As of v1.0.2, Worse Than Death now supports community localization on PC and Mac! If you’ve ever wanted to translate the game for your own region, now you can.

• Make sure you’ve updated the game to at least v1.0.2b.191220a
  
• Access to a text editor (such as Notepad, Notepad++ or TextEdit)

This functionality is considered BETA and is provided as-is. For more info, see the gamescript_eng.ini file (see below). Note that we reserve the right to disable this functionality at any time.

Make sure Worse Than Death has been updated in Steam. Right-click on the game’s tile and choose Properties.... In the dialogue menu, choose the Local Files tab and click Browse Local Files...

This will open up Steam’s game files directory for the game. Open the Localization folder and note gamescript_eng.ini. This is provided as a base file from which you can create your translations. The file explains the same notes as this guide, but the quick version is this: you can duplicate this file and change the language code (e.g. gamescript_fr.ini for French) to create a translation file.

Note: we highly recommend you make a back-up of gamescript_eng.ini. If you choose to enable the beta localization option, the game will read this file. If you don’t, it will read an internal script instead.

As the file itself explains, this is a raw script file from which the game will read the various text strings output to UI elements and text boxes. Currently there are some things that aren’t able to be localized (some graphic elements); we will look to update this in future versions.

For now, we cannot allow fewer or more pages of text. You'll have to work within these exact page counts.

• Use angle brackets within text strings to add quotes (e.g. <I am quoting what you said.>). If your language uses different kinds of quotation characters, just use them.
  
• The character "#" (without quotes) creates a new line
  
• Capitalization needs to be included here (whether that's Sentence case, Title Case, or ALL CAPS
  
• The game's typeface does not support en or em dashes; please use double-hyphens (--) instead
  
• Ellipses are just three periods (...) and not a character
  
• Those crazy glyphs and what they mean:
  
• See text that looks like $F$, @H@ or %U%? These are “glyphs.” Glyphs control when character sprites animate, when the high-res portraits change expression, and which character is speaking. Changing/removing these will alter conversations, so please, leave them alone!

The typeface for main conversation text is Eczar[fonts.google.com]. UI / Title text is Acme[fonts.google.com].

Note: You can use these links to confirm special characters. Asian languages, Russian will automatically use the fonts included in the Localization > Typography folder.

To be properly read, the language files you make must be named a certain way, and be placed in the correct directory:

• PC: C:// > User > [you] > AppData > Local > WorseThanDeath > Localization
  
• Mac: Users > [you] > Library > Application Support > com.benjaminrivers.worsethandeath > Localization

Note: you may have to enable hidden files or (on PC) use Run to access certain folders easily.

Files need to be named a certain way: gamescript_suf.ini (where "_suf" is the correct suffix)

• English: _eng
  
• French: _fr
  
• Italian: _it
  
• German: _de
  
• Spanish (European): _spa
  
• Danish: _dan
  
• Dutch: _du
  
• Finnish: _fin
  
• Norwegian: _nor
  
• Pan American Spanish: _pas
  
• Polish: _pol
  
• Portuguese: _por
  
• Russian: _ru
  
• Swedish: _se
  
• Turkish: _tur
  
• Chinese (Traditional): _chnt
  
• Chinese (Simplified): _chns
  
• Japanese: _jp
  
• Korean: _ko

Note: If you’ve switched to a different language and then delete the corresponding .ini file, the game will just default back to English.

• Start up the game in Steam
  
• Click through to the title screen (we will improve this in a future update)
  
• Press the “L” key to toggle localization on; you should hear a monster voice. (Press it again to toggle it off and revert to English)
  
• Pressing Escape (or the “start” equivalent on a gamepad) will bring up the pause menu, and you will see a “Language (BETA)” option in the menu
  
• Choose this to change languages. If you named your language file correctly, the game will automatically find it and add it as an available language.