megadev-localization

Megadev localization

Start with the game's existing catalogs, languages, fonts and renderer. Preserve its creative direction. Language Lab's harbor desk, portrait, colors, font, controls and wording illustrate techniques; they are not defaults for a game.

• Read Catalogs and encoding for message/language IDs,

UTF-8 authoring, normalization, substitutions, plurals and fallback.

• Read Fonts and memory for native accents, atlas/glyph

budgets and the additional Main RAM cost of resident Mega CD resources.

• Read Layout and validation for translated expansion,

paging, name/number limits, atomic language changes and evidence boundaries.

Megadev exposes VDP and BIOS facilities, not a Unicode decoder or localization framework. Inspect the selected ewrogers/megadev:latest source before using an API. Do not copy SGDK text/resource functions or assume BIOS printing performs UTF-8 decoding, shaping, glyph fallback or wrapping.

Essential contracts:

• Separate stable message keys from translated prose and game logic. Make locale

identifiers explicit; validate unknown preferences before indexing catalogs.

• Validate the required character repertoire before export. Normalize authoring

consistently, count glyphs/advances rather than UTF-8 bytes and reject missing glyphs. Never silently strip accents or turn unsupported text into random tiles.

• Substitute bounded named values into whole translated messages. Check that

locales agree on placeholders; never use translated text as a printf format. Use explicit language-appropriate plural rules, not English word fragments.

• Budget source/catalog bytes, Main RAM residency, temporary layout storage,

font patterns, tilemaps, palettes and transfers separately. Disc capacity does not make fonts free in Main RAM or VRAM.

• Validate every real text box with the longest supported names, quantities and

variants. Include choices, tooltips, name-entry keys and error messages. A renderer that clips silently is not a translated-layout validator.

• Reuse the existing renderer/input/clock owners. Keep old fonts/text alive until

their page or bank is retired; publish a language change only when its complete layout and matching glyph resources are ready. Clear stale longer text.

Language Lab is a standalone four-locale Latin example. Its offline compiler, native glyph patterns, portable model and safe page publisher work after installation without another skill. The lc_* and ui_* helpers are application code, not SDK APIs or a universal Unicode engine.

Use megadev-ui for general presentation/navigation, megadev-dialogue for conversation progression, megadev-assets for asset preparation, megadev-streaming/megadev-memory for bank lifetimes and megadev-save for versioned preferences. Localization supplies text/repertoire/layout contracts without creating rival drive, input, DMA, save or audio services.