Translating the game

Every word the menus show comes from one table per language in motif/lang/ next to the themes: en.toml is the English source, the other files translate it key by key. The game ships English, Brazilian Portuguese (pt-BR), Spanish (es), French (fr), Italian (it), German (de), Polish (pl), Turkish (tr), Indonesian (id), Filipino (fil) and Japanese (ja). OPTIONS → INTERFACE → LANGUAGE picks one; AUTO follows the operating system ([interface] lang).

The files

A language file is plain TOML: one [section] per screen ([title], [select], [online], [options], …) and [common] for the words several screens share. Each key is a stable id; the value is the text.

[title]
press_to_try = "PRESS ▶ TO TRY"

[select]
pn_fighter_i_of_n = "P{p} : FIGHTER {i} OF {n}"

[common]
back = "BACK"

• Keys never change. A translation file carries the same keys as en.toml; a key it lacks reads in English, so a half-done file is still usable.
• {name} placeholders are filled by the game ({p}, {i} and {n} above). Keep every one of them, in whatever order the sentence needs.
• Capitals follow the English. A key whose English value is written in capitals ("BACK") is drawn in capitals in every language, whatever case the translation uses: write "Retour" or "RETOUR", both show as RETOUR. Keys written in sentence case (help lines) show as written. Japanese has no case and is never changed.
• Themes refer to a key as text = "@common.back" in their screen TOML, the engine as t("common.back"); a @key with a key nobody defines shows the key itself, which is how a typo looks.

Adding or fixing a language

1. Copy motif/lang/en.toml to motif/lang/<code>.toml (eo.toml, say), or open the shipped file you want to improve. In a portable install motif/ is next to the game; a system package keeps it in /usr/share/rugen/motif/.
2. Translate the values, key by key. Leave fighter and mode names the docs keep in English (ARCADE, RANKED, CPU …) if your community uses them; the shipped translations follow the docs of their language.
3. Set [interface] lang = "<code>" in rugen.toml (the picker lists the shipped languages; any file name works from the config).
4. Start the game, or keep it running: motif/lang/ is watched, and saving a file redraws the open screens with the new text. Too long a line for its slab or button is the usual problem: shorten it, or check the other theme (Dojo and Shonen Ink size their rows differently).

Every language file is checked by the engine’s tests: every key of en.toml present, the same {placeholders}, no empty value. python3 scripts/i18n-strings.py check in the repository runs the same check from the command line, and list prints every string the sources still hold in English.

Sending a translation

Open a pull request on the engine repository with the file, or attach it to an issue. Say which screens you checked in both themes; a screenshot of anything that overflows helps. The strings move with the game: a new version adds keys to en.toml, and the tests list the ones each language is missing.