Hi, I am new to this forum but I have some experience with Pekka Kana 2 as I have played it since its release. It's my all-time favorite platformer/jump'n'run/puzzle game and I wanted to help in improving it in some way.
Well, I wasn't able to contribute until recently but then I managed to complete some PK2-related stuff I've been thinking about that could help the game.
So, here's what I got:
1) I did a second Bulgarian translation of the game which can be found here:
sahwar.wordpress.com/2010/02/21/bulgarian-language-translation-file-for-pekkakana2-by-sahwar-and-iv4n/ .
(I used Iv4n's translation as a basis for mine and gave him credit for that).
The differences between my BG translation and his aren't many but there are significant in some aspects - the translation features full Cyrillic letters visualization in-game (Iv4n's had only proper Cyrillics in the start menu before you get into the game (the menu where you can change the game's language)) and it also somewhat improves the quality of the translation.
Now, the translation took me some time due to the difficulties I faced with the Cyrillic letters visualization as described by Iv4n earlier in this topic.
I had to use some tricks to get the proper visualization - I had to include the additional code that made the Russian translation properly show Cyrillic letters in-game at the end of my translation text file (if you open the "russian.txt" file in PK2's *\language\ directory, you can spot the text snippet group "font information" at the end of the file - it's the code I'm talking about; also, the same text file illustrates the 'tricks' the Russian translator and I had to utilize to get the right letter visualization), as well as use some 'tricks'. These 'tricks' involved substituting (using the option 'file and replace...' in Notepad and other text editors, such as Notepad++) Cyrillic letters in the translation that didn't have a visual representation with Latin letters that look almost identical to them. Here's an example of such a 'trick': there's no visualization for the Cyrillic letter "к" in-game, so I substitute all instanced of that letter in the translation strings with its visual twin, the Latin letter "k", there's also no Cyrillic letter "н" but that's not a problem since it can be substituted with the Latin letter "h" (because the uppercase/capital version of "h" is "H" and PK2 uses ONLY uppercase letters!) and so on until my translation was complete and tested for verification.
2) The second idea came to me just recently. I knew that the new version of PK2 (v1.21) uses a complex way of commanding the itself to "run/show" Cyrillic letters properly, so I researched it and here's what I found:
the new v1.21 has a "CYRILLIC.bmp" texture and 4 text files in the */language/fonts/ directory (same for Scandic letters). These 3 files together with the inclusion of the "font information" code in a text translation file which translates the game into a language that uses the Cyrillic alphabet ARE the things responsible for the proper visualization of Cyrillics in-game.
Now, I know that I've already worked around this problem by using the 'tricks' mentioned above, but I thought "Why not make it easier for other translators that translate the game into languages using the Cyrillic alphabet by simple adding the required letters to the CYRILLIC.bmp file?". And I did - as described before, many of the Cyrillic letters are visually identical to the Latin letters that the texture already had, so I simply copy-pasted the similar letters and filled the missing letters with mods of the existing (the Cyrillic "у" for example looked as a "Y" in-game and that's why I combined parts of the already available "S" and "4" to make a proper Cyrillic "У"; I also created a big letter "-" both for Cyrillic and Lation scripts by slightly editing the Latin letter "T" - I just took the "-" part of that letter and reduced its length a bit).
Same "copy identical stuff" was done with the numbers and the punctuation symbols. And that produced the following texture, which along with modified versions of the "CyrillicsBig1.txt", "CyrillicsBig2.txt", "CyrillicsBig3.txt", "CyrillicsSmall.txt" (the 4 text files mentioned above; I'm currently working on completing their modification, so that they can enable the support of my modded "CYRILLIC.bmp" texture) files can enable an improved support for Cyrillics. All it takes is to overwrite the 5 old files with the same name and Cyrillics could now be written freely in a translation text file, without the need to use my 'tricks'.
My modded "CYRILLIC.bmp" texture can be found at
img535.imageshack.us/img535/1435/cyrillicedited.png (alternative link:
img535.imageshack.us/i/cyrillicedited.png/ ).
P. S. Hopefully, this would work. I haven't tested it yet but it should work. If there's some kind of bug, I'll try to look into it and hopefully fix it.
If this this "mod" to some of the game's files works fine, Janne could include it by default in the next release of PK2 (v1.22?). My "Bulgarian2 by sahwar & iv4n" translation of PK2 is also ready to be added to PK2's subwebsite under the section "available translations". I'm also working on Bulgarian translations for the game's manual and the editor's manual, which should be ready in a month or two.
Still, a lot of additional work needs to be done for the idylly to be complete, such as:
- writing a simple text file "Help for translators" to be included in the game's install directory by default, which explains the aforementioned stuff.
- asking the man who drew the partial Cyrillic letters to also do more letters: for example, to draw the Latin big letters ":,+=()/"\_%" (I think Janne said "Russian translation and Cyrillic letters (made by Leif), so that means Leif").
- adding support for more Cyrillic (or other script) letters in the same fashion (adding them to the 4 text files that deal with Cyrillics and also as images to the "CYRILLIC.bmp" texture) if we have missed some rather extravagant (other) letters from these alphabets.
- consider updating PK2's game manual and LevelEditor manual to comply with some changes to the game and the website (the new URL address of PisteGamez and other)
- establishing a new Map Store since the old one seems to be abonded. The new one could just be, say, a simple WordPress.com-hosted blog with posts that include screenshots, author info, review of the gameplay of the episode and download links to the new user-created episodes (the download files could be hosted on free file hosting websites, such as MediaFire.com, while screenshots could be hosted on free image hosting websites, such as ImageShack.us and other). It would also be good to copy the old episodes from the old Map Store onto the new one. Having a blog-powered Map Store provedes some additional bonus functionality - comments, it's easy support and maintain and it's also user-friendly and boosts user activity. People can send their original PK2 episodes to some e-mail address and then get their stuff published on the new MapStore (blog). This WordPress blog could be hosted on pistegamez.net if Janne and company could afford the hosting costs (in a fashion similar to PisteGamez' current staff blog).
- considering the other suggestions for bugs and/or improvements to the game for future versions of PK2.
- working on PK3 when the PisteGamez' team finds time and motivation. This also means careful consideration of the translation tools, techniques and overall methods and process of/for translating PK3, its LevelEditors and SpriteEditors and their respective manuals.
Cheers,
sahwar