Iron Lord by UBISoft

[zeropolis79]

As people would know, this was a French only game... (curses!) but Amstrad Action mentioned that mail order company Turbosoft had arranged with UBISoft to translate the game into English...

Did this go ahead and did anyone have it?

Now for my other question - could a disc sector editor be used to change the text from French into English?

Many thanks!

[pacomix]

Now for my other question - could a disc sector editor be used to change the text from French into English?

Many thanks!

It depends. If the sectors contains the text without any kind of compression or CRC check for each string to print there shouldn't be any problem to modify the content while preserving (in most of the cases) the original length of the strings.

[zeropolis79]

So it would be worth a try? I'd love to play it myself without referring to translated notes.

[TFM]

Using a disc monitor is for sure the tedious way. You can do it, but need to stay into the formatting parameters. And especially don't overwrite control codes.


Maybe somebody from France can get the source code?

[MacDeath]

Just write a letter to UBIsoft... they still exist today you know.

[Gryzor]

Oh great idea, I'll call their support tomorrow

(I'm sure that'd give the poor rep a crazy look )

[zeropolis79]

Just write a letter to UBIsoft... they still exist today you know.

Never knew that... better dictate a letter for my daughter Annabelle to write (she's fluent in French).

[MacDeath]

They actually have a modest website in english too you know...

Ubisoft

Sadly I failed to find their Amstrad CPC section...


Also :

(she's fluent in French).

So can't you just let her play ?

[zeropolis79]

She's too busy these days.. Next month, she has six exams to take - two of them A-Levels.. she's also designing my Dizzy book and designing her grandmother's book cover.

Also, why get her to play it for me?

[MacDeath]

She's too busy these days.. Next month, she has six exams to take - two of them A-Levels.. she's also designing my Dizzy book and designing her grandmother's book cover.

sound like child labour/exploitation...
just let her play it...
Or... get her to translate the game to you..

[TFM]

Or you translate it using a disc editor. Your French is great! 

[remax]

Or you translate it using a disc editor. Your French is great! 

A future MacDeath Vaporware (c) 

[zeropolis79]

sound like child labour/exploitation...
just let her play it...
Or... get her to translate the game to you..

She offered to do them! I'd get my niece to design the Dizzy book but she's too busy tattooing people.

The idea of using a disc editor is a long-shot. Hoping the text is stored in sectors that can be edited.

[Gryzor]

From what I see the text is there in plain sight, but this doesn't mean it'll be an easy job...

http://cpc-power.com/HexaDump.php?fiche=1178&slot=7&rang=0

[dlfrsilver]

I wanted to translate this game from french to english.

Problem : the texts are stored as graphics, and this game also seems to use compression.....

[MacDeath]

really, they don't use a font ?

[dlfrsilver]

Nope, they really didn't, otherwise you bet somebody would have tried to pass the game in english

Just to illustrate, just check the graphic dumps below :

[Puresox]

I wanted to translate this game from french to english.

Problem : the texts are stored as graphics, and this game also seems to use compression.....

You'd be very popular if you managed too.

[Gryzor]

Is it really in images? I guess not all of it because I saw plenty of text in the dump...

[MacDeath]

looks quite normal that the Mode1 cool logo is in graphics...

but the letters are somewhat as tiles, so as mode font as they use all 3-4 inks... not normal "mode2" fonts then converted.

I used winape and could find proper letters quite fast...
To find the way the "text data" are encoded/stored as text : may need to check when those letters are called/used then get back to the piece of code/data used, need to be quite a coder indeed.


Hey, when do we have Abadia del Crimen in French and English as well ?

Concerning ingame fonts, they are stored in "Mode2" as very often, and converted into 2bit per pixels as always done in Basic or speccy games.

[MacDeath]

While those datas may be compressed on the disk, on the RAM when program runs, it is still pretty typical use of a font : font are basically tiles, as CPC doesn't have text mode but only graphic mode, then some routine would read a text table and get those tiles to put on screen zone.

So You have to find the moment the game go get the letters in RAM, then go back in cycles to check where it takes the text datas, then you can know how it is done and where it is, may need to de-code and break/hack this text data thing... then check when game loads so you can know when and where it takes stuffs from disk into there. and so on...


yeah, the game uses 4 disks and 128K RAM I guess so it may be quite tricky indeed.

but hey, Rick dangerous, R-Type or DeathSword were done and patched this way... somewhat...


Please while at it, patch the game so it has Rasters and PLUS hardsprites... and some bits of graphics could use the CGA version graphics instead... oh wait...

[dlfrsilver]

Well, you're wrong here Mac. The fonts you showed is only used when the credits are rolling in the introduction, and never used afterwards.

The texts inside the game are purely graphics, and not tiled.

[MacDeath]

Then why could I see those 1bpp (mode2) fonts (see last picture posted) which seems to be the one used in game ?
Perhaps the game uses a buffer...

>> the "insert disk X" panels are in bitmap : mode1 and 18 bytes wide

Could find a whole village map in 80 byte width.

As the game is heavy on multiloading, they don't really try to gain space so many big buffers here and there, obviously.
And isn't the game a fully 128K RAM one ?

Game is really heavy heavy on multiloading.

could find the galloping horse window in mode1 & 10 bytes width, as well as mask also in Mode1 same width...
smaller horse animation in 6 byte width (and masks) for when you enter a village (little animation).

[Puresox]

Is the game as good as it looks?

[dlfrsilver]

Then why could I see those 1bpp (mode2) fonts (see last picture posted) which seems to be the one used in game ?
Perhaps the game uses a buffer...

You have a view on the overall RAM. The font you showed in only used in the introduction. The letters you see for the
chatting, buying & all are bitmap parts, untiled.

>> the "insert disk X" panels are in bitmap : mode1 and 18 bytes wide

Could find a whole village map in 80 byte width.

Yes that's not hard

As the game is heavy on multiloading, they don't really try to gain space so many big buffers here and there, obviously.
And isn't the game a fully 128K RAM one ?

You're wrong here too XD ! Iron Lord is only using 64kb of RAM, not 128k.

Game is really heavy heavy on multiloading.

Yes, but this doesn't mean anything

could find the galloping horse window in mode1 & 10 bytes width, as well as mask also in Mode1 same width...
smaller horse animation in 6 byte width (and masks) for when you enter a village (little animation).

Nice !