We’ve had a number of people ask about the possibility of translating MLI into languages other than English, so I thought that it might be good to make an official post on the matter rather than individually replying to each person.

Basically, the blanket response to the concept of localization is, “Certainly! But not yet.”

The primary reason for this is that the game needs work before it can be properly localized. There are a number of barriers between where we are right now and where we’d need to be to be able to call the game localizable. For example, one of the biggest problems with localizability is the fact that the game doesn’t presently properly separate the core stuff that every version of the game is going to want and the specific text that should exist on a per-language basis. That’s a definite design flaw, and one that I would certainly like to fix, but until we do, any localization would be logistically difficult at best. There’s also the issue as well that the default fonts in the game don’t support any non-Latin alphabets, which would make translations into languages such as Russian, Arabic, or the like impossible without fixing that, too.

We do have a plan for fixing this, one that basically involves updating things such that files such as common.dat contain a core part and a localized part that can be updated independently. And we’re intending to make the case creator, when it’s done, support localization by splitting the text and associated dialog files apart from the show-dialog conversation actions themselves. So, basically, hang tight. We will definitely eventually support localization of the game – it’s just not feasible right now. Apologizes to those who are raring to go in terms of wanting to get started. Your enthusiasm is certainly appreciated. 🙂