This is different from what I normally post on the Frowns Marketing site. However, I’ve noticed game devs and marketers overlook this important aspect in indie game development: Grammar. It’s as important as the game itself; if you want to be taken seriously about it.
Why Is Grammar Important In Game Development?
If you’re planning to release your game in ANY language (and I’m sure you are) then you need to check your spelling before letting it out into the world. To players, bad spelling, punctuation, grammar, etc is more obvious than most other in-game features or gameplay aspects. It’s a glaring mistake that can ruin your player’s experience and the tone of whatever is said or done on-screen.
I’m sure your game’s big boss didn’t mean to have his name spelled differently three times throughout the adventure. I’m also sure you meant to say ‘definitely’ instead of ‘defiantly’. But while you were focusing on making sure that your game was fun, other things were left to the wayside. However, that doesn’t make you a bad developer or whatever else is going through your mind.
This just means that when you’re having your game playtested, you need to ask your players to look for spelling mistakes and other grammatical errors. If possible, have someone read your script before you start typing anything into the code. Having another set of eyes or two can really put certain things into perspective that you were naturally blinded to. Your players will thank you for it because instead of wondering what’s spelled wrong, they’ll be focusing on what matters: the game.
Your game isn’t the only thing that needs to be free of grammatical errors. Wherever you’re selling your game should also be checked. In most cases, these storefronts are the first place where players will come across your game. You want to make a good impression by showing them you know what you’re doing even before they put money down.
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How Can You Be On Top of Your Grammar?
There are a few tools you can use to be on top of your grammar game.
Grammarly
The first and most well-known spell-checker and general grammar tool you can find. There is an extension you can add to your Google extensions as well as a software that can check for errors on your PC. The free version, which is the version that I use, checks your spelling in real time and even offers three rewrites a day. The paid version offers more, but the free version works wonders.
LanguageTool
LanguageTool is just under Grammarly in terms of how convenient and helpful it is. Instead of checking your grammar in real time, you can copy and paste your work into their text field. This is better for developers who prefer to go into each part of their script one at a time after it’s already been written. Similar to Grammarly, it also has a Google extension.
QuillBot
QuillBot isn’t a native grammar checker, but it does have one as part of its many services. Like LanguageTool, you’ll need to copy and paste what you want checked into their text field. However, the also have other services that include paraphrasing, a summarizer, and more. I would like to warn you though that QuillBot is useful, but it uses AI to get the job done.
Frowns Marketing
The Frowns Marketing team can playtest your game to check for gameplay issues AND grammatical issues. Not only that, but they can also check the grammar and spelling on your Kickstarter page, Patreon, social media posts, store pages, and more.
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What are your thoughts?