Incredible but true !

[AngelGozen]

Hello guys and girls.

If you don't want to read useless crap, I suggest you skip the introduction, and go right ahead to the little "==>" because I like to take my time for the preliminaries, you know, the whole explaining how I came to write this topic and all.

For all the others who want to enjoy a good reading and some happiness along with it, you can start the reading right here~~

It has been a while since the last time I wrote something on the forum so most of you probably dont know me and the others must have forgotten me. I learnt something recently, and I had to share this with you humans, as it is my duty as a heavenly creature to do so.

I was talking to my little demon of a brother about this game, praising its challenging level compared to regular gf's Pokémon games, and its dark atmosphere, and I would make a list of all the things I like about it, but that would be quite long, and seeing as I tend to write big blocks of text already, I will spare you this. The point is, he watched me play it many times, and told me that many of his friends played Pokémon, and he was quite sure that they would enjoy this game.

Except... They suck at English !

And that is when it struck me... And I was like "WHAT ? I thought everyone spoke English, and it was the only Human Language blah blah blah"

And so it appears that not only are there other languages that Humans use, but also there are Humans who don't speak English very well, or AT ALL !

Yes, yes it must surprise you as well...

So then I thought, well since those friends of my brother's would play this game if they didn't suck at English, maybe there was something that could be done about it.

So here where my two options :

1 - Put my glasses on, take my whip and submit them into learning some English.

2 - Take my whip and submit them.

But I thought I might enjoy it a bit too much, especially the whole whip-thing, and it would deviate from its initial prupose.

==> So I was thinking, couldn't we try to translate the game ?

For instance, I'm French, but I believe I'm quite good in English (and don't hesitate to correct and punish me if I'm wrong about it), and I wouldn't mind translating it if Amethyst would, of course, in her legendary goodness (and I insit on the word legendary as we all know Ame is obviously pure evil, so her goodness can only be a legend ) give me her permission to do so. Whether it's now as she's making the game, or only when it's fully finished, i don't really care, it would be as she pleases of course.

And I think people who can translate it into other languages should consider doing so as well.

I will be talking to Amethyst by PM about it, but I wanted to create a topic to see what all of you guys would think about this, and who knows maybe she'll stumble upon it and read it herself.

Edited April 21, 2014 by AngelGozen

[Guest]

I believe it wouldn't be hard to do so per say, but there is already an humongous amount of text in the game, going back to translate it all would take too much time, and the translator must also be at least familiar with how the game scripting works.

Hard? No.

Troublesome? too much to make it into the game it seems.

sorry mate.

Edit: However, if there is actually a way ame or the other developers could make it work, i could work as the translator to brazilian portuguese.

I don't know how to script tho.

I do believe your project has potential if enough people have enough interest.

Edited April 21, 2014 by Telos

[K_H]

plus, there's the issue of the download links... each game would have to have it's own download links if no one put in a "language select" screen in the options menu!

and also, there might be some untranslatable puns in there!

Edited April 21, 2014 by K_H

[Artemesya]

This is a great idea, and if it becomes a real project, I would be more than happy to help out with the French translation.

And about the puns, there are always ways to translate or keep the general idea of a dialogue.

But a translation implies scripting the dialogue multiple times, creating different download links and, if it is done while the game isn't finished, a great organization to keep the translation at pace. This all means extra work for Ame, without knowing how many people would enjoy such translation...

[Saber12]

But a translation implies scripting the dialogue multiple times, creating different download links and, if it is done while the game isn't finished, a great organization to keep the translation at pace. This all means extra work for Ame, without knowing how many people would enjoy such translation...

It might not be much work for Ame at all depending on how much support she gets and what kind of help is available. I don't know if she'd need to create the download links herself or not but I wouldn't rule this idea out yet unless of course Ame says it would be too much trouble.

[mkrosar]

I'd be happy to do the Spanish translations.

[AngelGozen]

The download links issue is kind of a problem indeed, but I think it's possible to figure something out about this.

As for the puns, it is true that translating puns from one language to another isn't easy, but with a little smart thinking it should be feasible.

The great amount of text is really not a problem though, I mean sure it makes it a long task to translate, but it doesn't make it harder. (unless I'm missing something of course).

Anyway thanks for your participation to this discussion guys, any ideas and suggestions are welcome if they help us make something out of this idea =)

[off topic : mkrosar can I ask you were does your profile picture come from ? It really intrigues me]

Edited April 21, 2014 by AngelGozen

[Guest]

[off topic : mkrosar can I ask you were does your profile picture come from ? It really intrigues me]

... Maybe we should really not go there to keep the forums clean imo e_e

perhaps it should be better if you private message him.

[Gaunt]

Well i can translate it to Russian but i think it's not necessary mainly because Pokemon is not very popular in my country (in fact i might be the only Russian on the forum ) or Italian (that may be at least a little useful).

Edited April 21, 2014 by Gaunt

[Mikzal]

Translating it to Norwegian is pointless, so I can't do sh*t.

[Meruem]

I wouldn't mind translating it into portugal portuguese (if necessary), although I know nothing about scripting and that kind of stuff so this would take a lot of time and effort (as everyone else said), not to mention that we're incredibly far in the game already.

EDIT: Perhaps we could make this an ongoing process and we could get at least 5 users to translate one language, that would make the whole thing slightly easier but I doubt Ame has enough time and patience to deal with this anyway.

Edited April 21, 2014 by MMM

[Tempest]

It's best if a translation waits until after the full game is complete.

[K_H]

Tempest is right. It makes things one Hekuva lot easier for everyone if the game gets translated all at once.

[Arkhi]

This would be a pretty major undertaking. There would be literally days worth of text to translate. That includes dialogue, signs/posts within the game, various codes, moves, and, worst of all, puns to translate.
But if this were to be divided up, I think only the most fluent speakers should take the text and posts in the game. Those who don't speak the language to be converted could still assist, though. There are hundreds of moves to be translated, variables to be redefined/changed, etc.
A great idea, in theory, but a TON of work in reality.

It could be done in major languages, like French or Spanish, but that would require twice the work. Minor languages would be incredibly troublesome.

[AngelGozen]

There are hundreds of moves to be translated, variables to be redefined/changed, etc.

A great idea, in theory, but a TON of work in reality.

It could be done in major languages, like French or Spanish, but that would require twice the work. Minor languages would be incredibly troublesome.

What do you mean by variables to be redefined/changed ? Just out of curiosity, I don't understand howtranslating the game requires changing them, but I'm probably missunderstanding something

[DashingStorm]

What do you mean by variables to be redefined/changed ? Just out of curiosity, I don't understand howtranslating the game requires changing them, but I'm probably missunderstanding something

The coding would have to be altered, seeing the text used right now is coded in to be supported for English only. Having to alter variables for a seperate language would take a lot of time and effort. That being said, Reborn isn't near done quite yet, a translation might just.. Have to wait for quite a long time.

It's not a bad idea, mind you.

[Amethyst]

I don't think the variables would be affected but Tempest is right. I have no problem with anyone translating it but the problem is I'm only developing it in English. If someone started translating now they'd have to reinput all that work with each release. Translation should wait until the game is complete.

[DJ Mewdeon ft Dan Punk]

I don't think the variables would be affected but Tempest is right. I have no problem with anyone translating it but the problem is I'm only developing it in English. If someone started translating now they'd have to reinput all that work with each release. Translation should wait until the game is complete.

None of the variables would need to be affected.

In short, the procedure for localization is as follows:

1 - Extract the game's dialogue for translation into a single textfile.

2 - Translate every second line of dialogue as instructed by said textfile.

3 - Recompile the newly translated dialogue file into the game.

4 - Give the new file a name respective to the language and place it in the Data folder.

(ie the original extracted file is called intl.txt, and is compiled into intl.dat. So for french, we'd call it french.dat)

5 - Change some scripts to accommodate the new language(s).

6 - When you reload the game, there will be a fourth option for Languages, allowing you to select from any of the available language files.

Few things worth mentioning:

- Multiple downloads are unnecessary, as multiple languages are just multiple files in the same download.

- Tempest and Ame are right when they say it's best saved until a finished game, as it will be easier to integrate many languages at once then, through some sort of community project perhaps.

- You're translating every single piece of dialogue that will ever appear in the game when you do this. Localization is an immense undertaking, with translation of cultural phrases being the most complex.

- As a followup to the above: these language files are huuuuge. If you check the current dialogue file you'll find it's 2.20MB in size. The size increase as we add more languages is noticeable, but probably manageable.

- No knowledge of scripting is necessary on the parts of the translators: the scripting work is actually minimal and I can contribute that easily.

So there you have it for translation. I'm glad to see that the community enjoys the game so much they want to share it across language barriers, but it's best if we wait until the game is complete before we undertake a project such as this. I hopefully have cleared up any misconceptions about downloads or coding changes as well, as that was my original intent.

[DashingStorm]

None of the variables would need to be affected.

In short, the procedure for localization is as follows:

1 - Extract the game's dialogue for translation into a single textfile.

2 - Translate every second line of dialogue as instructed by said textfile.

3 - Recompile the newly translated dialogue file into the game.

4 - Give the new file a name respective to the language and place it in the Data folder.

(ie the original extracted file is called intl.txt, and is compiled into intl.dat. So for french, we'd call it french.dat)

5 - Change some scripts to accommodate the new language(s).

6 - When you reload the game, there will be a fourth option for Languages, allowing you to select from any of the available language files.

Few things worth mentioning:

- Multiple downloads are unnecessary, as multiple languages are just multiple files in the same download.

- Tempest and Ame are right when they say it's best saved until a finished game, as it will be easier to integrate many languages at once then, through some sort of community project perhaps.

- You're translating every single piece of dialogue that will ever appear in the game when you do this. Localization is an immense undertaking, with translation of cultural phrases being the most complex.

- As a followup to the above: these language files are huuuuge. If you check the current dialogue file you'll find it's 2.20MB in size. The size increase as we add more languages is noticeable, but probably manageable.

- No knowledge of scripting is necessary on the parts of the translators: the scripting work is actually minimal and I can contribute that easily.

So there you have it for translation. I'm glad to see that the community enjoys the game so much they want to share it across language barriers, but it's best if we wait until the game is complete before we undertake a project such as this. I hopefully have cleared up any misconceptions about downloads or coding changes as well, as that was my original intent.

This is all nice and whatnot, but you've only mentioned dialogue. I've seen the intl.txt file for Reborn and it's quite long. Mind you that I've probably seen not even half of it when I was messing about with some things, but if that was only the lines of dialogue from trainers, how long do you reckon the entire file would be for everything else as well?

Short examples;

- Bookcases in Onyx Ward's Gym to answer the questions to reach the gym leader, Florinia

- Storyline / Encounters with pro- and antagonists

- Pokémon status screen, moves, abilities

That's just 3 things I can think of from the top of my head and there's bound to be even more. :l

[AngelGozen]

Basically there is everything to translate yes, and it would take quite some time and wouldn't be easy, but far from impossible in my opinion.

As Ame said, it makes sense that we should wait until the game is 100% finished as we could see in episode 11 with all the changes that were made, I'm guessing it could happen again, and then we'd have to go back and change the translation.

This is all nice and whatnot, but you've only mentioned dialogue. I've seen the intl.txt file for Reborn and it's quite long. Mind you that I've probably seen not even half of it when I was messing about with some things, but if that was only the lines of dialogue from trainers, how long do you reckon the entire file would be for everything else as well?

Short examples;

- Bookcases in Onyx Ward's Gym to answer the questions to reach the gym leader, Florinia

- Storyline / Encounters with pro- and antagonists

- Pokémon status screen, moves, abilities

That's just 3 things I can think of from the top of my head and there's bound to be even more. :l

Keep in mind that moves/abilities/pokémon names and such things already have translations, so it would make it easier. Not easy though of course, but still easier.

As for the non-dialogue text (bookcases, the questions to reach Florinia and everything of the sort), it just adds up to the task, but it doesn't make it harder.

I know there is still a long way before the game is finished, but when it is, you can definitly count me in for the French translation.

[DJ Mewdeon ft Dan Punk]

This is all nice and whatnot, but you've only mentioned dialogue. I've seen the intl.txt file for Reborn and it's quite long. Mind you that I've probably seen not even half of it when I was messing about with some things, but if that was only the lines of dialogue from trainers, how long do you reckon the entire file would be for everything else as well?

Short examples;

- Bookcases in Onyx Ward's Gym to answer the questions to reach the gym leader, Florinia

- Storyline / Encounters with pro- and antagonists

- Pokémon status screen, moves, abilities

That's just 3 things I can think of from the top of my head and there's bound to be even more. :l

You're not wrong, I suppose I was using a term 'dialogue' freely without considering how limiting it was. Apologies.

Allow me to explain a bit more in-depth:

In creating events within the game, when Ame adds some custom displayed dialogue she wraps the dialogue in an INTL tag, here is an example:

Kernel.pbMessage(_INTL("Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."))

In doing so, she allows it to be a part of the content that is produced by extracting the text from the game. The text extracted is not limited to just this part of it, however. It also includes the name of every Pokemon, every item, every piece of text in any event or any part of battle (skipping to the end of the file you'll notice that all the stat increases and decreases are listed) and it even includes a whole host of debugging text that many of the players will never even see. All of that is inherent to the procedure that extracts the text, and I suppose I wasn't clear enough about that. Rest assured that any piece of text you see on screen will be included in that file, including the questions and answers from the bookcases and computers in Florinia's gym (these are nearest to the beginning, about 1/5th of the way down), storyline/encounters with pro- and antagonists (these are scattered throughout the file), and Pokemon status screen, moves, and abilities (much of this is nearest to the end of the file along with most of the battle-based text). Rest assured, all of the game's text is in that file. Trust me, I've read it.

Edited April 22, 2014 by Blind Guardian

[Lux5park]

Hi i just started translating the game in italian language, if you want to help please join https://t.me/+4FR1-iVHsYo2NmU0