Chris King wrote:
> * Fixed minor spelling and grammar errors. (Closes: #714015)
It would be a pity to fix _some_ of the errors and leave the
description still in need of work!
[...]
> -Maintainer: Debian Games Team <pkg-games-de...@lists.alioth.debian.org>
> +Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-disc...@lists.ubuntu.com>
My patch also has the advantage of not doing this.
[...]
> Description: a toy train simulation game
The Debian Developer's Reference (6.2.2) recommends not starting the
synopsis with an article.
> - Ri-Li is a game in which you drive a toy wood engine across many levels
> - and collect all the coaches to win.
> + Ri-Li is a game in which you drive a toy wooden engine across many levels
> + and collect all of the coaches to win.
"Toy wooden X" is unidiomatic English for "wooden toy X"; and since
it's a steam locomotive, not an accurate model of a modern train (or
a Stirling engine carved out of mahogany), it should probably say so.
This would be a more useful description if it mentioned that ri-li
uses the basic game mechanic of "snake", but never mind, I'll stick to
reviewing the language rather than the content.
> .
> Full-features:
Is that meant to be a subjectless verb, or a plural noun, or what?
Whatever it is, replace it with English.
> - - 14 languages: Arabic, Breton, Chinese, English, Esperanto, French,
> - German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak,
> - Spanish, Swedish.
> - - Colorful animated wood engine.
> - - 40 levels in this first version
> - - 3 beautiful musics and many sound effects.
> + - 14 languages: Arabic, Breton, Chinese, English, Esperanto, French,
> + German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Spanish,
> + Swedish.
I would suggest reordering these features so that the i18n comes after
the actual functionality. Also, you've got recursive colons; make
this list-within-a-list parenthetical instead.
> + - Colorful, animated wooden engine.
This could reasonably have an indefinite article, and there's no need
for the comma. Again, s/wooden engine/wooden toy steam locomotive/
> + - 40 levels in this first version.
But this isn't the first version! Checking the home page I see that
version 2.0.0 had 50 levels and that development stopped in 2007.
> + - 3 beautiful music tunes and many sound effects.
"Music tunes" is better, but still not normal English. Just say
"tunes".
Also, since I'm already editing it, I might as well reformat the list
slightly to match the debian-l10n-english "house style" (which here
means using asterisks instead of hyphens and formatting the full list
as one sentence).
> Package: ri-li-data
> Recommends: ri-li
> @@ -31,7 +32,7 @@
> Architecture: all
> Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}
> Description: data files for Ri-li, a toy train simulation game
We tend to recommend something along the lines of:
Description: toy train simulation game - data files
(Standardising on this style means less work for translators.)
> - Ri-Li is a game in which you drive a toy wood engine across many levels
> - and collect all the coaches to win.
> + Ri-Li is a game in which you drive a toy wooden engine across many levels
> + and collect all of the coaches to win.
> .
> - This package provide data files for the game.
> + This package provides data files for the game.
>
Meanwhile: does anybody have any idea why it's called "ri-li"?
--
JBR with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package
diff -ru ri-li-2.0.1.pristine/debian/control ri-li-2.0.1/debian/control
--- ri-li-2.0.1.pristine/debian/control 2013-06-25 16:35:11.000000000 +0100
+++ ri-li-2.0.1/debian/control 2013-06-25 18:00:00.732106843 +0100
@@ -13,25 +13,25 @@
Section: games
Architecture: any
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ri-li-data (>= ${source:Version})
-Description: a toy train simulation game
- Ri-Li is a game in which you drive a toy wood engine across many levels
- and collect all the coaches to win.
+Description: toy train simulation game
+ Ri-Li is a game in which you drive a wooden toy steam locomotive across
+ many levels and collect all the coaches to win.
.
- Full-features:
- - 14 languages: Arabic, Breton, Chinese, English, Esperanto, French,
- German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak,
- Spanish, Swedish.
- - Colorful animated wood engine.
- - 40 levels in this first version
- - 3 beautiful musics and many sound effects.
+ It features:
+ * a colorful animated wooden steam locomotive;
+ * 50 game levels;
+ * 3 beautiful tunes and many sound effects;
+ * 14 languages (Arabic, Breton, Chinese, English, Esperanto, French,
+ German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, and
+ Swedish).
Package: ri-li-data
Recommends: ri-li
Section: games
Architecture: all
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}
-Description: data files for Ri-li, a toy train simulation game
- Ri-Li is a game in which you drive a toy wood engine across many levels
- and collect all the coaches to win.
+Description: toy train simulation game - data files
+ Ri-Li is a game in which you drive a wooden toy steam locomotive across
+ many levels and collect all the coaches to win.
.
- This package provide data files for the game.
+ This package provides data files for the game.
