Collaborative translation: translate a Japanese game as a team, live

A whole game is a lot of text for one person. The usual fix — split the script, everyone translates their own copy, someone merges it at the end — is where fan translations go to die: lines get done twice, edits vanish in the merge, and three weeks later the dialogue contradicts itself.

Collaborative translation in RuneTranslate removes that step. One person hosts a shared project; everyone else joins with a code and edits the sameproject at the same time, in the same editor — like a shared doc for game translation. You see each other's cursors and edits within a couple of seconds. No zipping, no merging, no "which version is current?"

How collaborative translation works

One member creates a collaborative project and gets a 20-character invite code. Teammates paste the code, the project syncs to their machine and opens in the normal editor, and from then on every edit is pushed to the server and pulled by everyone else every couple of seconds. It's still a real local .rtprojon each person's disk — it just stays in sync with the rest of the team.

Hosting a shared project (Supporter)

Creating a collaborative project is a Supporter perk ($3/mo). In the New Project dialog, flip the Collaborativetoggle before you create — RuneTranslate uploads the project and hands you an invite code (copied straight to your clipboard). Whoever creates it is the owner. Only hosting is gated, because that's the part that uses server resources — the same paid-to-host, free-to-use model as translation memory. Everyone you invite translates for free.

Joining is free

Any signed-in user, free tier included, can join and edit fully. On the Home screen hit Join, paste the 20-character code, and the project downloads and opens. There is no read-only seat: if you're in, you can translate. The code uses a deliberately unambiguous alphabet — no look-alike 0/O or 1/I/L— with about 100 bits of entropy, so it isn't guessable. If one ever leaks, the owner regenerates it and the old one stops working immediately.

Roles and live presence

There are two roles. The owner(the creator) can regenerate the invite code and remove members; the owner doesn't "leave" a project, they delete it. Editors (everyone who joins) can edit any line, change a line's status, and leave whenever they like. There is no per-line locking — anyone can edit any cell, which is what makes splitting the work by chapter, by file, or just by who's-online completely frictionless.

Live presence makes it feel like a shared doc. Each member gets a stable color (derived from their account, so it looks the same to everyone) plus their initials or avatar, and you can see who's online (a presence dot goes idle after about 20 seconds of silence), which line each person is on, and what range they've selected. Updates ride a poll — roughly every 2.5 secondswhile the window is focused, about 8 seconds in the background — so a teammate's line shows up within two or three seconds of them committing it. Near-live, and more than fast enough to stay out of each other's lane.

When two people edit the same line

Last write wins, per line. If two people edit the same line at almost the same moment, the edit that reaches the server last is the one that sticks. In practice it rarely bites — you can see who's parked on which line — but it's the rule, so talk out a tricky shared line instead of racing it. Edits to different lines never conflict.

It's still your project — offline and export

A collaborative project is a normal .rtproj on your disk, not a thin remote window, which buys you two things. It degrades gracefully offline: if your connection drops you keep translating, your edits queue locally, and they sync the moment you're back. And export works exactly like any other project— anyone with their own copy of the game files can build the translated game from the shared translations. The collaboration is about the text; you each still own your own game folder.

Shared projects expire after 15 idle days

A shared project isn't meant to live on the server forever. Go 15 days with no editsand it's deleted automatically, members and all. The project card shows an "Expires in N days"countdown that turns amber as the deadline nears, and any edit resets the clock — so an active project never expires; this only reaps abandoned ones. If you want to keep a finished translation, take a local export before the clock runs out.

The fine print

• Up to 50 members per shared project.
• Translation memory and glossary stay personal.They aren't pooled across the team — each translator's glossary and TM are their own. To keep character names consistent, agree on them up front or share a glossary CSV.
• You stay in control of quality. Each member can run the AI refiner and pick their own provider as usual; the shared project just holds the text.
• Signed-in only. Joining and editing require an account, and the collaboration endpoints use the same anti-tamper checks as the rest of the paid cloud features.

Wrapping up

Solo machine translation gets a game to "readable." A team gets it good, and faster — and collaborative translation takes the worst part of team fan-translation, keeping everyone's work merged and current, and just makes it disappear. One person subscribes to host; everyone else joins free and edits the same living project, cursors and all.

Download RuneTranslate, start a collaborative project, and send your group a code.