Translating the Subtitles ...

[ShinyChen]

So....Any ideas of  translating into CHINESE?
I'm a Chinese fan of this game.. Mmmmm...So do many of my friends

know that translating into Chinese is no easy work...but I'm still a bad programmer X(
don't know anything about programming!

[Drizzit]

It seems to me that the devs like the jukebox mod better than a translated version of aquaria. 
I'd really like to translate the subtitles but where can I find them?

[Kalgon]

Volunteer for a french translation ! (But not until I finished the game  )

[Dolphin's Cry]

It seems to me that the devs like the jukebox mod better than a translated version of aquaria. 

Don't panic! I think they are just going for a little instant gratification by supporting my mod.

Seriously though, the jukebox mod is trivial compared to translating the in-game texts. I mean not only the translation part itself, but making it possible to replace those texts. Just give them some time.

[Terry]

Heh, want an Irish translation? At least you won't need any new characters.

Unless you wanna get techincal and use Uncial...

[ulix]

If somebody would translate the game into German you wouldn't really need the "Umlaute" (ä, ö, ü), because you can substitute them by using vowel & e (ae, oe, ue). Also you could use double s (ss) instead of the sharp s (ß). It wouldn't be pretty, and propably some German natives would stumble upon these compromises, but it would work nonetheless.

[Terry]

This could just be one of those things my crazy German teacher said, but didn't the German government offically outlaw ß or something? 

[Dolphin's Cry]

Terry: No, there has only been a reform in Germany that changed ß in some cases to ss. Now if you look at Switzerland, they indeed do not use ß.

[Alec]

Translations would be cool. (I think I've already said this before?)

The problem is that we only have a font system that supports the basic characters.

So that would have to be rewritten.

Also, it would probably be best to build a language selector interface into the options screen. (or something)

So that would require a new framework, etc.

I'd rather fix the major bugs in the game first than start working on that stuff now.

I can't do 500 things at once, I have to prioritize them.

[ulix]

This could just be one of those things my crazy German teacher said, but didn't the German government offically outlaw ß or something? 

Only in some cases

The rule goes (more or less) as follows:
If the vowel preceding the ß (in old writing) is pronounced (!) short, then "ß" will be replaced by double "s". For example "daß" becomes "dass".
If the vowel is pronounced long on the other hand the "ß" remains. For example "Spaß" remains the same. For a native speaker the rule isn't that difficult.
 

[Vampyre]

For a native speaker

Yes indeed... For me it sounds really hard... German is only the fourth language I've learned... And this rule sounds quite hard... I still have to think about the declinations lol... (no, I don't care about the declinations, I just talk, and people try to understand me...)

[Alphasoldier]

Also to note that the Aquarian text in the game is still english, unless you want to change those too.

[Link89]

The problem is that we only have a font system that supports the basic characters.

No problem for italian. à = a', è = e', ù = u'

[Crizzle]

Well once all the other stuff is fixed a multilingual version could be developed. I could provide Polish translations since I'm fairly fluent...and if anything I could just ask my parents since they're native speakers.

[southwolf]

Well, then, how about Chinese...   
I'm wondering if Bit-Blot will release documents exlpaining their data files' structure...
 As for built-in fonts... I don't think it that hard...(I've made several  TrueType and bitmap fonts before...)