A few years ago I was asked to design and teach a course on information technology for translators for university students. I started with standard computer assisted translation tools designed for conventional texts, but I soon decided to include a part on software localization. By that time, I had been working as a localizer for several years and I knew very well that traditional translation and localization are in many respects very different processes and need to be taught as separate skills.
At first, we worked with extracts from localization files derived from an open-source project I had been working on. While it allowed me to demonstrate some basic challenges during software localization, I was acutely aware of limitations of my teaching materials, especially the fact that the translations could not be tested easily. After a couple of years I had a pretty good idea about what kind of software I needed to teach the course. The only problem was that this kind of software did not exist. So one day I raked up a handful of Python games and logical puzzles I had once written as exercises in programming and tie them together into a pirate-themed game. Pyrates was born.
The first version was… functional. In the sense that it worked and could be used effectively as a piece of software to localize by students. Yet it was not a particularly interesting and engaging game. For a few following years I kept improving the program; most notably, I have added new games set in the same pirate world and thrown in ASCII-art. Over time, I realized that I started actually enjoying the games. The students would also occasionally refuse to work on localization until they found the last chest on a treasure island or cry out in horror when they got eaten by a shark (and ominous red "/" among blue "~" symbolizing ocean). Apparently, Pyrates has become a quite enjoyable game. You can now check it out for yourselves!
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