Speaking two languages
How Kaastle came to speak Simplified Chinese, why music theory needed more than word-for-word translation, and the rules that keep it complete.
Written in retrospectCovers: 30 September – 4 October 2026, and every day since
Many of the armies in Kaastle come from Chinese history, and many of the people we hope will play it read Chinese first. A game that tells the story of Yue Fei or the heroes of Liangshan Marsh only in English would be missing something. On 30 September we added Simplified Chinese.
Music theory is not word for word
Translating a music game has its own traps. In English, "Major 7th" names both an interval and a chord. In Chinese they are different words: 大七度 for the interval and 大七和弦 for the chord. So theory labels in Kaastle are never translated as plain strings. Each one is looked up by what kind of thing it is, and the engine, grading and your saved progress keep their English identifiers underneath. Note names such as F#2 are never translated at all.
Keeping it complete
A translation that is complete on launch day is incomplete a week later unless something guards it. On 4 October we swept the whole first-session path into Chinese and added the guards:
- A lint rule that blocks any English words written straight into the interface. Text has to go through the translator, or the check fails.
- A coverage test that checks the Chinese catalogue has every message the game shows.
- A pseudo-locale, a stretched and accented fake language we use to spot text that was never translated and layouts that break when words get longer.
- Dates and numbers shown in your language's own format.
Since then, almost every change to the game lands with its Chinese text in the same commit. When a new faction arrives, its cards carry their names in their own script, and the interface around them arrives in both languages.
Choosing your language
The language picker sits in the header. With no choice saved, a browser set to Chinese gets Simplified Chinese and everyone else gets English. Readers of Traditional Chinese currently get the Simplified text.
This dev log is written in both languages too. The Chinese posts are written for Chinese readers, not run through a machine.