Translation team looking for info

[QuestLion]

Greetings, players!

I'd like to request information from people who had experience with this game or perhaps worked on translation projects in general.

There's a small number of people who would like to translate this beautiful game onto another language, but we've stumbled upon quite large problems - we're beginners by the way but we have serious intent and long story with this game:

1) After unpacking game data files, we've found out that it contains files with the following formats: .ogg, .png, .sir, .dat, .dds, .gnf, .gtx;

The problem is we've yet to find out which of those format types contains text for the game which displays on the screen. Moreover, trying to open any of those files (except .png and .ogg, with those we're all familiar with) it looks like files are encoded to avoid any modifications to them. We do not know which tool we need to use to decode them, any info would be appreciated!

2) We've also heard that game use bitmap fonts, which means, if you want to translate game's text to another language and that language happens to have more symbols or different than in english language - well, you're screwed. Because you've to draw new symbols for the game. And here's comes another question (if we'll beat 1st stage), how to pack up it back?

3) Perhaps answer to this question is obvious, but I'd like to ask anyway, did developers released or leaked any official tools for translation?

Thank you for reading this, all info would be greatly appreciated.

P.S.
Our project DOES NOT pursues any commercial profits, it'll be done completely free and voluntarily. It will be released to public when it'd be done.
The language we'd like to translate it: Russian.

[serebix]

The thing is even Akysis/Spiky Chunsoft did a bad job at translation/localisation. Take for example the "not so important" changes to all rooms: e.g. B(otanic) Garden is original Biotope, Crew quater is original Cabin etc.
The "why did they change that" changes: e.g. Soporil Beta is original Mandrain Beta because it was extracted from mandrake roots [s. 999 explaination], Zero Jr./Zero Sr. are Zero-Bunny [Usagi] and Zero-Boss and this Junior crap is just cringy, Rec Room was the Game room and Myrmidons were original Claydolls (which makes more sense in the story since they all are clones).
And finally the "how in the world did they get this wrong?" changes: In one of the routes Dio tell them a password for Bomb 03 and the english text doesn't fit the spoken japanese code at all, in fact its the code for another bomb, the renaming of the Jumpydoll also changes a password

So good luck with this. Its hard to localize it into some languages but always remember you can't f-up more then its already is (appart from trying really hard to mess up ;P)

[Mysti_Fogg]

Originally posted by serebix:

The thing is even Akysis/Spiky Chunsoft did a bad job at translation/localisation. Take for example the "not so important" changes to all rooms: e.g. B(otanic) Garden is original Biotope, Crew quater is original Cabin etc.
The "why did they change that" changes: e.g. Soporil Beta is original Mandrain Beta because it was extracted from mandrake roots [s. 999 explaination], Zero Jr./Zero Sr. are Zero-Bunny [Usagi] and Zero-Boss and this Junior crap is just cringy, Rec Room was the Game room and Myrmidons were original Claydolls (which makes more sense in the story since they all are clones).
And finally the "how in the world did they get this wrong?" changes: In one of the routes Dio tell them a password for Bomb 03 and the english text doesn't fit the spoken japanese code at all, in fact its the code for another bomb, the renaming of the Jumpydoll also changes a password

So good luck with this. Its hard to localize it into some languages but always remember you can't f-up more then its already is (appart from trying really hard to mess up ;P) [/quote]

The "Junior" stuff is worse since the bunny is translated as Zero III. And I think that's sort of on purpose due to the plot to ZTD and that lineage of being III instead of Jr. may be important.

And yes, B. Garden was ridiculous. Biotope would have been fine. Or spelling out Botanical Garden. Pick one.

Rec(reation) Room is a culturally correct translation to American English of "Game Room." But that doesn't mean it would be appropriate in other languages.

I definitely agree that Claydolls is a better name than Myrmidons and might also create more tension when issues with the golems arise as then there's the question of if they're the same thing.

As for general translation advice:

1) Do some research on the Japanese original meanings of key words and concepts. Translating from Japanese to English to Language X means that the meaning of the original is becoming very garbled because words and cultural context are going to be different among the three cultures involved. Take Game Room -> Rec Room -> ? for example. Does the new language have a specific name for such a room? If not, it would likely be better to use a translation of the original "Game Room." Doing a literal translation of Rec or Recreation Room is likely to be more confusing to the new audience.

2) Spend some time talking as a team about the concepts in each scene as you work on it, as well as the game as a whole, and see if you can identify some subtleties (such as the Claydolls/golems connections so that you can try to maintain those in your translation. You can always try for a simple literal translation, but it's never as good as one that tries to preserve connections.

3) Consider the jokes, such as the nicknames that Zero III uses. Clover/Cleaver has both names that are literal words, and the Cleaver means axe and references potential scenes from 999. Tenmyouji is Ten-Me-Oldie, making fun of his age, which is also a reference to how much time has passed for him since 999. You would want to try to find sound alike words in language X that preserve the joke.

4) The doll from 999 that gets referenced in VLR Jumpydoll is apparently supposed to be a voodoo doll. The English translation doesn't really convey that very well, and I don't know whether or not you can do better in Language X, especially if you're not altering internal files and have to use the pre-existing password.

5) When you finish, definitely have a few people not working on the project who don't speak English or Japanese try to play through with your translation and see how they feel about the word choices and how much sense the story makes. It's always good to have an editor check over the work because once you've lived with it for a while, you might miss flaws or not see obvious better answers.

Best of luck.

[Svipur]

The game's dialogue text is stored in .SIR files, but only some of those. Check e.g. 00009f21.sir.

GNF and GTX files seem to be used for storing background graphics, as far as I can tell. Been using ScarletConvert to check those out.

DDS files should also refer to textures or suchlike. There's a Photoshop plug-in provided by Nvidia of all people (hosted on their site) for working with these.

Seeing that the game originally came out in Japanese, I'd assume that the game's font file has both the Japanese and the English glyphs, so the character table limit shouldn't be a problem. Haven't looked into that, though.

[PopolaUNK]

Originally posted by Mysti_Fogg:

[quote=serebix;2686880925151382381

The "Junior" stuff is worse since the bunny is translated as Zero III. And I think that's sort of on purpose due to the plot to ZTD and that lineage of being III instead of Jr. may be important.

I think that he is called Zero III in the Japanese release, but the character's nickname is zero bunny, because the gold file password requires that you put a three in the elevator under a picture of him

[Mysti_Fogg]

Originally posted by Bacon4Makin':

Originally posted by Mysti_Fogg:

I think that he is called Zero III in the Japanese release, but the character's nickname is zero bunny, because the gold file password requires that you put a three in the elevator under a picture of him

Related to ZTD: I don't think I expressed this well the first time. My annoyance with the whole thing is that ZTD Zero is Sigma's son, and so he's logically Zero Junior. Zero III or Zero Bunny, either works, but calling something that's Zero III Zero Junior instead glosses over that there is actually another generation in there. And I think it's important that he be Zero III because that tells you that there SHOULD be another generation that's missing. It creates more tension for this game if you're going 'wait, what about zero II/Jr.' and it gives you something to wonder about for the follow up.

[Tanuki__kun]

Hey there!
Someone pointed out this discussion and I wanted to join in.

OP asked for volunteers to help translate the game, and I'm totally willing to help in translating the game to spanish.

I agree that translations should keep the original intention of the japanese language and be careful enough that the hints/clues allow to solve the puzzles that have answers in english (unless we can somehow change the minigame and the answer? But I think that is beyond the scope).

Anyway, if we start having success in obtaining the source files to start translating them, I can lend a hand.

I've been a game designer/producer for 10 years now, so if I can help in any other way, do let me know :)

Cheers!

[Glenn]

I want to help, too. Spanish is my native language, so I'm not perfectly fluent at english- Still, I'd like to contribute.

[Renka]

I would love to join the spanish team aswell, I will try to seek forums and ask dataminers friends so I can figure out how we could do this.
If I get an answer, I'll come back soonTM