will not be for sale at UKGE, but the first printed copies of the English version were air freighted to the UK for a sneak peek!

We’ll also have banners and a photo op at the booth and we’ll be handing out goodies to people who demo. If you’re going to UKGE, make sure to stop by booth 1-1092 (the Asmodee Dedicated Gamers booth) and say hi and use #IsaacatUKGE to share the love on social!

Can't make the show? We're going to be sharing pictures all weekend on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and the Maestro Media Discord.

Maestro Media will also be heading to GenCon in the U.S. this August. We don’t have a booth number just yet, but we’ll be there demoing those same Requiem Boxes (again, NOT FOR SALE), as well as Bridge Constructor: Breaking Point and Sugar Heist: Crib of Thieves in the Event Space. If you’re making plans to visit GenCon, make sure you carve out some time to come play games with us!

~The Maestro Team

Factory Photos & Motherly Love: A New Four Souls Challenge
almost 2 years ago – Fri, May 27, 2022 at 01:26:10 AM

Hello Friends,

We mentioned in a previous update that we’re received the first run boxes of the game. We wanted to show off even more. The focus of these photos is the Big Boi Box, but includes a Requiem and Base Game box as well. This is also a Kickstarter copy of the game and includes some cards that are Kickstarter Exclusives and the Figure from the Guardian Angel Tier that is Kickstarter Exclusive.

In addition, the factory is beginning to package the accessories and add-ons and sent us a few pictures we wanted to share!

Finally, it’s a new month, and that means a new Four Souls Challenge: Motherly Love.

Isaaaaac! Life in their small house on a hill was simple, and Isaac was happy, but now Mom, fueled with the desire to serve her God and prove she loves Him above all else, has Isaac cornered! It looks like the end of the line for Isaac, but perhaps if your characters can work together, fighting Mom and gaining souls, an angel might be sent down from above to stop her hand just in time…

The new Challenge is available to download right now just below the NEWS section of the MaestroMedia.com homepage and will soon be migrating to its own page where it will live happily with last month's challenge: Resurrection Day.

With three different difficulty levels and the ability to play Solo, Co-Op and Competitively, there are hours of fun to be had, and you only need the BASE GAME to get playing! It has also been added as a setup option on the official TTS version of Four Souls. If you don't currently own the game or Tabletop Simulator, don't worry, all past Challenges will be available on our website for when you do.

Go download it now!

~The Maestro Team

Maestro Media + Funforge (French Translation)
almost 2 years ago – Fri, Apr 29, 2022 at 03:12:55 AM

Hello Friends,

Maestro Support here, we have a special treat for fans today, a peak behind the curtain at the discussion and process involved with localizing the game in France, written by our friend at Funforge. I’ll let them introduce themselves, take it away!

Localizing a game like Four Souls is no small feat. From the outside, one might confuse localization with translation, or even think all we need to do is press the “translate” button, which is why we thought it interesting to shine a spotlight on the whole process.

First of all, an introduction: my name is Jérémie, I work as a subeditor at Funforge. We are a Paris-based company who localizes and distributes foreign games in French territories, and we also edit our own games. My job mostly consists in writing content for our games in both English and French, and translating content in these languages.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Everything stated here is in regard to our French localization process alone. I cannot speak for Maestro’s other localization partners.

1/ What is localization?

Localizing means adapting a foreign product for a specific audience. It is like translating, but with additional constraints, both technical and cultural. At Funforge, we have a team dedicated to the endeavor: someone to translate, someone to proofread, and two graphic designers to assemble the finished translated files for print. For instance, Maestro sent us a localization kit with all the necessary files, and we quickly got to work on the 950+ cards, the 4 different boxes, the rulebook, etc.

Usually, when localizing a game, the first step is to have a firm grasp on the rules. You need to understand everything your translation entails, and measure each word. I will provide examples below. Luckily for me, I was already a huge fan of the game!

I’ve been playing BOI since it was simply known as “The Binding of Isaac” on Steam, and my Switch has seen me neglect a shameful amount of games in favor of hundreds of hours spent on Afterbirth. I backed Requiem before knowing I was set to translate it. Being part of this community had made me well-aware of how much responsibility this task represented, and so I knew exactly which were my main issues when approaching it.

How to localize Four Souls?

To localize Four Souls for a French audience, understanding the rules is not enough – you need to understand BOI’s history in France. While I have no way to know the exact numbers, one look at French BOI content creators will tell you how much of an impact the game has had – and continues to have – in the land of the baguette. Edmund McMillen’s design was so efficient that the game didn’t even need to be localized to be a hit in Europe’s least Anglophone country.

This means a couple things: 1) the video game already has a lot of fans. 2) the fans are perfectly fine with the game being in English.

Which leads to the inevitable:
3) A big portion of us winced at the idea of seeing the game translated.

It’s hard to admit, but we French are not the most multilingual Europeans.

This means that, culturally speaking, English has an exotic factor. In France, English words have this aura of coolness, they are like incantations that would be broken by any attempt at altering them.

So, when asking ourselves whether to translate 100% of the game in French, or to leave some words intact in English, my inner BOI fan was fundamentally against the former. But after much debate, that’s what we went with!

BUT WHY ??

Excluding the factual stats shown in the graphic above, this is a board game. Board games, at their core, are made to be enjoyed by multiple people. Localizing this game means allowing it to be enjoyed by any French speaker, regardless of their English proficiency and knowledge of BOI. Someone who does not speak a word of English should be able to dive into the world of BOI Four Souls, and catch its many jokes and references. Locking such a big part of the game behind a language barrier would have meant that, to fully understand the game, French speakers wouldn’t have been able to truly “get” the game without assistance, which would have hindered the experience significantly.

Yes, this means that we’ve translated 99% of the card names. That remaining 1% is mostly made up of the few names that completely relied on the English language to deliver their reference or joke.

For example: Baba / Is you and Keke is you are references to the videogame Baba is You, which uses simple language bubbles to create logic puzzles. Translating this to French would be a misrepresentation of the video game and would mean losing all its meta meaning.

Same goes for Salad Fingers – translating his name would be missing the point of the reference. However, especially for Warp Zones, adapting these references meant that when there IS a French version of the source material, that translation must be maintained, e.g. Among Us’ crewmate and Slay the Spire’s Time-Eater.

I knew that many backers have taken issue with the idea of translating card names since Maestro announced that the game would be localized, and I hope that my fellow French fans will become used to the French names. Since Four Souls is based on the BOI videogame, Maestro had added a file to the localization kit that contained the planned localized names for ALL Enemies & Items in the BOI videogame, which left us with only a small fraction of cards whose names needed an original translation.

Localizing a game also means that your translation needs to perfectly preserve the rules. In the context of Four Souls, this means that you need consistency between all effects. If two cards have the same use, then their ability should read the same. If there is a subtle difference between texts, then my job is to spot it, parse why that difference is there, and find a way to carry that difference into the French version. Usually this is a big issue that requires constant communication with game authors, but this wasn’t the case with this game. I could tell how good of a job Maestro & the Four Souls community had done at proofreading all these card effects, and was able to pinpoint each and every phrase I needed to maintain from one card to the next.

HOWEVER.

Translating from English to French presents a paramount problem: on average, English-speaking text gains 10-15% length once translated into French. This becomes a huge issue when rulebooks and cards are very text-heavy. Four Souls is very much guilty of this.

This means that a board game translation will never be as faithful an adaptation as we would want it to be. You need to make compromises, which often means sacrificing consistency for the sake of readability. For me, prior advanced knowledge of this game was key in helping me navigate the thin line between being concise and being linguistically consistent. For example, I knew we couldn’t add numbers as shorthand for longer words, because some abilities could affect all numbers printed in a card’s ability (Permanent marker & The Real Left Hand can turn a 1 into a 2, so we couldn’t abbreviate “première” (first) into “1e” (1st).

To end on a high note, I wanted to share previews of some of my favorite cards of each type 😊

And that’s the gist of it! I hope you all find this insight interesting.

Jérémie (AKA Belldrop)

Maestro Support again, I hope you enjoyed this incredibly insightful look into the localization process and I can’t thank Jérémie enough for writing this up and for all his hard work!

~The Maestro Team & Funforge