Blake's 7 feedback and review thread

Want to talks about games you like, would like to see developed on the Oric, it's here.
ThomH
Flying Officer
Posts: 238
Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2016 9:55 pm

Re: Blake's 7 feedback and review thread

Post by ThomH »

I have only just started playing it, so can offer only the most trivial feedback: the CRCs in your disk image are incorrect. Probably for the same reason as discussed here — older copies of Floppy Builder output the incorrect values, most emulators don't check and PC-based image copying programs can't respect the in-DSK CRCs.

A fixed DSK image is attached, created using this tool.
Attachments
B7en-1.1.dsk.zip
(211.76 KiB) Downloaded 502 times
User avatar
Chema
Game master
Posts: 3013
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2006 10:55 am
Location: Gijón, SPAIN
Contact:

Re: Blake's 7 feedback and review thread

Post by Chema »

Hi ThomH! I'm glad to read you have tested my game. This CRC bug is something related to FloppyBuilder, so ir is Dbug who should fix it :roll:

I am currently workin on a new release with improved disk management and Jasmin support, so it could be built with a new version of FloppyBuilder which corrects this problem.

Thanks for reporting. Cumulus and emulators do not report anything and I use writedsk to create the physical floppy which writes correct CRCs. That's why it was undetected.
User avatar
Dbug
Site Admin
Posts: 4437
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2006 10:00 pm
Location: Oslo, Norway
Contact:

Re: Blake's 7 feedback and review thread

Post by Dbug »

Star42
Private
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Jan 16, 2014 1:22 am

Re: Blake's 7 feedback and review thread

Post by Star42 »

hep les frenchies, vous avez prévu une petite traduction en français?
Merci beaucoup :wink:
User avatar
Dbug
Site Admin
Posts: 4437
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2006 10:00 pm
Location: Oslo, Norway
Contact:

Re: Blake's 7 feedback and review thread

Post by Dbug »

Star42 wrote: Sat Nov 25, 2017 11:04 pm hep les frenchies, vous avez prévu une petite traduction en français?
Merci beaucoup :wink:
On en a discuté avec Chema, mais c'est loin d'être trivial: C'est pas un jeu moderne avec toutes les lignes proprement dans un fichier a part et facile a traduire... c'est directement dans le code source.
Techniquement générer une version francaise n'est pas difficile en soit, il suffit juste de rajouter une nouvelle version et recompiler, mais pour ca il faudrait qu'un Francais qui a le temps (:wink:) rajoute les textes francais et valide que ca passe bien dans le jeu, que ca tient a l'ecran, que ca passe en memoire, etc...
User avatar
coco.oric
Squad Leader
Posts: 720
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:50 am
Location: North of France
Contact:

Re: Blake's 7 feedback and review thread

Post by coco.oric »

vu, je vais l'attaquer.
c'est mieux ou ?
dans un git ou dans le miniserve pour se mettre à plusieurs à traduire les textes et conserver la maitrise des modifications (risque d'alteration du code) ?
coco.oric as DidierV, CEO Member
Historic owner of Oric, Apple II, Atari ST, Amiga
User avatar
Dbug
Site Admin
Posts: 4437
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2006 10:00 pm
Location: Oslo, Norway
Contact:

Re: Blake's 7 feedback and review thread

Post by Dbug »

Chema: It looks like we have some volunteers for making a French version of Blake's 7.
I guess we want to still be able to generate new (patched) versions of the game in English and Spanish, so ideally French should be an additional third target.

Could you give them some guidelines on how to do that? Possibly add to the SVN depot some "how to" explaining what to change, how to build, what to test for, etc...?
User avatar
Chema
Game master
Posts: 3013
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2006 10:55 am
Location: Gijón, SPAIN
Contact:

Re: Blake's 7 feedback and review thread

Post by Chema »

That is excellent news! Unfortunately it is not as easy as just 'translate text'. I'll have to tweak my compiler to support any extra characters (such as ç and map them to the game charset, probably creating new symbols.

It would be a good start trying to figure out which symbols will be needed and where in the charset they can be put. The character set is in the repository http://miniserve.defence-force.org/svn/ ... rces/data/

There is not much room left!

There are other things to take into account.

1- First the list of verbs (actions) as they should appear in French. Unfortunately the command location cannot be changed, and the translation must not occupy more columns in total than the original English version.

2- All text in the game (except for a few exceptions) are enclosed in the resources (*.os files in the script folder). Language support is easily done with pre-processor directives. Look at this example:

Code: Select all

// Stringpack with the introduction sentences
stringpack 200{
#ifdef ENGLISH
	"I have a meeting with Ravella.";
	"She has some information...";
#endif
#ifdef SPANISH
	"Tengo una cita con Ravella.";
	"Dice que tiene información...";
#endif
}
Translation is a matter of adding a FRENCH section, this way:

Code: Select all

#ifdef FRENCH
       "bla bla bla.";
       "bla bla bla.";
#endif

The language used is changed in the language.h file, so issuing a #define FRENCH and commenting out the other options would create a French version of the game.

3- Other files also contain text, such as the object properties (names) in files obj_blake.s obj_ep1.s and obj_ep2.s in the resources folder, and in all the room resources, where all the objects in the room are defined. Maybe looking for all files containing #ifdef ENGLISH would be a nice idea to have a full list of where to look.

4- Formatting is a bit cumbersome. Text is not cut by the engine to make it fit in the upper line: this is hardcoded in the strings. That means they cannot exceed 39 characters. Some texts have codes (colors) and extra spaces, and it is necessary to respect them. Also strings are identified by entry number, so, although text can be altered, the number of strings for a message must be preserved. For example, imagine a description spoken in three different sentences. A translation may want to use only two, or maybe, need four. That cannot be done.

5- I can't remember now if I am using ANSI or UTF-8 for the text encoding, but in any case that format must be respected, as the compiler is not able to auto detect it... yeah, lazy me :)

So, if anybody wants to try, first the additional needed characters, then the verbs (verbs, other additional strings, prepositions, etc are stored here http://miniserve.defence-force.org/svn/ ... s/tables.s but I'd swear there were other strings around the sources...), then get the resource files (mainly the *.os scripts) and start adding translations one by one... and there are A LOT of them.

It is not an easy work. I did it for the Spanish version and it was tiresome indeed!
User avatar
coco.oric
Squad Leader
Posts: 720
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:50 am
Location: North of France
Contact:

Re: Blake's 7 feedback and review thread

Post by coco.oric »

fine, i've tried the svn tool.
Unfortunately, it seems that i've not succeeded in using it (or i've put a wrong password :))

I think i've not used it correctly, and i'm not very confortable with git/svn tools
1/ i duplicated the blakes7 directory
2/ i've modified a file (and viewed the amount of work to do !)
3/ trying upload

Other solution, do i have to create a repo on my hd ?

Due to the huge amount of word, i think i'll finish my oric ceo tasks of the month before (and i have an adaptation to finish too)
coco.oric as DidierV, CEO Member
Historic owner of Oric, Apple II, Atari ST, Amiga
User avatar
Dbug
Site Admin
Posts: 4437
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2006 10:00 pm
Location: Oslo, Norway
Contact:

Re: Blake's 7 feedback and review thread

Post by Dbug »

coco.oric wrote: Tue Nov 28, 2017 6:30 am fine, i've tried the svn tool.
Unfortunately, it seems that i've not succeeded in using it (or i've put a wrong password :))
You don't need a password to get read access, fetching files, looking at logs, etc... but you do indeed need a password to do any changes to the system.
As far as my records go, you do have a password for the svn server, I'll send it on private message.
coco.oric wrote: Tue Nov 28, 2017 6:30 am 1/ i duplicated the blakes7 directory
2/ i've modified a file (and viewed the amount of work to do !)
3/ trying upload
NONONONO, no duplication of directory, the github model of "fork and modify" is not to be used here: Each relevant thing should be present only once, I don't want personal copies of the various projects just for the sake of making changes.

The whole point of a revision control system is to be able to go back to any particular revision back in time

In theory, all you need to do is to a SVN Checkout of "http://miniserve.defence-force.org/svn", that will get you the entire depot, but it's not that large (possibly a few hundred megabytes), and as a benefit you get to become a backup copy of all the source code hosted on Defence Force, including all of Chema's games, the entire OSDK source code, the Viking Chess game, etc...

After that it's just a matter of editing files, saving them, testing that it works, then commit the changes so everybody can see them.

You can select any file or folder, and select "Show log" to see the list of all changes.

And in some cases, if two persons work on the same file, the file will be marked as "dirty", and before committing the file will have to be "resolved" which means seing the two versions of the file, and making sure your changes are compatible with the other person's change, (it's called "resolving the differences"), and then you can save.

If you really want, you can make a local copy of the project, but don't upload it, we only want the master Blake's 7 repository to have all the languages and all the changes and all the bug fixes.

Thanks!
User avatar
coco.oric
Squad Leader
Posts: 720
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:50 am
Location: North of France
Contact:

Re: Blake's 7 feedback and review thread

Post by coco.oric »

done !
314 mo ... and i've changed one file :)

but french sentences are often longer than english ones.
coco.oric as DidierV, CEO Member
Historic owner of Oric, Apple II, Atari ST, Amiga
User avatar
Chema
Game master
Posts: 3013
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2006 10:55 am
Location: Gijón, SPAIN
Contact:

Re: Blake's 7 feedback and review thread

Post by Chema »

The sentence length is indeed a problem. Remember you have to figure out how to make each sentence less than 39 chars and, in addition, keep the number of sentences constant, as they are referred by their entry number.

I still think the first thing would be deciding the extra characters that are needed, if any, because I'm afraid ther won't be enough room for all!
User avatar
Dbug
Site Admin
Posts: 4437
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2006 10:00 pm
Location: Oslo, Norway
Contact:

Re: Blake's 7 feedback and review thread

Post by Dbug »

Chema wrote: Tue Nov 28, 2017 11:25 pm I still think the first thing would be deciding the extra characters that are needed, if any, because I'm afraid ther won't be enough room for all!
I assume we can have a different font for each language, so we can have all the extra characters for french?
As far as I remember, most of the French games used "{" and "}" respectively for "é" and "è", "@" was often used for "à", "(c)" for "ç", and mostly no game used the "ù", the "ô" or the "ë".
I guess "£", "$" and "|" could be used for the remaining characters, like "ê",

I don't really think it's a problem really, specially considering we pretty much never put any accents on upper case letters anyway.
User avatar
Chema
Game master
Posts: 3013
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2006 10:55 am
Location: Gijón, SPAIN
Contact:

Re: Blake's 7 feedback and review thread

Post by Chema »

I'd have to check, because I think I am not using al the symbols in my font. Certainly I use Spanish accents and there are some extra chars which could be unused in the final game, but not all the usual characters are there.
User avatar
coco.oric
Squad Leader
Posts: 720
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:50 am
Location: North of France
Contact:

Re: Blake's 7 feedback and review thread

Post by coco.oric »

First tasks :
- copying #fdefine ENGLISH in #define FRENCH blocks so it will be possible to compile a FRENCH disk (in english)
- traduce english text (without changing fonts)
- change fonts if necessary

:)

First step is on going.
coco.oric as DidierV, CEO Member
Historic owner of Oric, Apple II, Atari ST, Amiga
Post Reply