To get started with a fan localization, you will need to locate the existing translation files. These are in your game's installation directory.

• Right-click the game Dokimon in your Steam library
  
• Go to Manage -> Browse Local Files
  
• Click on the Localization folder

The English localization is here with individual text files:

• english_char.txt
  
• english_intro.txt
  
• english_items.txt
  
• english_monsters.txt
  
• english_moves.txt
  
• english_npc.txt
  
• english_object.txt
  
• english_scene.txt
  
• english_trainer.txt
  
• english_ui.txt
  
• english_world.txt

Additional languages are present in subfolders, for example:

• Japanese
  
• german
  
• spanish

These subfolders all contain similar text files as above, but without the language prefix.

Now that you've located the game's dialogue, you can start a fan translation!

The best method for creating a fan translation is to mimic the subfolder structure. Dokimon Quest isn't programmed to automatically accept languages from any subfolder, so you'll have to test your work using a specific method later on. For now, we'll start with the way these dialogue files are structured. Open up the file english_intro.txt:

english_intro.txt

0 Rei: H-hey! What are you doing here!
1 You can't be here at night time!/n/Don't you know that-!
2 Oh no!
3 Ack!! It's too late, get out of here!/n/I'll try to hold them of-
4 Ouch! Stupid monsters, where're mine when I/n/need them.. This kid is seriously gonna die!
5 Wh-WHOA!

This file has each line listed as a number beginning with Line 0. Leave the digits intact, we only want to focus on the text. Let's try translating this to Spanish.

Edit the file

0 Rei: ¡O-oye! ¿Qué estás haciendo aquí?
1 ¡No puedes estar aquí por la noche!/n/¡¿No sabes que-!?
2 ¡Ay, no!
3 ¡Ack!! Es demasiado tarde, ¡sal de aquí!/n/Intentaré detenerlos-
4 ¡Ay! Estúpidos monstruos, ¿dónde están los míos cuando/n/los necesito...? Este chico va a morir en serio.
5 ¡GUAAAU!

Notice the /n/ in Line 3. Some lines have special markers between the text. In this case, /n/ denotes a NewLine, so the text lines up properly in the text box. Remember this, we'll need it later.

Now that we've translated part of the file, we can save it as a new file in a subfolder:

• spanish/intro.txt

Since the game isn't programmed to detect new languages added automatically, we need to use an existing language to test our translation. Let's rename the Japanese subfolder, say, Japanese-temp, and then change the spanish subfolder to Japanese.

Now, when we begin a new save file, we will be asked to select a language. Let's pick Japanese, the second option--remember, we backed up our original Japanese folder, and renamed the spanish folder to Japanese. Our translated intro.txt file is there.

Enter a name and go through the confirmations. Once we get to the introduction, we can view the results of our work:


It looks like the game's font is missing some characters specific to our translation. That's okay, the developer can take care of adding that part. What we want to be sure of is that Line 3 still wraps in the textbox properly:


It looks like it wraps perfectly here! This particular translation passes the formatting test. Now we can--


Oops! Looks like Line 4 is too long! Let's have a look at our translation:

• 4 ¡Ay! Estúpidos monstruos, ¿dónde están los míos cuando/n/los necesito...? Este chico va a morir en serio.

Maybe if we remove the /n/ from here, it will look better?

It's better, but the text still overflows a bit. What if we rephrase the line to convey a similar meaning, but use less words?

• 4 ¡Ay! Monstruos tontos, ¿dónde están los míos/n/cuando los necesito? ¡Este chico va a morir!

This should be fine once the developer adds the special characters it needs. They will also test the translation once they make their own adjustments. We've done what we can for now, so let's package this up and send it to the developer!

We can accomplish this in a variety of ways--either send a pastebin, a zip file, whatever gets them the information they need. The developer may even create a preferred method to receive fan translations later.

Don't forget to change your directories back! Japanese becomes spanish again, and Japanese-temp becomes Japanese.