Case Study: Mono Tusk Studios
How Mono Tusk accelerated Hindi localization for Palm Sugar with Nativ
Summary
Mono Tusk Studios partnered with Nativ to localize the demo of Palm Sugar into Hindi so they could test audience fit in India quickly and credibly. Nativ delivered high‑fidelity, in‑engine localization that preserved tone, style, and key proper nouns while avoiding risky literalism. The result: a playable Hindi demo that feels native to players, created with a fraction of the typical agency time and effort.
Objectives
About Mono Tusk Studios
Mono Tusk Studios is an indie game studio building Palm Sugar - a vibrant, village‑life adventure inspired by South Asian settings.
“This read like we originally wrote Palm Sugar in Hindi. The tone landed on the first pass."
- P Kartheek Raj, Founder & Game Director, Mono Tusk Studios
Why Nativ
In‑engine fidelity - no copy‑paste or layout drift.
Brand‑voice preservation - dialog that reads like natural speech, not textbook translation.
Game‑specific rules - glossary, non‑translatables, and romanized options when readability matters.
Fast iteration loop - assets -> Nativ -> QA -> in‑game preview
“The glossary and do‑not‑translate rules saved us a ton of rework. No layout breaks.”
Tarun Rao, Game Sound Designer, Mono Tusk Studios
Scope at a Glance
Title: Palm Sugar (Demo)
Language pair: English -> Hindi
Assets: UI strings, dialog, and on‑screen prompts
Word count: ~500 words (demo)
Modality: Text plus voice readiness
“QA happened in context. We adjusted line length once, not five times.”
Tarun Rao, Game Sound Designer, Mono Tusk Studios
Implementation
Kickoff & access
Shared the demo build and text export.
Spun up a dedicated Slack channel for quick iteration.
Glossary & “Do‑Not‑Translate” rules
Locked proper nouns and franchise terms: Palm Sugar, Geetha, Srinu, location names, store brands in the world.
Established when to use Hinglish for natural feel in casual voice lines.
Localization passes
Pass 1: Hindi baseline with tone control.
Pass 2: Hinglish alternatives for conversational prompts.
Pass 3: QA for typography, line length, and collision checks.
In‑engine verification
Previewed in context to catch truncation and spacing issues.
Nativ protected our world’s names and brands while making dialog feel instantly familiar to Hindi players.
- P Kartheek Raj, Founder & Game Director, Mono Tusk Studios
Quality guardrails we enforced
Non‑translatables locked: game title, main character names, in‑world brands, proprietary nouns.
Romanization when better for UX: common everyday terms left in Latin script when readability beats pure Devanagari.
Line length discipline: edited phrasing to avoid box overflow and awkward hyphenation.
Cultural fit review: removed stiff textbook wording and avoided idioms that do not travel.
“Hinglish options for casual lines were clutch. It sounds like how our characters actually talk.”
Tarun Rao, Game Sound Designer, Mono Tusk Studios
Results
Credits
Mono Tusk Studios: Kartheek Raj, Tarun Rao
Nativ: Ashish Ranjan Jha, Ahmed Ahres
"We went from text export to in‑engine Hindi screens in what felt like one sprint, not a whole production cycle."
- P Kartheek Raj, Founder & Game Director, Mono Tusk Studios
About Nativ
Nativ is an AI-powered localization and culturalization platform built for marketing and creative teams. It automates translation and formatting of PSDs, videos, and other assets into multiple languages while preserving brand voice, design integrity, and cultural fit.