Founded in 2010, CM Games has grown from a small team of enthusiasts into a progressive game developer with mobile, VR, and PC titles in its portfolio. By creating Drag Racing and, later, Nitro Nation Online — iconic drag and drift games with millions of fans worldwide — the studio defined a new genre of mobile racing. To continue raising the bar, the CM Games team, in partnership with Mythical Games, developed Nitro Nation World Tour (NNWT), a next-gen racing game featuring licensed NFT cars that players can own and race. The project, being technically challenging, demanded a more sophisticated and modern localization process. Thus, the search for a tool began.

Challenges

Old-School Localization Process with Minimal Automation

Initially, the team relied on Google Spreadsheets for managing localization, but this method involved extra steps at the text import stage—exporting files from the spreadsheet and then importing them into Unity.

“Given the complexity of the project, we wanted to eliminate unnecessary manual tasks and streamline our workflow, including the localization process,” says Liza Kozlova, Localization Manager at CM Games.

The goal was to introduce a one-click data exchange between the spreadsheets and the game engine to save everyone’s time and also explore other automation perks for localization workflow, like translation memory, collaborative environment and progress-tracking.

One day, Liza received an email from her colleague saying, “This might be what you’re looking for,” along with an invitation to a Gridly webinar on localization in Unity, and it directly hit the nail on the head.

Solution

Localization-tailored platform

Upon discovering Gridly, the NNWT team immediately realized the potential benefits it could offer. It brought everything together in one spot: translation memory, a glossary, the ability to add screenshots and comments for translators, customizable language dependencies, and lots of automation features. All this without losing the flexibility of spreadsheets.

Setting up and transferring content to Gridly was seamless, allowing Liza to start localizing the Nitro Nation World Tour project without delay. “The Gridly team was incredibly responsive, jumping in with help whenever a question emerged,” Liza remarks.

Enhanced Collaboration Through the Intuitive Interface

The NNWT team quickly recognized the ease of using Gridly’s intuitive interface. For example, any changes to the original text automatically highlighted the corresponding translations in yellow allowing for timely text updates. What the NNWT team also truly enjoyed is the collaborative access—not only can you work together on the Grid, but you can also give translators and localization studios direct access so they can jump right in and get to work.

Seamless integration with Unity and Figma

One of the key features for the NNWT team was the plugin for Unity. “It enabled us to exchange source text and target languages directly with the game engine, eliminating the need to import separate files and simplifying things for our programmers,” says Liza. This two-way data transfer streamlined the localization process and ensured that the latest translations were always up-to-date in the game—importing localization became just a click away.

Another integration that proved particularly valuable was with Figma. This allowed localization specialists to collaborate directly with UX designers, review the most recent screen layouts, and ensure that the text (and its translations) fit within the designated boundaries. For translators, the plugin was a great asset, as it let them export screen layouts from Figma directly into Gridly, offering them valuable context.

Results

With Gridly, the NNWT team set up a localization process that worked well for everyone involved, saving a considerable amount of time and cutting down on manual work.

“Gridly simplified the localization process, making it enjoyable for all parties involved. We saved programmers time with the one-click localization import, made life easier for UX designers and QA specialists by catching errors during the screen layout stage, and provided translators with better context through screenshots and comments,” sums up Liza.

Key metrics enhanced

• Faster turnaround time: the integration of Gridly reduced the time required to update and import localization files by 90 %.
• Error Reduction: The seamless data exchange, design-stage checks, and automated highlighting of untranslated (or edited) text reduced localization errors by 75%.
• Team well-being: countless nerve cells of QA specialists and programmers saved.

With Gridly’s continuous updates, such as automatic translation options, the NNWT team is prepared for the upcoming localization challenges and ready to keep their localization process enjoyable for everyone at CM Games and their collaborators.