Non-English VN's and Latin VN's

[Pecora Z]

I know that there of course VN's in different languages, so sorry if the topic title is a bit misleading.

I'm just curious, do you know how many people actually play the VN's in different languages? I know multiple languages (with varying levels of fluency) and I don't want to complete a VN and then translate it to have nobody play it in that language. But, at the same time, I don't want somebody to have to ask to have the game translated. I don't know, I don't know much about the standards (if there are any) the community has for translations, so this may not really be a dilemma for me.

Also, would anybody play a VN in Latin? I recently completed a kinetic novel for my Latin class at school, and everybody in my class loved it. It wasn't a traditional kinetic novel so I'm not really sure if I should upload it to the Ren'Py archive or if it even accepts VN's in Latin.

If anything doesn't make sense, please just ask- my dilemma with the translations is a bit confusing to me, too @.@

[Ziassan]

Well you're asking on a forum where everybody handle English well enough to understand most of the VN in English (otherwise they could not communicate).
But yeah, a lot of people that you'll not see express themself would actually be interested, I'm sure.

Taking the example of my langage (French), I know a lot of people who would be ok to give a try to the VN thing but they just can't because we have like less than a decade of VN in French (of variable quality) ; and a majority of French just don't know English well enough to enjoy or understand a VN in this langage.
After, when people speak of Original English Language Visual Novel - OELVN - I guess the "English" isn't here for nothing, but I think it'd be more accurate like "Western Visual Novel" or something like that (almost non-JP VN).

And a VN in Latin sounds fun ahah, too bad my lessons of Latin are that far.

[TrickWithAKnife]

Having a Latin VN is kinda niche market, so you limit your audience.

On the flip-side, you drastically decrease the competition. For people who are learning Latin, something like this would be absolutely wonderful.

I say if you believe in it, go for it!

[Pecora Z]

Thanks you two!

For people who are learning Latin, something like this would be absolutely wonderful

That's a good idea, release kinetic novels that help teach Latin. Unfortunately the kinetic novel I made was for a college-level Latin class, so I doubt that beginners would understand everything I said, haha, considering most people learn vocabulary + first four noun cases -> grammar -> more vocabulary + last three noun cases over a span of ~3 years or so.

[PyTom]

I'm not really sure if I should upload it to the Ren'Py archive or if it even accepts VN's in Latin.

By the power invested in me by the fact that I pay the server bills, I hereby do declare and decree that the archive accepts Latin VNs.

Because - honestly - the level of awesomeness overwhelms any potential expense.

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur

[Pecora Z]

By the power invested in me by the fact that I pay the server bills, I hereby do declare and decree that the archive accepts Latin VNs.

Because - honestly - the level of awesomeness overwhelms any potential expense.

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur

Well then, I guess it's safe to say you can expect educational kinetic novels about Latin in a week or two!

And of course, they'll be taught by Cornelia and Flavia, hah!

What other kinds of Latin VN's should there be? I'm sure not everybody wants educational ones >_>

[Pecora Z]

Sorry to double post!

Does Ren'Py support the use of long marks? Latin's usage of long marks is pretty necessary...

Also, I compiled a list of topics I'll be doing. I'm so excited, I already started on them, haha. [I'm sure my other VN won't get jealous...]

The Different Noun Cases
Common Vocabulary
Basic Grammar
Latin life and culture
Advanced Vocabulary
Strange words and neuter words
Building a sentence
Telling a story
Mythology
Rome and Florence (I'm from Florence, so that one will be full of info)
Renaissance
Naples and Pompeii
Latin Tropes

[Akjosch]

Sorry to double post!

Does Ren'Py support the use of long marks? Latin's usage of long marks is pretty necessary...

Ren'Py works with Unicode. Theoretically, anything you can encode with that and which is supported by the TTF font you're using is trivial to use. In practice, Windows Unicode font handling sucks balls and you can only use 16-bit Unicode symbols, but the others (mostly extended CJK and math symbol planes) are not often used in VNs anyway.

Since you can create your own TTF fonts - for example, using FontForge - you can put nearly anything as text on the screen.

In the cases where this isn't enough, like when you want your "text" to have multiple colours per character, you can with some hacking use images instead of characters, but that's rather complicated and likely not something you will have a use for.

EDIT:

Copy & paste, in doubt. Here are some sources for that. If you prefer macrons and modern spelling:

ĀĒĪŌŪȲÆŒāēīōūȳæœ

The original apex versions are harder. "Long I" (U+A7FE) is not widely supported (the DejaVu font family has it though if you're fine with using it) so you likely will have to use another similar symbol and "V with apex" has no own code point, but has to be a composition of "V" + "combining acute mark", which doesn't always look that good:

ÁÉꟾÓV́

[PyTom]

Latin long marks are supported - they're even included in the default DejaVu Sans font, located early on in the Basic Multilingual Plane, at around U+0100. No problem. You just need to figure out how to type them into the text editor, as unicode code points. That's a function of your OS, more than anything.

[oza]

Well, I know about 25 resources with english-to-russian and japanese-to-russian translators team. And also few forums and many more groups on social networks.
VN is very popular in russian, but english is more popular than russian lang (obviously).
And in Europe, I think it's in Spain, Portugal and the country around them, too, are quite popular in this regard.
Sure, japanese language ​​are not in demand, because they have their VN with a great numbers (Capt. Obv. again).

[junna]

Well, I know about 25 resources with english-to-russian and japanese-to-russian translators team. And also few forums and many more groups on social networks.
VN is very popular in russian, but english is more popular than russian lang (obviously).
And in Europe, I think it's in Spain, Portugal and the country around them, too, are quite popular in this regard.
Sure, japanese language ​​are not in demand, because they have their VN with a great numbers (Capt. Obv. again).

russian? that gives me flashbacks... linguistics
I also find that VNs are also popular in and around the South East Asian parts particularly Phllipines, Singapore and Malaysia.
Since Singapore mainly speaks English... I dunno, Tagalog or Malay language VNs? hmm... now there's an idea.

[TrickWithAKnife]

I have a suspicion that if the instructions on creating translation files in ren'py were easier to understand, we would see a lot more multi-language games...

[oza]

I have a suspicion that if the instructions on creating translation files in ren'py were easier to understand, we would see a lot more multi-language games...

That's right. Plus with new 6.14 translation became quite incomprehensible.

russian? that gives me flashbacks... linguistics

Phew, russophobe~

[Akjosch]

I have a suspicion that if the instructions on creating translation files in ren'py were easier to understand, we would see a lot more multi-language games...

That's right. Plus with new 6.14 translation became quite incomprehensible.

Speaking as a programmer, how so? The description in Text - Translations describes a simple stripped-down gettext-like system. It's sorely missing the context ("msgctxt" in gettext) and could use range flags and automatic singular/plural translations for things like "I have one apple left."/"I have 3 apples left" like gettext does, but that can be worked around easily (if not elegantly).

Now, how to properly localise/translate the display of numbers, time, currency and so on ... that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish.

[TrickWithAKnife]

Best I can tell, it makes sense to programmers, but it's not so straight-forward for everyone.

I'll try again so you can see the mind-set of someone with no clue.

• Opens Ren'Py.
• Opens jEdit.
• Creates translations.rpt

• Set the RENPY_UPDATE_TRANSLATIONS environment variable to a non-empty string.

  Where is that? Searches existing .rpys. Nothing.
• Searches other files in the renpy folders. No luck.
• Perhaps I'm meant to create a variable with that name? But what is the "non-empty string" for?

  Code: Select all

  $ RENPY_UPDATE_TRANSLATIONS = "potatoes"

  This doesn't seem like it's what I'm meant to do, but I can't guess what else it could be.

• The Language() action can be used to change the translation file.

  What does that mean? Do I add that to the game? Maybe I should add the file name between the brackets?
• Adds

  Code: Select all

  Language (translations.rpy)

  Doesn't work. Maybe I should write it like this:

  Code: Select all

  Language () = "translations.rpy"

  More errors. I guess I'll just delete that line.
• Plays through game.
• Checks translations.rpy. Yup, still empty.

• Ren'Py reads translations out of .rpt files. A .rpt file is a text file containing lines beginning with the following characters:

  Ok, I teach advanced level English, so I should be able to understand this. "Reads out of" means it's from an existing .rpt file, but mine is blank.
• Feeling like an idiot. Quits. Again.