New writer here, how can I make my game with multiple languages options (long post sorry)?

Game Development Writing and Content
21

As a German try that if you want a difficult language.

I would never.

I picked up English (forgot all my French lessons) speak fluent Brazilian Portuguese, speak a little Bahasa Indonesia and Korean is on my list right now.
And I still can not write properly in German because the grammar is my archenemy

Also if you want to publish in french do it yourself there are quite a few games in french on itch

22

That’s only the *page_break “next” though, not the *choice “next”.

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23

I have a question similar to the one you asked. If I have to sell my game to Choice of games or Hosted games (more or less what happened with “The Passenger”) and I make a spanish version of said game, would hosted/choice of games own this version too? Or can I sell it normally and all the profit would go to me? Or do I have to give a share to Hosted/Choice of games?

24

My whole family speaks french, relatives and etc but for some reason even though I study it, I still seem not to be able to speak, I can read and listen but my english accent is too thick. :laughing:

25

I’m not lawyer, and I strongly suggest you seek the advice of one if you seriously consider this route. However a few things to take note:

  • CoG does not own your game. They have exclusive rights of distribution.
  • You can not use ChoiceScript commercially without a license from them. Doesn’t matter if it’s for a different language.
  • If I recall correctly, you sign a non-competing agreement. Meaning you can’t later convert the same game to twine (for example) and release it by other publisher or by yourself. I don’t know if the same game translated to another language is considered by this agreement.
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26

Like @cup_half_empty said, the ChoiceScript language is owned by CoG. Any profits made from it need to be shared with CoG under the terms of a CoG license. And if you published one game using Choicescript and then tried to publish the same game using a different coding language, it would fall afoul of the non-compete agreement. I doubt any lawyer would advise you that translating the game into a different language would make it a different game for these purposes.

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27

I’d like to point out that, in addition to pronoun-verb agreement coding that may not map easily to another language, games also often feature goto and gosub labels for efficiency that jump in the middle of dialogue or even mid-sentence, which might also map poorly to sentences with different structures.

If you still want to try it, I recommend writing the English version with the translation already in mind to hopefully avoid some headaches.

I’d recommend starting as small as possible, like one to three choice sets, then translating them and see what you learn about the process.

It’s true that you won’t be able to publish the translation through Hosted games, so be aware this may be a pet project that doesn’t offer any extra profit for you.

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28

Thanks everybody for the help and replies, I think I know what I’m going to do : I’ll just submit it in english :I and make a french version afterward for my friends and family that’ll stay private.

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29

Well, if you’re translating it anyway you might as well take your chance. I’m actually curious if CoG would ever publish a game in a different language and we’ll never know if no-one ever tries. :joy:

30

@cup_half_empty True…
But I didn’t even begin to code yet anyway so we’ll see :person_shrugging:

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31

Please ignore me if someone has already said this (I’m lazy and I skipped over the other answers lol) but if you play the game in, say, Microsoft Edge, it has an option to translate the text, so maybe you could use that? It would be easier than write the entire game again in other language.