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[agersant]

The lower M is a mistake in the chart, this key does not exist (and therefore the rest of the row should be shifted left). This one looks better.

If the game is localized then WASD usually translates to ZQSD. When it is not, the best solutions are to offer alternate control schemes (arrow keys based for example) or customizable key inputs (in the options screen or w/e).

[Martin 2BAM]

Man, that sucks. Because there isn't really a lot of conciense about that.
All you get is the "Once upon a time ... DVORAK dragon...which was killed by the QWERTY knight"

I like the way wxWidgets handle Internationalization because it doesn't break your flow.

You just call a function "_" passing the text in the default language, e.g.

Code:

_("Press Enter to continue")

Then a little program (poEdit) extracts all the _(whatever) from the code and allows you to translate it and save translations to ".po" files, that can optionally get loaded later by wx. If you don't, no problem, because it defaults to whatever string you passed to the _() function (really fast).

It's not the fastest/best/most optimal way but it's the more intuitive and easy to implement. And if you have something that you use all the time, you should cache it on a variable.

Apparently that ".po" files are pretty standard (GNU gettext catalog format) and even Python can use them

Code:

import gettext
gettext.bindtextdomain('myapplication', '/path/to/my/language/directory')
gettext.textdomain('myapplication')
_ = gettext.gettext
# ...
print _('This is a translatable string.')

Regards

[Klaim]

It's not wxWidgets, it's GetText library : http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/

However I think it's bad for some type of games.
The first problem is that it assume you will put text in code and then translate later. If you do that, when you have some short sentences (or one word) that might be used in several context to mean different things, in other languages that might be different text that should be displayed. But then you have only one id, the original text.

However there is almost to other alternative at the moment. One promising library is being developped for boost (C++) but it will not be there until a lot of time. (you can still get in the mailing list if you want to participate to it).


I think a simple localization library + tool might be helpful for everyone here. The main thing that makes it hard to build is that the implementation of localization is really game-relative. I'm making a game where all the texts should be loaded at runtime start because texts are provided as language packs for future extension. Other devs would be happier (and would not worry about memory) with statically compiled texts (making several binaries, one for each language).
Making a good translator tool is also a hard task but it would be so useful. I've used some before, but only in companies I worked for so it's not free or open-source.

[Vino]

So I take it that if a game is installed on a French system then the key bindings will automatically go to azerty style? Is that how, say, Source engine games do it?

[Klaim]

That really depends on the engine/implementation.

I use OOIS (C++) for keyboard and mouse inputs and it takes the local by default I think.


Some engines will provide advanced features to manage localized keyboard, but it's not useful for every games.

The best thing is to make sure there is a simple way for the user to re-map the keys to actions.

[Craig Stern]

No (sorry for the late answer).
Don't forget it's to help YOUR game that you add localization, not to help others (and French are often egocentric).

I was totally kidding, dude.

I honestly think TSOG simply has way, way, way too much text hard-coded into the game to do localization effectively. It's a shame. The next time I make a game, I'm going to try to have all the text in an easily accessible external file.

[Vino]

I use OOIS (C++) for keyboard and mouse inputs and it takes the local by default I think.

Googling OOIS doesn't give the website so linky pls

[Klaim]

This one : http://sourceforge.net/projects/wgois/
It's used in sample applications of Ogre rendering engine.

[Akari]

One easy way for French people etc with differing layouts is to simply add English to their Windows' language bar as an input language. Then you can just switch to the English keyboard layout when you run a game with non-customizable controls without having to remap anything, because your A and Q are now "as they should" even if the keyboard doesn't physically look like it. I usually change the input language to my own whenever I'm dealing with foreign keyboards because I can touch-type so some letters being in the wrong place doesn't matter at all.

[agersant]

Oh that's a good solution. Thank you.

[Klaim]

I use it too but remember that it's a solution for advanced users. Other potential customers will only assume tha the game will provide some way to make it work with non-english keyboards.

[n00rs]

Localization will be worth it if:

- You're targetting casual gamers - Casual gamers are... casual. Their English proficiency is usually much lower than hardcore gamers. Your store description alone will filter them out if it's in English only, so localization matters a lot for them.

- Understanding the game is essential - If you have to explain gameplay mechanics or if you're telling a story, consider localization or people might get frustrated and leave bad reviews because they can't play the game or fully understand it.

- There's a potential audience for your game in foreign markets - Do some market research to see if similar games do well in certain markets, if there's a lot of competition, if you can have visibility, etc.

- Your game already has some visibility - If it doesn't, localization will still help it reach more people, but it won't do miracles either and you may not get ROI.

- It's well executed - This point is especially key if your game is narrative-heavy. Sloppy translations ruin the experience, so make sure you get quality translations.


If you're interested in reading stories on that topic, we recently asked 3 indie studios if localizing their game was worth it: http://www.leveluptranslation.com/single-post/is-it-worth-localizing-an-indie-game

[Fat Pug Studio]

Level up translation look very nice, i plan on localizing my game at them. There are some big markets in the world that are used to having their games localized, like Russia, Germany, France, Spain etc...

[n00rs]

You're welcome anytime, Fat Pug Studio! Give us a shout when your game's ready for localization

France, Italy, Spain and Russia do have a relatively low English proficiency, so localization is almost mandatory if you want to make the most of these markets.

[Fat Pug Studio]

Yeah, i've been following you on Twitter for some time, you have some nice articles on localizations, i'll be sure to contact you as soon as the game is finished

[n00rs]

Thanks a lot, really glad you appreciate the content from our blog!