Chinese Translation?

[Stranga]

Hey everyone, I have someone wanting to translate my game in a few languages, Chinese being one. Is this at all possible? or is there a work around or module that can do this?

Thanks

[Crimson Wizard]

AGS is a non-unicode program, which means that you will not be able to write text in actual chinese characters into game (they will be converted into some garbage, having only limited number of chinese letters at best).

Recently we found a solution for Persian language, which works, although in a tricky way:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=54570.msg636555569#msg636555569
* they had a special TTF font, where symbols are parts of letters, and combined in complex letters by typing two or more symbols at one position (TTF allow to do that).
* they used a special program which converted native Persian text into pseudo-language, where one Persian letter is represented with two or more characters (to comply with font).
* finally, I had to write a tool which analyzes alphabet and tells you how to rearrange letters in the Unicode font to create an ANSI font usable in AGS.

I realize this may be confusing, but these are general points, not meant to explain everything at once.

I would first try searching the web for topics like "chinese language in ANSI applications", and see if there are existing solutions / fonts for that.

[Stranga]

Hey thanks  Crimson Wizard, I will check the link out and do a bit of research. But at least you put me on the right track.

[Stranga]

I found something that caught my eye. Would a sprite font plugin/module work by any chance? I understand the method of how it works, but would you be able to extend the amount of characters in the font with it?

[Crimson Wizard]

I found something that caught my eye. Would a sprite font plugin/module work by any chance? I understand the method of how it works, but would you be able to extend the amount of characters in the font with it?

You won't be able to extend amount of characters over 256 using only sprite font plugin, simply because AGS uses 8-bit strings, meaning 1 byte per character with codes 0-255.
On the other hand one can create module or plugin that treats AGS strings as something else (utf8 or unicode, or custom format), creating a complex letter out of 2 characters, and so on. IIRC SpriteFont plugin cannot do that on its own.

[Stranga]

Thanks again Crimson Wizard. I'm only a beginner to the engine, so module/plugin making is out of the question for me at this stage.