Taking indies
to the world stage
At Alpha Games, we’ve been supporting game developers take their creations global for years.
From translation through to voiceover recording and LQA, we understand exactly what it takes to bring a game to an international audience.
Our indie-focused offering is designed to help studios on a budget to share their worlds and creations with players around the world.
This year, we’re also launching our ‘Carmello loves indies’ localization grant, looking to help indie developers find their overseas audience.
We look forward to becoming a part of your journey to release!
Carmello loves indies
At Alpha Games, we believe that players around the world are united by one truth: we all speak the
language of play. Over the past few years, we’ve seen that the indie game development scene has been the perfect embodiment of this ethos.
2026 Winner
An indie gem takes flight
Merk Games is an independent game studio based in Serbia. Opened in 2022 by Aleksandr Merkulov, the one-man studio was established with a focus on creating original games with a strong atmosphere and distinct creative identity. The developer’s first release, VORON: Raven’s Story, was released on 10th November 2025.
Key results
- In-game text fully localized into four languages
- Source text review and copyediting for English
- Localization project fully funded through ‘Carmello Loves Indies’ grant
A bird’s eye view
In October 2025, Alpha Games launched our inaugural ‘Carmello Loves Indies’ grant. Designed to help indie studios get localization funding for their releases, we invited entrants to share info about their game studio and the game they wanted to localize. We were blown away by the quality of entrants that we received, but one title in particular stood out among the rest: VORON: Raven’s Story, from Serbian developer Aleksandr Merkulov at Merk Games.
The art style immediately caught our attention, and the narrative loop of gradually uncovering the meaning of the words you encounter in the game felt like something that hit home for us as a localization company. According to Merkulov, “VORON was inspired by the idea of creating a calm, atmospheric experience centred on movement, exploration, and emotional storytelling”.
The Alpha Games team had the joy of informing Merkulov of his grant win in January 2026, and thus work began on the localization of VORON.
Translation, copy-editing and source review
The project began with some information gathering from the Alpha Games team. We sat down with Merkulov in order to get a better understanding of his localization goals, preferred languages and his history in games. In that conversation, we identified four goal languages: Chinese (Simplified), Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese and International Spanish.
“I selected these languages based on the audiences I believe are the most relevant for the game and where localization could have the most practical impact. The goal was to make VORON more accessible to players in key regions and to support its reach beyond English-speaking markets,” said Merkulov.
Before translation work began, the Alpha Games team and Merkulov decided to perform a review of the Russian language content, as well as a full review and copy-edit on the English version of the game. Our teams combed through VORON’s text, recommending improvements where appropriate in order to prepare the best possible source for translation. With this done, our language teams began the work of localizing VORON for a broader audience.
“I had a positive experience working with the Alpha Games team. The process was clear, communication was efficient, and the support I received helped move the localization process forward in a practical and structured way.” – Aleksandr Merkulov, Merk Games
A project coming home to roost
The Alpha Games team were delighted to have the chance to work on VORON: Raven’s Story, and help bring Merkulov’s world to a global player-base. Our dedicated team of gamers loved being able to support an indie developer.
“I really enjoyed the opportunity to work on the localization of Voron to Brazilian Portuguese. It was particularly interesting to follow the development of the story and its characters, especially when adapting each character’s unique tone and style of language. I truly appreciated collaborating on this project—it was an engaging and rewarding experience overall,” said Edilaine de Aguiar, Brazilian Portuguese linguist with Alpha Games.
“I had a positive experience working with the Alpha Games team. The process was clear, communication was efficient, and the support I received helped move the localization process forward in a practical and structured way,” said Merkulov at the end of the project.
Languages
English, Russian, Chinese (Simplified), Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, International Spanish