Pilie Pals - Russian localization and language mods

This week I've integrated my bitmap font generation system into Pilie Pals. This enabled support for bitmap fonts in multiple languages, and I began translating the game to Russian.

Today I've pushed a new update to Steam, which adds official Russian localization to Pilie Pals!

The language can be selected in Steam properties before launching the game.

In Russian — Пайли!

The text translations are now stored in external files in the game's directory. They are accompanied by the actual font files, as well as style descriptor files, which are used for mapping fonts to languages and listing all of the required glyphs.

Now it is also possible to create unofficial localization mods.

The game's folder now contains a README file, which includes these instructions for adding a new language to the game:

• Duplicate the files "en.txt" and "en.styles", rename them to use a different language code instead of "en".
• The ".styles" file of the new language must be modified to include all of the glyphs required by the new language. A font file supporting this language must be provided. Font files are stored in the game's "fonts" directory.
• The ".txt" file is where all the translations are stored. Modify the file and translate everything to the new language.
• The game's executable must be launched with "-langCODE" argument (you can create a shortcut for it), where CODE must be replaced with the new language code. For example, to launch the game in Russian (language code "ru"), use the argument "-langru".

I hope this approach is convenient enough.

For officially supported languages, the game will automatically detect the user's preferred language using the Steamworks API. For any potential custom localization mods, players can create custom shortcuts for launching the game in a specific language.