Tools and scripts

VASTT for translation
ffd.py plugin written for import/export to VASTT's native XML format
Subversion is used to manage and share the work

File format

Will document it here, I think zalas did that work

Translation

AstCd2 solo'd it

Editing

This is all furinkan's, performing grammer/spelling, as well as bubble positioning (see notes in the Game Engine section).

Game engine

Quartett! is unique in that it uses Littlewitch's Floating Frame Director engine. The game plays out much like a comic book, and the bubbles appear one after another in sequence. The FFD engine also allows a lot of flexibility in exactly how things are presented. The scripting language looks a bit like C++, but it literally works like a script. It's imperative and pretty easy to follow.

The scripting language has a limited set of basic functions, such as setting up bubbles/images/lines of text, then manipulating them. The most important aspect of this is the speech bubbles.

Bubbles are assigned width and height values, and placed on the canvas with (x,y) coordinates
The canvas is 800x600, with (0,0) in the top left corner
The bubble is anchored according to the logical top left of the bubble (most bubbles are rounded, so this is something of a guess)
Most bubbles will have a "tail" pointing towards the speaker
The direction is specified in degrees, starting from 0 degrees at (1,0) (ie. due east) if you imagine a unit-circle on the cartesian plane

XXX: insert an example sketch here to demonstrate how it works

Building translated files

furinkan wrote a few python scripts to handle this. They take the native VASTT files, coupled with the original binary script files, and produce a translated binary script file.

Testing the work

You'll have a batchfile that does all the hard work (if only windows had Make, sigh)

"Compile" the translated scripts according to a glob
Jam the scripts into an FFD archive
Copy the resulting file to the game directory