bistro recipe game english translation

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gamerfreak48(imported)
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Dec 08, 2014 8:02 am

Re: bistro recipe game english translation

Post by gamerfreak48(imported) »

ok i know their is a topic about this already but one its in the wrong part of these board and two no one did anything. I'm wanting someone to just translate this game to english i know its not that hard i mean i see these amazing hacks all the time for games like these.

Anyway here is a link to the other board i was talking about just in case you don't have a clue what i'm talking about : http://s15.zetaboards.com/Tulunk_Village/topic/515495/1/
RacieB
Posts: 871
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2006 4:27 am

Re: bistro recipe game english translation

Post by RacieB »

It isn't easy to translate games, where did you get that idea? I mean, look how long we've been working on Telefang, for example... Anyway, I know Demonlemon is a huge fan of Bistro Recipe, maybe he knows about if there are any English patch attempts.
gamerfreak48(imported)
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Dec 08, 2014 8:02 am

Re: bistro recipe game english translation

Post by gamerfreak48(imported) »

RacieB wrote:It isn't easy to translate games, where did you get that idea? I mean, look how long we've been working on Telefang, for example... Anyway, I know Demonlemon is a huge fan of Bistro Recipe, maybe he knows about if there are any English patch attempts.
well i figured it was easy because i see hacks all the time for pokemon but anyway thanks for leading me towards him i'll give him a message
Demonlemon(imported)
Posts: 58
Joined: Sat Dec 05, 2009 4:35 am

Re: bistro recipe game english translation

Post by Demonlemon(imported) »

Sadly no english patches, there was a guy that had it on a list of games he was going to translate back in 2009 but I havent heard anything about it since

There is probably lots of dialogue that is missed out on due to the language barrier, but truth be told the games can be beaten all the way through without understanding any of the text

at least the gbc ones, the wonderswan one has a literacy barrier pretty early on that stumped me

if you need some help figuring out the basic menu and gameplay stuff you could try my unfinished letsplay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7HQWZAtIWQ

oh also there's a type chart on the wiki that's pretty handy http://fightingfoodons.wikia.com/wiki/Types
found the translator guy after a bit of digging

http://www.destructoid.com/destructoid-interview-breath-of-fire-ii-translator-ryusui-132649.phtml and http://hg101.proboards.com/thread/9647
gamerfreak48(imported)
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Dec 08, 2014 8:02 am

Re: bistro recipe game english translation

Post by gamerfreak48(imported) »

Demonlemon wrote:Sadly no english patches, there was a guy that had it on a list of games he was going to translate back in 2009 but I havent heard anything about it since

There is probably lots of dialogue that is missed out on due to the language barrier, but truth be told the games can be beaten all the way through without understanding any of the text

at least the gbc ones, the wonderswan one has a literacy barrier pretty early on that stumped me

if you need some help figuring out the basic menu and gameplay stuff you could try my unfinished letsplay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7HQWZAtIWQ

oh also there's a type chart on the wiki that's pretty handy http://fightingfoodons.wikia.com/wiki/Types
found the translator guy after a bit of digging

http://www.destructoid.com/destructoid-interview-breath-of-fire-ii-translator-ryusui-132649.phtml and http://hg101.proboards.com/thread/9647
well bummer and i am checking out your unfinished lets play now also thanks for leading me towards the translate guy and lastly thank you for showing me Gourmet Sentai Bara Yarou
DaVince
Posts: 112
Joined: Sat Dec 28, 2013 8:10 am

Re: bistro recipe game english translation

Post by DaVince »

gamerfreak48 wrote:
RacieB wrote:It isn't easy to translate games, where did you get that idea? I mean, look how long we've been working on Telefang, for example... Anyway, I know Demonlemon is a huge fan of Bistro Recipe, maybe he knows about if there are any English patch attempts.
well i figured it was easy because i see hacks all the time for pokemon but anyway thanks for leading me towards him i'll give him a message
The thing with Pokemon is: the games have been completely figured out, from top to bottom, from back to front. And people have written tools to make replacing the text easy.

But that's just for each specific game. You get a different game, and things will work differently, and you'll have to dissect all that complex binary data from step 1.
Once there's a tool, anyone can do it. The major difficulty is what comes before a tool exists.

It's very difficult indeed, and requires at least one person who knows what they're doing.
gamerfreak48(imported)
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Dec 08, 2014 8:02 am

Re: bistro recipe game english translation

Post by gamerfreak48(imported) »

DaVince wrote:
gamerfreak48 wrote:
RacieB wrote:It isn't easy to translate games, where did you get that idea? I mean, look how long we've been working on Telefang, for example... Anyway, I know Demonlemon is a huge fan of Bistro Recipe, maybe he knows about if there are any English patch attempts.
well i figured it was easy because i see hacks all the time for pokemon but anyway thanks for leading me towards him i'll give him a message
The thing with Pokemon is: the games have been completely figured out, from top to bottom, from back to front. And people have written tools to make replacing the text easy.

But that's just for each specific game. You get a different game, and things will work differently, and you'll have to dissect all that complex binary data from step 1.
Once there's a tool, anyone can do it. The major difficulty is what comes before a tool exists.

It's very difficult indeed, and requires at least one person who knows what they're doing.
ah i see well then people need to spread further instead of just pokemon games i mean they already know everything about them like you sayed so they should branch out to more games
DaVince
Posts: 112
Joined: Sat Dec 28, 2013 8:10 am

Re: bistro recipe game english translation

Post by DaVince »

Long post incoming. If you want to learn about ROM hacking and translation, this is useful info though.

The thing is: each game works differently, and that's entirely expected. There's a LOT to trying to figure out game text. For example:
  • The type of text data that is stored - Pokemon has Pokemon names, items, TMs, moves, in-game text etc. etc. but a fighting game might have just character names and bios and lots of text embedded into graphics instead.
  • The position in the ROM where the text data is stored. If you have a menu system that reads items, you need to store that text somewhere in the ROM, and of course this is going to be different for each game because like the previous point states there are different kinds of data with different uses.
  • The way the text is stored. Text on computers is actually just numbers, interpreted to be text. There are rules to what number constitutes what character. This is called character encoding. For example, 'a' in the ASCII character encoding actually is stored as a number 97 in your binary data. Look at this ASCII table for more info on that. But anyway, the important thing is: text in games isn't always stored as the standard expected ASCII or UTF-8 encodings! Especially with older games they just use their own standard and you're going to have to figure out what number = what character.
  • Whether or not the text is encrypted. Encyption means you need to decrypt the text before you can even read it, but how do you even know what is text in a ROM when that encrypted data is hidden between all kinds of other game data? (Images, sounds etc. are all mixed inbetween the ROM.) Plus what is the decryption key? Add to that the fact that the character encoding might be unknown, and all above points, and it becomes difficult to figure the text out indeed.
  • Whether or not the text is packed. Maybe there's so much game text they decided to compress it - much like zip, but of course not actually zip but either a known compression algorithm or their own custom-coded compression algorithm. Adds to the complexity even more.
  • What character codes the game uses. In-game text uses special extra characters/codes that define things like "this text ends here", "color this text red", "make this font bold", "continue on a new line at this point", "this character represent the player's name", "this character represents his money" etc. etc. These special codes are usually stored within the text as yet another number - so besides numbers meaning text (like 'a' or 'N' or '4' or '!') you have numbers representing these arbitrary values or behavior instructions! And the thing is, you don't know that they do these things until you actually figure it out (by both looking at the original game text and experimenting with these codes).
  • When you replace text, your string of text is probably longer than the original text. That means all data that came after it is now bumped up a bunch of characters (aka bytes). (That data could be game code, text, images, basically any game resource.) And now if the game tries to look for something in a specific, known location in the ROM... that data is no longer at that location because you moved everything up a bunch of bytes. So the game probably crashes and/or does something unwanted. You need to know where the game stores or looks for these 'byte offsets' of the data it wants, and you'll want to correct it to the proper new values every time you replace some text with text of a different length. Or it simply won't work.
So yeah, the list goes on, I know all these things and yet I don't quite know how to actually hack a game and get/change its text. It's so much, you need knowledge of computers, programming, maths, algorithms, and being good at pattern recognition helps... It is QUITE a challenge. Some games are hacked more easily than others. Pokemon games are popular so of course a bunch of hackers and great minds managed to figure it all out. But not every game is popular or even all that well-known... like Bistro Recipe.

Too much text? Probably, huh? Well, ground-up hacking tutorials are all text too, so you might want to get used to that. =)

Also, have a really interesting video where someone does some basic hacking on a Zelda game. From the ground up. There is *some* text hacking, though I don't think he explains that part much. It's still interesting to see. Note that Zelda text is stored in a very simple way and it's already in English so that makes it much easier.

Finally, people simply hack the games they're fans of. Because it takes so much time and dedication, you don't want to get bored of the game in the middle of your effort.
gamerfreak48(imported)
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Dec 08, 2014 8:02 am

Re: bistro recipe game english translation

Post by gamerfreak48(imported) »

DaVince wrote:Long post incoming. If you want to learn about ROM hacking and translation, this is useful info though.

The thing is: each game works differently, and that's entirely expected. There's a LOT to trying to figure out game text. For example:
  • The type of text data that is stored - Pokemon has Pokemon names, items, TMs, moves, in-game text etc. etc. but a fighting game might have just character names and bios and lots of text embedded into graphics instead.
  • The position in the ROM where the text data is stored. If you have a menu system that reads items, you need to store that text somewhere in the ROM, and of course this is going to be different for each game because like the previous point states there are different kinds of data with different uses.
  • The way the text is stored. Text on computers is actually just numbers, interpreted to be text. There are rules to what number constitutes what character. This is called character encoding. For example, 'a' in the ASCII character encoding actually is stored as a number 97 in your binary data. Look at this ASCII table for more info on that. But anyway, the important thing is: text in games isn't always stored as the standard expected ASCII or UTF-8 encodings! Especially with older games they just use their own standard and you're going to have to figure out what number = what character.
  • Whether or not the text is encrypted. Encyption means you need to decrypt the text before you can even read it, but how do you even know what is text in a ROM when that encrypted data is hidden between all kinds of other game data? (Images, sounds etc. are all mixed inbetween the ROM.) Plus what is the decryption key? Add to that the fact that the character encoding might be unknown, and all above points, and it becomes difficult to figure the text out indeed.
  • Whether or not the text is packed. Maybe there's so much game text they decided to compress it - much like zip, but of course not actually zip but either a known compression algorithm or their own custom-coded compression algorithm. Adds to the complexity even more.
  • What character codes the game uses. In-game text uses special extra characters/codes that define things like "this text ends here", "color this text red", "make this font bold", "continue on a new line at this point", "this character represent the player's name", "this character represents his money" etc. etc. These special codes are usually stored within the text as yet another number - so besides numbers meaning text (like 'a' or 'N' or '4' or '!') you have numbers representing these arbitrary values or behavior instructions! And the thing is, you don't know that they do these things until you actually figure it out (by both looking at the original game text and experimenting with these codes).
  • When you replace text, your string of text is probably longer than the original text. That means all data that came after it is now bumped up a bunch of characters (aka bytes). (That data could be game code, text, images, basically any game resource.) And now if the game tries to look for something in a specific, known location in the ROM... that data is no longer at that location because you moved everything up a bunch of bytes. So the game probably crashes and/or does something unwanted. You need to know where the game stores or looks for these 'byte offsets' of the data it wants, and you'll want to correct it to the proper new values every time you replace some text with text of a different length. Or it simply won't work.
So yeah, the list goes on, I know all these things and yet I don't quite know how to actually hack a game and get/change its text. It's so much, you need knowledge of computers, programming, maths, algorithms, and being good at pattern recognition helps... It is QUITE a challenge. Some games are hacked more easily than others. Pokemon games are popular so of course a bunch of hackers and great minds managed to figure it all out. But not every game is popular or even all that well-known... like Bistro Recipe.

Too much text? Probably, huh? Well, ground-up hacking tutorials are all text too, so you might want to get used to that. =)

Also, have a really interesting video where someone does some basic hacking on a Zelda game. From the ground up. There is *some* text hacking, though I don't think he explains that part much. It's still interesting to see. Note that Zelda text is stored in a very simple way and it's already in English so that makes it much easier.

Finally, people simply hack the games they're fans of. Because it takes so much time and dedication, you don't want to get bored of the game in the middle of your effort.
wow ok and i could look at that video and try to start hacking roms i like myself but i would ether mess up alot or get really confused/stumped at it but don't get me wrong i love the game i would be working on
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Imaynotbehere4long
Posts: 74
Joined: Wed Dec 18, 2013 12:07 pm

Re: bistro recipe game english translation

Post by Imaynotbehere4long »

Just came to say that I support an English translation of the Fighting Foodons video games. I remember reading, in the other thread, that the Foodons' names are very punny, so if you (or whoever you convince to make the English patch) manage to find out how to hack the text but are having trouble translating the names, you could always use the localized names from the English dub of the animated show (though it has been a long time since I watched that show and I doubt they have all the Foodons make an appearance).
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