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LocJAM 6 community » Community help

Game displays black screen

A topic by Dominik Langer (German) created Apr 12, 2024 Views: 947 Replies: 16

Viewing posts 1 to 5

Dominik Langer (German)271 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

Hi all,

Just spent hours to translate this thing, put everything back into the zip file, now all I'm getting is a black screen whenever I try to run it. The English version, as well as other uploaded versions work perfectly for me, just my own version doesn't.

Anyone got an idea? I didn't get any error messages, it's simply the edited files back in the zip file copied over.

Would be annoying if for some reason this would disqualify me...

Best regards,

Dominik

Edit: Link to page: https://dire87.itch.io/locjam-2024-entry-for-de-by-dominik-langer

apicici271 days ago(+1)

Make sure that you didn't end up with a single folder inside game.zip containing everything else (it happened to a few people already), as the engine cannot load the assets that way.

apicici271 days ago (1 edit) (+3)

I investigated your submission, the problem is on line 296 in the translation file, where the wrong kind of quotes is used to enclose the string.

rvkous271 days ago(+1)

Hello, I'm currently having the same issue. Did you use a specific software to catch this error? I'm using Notepad++ to review the code but it's too much for my eyes...

apicici271 days ago(+3)

You could use an online Lua compiler like this one, copying the whole content of the translation file and trying to execute it. If it reports any errors it will also tell you where in the file.

rvkous271 days ago(+1)

Thank you!

Dominik Langer (German)271 days ago(+3)

My god, you're a lifesaver, thanks. Didn't have any more time to do troubleshooting, but that was it. Weird, because I made sure to replace those quotes again (my mistake at first), not sure why this ONE line wasn't replaced!

Joey doesn't share food269 days ago(+1)

Thank you SOOOOOO MUCH! It is exactly the problems you pointed out that have puzzled me for so long. You are my superman!

LocJAM271 days ago (3 edits) (+3)

Now that we have over 30 builds of the game working online, it's safe to say that game-breaking issues must be local.

If your game fails to run, try using a different machine, possibly a Windows installation with the default apps, since that's inevitably the most tested solution.

Then check your own edits

Furst of all, copy the content of your text_translated.lua, file and paste it on the https://sellaroli.com/apps/nem-translation-tool/ website. It will show you where the first lua synthax error is. Fix them one by one, then copy the text back to your file.

Then download a fresh new copy of the localization kit, extract it and overwrite text_translated.lua with your own version (to make sure no other file was changed)

Similarly, if you changed the graphics, overwrite poster_translated.png and title_translated.png inside the game.zip file. Make sure they are located exactly in the assets/single_sprites/ folder

In general, the more you can carefully transfer your edits into a freshly downloaded, stock localization kit, the more you can trust it to run like the others

Finally, zip and upload the project folder to Itch.io as explained in the step by step guide. This time, it does not need to be password-protected.

Sara Todaro270 days ago(+1)

Thank you for posting this troubleshooting guide!

I'm from another team who's having problems uploading their project.

I updated the first release 1.0 with only text_credits.lua changed to test the credits and it worked correctly.

From version 1.1 I tried to upload the ip with edited text_translated.lua but got a black screen: https://saratodaro.itch.io/locjam-6-submission

I wasn't able to find any code issue in MemoQ nor in the Sellaroli translation tool.

Then, I tried to download version 1.2, but I apparently I can't extract it. I get an unknown type error for several elements, included game.js.

Any idea where my problem could lie?

Gnou270 days ago(+1)

your game is not visible to the public right now!

one thing off top of my head: did you make sure to escape quotation marks? there needs to be a \ before any " symbol within your text

Sara Todaro270 days ago(+1)

Apologies, I made the page public now! -_-'

Yes, we were careful to use the escaped quotes for text within the localizable portion.

We also used heavily the breakline \n to improve readability. The preview tool gave no sign it was forbidden, but I wonder if that's the root of the problem? We didn't do any other "crazy" changes, after all.

Gnou270 days ago(+1)

linebreaks are not a problem of themselves, but it's possible that you made a bad one somewhere; the Sellaroli tool does say that linebreaks confuse it so it may be your error happens after a linebreak!

Smaxx270 days ago(+1)

Don’t forget you’ll have to escape line breaks, too! Don’t use actual line breaks in your translation. Use \n instead. (Unless you added a filter doing that replacement for you.)

Sara Todaro269 days ago

Thank you both for your replies!

I confirm we used \n.

In the end, we managed to upload a working version containing an updated translation.

Probably, there was some minor error in the code that got ironed out...

eli_zhang270 days ago(+1)

I'm experiencing the same issue as well. I've troubleshot the enclosure issue with the tools provided and still got a black screen. I also found that I cannot extract the v1.2 zip file.

Dominik Langer (German)269 days ago

What tool are you using? I'd recommend 7zip. Alternatively you should also be able to open the file natively via Windows Explorer I think. Works for me at least.