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Analytical Perspectives in Game Design
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There are 2 languages that need to be considered when developing a game world or writing a game. The language the player speaks, and the language the character speaks. The language the player speaks is told to the program by the player in the game control window. The language the character speaks must be a variant of this language. There are many variations that could be employed. A rich person might talk differently to a poor person. An elephant could use a different syntax to a human. These lexical variations are layed on-top of the cultural variations to provide textual and audio descriptions of the world. The Java internationalisation scheme is used. The language field represents the language that the player speaks. For a non-player items that can speak, a custom language could be created. But remember that the player may not understand a word. The localisation field is used to allow the game to customise the descriptions used within the game. The third field is used for any refinement the game author might require. I do not intend to include a translation function. Suppose that we have a player who speaks in the "Queensland" variant of Australian English and another who speaks a "NSW" variant. When arriving at a hotel the Queenslander would ask the bellboy to deliver the port to the room. The New South Welshman would ask the bellboy to deliver the suitcase to the room. |
21/11/99
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See also: [Role
Playing Games] [Game Engine] |