Cave Story Polish Translation

Oct 6, 2010 at 11:37 PM
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Hello all :eek:

Being a Cave Story fan I decided to translate this game to my native language, Polish, as it seems no-one attempted such a thing.

I've decided to use Sue's Workshop, as it looks like a complete editor, where I can change needed text strings.

Translating things like dialogs or messages is a breeze in SW, but I've got a fatal problem with changing names of locations (it seems so). After changing e.g. "Arthur's House" to "Dom Artura", saving the modified script and booting Cave Story, game crashes after choosing "New" or "Load".

Is there any solution or explanation for this problem?

Also, I'd like to get any advices about translating Cave Story from technical side - like syntax in script, modifying the main menu screen (the "New" and "Load" captions) and similar.

Thank you for interest :p
 
Oct 7, 2010 at 12:55 AM
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I can't think what might be causing the crash. I haven't used Sue's Workshop in a long time, since switching to CaveEdit. You should NOT switch, though, since you've already started in Sue's and the two are not compatible.

As far as editing text that's not in scripts (like the "New" and "Load" options, or the "Arms" and "Items" heading in the inventory interface), that I can help you with. When you go into Cave Story's "data" folder, you'll find lots of files of type *.pbm. These files are really just *.bmp files in disguise, so you can open them with any program that edits bmp files (Paint, Photoshop, GIMP, etc). To edit these files, simply double click on one of them, and Windows will ask you if you want to choose a program from the list or use the web service to find a program. Say choose a program from the list. A list of programs will come up, and you should select your preferred graphics editing program (Paint or whatever). Be sure to check the box that says "always use the selected program" so that you don't have to go through this every time you want to edit a Cave Story graphic. Now you can just go through the various images in Cave Story and edit the text (or anything else) as you please.

There's just one little snag with editing the graphics. There's a superflous "(C)Pixel" at the end of every *.pbm file, and Cave Story will crash if you don't have it. Unfortunately, most graphics editing software will remove the "(C)Pixel" when you save. To get around this, you'll need a Hex Editor (like XVI32). Do NOT do what I did the first time I encountered this problem, and open the *.pbm file in Notepad, and append the (C)Pixel there (Notepad automatically converts 0x00 bytes to 0x20 bytes, and probably does some other weird things that I'm not aware of). Just append the characters "(C)Pixel" (without quotes) to the end of every *.pbm file that you have modified before running Cave Story.
 
Oct 7, 2010 at 1:27 AM
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If you want to know the syntax for the Text-scripts (TSC), look here.

For your map naming problem, you must know that Map Name is different from Map Filename. Make sure you right-click on a map, go to "Settings", and then change the map name (the caption for the map). If you're already doing that, then this is probably not the problem you're facing.

Make sure you back up your work too.

*As a side request, you should try to edit the credits too. I've seen a Spanish translation made using CE that still had the English credits.
 
Oct 7, 2010 at 2:22 AM
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Wedge of Cheese said:
I can't think what might be causing the crash. I haven't used Sue's Workshop in a long time, since switching to CaveEdit. You should NOT switch, though, since you've already started in Sue's and the two are not compatible.

He could actually switch, since all he would have to do is get a new executable file, and the data folder would be intact. He would just have to redo the map names (which is what seems to be his current problem).

Also CaveEditor has a feature which removes the "(C)Pixel" requirement that WedgeOfCheese was talking about, so that would be another reason that I would suggest that you use CaveEditor.
 
Oct 7, 2010 at 3:16 AM
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Wait wat
The problem is from ce to sw, not the other way around.

Since ce changes the location of the mapdata, you can't use it then sues, but sues leaves the exe almost as is, and changing is allowed.

'less wistil removed this compatibility?
 
Oct 7, 2010 at 3:24 AM
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Lace said:
Wait wat
The problem is from ce to sw, not the other way around.

Since ce changes the location of the mapdata, you can't use it then sues, but sues leaves the exe almost as is, and changing is allowed.

'less wistil removed this compatibility?

SW changes the location of the mapdata too. That's why they don't work well together.

It's just that SW leaves the old mapdata where it is.

And Sue's moves the mapdata to the end of the executable, which is stupid since then you can't import resources into the exe without breaking it upon touching it with Sue's again.
 
Oct 7, 2010 at 12:25 PM
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Thank you all for the replies and tips.

I've decided to switch to the CaveEditor, in hope there will be less problems. Happily, I can change now the captions of maps w/o any errors or crashes :p It also eliminates the problem with (c)Pixel.

I'm going for 100% translation (where possible), with translating the credits and main menu. My only worry for now is to not screw anything in script (e.g. length of text-strings) and of course, translate everything properly :eek:

Also, will there be any chance to translate DoConfig.exe? And making a patch installer for original version of Doukutsu, in same vein Aeon Genesis patch was made?
 
Oct 7, 2010 at 1:16 PM
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It's awesome that you're translating it into polish. Off-topic - there are a lot of poles here in Lithuania .
 
Oct 7, 2010 at 3:14 PM
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R13 said:
Also, will there be any chance to translate DoConfig.exe? And making a patch installer for original version of Doukutsu, in same vein Aeon Genesis patch was made?

Both could be done, but would require some knowledge of programming/assembly.
 
Oct 7, 2010 at 8:44 PM
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Wedge of Cheese said:
Both could be done, but would require some knowledge of programming/assembly.

Not true. You can change the text inside DoConfig with Resource Hacker.

A patch would require programming, which would be as simple as automated replacement of files and a bit of exe editing. You could just upload it like a mod, which would be much easier anyway.
 
Oct 7, 2010 at 8:53 PM
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WoodenRat said:
Off-topic - there are a lot of poles here in Lithuania .

Been there, lovely country. Too bad the trip was awfully short :)

I'm happy to announce that translation job goes forward, still, I've found some issues, which I'll post here for future recollection.

It looks like CaveStory doesn't really like those funky letters like "ą", "ć", "ś", "ł" etc. at the end of item names or text strings, making some weird bugs (some new, strange letters appear, or white dots are disappearing in names of the items). Thankfully, most times it can be avoided. Also, Polish isn't really a brief language - sometimes simple messages became quite long, and I need to add extra lines and <NOD to make things properly translated (like first dialogue with King and Toroko - 4 additional lines were needed, to make it okay).

Also, sometimes strange things happen without any clue from the code (I had to rebuild whole fragment of script, where Quote finds the Map system - part of the attached letter wasn't showing at all, leaving empty msgbox).

And I won't even mention the usual problems with translating some names (in my case, those are "Gum", "Jellyfish Juice", "Spur" and more). Hope I'll find a solution for translating those names.

Will be legal to just zip the finished, translated game, and publish it that way? Some PC magazines will be interested in adding CaveStoryPL on the coverdisks, and I don't want to hurt anyone's copyrights or such.
 
Oct 8, 2010 at 3:32 PM
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R13 said:
Will be legal to just zip the finished, translated game, and publish it that way? Some PC magazines will be interested in adding CaveStoryPL on the coverdisks, and I don't want to hurt anyone's copyrights or such.

Maybe, but you could always humbly ask Pixel himself to be safe. Just send him an email, his address is on the front page of his website. When he responds he'll probably use as few words as possible, this is normal.
 
Oct 13, 2010 at 8:40 PM
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Thanks, will e-mail him when I'll have ready beta of some sorts.

To make myself work more, I decided to post here every Wednesday updates on translation.

Currently, those locations are 100% translated and no bugs occur while playing:

Arthur's house
Egg Corridor
All eggs
Egg Room
Grasstown (missing one dialogue about Critters - still looking for good translation of that monster's name)
Santa's house
Chaco's hosue
Sand zone
First cave
Shack
Reservoir
Yamashita farm
Shelter
Cthulhu's adobe

Also, figured out the reason of one of the msgbox bugs - the little empty squares appear, when I forgot to add space at the end of text string. Still can't work around the missing white dot in item names, when the name ends with "ę", "ą", "ś" etc, in other way, than changing the whole sentence.

Little thing bugs me about Balrog's "Huzzah!" - should I translate it (kills some of personality of the character) or leave it (it doesn't look good between all that Polish)? The translated word could be "Huzia!" (it's an old form of yell when in charge against someone), but as I said - it could take away some of the Balrog's charm, and this word is quite archaic.
 
Oct 13, 2010 at 9:12 PM
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"Huzzah!" in English is relatively old, too, which is sort of why it's charming, I think, because it's not just something really cliche like "Oh yeah!". I would say go with "Huzia!".

I don't know if you know, but in the original Japanese version, the word was "Doorya!".
 
Oct 16, 2010 at 9:45 AM
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R13 said:
The translated word could be "Huzia!" (it's an old form of yell when in charge against someone), but as I said - it could take away some of the Balrog's charm, and this word is quite archaic.
Well the Japanese original was some kind of war cry so "Huzia" is actually closer to the original meaning than either English translation.
 
Oct 24, 2010 at 6:16 PM
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I'm Polish too:) Finally will be the Polish version (I always wanted to make a Polish version too xD)

I'm waiting for the link!

PS. Sorry for my bad english :D
 
Aug 31, 2011 at 3:44 PM
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How is it going? (*cough cough*)

Wiesz, po prawie roku mógłbyś już wypuścić chociaż jakąś alfę :heart:
 
Aug 31, 2011 at 4:51 PM
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If you live near Warsaw, then it wouldn't be too long of a drive from me to you lol.
 
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