Others [Translation Request] The Encyclopedia of Tentacles for Boys Vol.1

[Ophanim]

You think we could find someone for that issue in another forum here, like recruitment and services? I've seen that not everyone there has to necessarily get payed (e.g.). Or do you think that this issue is too specific?

Honestly, I don't know. I mean, I'm not paid to translate stuff at the moment, so I can't exactly afford to pay others, but I'll have a look. Afaik it's a Japanese VN engine that the guys over at Toro Toro Resistance use for a lot of their games. They used it for the original MGQ, and for their Encyclopedia of Monstergirls standalone thing, and now for this series. I just wish the goddamn MGQ wiki had some information on the engine the games use, because my Japanese is okay at best, and definitely not at the level where I can trawl through Japanese game development sites to look for info on this one. Anyway, it's likely something to do with the way the engine reads the text files, and therefore to do with the way the text is encoded. I know when I tried using the Japanese IME on Windows to put spaces between words, they were read as '@', which was completely different to the behavior when not using the IME. I don't know if it's specific (issue with game engine) or general (issue with the way text files are encoded).

I'll try messaging a few people, but honestly, I'm pretty poor at managing stuff, and also poor at talking to people, so if you'd be up to helping, that'd be cool.

 

[Nasuroi]

Hmmm yes

 

[jackalo]

This isn't something I'm very familiar with but it looks like you are looking for a way to parse the text files with the dialog and remove any white space between words. I'm not sure if this is the actual dialog but from what I can see there is no spaces between the Japanese characters. Are you referring to 'new lines' cause I know that is also considered whitespace. It would just involve writing a program/script to parse the file and then after ''name' remove the second and following new line characters '\n' until reaching the next 'name' then repeat the logic. if this is the case it wouldn't be 'too' difficult but there are some inconsistent changes from dialog to event changes that could cause issues and depending on how common and unique theses are it could be very difficult.

here is the text file im looking at

Do I understand this correctly with the red arrows being the dialog that needs to have the '\n' new line characters removed and maybe the symbols? I'm also not sure if there would be issues parsing non-english characters.

 

[Ophanim]

This isn't something I'm very familiar with but it looks like you are looking for a way to parse the text files with the dialog and remove any white space between words.

No, sorry, we're trying to add white space between words, and get it to parse English characters. Like, the exact opposite. Japanese has no spaces, but English does, and when the program attempts to parse English words, it renders the sentence
'Likethisbut withsome randomblobsof words'. The spaces are parsed inconsistently, which is even more annoying than not parsing them at all.

 

[jackalo]

No, sorry, we're trying to add white space between words, and get it to parse English characters. Like, the exact opposite. Japanese has no spaces, but English does, and when the program attempts to parse English words, it renders the sentence
'Likethisbut withsome randomblobsof words'. The spaces are parsed inconsistently, which is even more annoying than not parsing them at all.

Yeah, this is a bit above me. there would need to be some kind of library the can understand when to split the japanese characters into groups that mean specific words and when not to insert a space between characters. I don't have any knowledge of the language but from what I have read, the indicators for when japanese text is intending to break up words is really inconsistent and personal preference. for me to parse it correctly it would need to have explicit indication of when to add spaces and when not to, if there is any deviation from those markers it would work incorrectly.

Another method would be to check for every type of unicode character that is used as a separator or space and compare it to the current character and replace it with an english space.
Unicode list for spaces ->

You must be registered to see the links

I might get around to looking into it but it's a bit more work for a solution than i'm willing to put into right now. If someone else with some coding experience wants to give it a try this method might or might not work. Another thing I have noticed if you don't convert the locale settings when opening the text file there are a lot of commas being used in the dialog sections which could also be the indicators of white space that could be swapped for spaces without needing to change the encoding during text parse.

 

[Ophanim]

Yeah, this is a bit above me. there would need to be some kind of library the can understand when to split the japanese characters into groups that mean specific words and when not to insert a space between characters. I don't have any knowledge of the language but from what I have read, the indicators for when japanese text is intending to break up words is really inconsistent and personal preference. for me to parse it correctly it would need to have explicit indication of when to add spaces and when not to, if there is any deviation from those markers it would work incorrectly.

Another method would be to check for every type of unicode character that is used as a separator or space and compare it to the current character and replace it with an english space.
Unicode list for spaces ->

You must be registered to see the links

I might get around to looking into it but it's a bit more work for a solution than i'm willing to put into right now. If someone else with some coding experience wants to give it a try this method might or might not work. Another thing I have noticed if you don't convert the locale settings when opening the text file there are a lot of commas being used in the dialog sections which could also be the indicators of white space that could be swapped for spaces without needing to change the encoding during text parse.

Hey, no problem. Time is precious, and this problem is pretty niche. Thanks for even taking a look for us and offering some insights. I honestly would have no idea where to start looking to troubleshoot this, as most of the people who've worked with this engine have either vanished from the internet or do not speak English. I'll try your suggestion about unicode characters and see what insights I can glean. Tbh, the whole spacing issue never occurred to me before now, as I mainly focus on being able to read and speak Japanese, so it never really came up how a computer would handle that. Anyway, thanks for your time.

Edit: I cracked it, I think, thanks to your help in identifying the problem. The spaces used in the Japanese portions were u+3000, the 'ideographic space'? So long as I can insert those, the system seems to read those fine. It sometimes adds an @ character for no apparent reason, which I cannot remove, but it's a big improvement over wordblobs.

 

[Ophanim]

Apologies for the double post, but I've found a method that sorta works, now, thanks to jackalo. Here's a rough proof of concept to prove that a janky as fuck translation is now possible. The translation here is the literal minimum amount of effort, as I wasn't initially sure if this would work at all.

Spoiler: JaNKy S p A C i n G

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But it works, for a given value of working. Not shown is the 15 minutes I spent, of which 5 was spent on the disgustingly quick-and-dirty translation of the page, while the other 10 was opening/closing the game window to make sure the spaces were both accepted as valid whitespace, while also not parsing as ' @', using a combination of regular english keyboard ' ' and the larger '　' ideographic spaces. For some reason it won't accept one or the other, it has to be some janky combination of both within a line to parse correctly. So... it works, but it's absolutely horrible, and if someone could come save me from this hole I accidentally dug, that would be swell.

 

[loGic21]

Apologies for the double post, but I've found a method that sorta works, now, thanks to jackalo. Here's a rough proof of concept to prove that a janky as fuck translation is now possible. The translation here is the literal minimum amount of effort, as I wasn't initially sure if this would work at all.

Spoiler: JaNKy S p A C i n G

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

But it works, for a given value of working. Not shown is the 15 minutes I spent, of which 5 was spent on the disgustingly quick-and-dirty translation of the page, while the other 10 was opening/closing the game window to make sure the spaces were both accepted as valid whitespace, while also not parsing as ' @', using a combination of regular english keyboard ' ' and the larger '　' ideographic spaces. For some reason it won't accept one or the other, it has to be some janky combination of both within a line to parse correctly. So... it works, but it's absolutely horrible, and if someone could come save me from this hole I accidentally dug, that would be swell.

Sounds like I asked the right person, if he gave you the idea for a functional method . But thanks again jackalo for taking the time to look into this.

Regarding your first attempt, it doesn't look that bad. I definitely seen way worse translations.

I wish I could help you out with that issue, but unfortunately I haven't the slightest clue.

 

[jackalo]

Ophanim I can take another look at it and hopefully point you in the right direction or give you some ideas again. would you mind dm'ing or posting the text file you translated along with the number of the line the translation starts in the text file so i can find it in my editor. If you don't have a way to find the number of the line it starts you can send me a short line of text I can use to ctrl+f it.

 

[Ophanim]

Okay, I also sent this to jackalo via dms, but this is in case anyone else familiar with coding is reading this and wants to chip in. I discovered something that's kinda a big problem for translating this game when it comes to the story entries. We can kinda do the encyclopedia entries now, even if it looks dreadful, but the stories are formatted in a completely different way.

*story_vanamaiden

cspl 1,800:print 10,500
bg black,1
wait 1000
textoff
textclear
bg "bg\mise2.png",10,1500
gosub *setwindow_01p
bgm"bgm\title.ogg"
lsp 700,":a;chara\misery_st01.png",0,0:print 10,500
name "Misery"
ヴァナメイデンに興味を示すなんて……@
……キミは恥ずかしいマゾなのね。\
でも、ヴァナメイデンはお勧めできないわよ。@
あれは自慰器具じゃなくて、処刑器具なのだから……\
そうねぇ、少しばかり話をしてあげるわ。@
ダークエルフに捕らわれた罪人の、無惨な最期のお話よ……\

Here's a snippet of the first story entry in the 11.txt file (lines 4093 onwards for those wanting to investigate). Afaik the opening segments are commands of some kind to cause the 'Misery' character image to show, etc. The only problem is, when you translate the bottom Japanese segments into English, the game engine reads it as a command to the game engine, and not text to be printed to the dialogue window. Naturally, if I were to change the first line to 'To ask about the Vana Maiden...', the game will crash as 'To' is not a recognized command.

Anyone with coding skill want to have a crack at this? I need the bottom six lines to print to, I suppose, 'window_01p' without being read as commands to the game engine.

Edit: I'm really stupid, and didn't think to try opening every sentence with an ideographic space, which causes it to parse the sentence just fine apparently. This was a false alarm. Translation of first story entry is a go.

 

[jackalo]

Ophanim looks like you found a solution right before I figured some stuff out. if the ideological space method works for you that's fine. here is some further information on the programming language if needed.

*demo_op1

cspl 1,800:print 1
bg black,1
textoff
textclear
bg "bg\mise2.png",10,1500
gosub *setwindow_01p
name "Chadwick"
>you suck fat cock…… \
name ""
>bob has good borglars but... @
>chicken soup sucks. \
友達の間で、この店の事は噂になっていた。@
町の片隅に、いやらしい触手生物ばかりを扱った店があるという。\
ここで売っている生物は、精液を餌にするものばかり。@
その生物はみな、触手で性器を刺激してくれるという。\
性に目覚め始める年頃の少年達が、興味を持たないはずがない。@
意を決した少年は、期待を胸にその店を訪れたのだった――\
name "少年"

here is a snippet i took from 01.txt starting at line 1058

I did a little research and found some games with similar programming commands used in this game. Basically the command used to indicate when a "name" is talking for english keywords is the right arrow character ">". i'll break it down below by character meanings in the game engine they use.

> - means that the name is saying whatever is after this arrow.
@ - means that this is the end of line of text but when the player clicks the next line of text will display.
\ - means that this is the end of the line of text and box of text. when the player clicks it will start a new text box.

important notes, when using the arrow(>) method with @ and \ you should put a normal space between the end of the line and the special character like shown above. One of them doesn't require the space but you may as well do it for both.

the spacing i'm not sure about, will look into that maybe monday. good luck!

 

[Zewalx]

Hey guys, do you have some news about the translation ?

 

[loGic21]

Ophanim
I hope I'm not gonna rush you by asking if you have been able to make some progress with the translation. Since a month has passed, it would be great to get an update on the situation.

 

[Ophanim]

Ophanim
I hope I'm not gonna rush you by asking if you have been able to make some progress with the translation. Since a month has passed, it would be great to get an update on the situation.

Hey, yeah, I went to visit relatives for a while and didn't get a huge amount done while I was out there. I've tried to see if I could get in contact with Roguetranslator, but didn't get a reply. Dude's been MIA for years tbf. Basically, unless I can work out how to fix the spacing issue, which I've been lead to believe is actually a locale problem, I won't be able to do this. I was going to try unpacking the game in Japanese locale, then edit the text files using notepad only (been using NP++, which might be a mistake), in Japanese locale, and see if the game accepts that. Otherwise, I'm sorry, but this one might be a no go. It literally won't accept '?' characters otherwise, and the spacing issue is pretty unacceptable regardless.

MGQ uses the same engine, and under modding documents for that, it seems to accept question marks and spacing just fine in the same format. I just... tbh, I don't understand what's wrong, and it's frustrating as hell. Barring technical issues, I could probably have been done with this game by now :/

Anyway, yeah, sorry for disappearing like that.

 

[loGic21]

Hey, yeah, I went to visit relatives for a while and didn't get a huge amount done while I was out there. I've tried to see if I could get in contact with Roguetranslator, but didn't get a reply. Dude's been MIA for years tbf. Basically, unless I can work out how to fix the spacing issue, which I've been lead to believe is actually a locale problem, I won't be able to do this. I was going to try unpacking the game in Japanese locale, then edit the text files using notepad only (been using NP++, which might be a mistake), in Japanese locale, and see if the game accepts that. Otherwise, I'm sorry, but this one might be a no go. It literally won't accept '?' characters otherwise, and the spacing issue is pretty unacceptable regardless.

MGQ uses the same engine, and under modding documents for that, it seems to accept question marks and spacing just fine in the same format. I just... tbh, I don't understand what's wrong, and it's frustrating as hell. Barring technical issues, I could probably have been done with this game by now :/

Anyway, yeah, sorry for disappearing like that.

Hey, no problem! At least you tried something, guess this title is doomed to stay untranslated (I hope I'm wrong though), if the coding is so specific that only so few can work with it.

There is also nothing new from jackalo?

 

[jackalo]

Hey, no problem! At least you tried something, guess this title is doomed to stay untranslated (I hope I'm wrong though), if the coding is so specific that only so few can work with it.

There is also nothing new from jackalo?

my post above from sept 26th solves the spacing issue, you just have to do a bit more writing than simply replacing the japanese text. using a right arrow ">" at the start of a dialog line seems to make the compiler/app use english encoding for the text so there wouldn't be any spacing issues.

edit: didn't notice the last line of that post. i'm pretty sure that solved the spacing issue. i might try it in my free time to see.

 

[bwardyunbip]

any progress?

 

[Succubus Hunter]

Is this game any closer to getting a translation?

 

[loGic21]

Is this game any closer to getting a translation?

Unfortunately, I think the last attempt hit a brick wall, at least it sounded that way. According to Ophanim the coding is too specific, that just so few people are able to work with it. And I don't know if he's still trying out jackalo's hint, or gave up on it for the time being.

Btw., you seem to show up in every thread that I follow and that are quite a few, even on hemdom blog, nice taste.

 

[Nayko93]

I think it's more likely to have a portage on a other engine , than a translation