King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella Retold

Started by DrSlash, Wed 05/05/2021 21:36:11

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DrSlash

No, since Retold is a recreation of the original game built from the ground up on a different engine, no patch made for any of the official releases of KQ4 would work with it.

Gamemaster

It is interesting game but if only you could remove the EGA dithering Pass. It is so irritating that it is there when you can buy the original at GOG, open it in Scummvm and choose "skip EGA Dithering Pass." that makes the graphic better then the one in Retold.

Nana_Ortigas

#82
Hello @DrSlash!
First of all, I would like to thank you for creating this remake. I love it.
Secondly, I wanted to inform you that I am doing a Spanish translation of the game. Perhaps you'd be interested in including it once I've finished it.
Well, thanks again for the game and your time.
All the best

DrSlash

Hey @Nana_Ortigas!
I'm glad you enjoyed it!
As for the translation — go for it! :) I appreciate the initiative — the more people can enjoy this game, the better. That being said, Spanish isn't among the languages I can read, much less judge the quality of a translation, but if someone (preferably a trusted and/or long-standing member of the AGS community) who is fluent in Spanish could vouch for the quality of your translation, I'll be happy to add it to the game's download page.

A couple of things to keep in mind regarding the technical side of the translation:
1) From what I remember, all text with the exception of the game's title screen logo should be extractable as plain text, but if I missed something and some of the game's text is stored as part of a sprite, let me know and I'll make it translatable too.
2) The game uses my own custom functions for text output. Unfortunately, these functions contain a minor bug that may cause text messages to not be centered correctly in some rare cases. If this happens, try changing the length of the message (e.g. by adding spaces at the very end of the message or at the end of one of the lines).

Let me know if you have any questions. ;)

Nana_Ortigas

Hello.
Actually, the translation is already finished. Now I'm testing and correcting/modifying some things to improve it.
There is only a small change regarding the phrases of Rosella's different deaths. I had to translate these with a hexadecimal editor, so it was impossible for me to translate the sentences giving them the same meaning and with the same number of characters. So I chose to always use the same phrase as in the original game.I really hope this isn't a problem.
I know I should have contacted you sooner, but honestly, this is my first translation of a game and when I started I didn't have any knowledge on the subject. I have been learning while translating, with the help of people who are veterans in the subject. So I didn't want to commit without being sure that this translation would be well done.
I understand that you want to check the quality of the translation. However, I am Spaniard, so Spanish is my mother tongue. In addition, I have had pen pals for several years, so my level of English is quite good. Tomorrow I can send you some screenshots, so you can start doing the checks you consider appropriate and, once I have finished testing the translation, I can send it to you so that whoever it is can test it in depth and give you faith. its quality.
Well, I just have to really thank you for your kindness. Thank you very much.  ;-D


DrSlash

Quote from: Nana_Ortigas on Fri 01/12/2023 00:07:24Actually, the translation is already finished. Now I'm testing and correcting/modifying some things to improve it.
Oh, nice! Let me know when you're done so I can send it to another Spanish speaker for double-checking.

Quote from: Nana_Ortigas on Fri 01/12/2023 00:07:24There is only a small change regarding the phrases of Rosella's different deaths. I had to translate these with a hexadecimal editor, so it was impossible for me to translate the sentences giving them the same meaning and with the same number of characters. So I chose to always use the same phrase as in the original game.I really hope this isn't a problem.
That's unfortunate but understandable. Even without the character limit, I had to word these lines really carefully to make sure they fit the GUI.
That being said, there are 3rd-party programs that can export text from AGS games to .TRS files. Have you tried those? I'm afraid having some of the game's text translated via hex editing would make publishing the translation and rolling out future updates to the game itself more complicated than it needs to be.

Quote from: Nana_Ortigas on Fri 01/12/2023 00:07:24So I didn't want to commit without being sure that this translation would be well done.
Once again, perfectly understandable, especially considering I myself never told anyone I was working on this remake until after it was released.  ;)

Quote from: Nana_Ortigas on Fri 01/12/2023 00:07:24However, I am Spaniard, so Spanish is my mother tongue. In addition, I have had pen pals for several years, so my level of English is quite good.
Oh, I don't doubt that you can speak English and Spanish. It's just that translation is a complicated field in and of itself (I should know, I localize software for a living). In other words, many people can translate, but only a few can do it actually well, hence the importance of quality control. :)


Nana_Ortigas

Quote from: DrSlash on Fri 01/12/2023 10:01:37That's unfortunate but understandable. Even without the character limit, I had to word these lines really carefully to make sure they fit the GUI.
That being said, there are 3rd-party programs that can export text from AGS games to .TRS files. Have you tried those? I'm afraid having some of the game's text translated via hex editing would make publishing the translation and rolling out future updates to the game itself more complicated than it needs to be.

There were three things that could not be translated from the .trs:
- The aforementioned texts
- Disclaimer
- "The time is:" from the manor clock

I tried everything I could to translate them from the .trs, but there was no way
I consulted veteran translators who have been guiding me with the translation and I always received the same answer: hexadecimal. Sorry.

In the next few days I will finish testing the translation.  :-D

DrSlash

Quote from: Nana_Ortigas on Fri 01/12/2023 18:55:33There were three things that could not be translated from the .trs:
- The aforementioned texts
- Disclaimer
- "The time is:" from the manor clock
Just tried generating a new .TRS file within AGS and got all of these to export correctly. When you're done with editing/testing, feel free to PM me a link to your translated .TRS so I can update it with the missing messages.

Crimson Wizard

#88
Quote from: Nana_Ortigas on Fri 01/12/2023 18:55:33I tried everything I could to translate them from the .trs, but there was no way
I consulted veteran translators who have been guiding me with the translation and I always received the same answer: hexadecimal.

In the past I was helping some AGS translators, and they found that existing third-party tools do not always extract all the messages. I ended up making a custom ags engine variant that exports these missing game texts on run, because I did not have time to write a proper separate tool. But it's certainly doable.

Another thing, for the most kinds of messages you may add the original texts to TRS by hand, and these will be used by the game.

Nana_Ortigas

Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Fri 01/12/2023 19:54:43Another thing, for the most kinds of messages you may add the original texts to TRS by hand, and these will be used by the game.

I did that with the hotspots. :)

Crimson Wizard

Right, I forgot to mention, there are of course circumstances where the game was scripted "incompatible" with translations. This usually happens when the text is composed of multiple strings merged together, either using a formatting, or simply appending parts to each other. In such case AGS will not be able to translate the resulting text. The game must contain explicit instructions to translate the string parts in such case.

I guess if it's one of those cases, then hacking the game files may be the only way to translate without changing the game itself. But ideally the game developer should fix the game.

Last thing, perhaps not important for this game, but maybe I should mention that currently AGS does not support translation of text parsers (keywords and checks).

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