Full localization support added, 11 total languages now supported (v1.33.0.0)
A big new update has been released for BlastZone 2! (v1.33.0.0) This update completely reworks all text displays in the game to support localization. Alongside this update, 10 translations are being added to the game, bringing the total to 11. Localization support has been a highly requested feature for a while now, and this will make the game accessible to a much greater audience. It was a huge undertaking to upgrade the underlying engine to support this, as well as all the translation work for each language.
The languages released so far include English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Polish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Russian. More may be released in the future on request. Also, please let me know if errors are found in any of the translations and they will be promptly corrected. A lot of time went into checking over each translation, but it’s possible a few errors got through anyway.
The localization system uses a new discrete language data file that can be updated separately from the main game binary. Translation corrections can be done, and entirely new languages can be added to the game just by updating this file. Updates of this nature can be quickly released, without having to wait for a new stable binary update.
The text rendering system has also been upgraded to support thousands of new characters, including accented characters from European languages, as well as characters from East Asian languages, such as Japanese, or Korean. Previous versions of the game only supported the 128 baseline ASCII character set, which only supported the English language.
Here are the full release notes for v1.33.0.0:
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.33.0.0” or higher. Enjoy!
The languages released so far include English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Polish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Russian. More may be released in the future on request. Also, please let me know if errors are found in any of the translations and they will be promptly corrected. A lot of time went into checking over each translation, but it’s possible a few errors got through anyway.
The localization system uses a new discrete language data file that can be updated separately from the main game binary. Translation corrections can be done, and entirely new languages can be added to the game just by updating this file. Updates of this nature can be quickly released, without having to wait for a new stable binary update.
The text rendering system has also been upgraded to support thousands of new characters, including accented characters from European languages, as well as characters from East Asian languages, such as Japanese, or Korean. Previous versions of the game only supported the 128 baseline ASCII character set, which only supported the English language.
Here are the full release notes for v1.33.0.0:
- Added localization support for all text in the game
-Reworked all text displays in the game to support dynamic replacement based on the selected language
-Automatically detects the default Steam language to work as the "Default" language setting in-game
-Additional languages can be added in the future by updating data files without updating the main game executable
-Translation errors can be quickly corrected without waiting for the next stable binary release - Upgraded the FreeType text rendering system to support UTF-8 character sets
-Previous versions only supported the 128 character baseline ASCII character set for text
-Now, up to 65536 unique characters are supported
-This enables compatibility with translations to numerous other languages - Now supports 11 total languages
-Current list of languages:
--English
--Spanish
--French
--Italian
--German
--Portuguese
--Polish
--Japanese
--Korean
--Chinese
--Russian
-Users with any of these languages set as their system language will automatically have the localization setting adjusted accordingly
-Other users who wish to use any of these translations can change it from the options menu, or the external configuration program - Made numerous adjustments around the game for text positioning, sizing, and menu dimensions to fit several potential localizations
-This includes centering the menu items for several menus and using two menu selector arrows, one on each side - Greatly improved VRAM usage efficiency for the text rendering system to counteract higher memory requirements for supporting more languages
-Reduces text VRAM usage when using the English language by about 25%
-Adding support for accented characters for western European translations only adds about 50% more memory usage for the text system
--This equates to about 2mb more VRAM
--Without this optimization, supporting these new characters would double text system VRAM usage (8mb total)
-This saves hundreds of megabytes of VRAM when East Asian languages are used
-This consists of 3 main optimizations
--All non-visible glyphs are no longer loaded into VRAM at startup
--Only glyphs that exist in the loaded TTF file are loaded into VRAM
--Extended characters are dynamically streamed as they are used, instead of being loaded at startup
---This ensures only glyphs for the current language are loaded - Improved performance of all text rendering
-Up to a 10% rendering performance boost for text
-This raises overall performance by about 1%
-This was done by eliminating draw calls for all space ' ' characters - Made a few HUD text adjustments when running the English language
-Changed the "XX Left" enemy counter to "XX Remaining"
-Changed "x mult" to "x multiplier" - Made several adjustments to the English language text around the game
-This includes descriptions, dialog text, etc - Greatly improved background particle spawning performance
-Has the greatest effect when spawning many background particles per frame (>100)
-Internal testing shows over a 10x performance improvement in the background particle creation process in some situations
-Background particles are very rare in this game, so most users won't notice a difference - Improved general particle spawning performance
-Improves update thread performance by up to 20%
-Reduces hitching if numerous explosions are set off at the same time, such as completing a level - General robustness improvements have been made to the sound system
-Prevents a few potential sound-related bugs from occurring in the future - Updated the external config application to handle language changes
- Changed the default value of "Display Switch Compatibility" from enabled to disabled
-This allows display switching to work better for most users
-This is only needed for one specific system setup:
--Using a secondary display when connecting a laptop to an external monitor while using a hybrid passthrough display - Swapped menu item locations of "Online (TCP)" and "Online (Steam)" in the multiplayer selection menu
-This makes the menu item order more intuitive; in priority order
-New item order:
--Local
--Online (Steam) - This is the best option for most users, so it is more prominent now
--Online (UDP) - This is the next best online option, should only be used if unable to connect to Steam
--Online (TCP) - This is a last resort option if unable to connect to Steam and the connection quality is very poor, causing bugs in UDP - Updated the Leaderboard Submission/Download process to eliminate all drive usage
-Previous versions would download sever data to local files, then read those files
-Now, all server data is downloaded into system memory, then directly used from there
-This improves performance of all Leaderboard-related operations - Added a countermeasure to prevent game-breaking bugs if the update thread becomes overloaded
-This issue was never reproduced under normal conditions, but was technically possible - Fixed a bug in the online server lobby screen that would erroneously display only the second player ship when the second player hasn't joined yet
-this would occur after previously playing a local coop game with the mouse as the second player controller - Fixed some wave intermission text not being displayed when completing wave 8 of Classic A Training mode
- Fixed a rare multithreading crash bug in the particle system
As usual, to make sure you have the latest update, launch the game and check the lower left corner for “v1.33.0.0” or higher. Enjoy!