INSTRUCTIONS

This patch should be applied to the original Shadowgate (U) [!].nes ROM, CRC32 74CAEBE3.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATION

This was one of the games that I had the original cartridge when I was younger, so it's nostalgic for me and it made me want to translate it.

I finished the translation about middle of 2009 and I ended up leaving abandoned due to lack of interest in finishing it and because there were some bugs and I had no idea how to fix. Recently, due to the release of the HD remake of this game for PC, I got a desire to finish it and I went back to work on it, despite all these years without messing with romhacking and programming. The funny thing was that the solution to the "bug" was very simple, which I refused to diagnose at 2009.

I consider it to be the best translation I have ever done. In the last week I played it from start to finish, digging up every dialogue in the game and changing real-time to be consistent with the game.

I'm also releasing the text dumper-inserter I coded for this game with it's source-code.

TECHNICAL DETAILS:

Almost all text lines in this game (even items, spells, etc) relies on an compression method called "Fixed Bit Length Encoding" from what I read in a document long time ago. Each text character occupies 5 bits instead of the usual 8 (despite having exceptions). This reduces the maximum amount of characters to 32, compromising space for accented letters (special Portuguese characters). The game uses an alphabet only in "uppercase" because of this. I had to replace several in-game symbols to fit the accents, avoiding their use in the game (I removed the interrogation, equal sign, semicolon, asterisk, etc. but were of little or no use). I also had to remove the letters K, W and Y, forcing me to change a few proper names in the game (Lakmir changed to Lagomir, for example). I could not fit a single accented character of less use, the "Â", but I avoided using it in the translation.

Many will claim these flaws would be easily solved with ASMHack in the ROM, but this is not my department and I not want to mess with it :).

Contact: gcbrauner@hotmail.com