PowerQuest 0.18.12
Game Text and Localization

Game Text Tools

Under the Tools tab, there’s a Game Text Tools dropdown:

  • Process Text From Scripts: This goes through all scripts in the game, and optionally all descriptions and Quest Text components, and assigns them an ID.
  • Preserve Ids should be ticked if you’ve already got some speech files, and don’t want to mess them up. If it’s unticked, your dialog will be re-numbered sequentially, which is nice to have when editing your VO.
  • Dialog only should be ticked if you’re not translating the game, but are using V.O

Once text has been processed, you can:

  • Generate Script: This spites out an html script you can give to voice actors.
  • Export to CSV: This creates a spreadsheet of all the game text to open in excel or google sheets. Useful for spell checking, but also used for translation.
  • Import from CSV: Imports the text back from a CSV file, with any translations.
  • From Characters, From Rooms, Languages fields are useful if you just want dialog from a particular scene, set of characters, or Language. Only Sections with specified items will be included. (just put space between each character or room for multiple)
  • Languages:
    • At the bottom of Game Text Tools, there’s a Languages array.
    • Add an element to that for each language you’re supporting.
    • The Code is used in-game to specify in-game which language is selected. eg Settings.Language = “ES”;.
    • The description can be used to display the name of the language in-game. eg "Español". Custom data can be used for any other data that's convenient to use in-game. Like the name of a sprite/animation.
  • Default Text Source: The default language usually shows the text in your scripts. If this is set to "Imported Text" it will show the text from an imported CSV even for the default language.
  • Lip Sync Extended Shapes: When using lip sync, you can customise which "Mouth Shapes" to use by adding the codes here. Eg: GHX. See Rhubarb lip sync documentation for an explanation.

Translating your game

Here's a step by step guide:

  • In Game Text Tools, add your languages under the Languages section (see above)
  • Click the Process Text From Scripts button. Make sure Dialog Only is unticked.
  • Click Export to CSV and save the file
  • Open the CSV file, and add translated text to the columns for each language you've added.
  • Back in PowerQuest, click Import Text, and select the CSV file.

Changing the selected language

  • The default language can be set under PowerQuest Project Settings -> Settings dropdown -> Language Code.
  • You can change the language in-game by the code or the id. Eg. Settings.Language = "ES"; or Settings.LanguageId = 2;.
  • To get the list of languages, use Settings.GetLanguages().
  • Here's a snippet of code that will toggle between all the languages. (The % operator makes it wrap around to the start again) Settings.LanguageId = (Settings.LanguageId + 1) % Settings.GetLanguages().Length;