Topics

1

Script Help and Language Discussion / Looking for a little translation advice.

« on: January 31, 2013, 04:31:10 am »

So I'm working alongside Myria to finally get Breath of Fire 1 retranslated. She's done an amazing job on the menus. :3

I'm looking for a little advice regarding the scenario with the crazy wizard. In the original, the "Xeon Gas" is referred to as ドロミのガス ("Doromi Gas"), or in more detail, ドロミのくさをいぶしたけむり ("smoke given off by the Doromi Plant"). I'm trying to figure out what ドロミ could mean before I settle on replacing it with some suitable name - "Wingbane" or "Featherbane" sounds appropriate, given it's described as a deadly poison to Wyndians, but I want to make sure there's a meaning or pun or reference I can translate before I start replacing things wholesale.

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Gaming Discussion / Best SNES emulator for PSP?

« on: January 18, 2013, 05:47:38 pm »

I have an ever-so-slightly busted PSP-1000 (the D-Pad sticks a little in certain directions) and so I've made it my CFW guinea pig.

I've tried Snes9x TYL 0.4.2, and while it performs pretty well, the sound glitches a little more often than I'd like and it lags like hell when running any sort of HDMA effect. Is this the best SNES emulation on PSP has to offer, or am I missing something? (Yes, BTW, I'm running it in PSP-Accelerated Accurate mode; Approximate caused horrible graphical glitches.)

[The Newbie Package of REQUIRED Material]

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Site Talk / FAQ tag link broken?

« on: December 30, 2012, 07:11:04 pm »

The Newbie Package of REQUIRED Material

ROMHacking.net FAQ: You ask, we answer!
ROMHacking.net Getting Started Section: Newbies Go HERE!
ROMHacking.net Documents Section!
How to ask questions the smart way.
On the Essence of ROM Hacking
Talk with experienced people in our IRC chat and ask specific questions there.

The one that says "On the Essence of ROM Hacking" seems to link to a thread which has since been deleted.

I found it through the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, if that helps.

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Script Help and Language Discussion / Looking for some input on a certain project...

« on: August 01, 2012, 04:22:54 am »

大きな事件というものは、たいてい何事も起こりそうにない平穏な日に始まる…
The moment when everything changes tends to happen when we fear that nothing ever will...

Yes, it takes some liberties, but I was taking the context of the game's story in mind. What do you think?

Also, about the credits:

http://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php/Company:Minato_Giken_(credits)#Akagawa_Jirou:_Majo-tachi_no_Nemuri_.28SFC.29

How best to render the titles "原作・監修" and "脚本"? "Scenario" sounds good for the second, but I'm not sure about "Original Work" for the first. I'd also like some second opinions on the names, if no one minds.

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Gaming Discussion / OUYA - A damn good idea.

« on: July 10, 2012, 09:24:47 pm »

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console

An Android-based game console, complete with wireless controller, for $100. And it's more than just an HDMI-capable box for playing smartphone games on.

Highlights from the Kickstarter page:

We get it – smartphones and tablets are getting all the new titles – they're "what's hot.” The console market is pushing developers away. We’ve seen a brain drain: some of the best, most creative gamemakers are focused on mobile and social games because those platforms are more developer-friendly. And the ones who remain focused on console games can’t be as creative as they’d like.

Let’s open this sucker up! It's time we brought back innovation, experimentation, and creativity to the big screen. Let’s make the games less expensive to make, and less expensive to buy. With all our technological advancements, shouldn't costs be going down? Gaming could be cheaper!

Developers can wave farewell to the roadblocks of bringing a console game to market. Anyone can make a game: every OUYA console is a dev kit. No need to purchase a license or an expensive SDK. It's built on Android, so developers already know how it works.

We're handing the reins over to the developer with only one condition: at least some gameplay has to be free. We borrowed the free-to-play model from games like League of Legends, Team Fortress 2, Triple Town, and many others. Developers can offer a free demo with a full-game upgrade, in-game items or powers, or ask you to subscribe.

Hackers welcome. Have at it: It's easy to root (and rooting won't void your warranty). Everything opens with standard screws. Hardware hackers can create their own peripherals, and connect via USB or Bluetooth. You want our hardware design? Let us know. We might just give it to you. Surprise us!

That's right. It's an open console - anyone can develop for it. All you'll need is the stock standard Ouya system (and a computer with suitable development tools installed - many of which can be had for free). And if 1GB of RAM seems wussy compared to the average PC, don't forget that the PS3 and XBox 360 make do with half of that. That's right - this sucker might actually be more powerful than current-gen consoles. (And if it really isn't powerful enough for your needs - or generally doesn't do something you want it to - you can crack that puppy open and mod the daylights out of it.)

I've already put down my support. How about the rest of you? :3

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Jiro Akagawa's "The Sleep of Witches" Situation Report

« on: June 25, 2012, 03:33:42 am »

With DSwizzy145's thread closed, I thought I might as well post my findings.

First, the good news. The game's font and script are completely uncompressed - the former starts at file address 120000; the latter starts at file address 1C0000. Theoretically, there's nothing stopping a determined newcomer from hacking the daylights out of this game - the biggest hurdle to overcome is the well-established volume of each. Which brings us to the bad news. The game's kanji font includes around 2,500 symbols, as I mentioned before, and the script runs to 20 banks of text - yes, everything from 1C0000 onward in the ROM is text. Out of the 3MB comprising the game ROM, 1.25MB are dedicated to the game's script. To call this a "huge project" would be a dramatic understatement.

Nonetheless, I am sincerely considering moving forward at least as far as making it possible to dump and insert the script. Yes, I'm talking about tackling that monster of a kanji table. Though I do have ideas. For one thing, it's extraordinarily unlikely that the game uses all 2,500 kanji stored in its font - the joyo list consists of "only" 2,136, and I find it doubtful that even a lengthy literary work like the one stored in the game's ROM would even come close to using them all (consider, for comparison, a book that uses over half the words in your favorite dictionary). In other words, all we really need to do is identify the kanji that the game does use.

While my efforts on the GBA game Wan Wan Meitantei (or "Sherlock Puppies," as I intend to call it) have stalled for some time, I did develop a tool for the express purpose of identifying all the kanji in the game's script. The method is simple: recreate the game's text engine, have it display a side-by-side comparison with the script data as rendered using the table, and insert any missing characters manually. Further refinements could simplify the process: I don't remember whether I set it up to flag lines that had missing characters, for one. While the workload will still be significant, having context for characters should dramatically aid identification.

Of course, translating the script is still the same onerous task - it's an enormous amount of text, and I suspect testing the end result will be an utter nightmare. Still, it's by a famous Japanese author, so it must be worth the effort, right? ^_^;

EDIT: And I have just cut the labor in half. A careful examination reveals that the "second half" of the script (26000-end) is actually the first half of the script, with a couple of banks jumbled up (and broken in the process, so it's just padding instead of an alternate script). So double good news: the script is actually only half the size I estimated (a bit under 640KB), and the English script can be up to 2.25MB without compression (don't forget, it's a 3MB ROM - it can be expanded to 4MB if necessary, and the game uses bank pointers!)

EDIT #2: I haven't looked deeper into the matter yet but holy crap the game's got the fixings for a VWF already baked in. I noticed something funny when my mock-up screens were matching up with the genuine article linebreak for linebreak (the game, and hence my mock-up engine, handles them automatically) even though I hadn't been trying to. I realized there was no way it was fitting 16 characters per line and still having margins on the left and right unless it was squishing them together; lo and behold, it does. So maybe I can take advantage of this black magic.

EDIT #3: So I turn on the fast forward and autofire to get a feel for how long this game's supposed to be. Disadvantage: no way of choosing paths. Other disadvantage: holy crap I did not need that late at night. Now I'm gonna have to go stare into Ike's eyes to detox. You're welcome.

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General Discussion / So I just made a game in 72 hours.

« on: April 23, 2012, 07:53:33 pm »

For Ludum Dare Game Jam #23.

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=12635

I'm not as hardcore as those who can make the whole thing from scratch in less than 48 hours for the Competition proper, but I think it turned out pretty well. :3

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Gaming Discussion / Extreme Escape Adventure: Good People Die has an official US name now.

« on: February 28, 2012, 08:43:36 pm »

http://www.siliconera.com/2012/02/28/good-people-die-headed-to-north-america-as-zero-escape-virtues-last-reward/

Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward. Also, 999 is now retroactively Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors. Personally, I like it. :3

Officially, 善人シボウデス is a bit of a play on words; the obvious interpretation is 善人死亡です ("Good People Die"), but it can also be read as 善人志望です ("I Wish for Good People"). That is, it's both a cynical proclamation and a hopeful statement rolled into one. Same with "Virtue's Last Reward", "last reward" being a euphemism for death (typically as a result of betrayal), though it can also be taken literally (as in "good triumphs in the end"). So yeah, not exactly a direct translation of the Japanese title, but close enough that I have to applaud the effort. Makes me think a bit of It's a Wonderful World/The World Ends With You, to be honest.

Also, unrelated but still good news:

http://www.siliconera.com/2012/02/28/persona-2-eternal-punishment-coming-to-psp-with-new-scenario/

Persona 2: Eternal Punishment's coming to PSP.

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General Discussion / How would one go about contacting someone who works in the game industry?

« on: February 05, 2012, 12:21:42 am »

...All right, I'll come clean. I want to ask Dylan Cuthbert if Fay and Miyu from Starfox 2 ever had official last names/bios. 'Cause he might know, right? T_T;

I replied to one of his Tweets, though nothing's come of it. There's a part of me that wonders if I'm really the first person who's thought of this/acted on that thought, but then again maybe getting these kinds of answers just isn't that easy...

On a random note, I haven't found anything indicating that Argonaut was involved with Starfox 64 (just FYI, it's been years since I last played it, so I wouldn't remember if they actually showed up in the credits), but it is kinda neat that Q-Games (basically Argonaut 2.0) was most definitely involved with Starfox 64 3D.

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Script Help and Language Discussion / 立ち上がり in a vehicular context

« on: September 28, 2011, 11:41:39 pm »

So I'm still helping out with Club Carisma's Initial D translations. I get English translations from the Chinese version and the original Japanese-language raws to work with. Sometimes they match up nicely; other times they don't, and on occasion I need to do my research when something comes up that I have no idea how to translate in context.

立ち上がりを犠牲にしてのハイスピードアプローチか…

The translation I was given is this:

but he sacrifices his exiting speed with greater entrance speed to avoid the attack

It doesn't actually match the Japanese text, see, but most annoyingly it doesn't tell me what 立ち上がり means in this context. I've tried to do my own research on the subject, to no avail. Anyone have a clue?

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Has anyone ever edited a MobiClip video file?

« on: October 31, 2010, 06:07:14 am »

Yeah, I know, DS hacking is sort of a touchy subject here, and if the mods have any issue with this topic, feel free to smite it. Anyways.

I'm thinking of taking a look at a project that might possibly require me to edit video files - add subtitles, English-language credits, that sort of thing. Decode the .mods into a suitable format, tweak them as needed, then reencode. The nice thing is that MobiClip is a standardized format, so I imagine there's probably been some work done in this respect already. I've done my research, but I haven't turned up much. Anybody know if there's been any headway in reverse-engineering the format, or obtaining appropriate tools?

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Personal Projects / Breath of Fire 2 Retranslation Project

« on: May 27, 2008, 03:51:09 am »

It's back. And it's still going.

FOR NEWCOMERS TO THIS PROJECT:

The Breath of Fire 2 retranslation project has been going on for several years now. It was originally started by d4s, a German programmer and a SNES hacking virtuoso. The goal of the project was to enhance the original game with several new aesthetic and useful features: VWF, gradient text boxes, a run button, and just for the hell of it, a technologically impressive (but kinda ugly IMHO) new intro movie that plays before the title screen, complete with "Owaranai Ai" ("Endless Love"), the song that was originally used in the Japanese commercial for the game (which replaces the original dramatic theme music).

After the original German version was completed in 2006, I signed on to handle the English translation. What can I say? I played BoF2 on GBA and decided "I could do a better translation than this"; it was time to put up or shut up. It's been a rough road since then: right now the project is basically in my hands, and I've made a fair number of bugfixes and improvements myself. Right now the project is bug-free as far as I know, and I'm currently working on another revision of my English script.

Let's have a little recap of where we've been and where we're headed, shall we?

1. The font went from bordered to shadowed and back again. In the process it lost the skeleton of the eye-bleeding original BoF2 FWF and became something sharper, more Courier-like. Opinions have been mixed, but it's generally agreed that bordered works better with the fancy gradients and transparency effects, and the new font overall looks better than the old one (though it's not shaded or smoothed in any way, shape or form).

2. People who know enough German to play the existing "improvement" patch (or can fake it well enough to struggle through the game) are probably aware that you can't buy stacks of items. This is because d4s disabled the counters so he could fit longer item names. With a bit of imagination and a little cheating I was able to re-enable them, so now you can buy stacks of items once again (but the mod-happy should be warned that eternal damnation or at least unpredictable effects await those who try to give any stackable item a price higher than 999 Zenny).

3. There is a bug in the existing patch, a game-killing freeze, that occurs if you are foolhardy enough to try opening the menu while in the hunting grounds. This happens because the decompression routine that unpacks that shiny new background graphic and its accompanying tilemap happens to stomp on data that the game stores upon entering the hunting grounds and needs to reload when exiting. This has also been fixed, by ever-so-slightly unorthodox means: said graphic is now uncompressed (though its brother on the title screen is not, and will remain that way unless it affects anything else in ways d4s didn't predict).

4. The latest bug is actually due to a fix I made earlier. Go to the Items menu in the German patch and scroll down. Just. One. Space. Can't do it, can you? Well, that's been fixed too, but that's besides the point. Just scroll down until the up arrow displays. Now, while the up arrow is visible, scroll back up to the top. Magic! The up arrow is glued in place! d4s disabled the routine that normally blanked out the up arrow so it wouldn't randomly delete letters in the character stats; I figured out an alternate way to pull it off, but it's triggered in places it wasn't meant to, meaning the prompt for the auto-sort function (and, as I later noticed, the scroll arrows) will not display if the last thing you did was check Key Items (a.k.a. "Specials"). So all I have to do is figure out a different place to insert my fix; perhaps the routine that actually prints the stats would be a wise place to put it...

5. Every effort has been made to restore features cut from the "improvement" patch, such as the HP and MP counters in the battle menues. This does not, and likely will not extend to restoring the original title screen music: doing so would probably necessitate cutting out the fancy new opening movie with its nice music. Which, frankly, wouldn't bother me at all: if it were my choice I'd cut out just about all the excess gravy d4s threw in and stick with the VWF, the run button, the extended names, expanded menues, bank swapping for the text pointers, etc. I've tried twice thus far to do so, in fact, and failed miserably: the good is intertwined so inextricably with the pointless that it's just easier to grit my teeth, call it a necessary evil and soldier on. And yes, this extends to the prospect of removing the opening movie as well. So unless a significant number of people make it very clear that they're not going to play the translation unless I cut out the opening movie and restore the original title screen music, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

6. The character's full name will be given in the ending cast roll as "Linpoo 'Lin' Xiuan". First, the name is obviously supposed to be faux-Chinese in the first place, and second, while she is referred to in the rest of the game as "Lin", this allows me to state that it's a nickname and nothing else, so the foaming, raving purists *cough* will have one less excuse to split hairs with me. In a reversal, her ill-fated distaff counterpart will be addressed in those same ending credits as "Tiga 'Tigger' Lee". Yes, "Tigger" is supposed to be the character's proper name, but would him getting brutally murdered by Habaruk have nearly the emotional impact with a silly name like that?

7. To reiterate: beta-testing will begin after I myself have played the game from beginning to end without encountering any notable glitches. Since every attempt I have made to do so has usually run into a fresh new glitch, this project may take a while to enter beta even after I've squashed the latest bug and rewritten the script again. ^_^

So...re-discuss, re-enjoy, re-anything that comes to mind. It's good to be back.