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Is it the same process & amount of work with iOS?

This is the game I was referring to:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/939/

Thank you very much for your answers!

I've developed a rather popular adventure game in Hebrew more than a decade ago using AGS 2.72.
Been thinking for a while to create an Android version for it. Don't have a lot of free time though.
Does any of you knows how much work needs to be put to convert an AGS game to Android? Is it a matter of hours, days, or months of work?

Looks like an amazing project, I'm really looking forwards to it, as PQ2 is definitely the best of the series.

Yes!  It works 

Thank you very much, and congradulations for the 3.0, BTW...

Hi,

I'm trying to translate my game from Hebrew into English.

I have successfully created a translation source, containing all the text strings in the game.

I should note that my game is an audio-speech game, so the "Strings" are actually codes to filenames.

Anyway, I've inserted the new English text in accordance with the proper file names.

It works OK most of the time - Hebrew speech is heard, English translation is displayed.

However, there is one problem. My main character has a special speech function. It's called Emor, and it adds transition frames before and after the talk view animation (to make the graphic transition more elegant).

So instead of using:
character[OSER].Say("&2583"); for example

I would write
Emor(cOser, "&2583"); accordingly

This function is only used by the main character, OSER.  All the other characters use the regular "say" command.
So when OSER speaks, you only hear the Hebrew speech - you don't get the English translation.

HOWEVER, the relevant strings (e.g. &2583 in my example) - DO APPEAR in the translation source file.

These strings appear in the file, and now have English texts to correspond them.

Still, English text is not displayed when these strings are called by the Emor function.

Here's the script of the Emor function:

function Emor(Character* dmut, String kovetz) {
int loopy;
loopy=dmut.Loop;
if ((loopy==4) || (loopy==6)) {loopy=0;}
if ((loopy==5) || (loopy==7)) {loopy=3;}
loopy += 8;
dmut.LockView(2);
dmut.Animate(loopy,4,eOnce,eBlock);
loopy -=8;
dmut.Loop=loopy;
dmut.Say("%s", kovetz);
loopy += 8;
dmut.LockViewAligned(2, loopy, eAlignCentre);
dmut.Animate(loopy,4,eOnce,eBlock, eBackwards);
loopy -= 8;
dmut.LockViewAligned(2, loopy, eAlignCentre);
dmut.UnlockView(); }

Any ideas?  I'd really appreciate your help.

Hey guys, thanks for the feedback, and thank you CJ for having this interview 

Hi y'all,

Adventure Classic Gaming published today an interview I recently had with Chris for my site, HebrewQuest.com (previously published in Hebrew). 

Check it out:

http://www.adventureclassicgaming.com/index.php/site/interviews/324

Jonathan

OK, that's great.  Would you mind explaining what's a perl script, and how I can pull out all the speech lines?

(Sorry, but I'm still far from knowing all there is to know about AGS...)

Thanks for your answers.

My problem is not with the WAV files - they're not important at all. My problem is, that when the program creates a translation source file, it doesn't take into consideration that different characters have speech lines with the same code.

I want to use the program's translation capabilities, but my different sound files - such as NISM1204, OSER1204, UDDI1204, MZKR1204, HRZL1204 in my example - are all "translated" into a single line: &1204

So the translation file treats the text in an "absolute" manner without taking into account the character saying the text.

If possible, the best solution would of course be a translation file which would contain the "text" said (i.e. &1204) alongside its respective character, saying that text.  This type of translation file would contain the complexity of different characters saying what is seemingly "the same thing", script-wise.

However, I thought of a different approach - let me know if this type of solution is possible:

Suppose I took each of my characters, and gave them numbers from 1 to 40 (say I have 40 characters).  Now the files would read:

NISM120401
OSER120402
UDDI120403
MZKR120404
HRZL120405
since I gave these five characters different numbers.

I can add 2 last digits to each of my soundfiles. That would be a pain, but it's worth it.  My 2 questions are:

1. Would AGS be able to work with these 10 character files?

i.e.
character[NISM].Say("1204");

2. The BIG question -
Is there some way to "run" over the entire script, adding 2 last digits to each text line, according to the character saying it?

If this type of solution is doable, I think I would be able to use the program's translation capabilities.

Thanks!

(Sorry about the length...)

I've created a translation file, but it doesn't solve my problem. Here's why:

Each speech audio-file in the game has a name that is composed of the relevant character's name and the appropriate code.

For example, the script line:
character[NISM].Say("&1204");

Would cause the program to play the audio-file NISM1204.

The problem is that the 4-digit code is NOT UNIQUE for a certain character.

In other words, alongside the file NISM1204 , I also have the files OSER1204, UDDI1204, MZKR1204, HRZL1204 etc., of other characters. These are all different files of different characters saying different text-lines, but share the same code.

When I now try to create a translation file, the program will simply write &1204.
As one of the lines in the translation file.

This will, of course, cause 5 different characters or so, who speak different text in the audio speech-style, to all say the exact same thing in the written-text translation.

I hope I managed to explain the problem...

For the second question, yes.

For the first one - it's based on the Say command, and goes like this:

function Emor(Character* dmut,  String kovetz) {
int loopy;
loopy=dmut.Loop;
if ((loopy==4) || (loopy==6)) {loopy=0;}
if ((loopy==5) || (loopy==7)) {loopy=3;}
loopy += 8;
dmut.LockView(2);
dmut.Animate(loopy,4,eOnce,eBlock);
loopy -=8;
dmut.Loop=loopy;
dmut.Say("%s",  kovetz);
loopy += 8;
dmut.LockViewAligned(2,  loopy, eAlignCentre);
dmut.Animate(loopy,4,eOnce,eBlock, eBackwards);
loopy -= 8;
dmut.LockViewAligned(2,  loopy, eAlignCentre);
dmut.UnlockView();
}

I haven't used ANY texts (the characters would speak without subtitles, you can only hear them and see them move).

For most of the characters it would go:

character[NISM].Say("1204");

The player character had a unique speech function my co-developer created based on the Say command.  It's called "Emor" and works in a similar way:

character[OSER].Emor("1204");

Hello,

Nostradamus kindly translated my game, "Boundless Osher", from Hebrew ro English:

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=32601.0

I'd appreciate if you could contribute from your experience, and help us to form an efficient work method to add all the texts.  Notice that we're facing an ultra-complicated situation, because:

1. Right now there are NO TEXTS in the game at all - only speech.  So what we need to do is to replace the recorded Hebrew speech lines with English text lines.

2. There are about 1,500 sentences in this full-length game, so we really need an elegant function if we want to get it over with.

Also, notice that the translation Nostradamus did is in Excel tablets.

Please help us to bring you this game, as it has a huge success in Israel (30,000 downloads in 2 months alone).

Jonathan

Nostradamus, thanks again for your kind initiative.  I'm very happy you and Ori have settled this, and looking forward to the English version.

Thank you, blashyrkh.

You can try to play it, maybe you'll recall something from these five years...  The story is very plain and you might understand it.

I'd really like to make an English version, but it's difficult for me...  Reading this thread, one of the forum members offered me help with the translation itself, but inserting all of the potential-subtitles (more than 2,000 lines) is a job I can't take right now, after a 3-year-struggle with my daily job, family and friends... 

Thank you.  I see your point.  I'm not saying an English version is out of the question, although it would be quite problematic since:

1. The game has no text (only speech) - all the speech files are recorded.
2. The game is a satire of the Israeli society and parts of it would be hard to explain and definitely less funny in English.

Anyway, I know there are some Hebrew-speaking fellows from Israel and the US here, and the rest of you - learning Hebrew is very useful if you're planning to visit Israel   


(BTW, if someone needs tips how to create such realistic/photo-style characters & backgrounds, I'd be happy to help.)

After 3 long years in the works, my game is complete.  You can read about it in the games section:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/games.php?category=1&action=detail&id=939&refresh1191755119

Though the game is in Hebrew, you should be able to find some screenshots here:
http://www.hebrewquest.com/Media.htm

Since its release only 10 days ago, the game was downloaded by 14,000 Hebrew-speakers.

I'd like to take advantage of this situation and thank the following forum members which helped me and my co-developer Ori Wachtel along the way:

CJ
Ashen
Gilbot V7000a
KhrisMUC
GarageGothic
Strazer
SSH

All of you are mentioned in the game credits, manual and website.

Cheers,

Jonathan Yalon

Yes, this is what I've meant.   

Thank you very much for your answer.

Seems like a good trick for FMV games or other games with videos done with AGS.

Notice that I had to change the file extension with DOS.  Windows "remembers" it's a video file even if you change the extension there.