Regarding Comments

Hi guys, it has been a long time since my last post. There’s something I want to talk about.

About comments with questions regarding Prince Maker Braveness. I haven’t been replying to some of them recently. This is because:

1. I don’t know/don’t remember the problem or answer. 
2. It was a long time since I have the script of the game. (Maybe I still have it zipped somewhere but the original tools I was using was gone since my pc hd went bad some 2 years ago) In the past when there are questions, I always have to check back the script to give the specific answers.

About future updates about the series in general:

1. Lack of motivation. I didn’t really lost interest, and from time to time I keep thinking of fixing MSN2 or if there is a way to bring a translated MSN3 sooner. There are a few ways to do it but as I said, they end up in the thinking area only. Well, maybe if there is someone want to do this can contact me. I’ll have more motivation if there is someone working with me. 
2. Don’t have as much time as in the past: Was a student, now a worker. In the past, I have time to read as many novels as I want while still have time to do this. Now, my leftover free time is mostly used to read Chinese epic sci-fi BL novels ^^; LOL or play ipad games. Conclusion: I am very lazy. XD
3. I haven’t been playing or checking news about doujin Chinese games recently either. So haven’t been talking other stuff. Unless anyone want to listen to me ramble about the novels I read.

Btw, just a small ALFAGAME update, you can play Time to Star(Actually it is TTS2 for the desktop version) with your ipad or iphone in Chinese. Not free ok? It costs $0.99. The desktop version is still free but the iOS version is revamped with a lot of new things. No updates about MSN1 remake.
http://www.alfagame.net/tts2/index.html
If anyone want to search for the game in the app store, you need to search 偶像之路 I tried searching Time to Star and it didn’t come out dunno why. But it is available internationally.

About MSN3 translation

I’m sorry to say but I have to cancel MSN3 translation because the author has finally confirmed the rejection of my offer today. I have been waiting for about 2 months since I started asking and she said she has to ask the other members with no reply after a long time so I ask them about it again yesterday. Actually, we haven’t started much and has stopped working on this once I didn’t get any ‘ok’ from them when I ask them 2 months ago.

They said they want to handle the English or Japanese translation by themselves because they think it’s too big a project and a lot of things need to be translated from the core.

Right now there is no public announcement from them if they’re going to translate MSN3 to English. They seem to be tied up with making new games. I’ll update if there is any news. Sorry for wasting your time if you have applied for the recruitment.

MSN3 prequel – Don’t Forget the Starry Sky

I’m feeling very pressured because my class starts tomorrow and I have my reasons for it. I need some distraction while I wait for the inevitable tomorrow so I decide to write something. Also, please check back the last post always especially if you’ve encounter bugs as I might have a new patch for MSN2 that fix it.

I’ve known this a few months ago but now I can’t find the post anymore. It’s a pity because I saw a very pretty CG. I think they announced two games in the post that I can’t find now. Last time I saw was called MSN alpha. I think it’s supposed to be the next big game and not this prequel. The MSN alpha is about the very starting of all MSN world, which is the prequel of all prequels? It’ll probably be an RPG but it’s still not fixed yet. But this MSN3 prequel will be out soon at 5th Oct. Free game like usual. Like previous MSN2 prequel(Origin), it is a special type of RPG. I love their RPG, Origin was so fun to play and quite interesting compared to traditional RPG because they always incorporate some kind of strategy into their RPG. Actually, the author like RPG more than Sim Raising game. This Starry Sky MSN3 prequel is about some small characters in MSN3 and don’t have much to do with MSN3. Like looking through the world through the small characters. The prequel is suppose to round up the leftover world concept of MSN3.

Btw, alfagame is not a company. If I’m not wrong, they started out as a club in their university like almost 10 years ago? They all have their own jobs now(some work in the game industry, I’ve gone to ask them last time) or some new members are still students and they have never sell any games before. There’s a big lengthy post in the forum about why they did not sell their games and the criticism they get from friends and family for doing games free. They got sell some merchandise like the MSN3 Music CD and the commemorative booklet because a survey indicated players wanted it and include a lot of merchandise in the package which is like a nice collection rather than for profit. They also do contests every now and then to win some small prizes which is very nice(I won a MSN3 postcard last time and the person who won the Leviria singing contest got her singing put in the music cd). Not sure in the future they’ll sell any games or not but currently they have not planned to.

MSN3 prequel info. You need to log in and post a comment to view some of the pictures/info:
http://www.alfagame.net/newbbs/viewthread.php?tid=2956
http://www.alfagame.net/newbbs/viewthread.php?tid=3298

You can download a swf flash recording of the gameplay here, need to post to see:
http://www.alfagame.net/newbbs/viewthread.php?tid=3495

A sample of Prince Maker Alpha game music, as always Mouse is very good at creating nice music:
http://www.alfagame.net/newbbs/viewthread.php?tid=2234

I’m kind of lazy posting pictures, I’ll post them when the game is out. The design look like MSN3. The announcement date for the game is 5th October this year.

It is here! Translated Prince Maker Braveness Download

I got the green light from the game author just now(Sent a copy to them for approval first).

Firstly, as thanks to the people who translated the game(actually, it’s me who wanted it, I’m always happy to read comments about stuff I like), I would appreciate if you could leave a comment telling what you think of the game after you finished the main story(well, you can leave one even if you don’t but I think the best part is the storyline. I love the storyline and the world concept. It’s like watching a thrilling drama. I’m a gourmet for stories.). What to comment? Maybe what do you think of the game? Is it as good as you think? Is it hard?(I think it’s a very hard game and I really have to follow a guide to play, MSN3 is much easier but some people have no problems). Maybe something interesting you find about the game.

Lastly, even though I did not credit individually in the game but thanks a lot to everyone who helped in the translation of the game. Because of you guys this translated game can be released. I’ll list those that I remember.
Unpacker and Project Starter: LittleAngel
Unpacker/Packer/Coder: Ash
Quality Checker: Alicia, K’, Celine, Ash, Mayukkg
Picture,Flash Editor & the one who create the wordpress site: ovo_kinder
Game Language Editor & someone I beg for help in the forum who suggested the gemot forum to me: debono9
Testers: K’, debono9, Aletea, Taco, Se, zerocat18, Kami, AmazinglyVivid
Wordpress Supporter: Mikan (I have to add you :D)
Asked the original author and her sidekick for help: Kinfox, wait
My friend who introduce this game to me during 2005(?)(Not sure): Satose
Screenshots in this post thanks to: Taco

Hi, please read this post too for some summary and more images. It also has the full descripton of the game including OS requirements.
OS Requirements:
Windows 2000, 2003, XP, Vista, Win7
366MHz Speed
128MB Memory
800×600 Resolution
4MB Graphics Card
PCM Sound.MCI
300MB Hard Disk

STAFF
Production：金狐狸，夜川千曲
Plot Script：金狐狸，o.o
Programming：金狐狸
Art：青汐，穆颜 ，wait，suejun，o.o，暗灵，meiyou，水界
Animation：wait
Music：老鼠
Music Arranging: 金狐狸
Special Thanks：
good friend nanee，点心，yindy for the friendship support
and doujin planet bbs for providing space

Hi! Not long before the release.

Hi, it’s pretty much ready. I send it to the author and after she approve it I can post it. Before that, there are some things I want to talk about.

Firstly, I’m not continuing the translation of MSN3 for now unless I get enough people to help, a few translators & maybe someone good at coding and language quality checkers. I envy so much for translation groups that have 40 translators(!) for a project(There is! Well, only in the Chinese translation world probably). They can churn out a lengthy visual novel in 6 months. Not even sure how the head manage so many people. Well, going back to MSN3, it’s not so much of a hiatus as I haven’t really started editing the scripts at all so if other translation groups want to pick it up for translating feel free to do so. Feel free to take the list of terms that was made a while ago too.

Secondly, no credits to people who helped in the game. This is because there are quite a number of people going in and out of this project and honestly I don’t remember all after so many years and I don’t have many of their nicknames(only know their emails)… So to be fair, no one would be mentioned, not even me(Ok, to be honest, it can be done but I’m lazy to check out my ancient emails one by one). I only refer the translation credits back to this site so people can know the latest updates.  Btw, it is 4 years since this project started and I’m not even the person who started this project. In the end, it is a whole lot of work than I thought.

Well, I might translate one of the MSN2 minigames which is less of a work. The game where you Kiss and Bite people to get an ending comes to mind hahaha.

I need game testers for MSN2

EDIT: I don’t need testers anymore. The game is out so go download already. If there is anything wrong(grammar/typos/errors/etc.) please post a screenshot.

Probably need some after a few days so I post this now.

I need game testers because I’m lazy to play through the whole game and I’m no good at coding to set up checkpoints for testing various parts of the game. I do try to test them but I don’t think I can catch all of those text going out of boxes and other texts that doesn’t position correctly.

Requirements:
1. Need to have free time now to play the game.
2. Doesn’t mind text going out of boxes(especially buttons) and possible errors.
3. Able to take the time to screenshot problem areas and send them to me for fixing and provide patches. (There are a few options on how to do this, one is a hassleless option that you just need to press a key for every screenshot, you don’t even need to explicitly send it to me as I’ll automatically get it, but you need to install dropbox. Other options is you send screenshots to me normally by posting in sticky board or send to me through email)

Please leave a comment if you want to test the game. I’ll contact you through your hidden email for further details. (please don’t post your email in the comment itself)

MSN2 Translation Status

I guess I have to do everything myself, sigh… Yeah, I’m quite low spirited these days. Need some hugs or something.

I haven’t heard from my last compiler(the real term is unpacker/repacker, I’m using it wrong, so I’ll change to this term in the future) for quite some time so it’s not looking good.

Fortunately, it’s not going hiatus yet. After asking around some random ppl, someone recommended the gemot forum to ask for help. I didn’t managed to post anything there though(I have lurker habit). But after looking through the various posts in the forum, and trying out some tools, I finally know how to extract sources from the game and repack it myself so it can be played. At least I learn something useful and probably easier to do stuff from now on. But I still wanted a programming/coding wiz to help me though. So please contact me if you’re interested in helping. Also need translators/proofreaders for MSN3, hopefully I can get some when MSN2 is released.

It is not the end of my troubles though. The last repacker has done some unfinished coding edits to the scripts. Because she’s the one who had done it, I’m almost clueless so I have to spent some time looking through and understand what she has changed and debug unfinished portions or roll back to original if I can’t figure out. I can’t guarantee there won’t be errors when playing the finished game because of this.

Also, she left some unfinished font assignments. To make my job easier for word wrapping, I change to smaller fonts for dialogues. Hope you guys have good eyes? I think they still look okay for reading. Tricky parts are the buttons and selections. Some are changed to bigger buttons but some aren’t which is a pain because it would not look good to have some buttons with smaller fonts and some with big fonts but all the work to enlarge the buttons would go to waste if I make it small fonts now. I can’t figure out how to change some of the fonts(come out the same font even though I change it…) This will be quite time consuming to fix.

Another thing is I have to reposition all text. The text are not conform inside the text boxes, they are a separate thing. So most of the non-dialogue texts doesn’t position correctly and most go out of boxes. I wish everything works like Unity3D. Although it is for making 3D games, it has good script associations where everything works like a module(like I can make a script for that status bar and it works for all places by drag&drop, and I only have to change it once, MSN2 works like every script has the same piece of script appearing for the money and date bar above for each ‘page’) and adjusting buttons & stuff is easier. Although I don’t think it is easy to crack/extract resources because Unity3D works very differently.

Lastly, now I have to manually do the word wrap by editing line by line so that it word wrap properly inside the dialogue boxes. Probably the most time consuming. It’s very error prone too. I didn’t do the word wrap very pretty though, otherwise I’ll probably be so frustrated that I don’t even want to touch this project again, I’m just roughly trying to make it fit inside boxes. Please excuse me on this, I wish there could be a better way.  Chinese and Japanese use block letters so they are always same amount of characters per line and this program is definitely not friendly for English.

I’m trying to fix a broken web here and I’m not good at it ^^; Hopefully it doesn’t look too bad in the end.

Translation Status

I’m finish checking through the MSN2 scripts once again so I’m leaving it to the rest.  I may scan through it fast one last time later if needed.

Since I’m done with MSN2, I’m starting to translate MSN3. It has… 343 scripts!! What a monster it is. I’ll inform the author that I’m translating MSN3 when I’ve released MSN2.

Btw, the most popular post I have here is my Ukagaka post surprisingly(Other than Prince Maker stuff). Anyone still playing it? That post is outdated however. There is a better one with more functions called Edited Enhanced 2. I also found a lot of nice Ukagaka to play with over the years. However, I don’t think I can provide download because they have really strict sharing policy and there is one especially:”Can only be spread inside China”(I don’t live in China though, but I think it really means not to be shared in places that are not Chinese). It means I can’t even tell anyone that doesn’t speak Chinese. That Ukagaka is really great one, comparable to the Kikka and Towa so I really want to share…(In the end, I’ll share screenshot of it but it’s up to you guys to find it for download).

But I know why they acted like that. The Ukagaka community is really having a tough time, they are providing it free but people keep doing hateful things like selling it in tabobao(something like eBay), share through emails(I rarely find this in the English community but it is a norm in the Chinese community to share stuff by bulk sending to emails) and not linking to the author’s website. Unfortunately, using Ukagaka without understanding it always lead to a lot of problems and when emailing to ppl, it is just the file without any explanations and when there are problems, ppl rush back to the author’s site to complain, in the end, it is the person who packaged it in the wrong way so it cannot be used. There is one author that got really angry and ceased providing download of her Ukagaka and announced that no one can share it too, She also finish the pairing Ukagaka but only share it with ppl she really trust. This Ukagaka is my favourite one(it’s in the picture too) so it is really sad.

Ukagaka isn’t just a desktop eye candy toy like Shimeji(it crawls around your desktop XD). You can make it into a program launcher, dictionary, learn Japanese, music player etc… some has great RPG system where you go to fight monsters and you have to feed it from time to time, achievements records, some will evolve from seed and grow into something if you keep it on the desktop for long time, some have intricate storyline. I’m surprised that I kept it on my desktop almost everyday and watch it doing it stuff and talk interesting things. Some can be updated too so there are constantly new stuff. Mostly, I kept it small though so that it won’t get in the way when I do things. The new Ukagaka program has a lot of new functions too in the Options part like selecting transparency of balloons, characters separately. It makes things easier rather than dependent on coding.

Hmm? In the end I talk about Ukagaka so much? More than what my topic is supposed to be. If I really share about Ukagaka(I won’t provide download but will tell how to get to the author’s site and how to download), I really hope you guys don’t upload and share it publicly(that can be found using google). Making the authors angry means no good stuff to play with anymore. Basically, all of them need to get permission from the author to re-upload and share, so if you don’t know Chinese it’s hard to ask for permission. Some don’t really need permission though like Kikka & Towa since it is a combination of a lot of stuff and a lot of ppl editing, hard to say why.

Ok, this is the screenshot of some of the Ukagaka in the Chinese community that I like(actually there are some more but my screen not enough space to fit all.

Some good Ukagaka

Great News!

Great News! I have a compiler now and everything is going on smoothly and he/she has compiled a test-play for me. It works! I’m so happy beyond anything because I was hitting a dead end before and I can’t see what to correct and such without a testing compilation.

There are still a lot of things to work out though as the text don’t fit but it’s progressing fast now, I’m so happy! Love you Ash, K’

Current News

Hi, guys. I’m sorry for being missing here for so many months. I was feeling guilty and was concentrating on something else and my school. The current status is there is no update at all since the last post. I have free time recently so I’m thinking of reviving this again(have revive this for so many times^^;;). I also didn’t visit the main Prince Maker forum for really long time too. I’m sure they have new game out. They are always very efficient(Wish I am too). So, I’m going to look at stuff at the site and update about new Prince Maker stuff and update the links because Megaupload is dead.

There are so many comments and I scanned over them a bit and reply some important ones here. Someone ask for releasing the translation so other people can continue. I cannot release the code to public download but anyone who wanted to contribute or can compile can just contact me to get the code. I have an LJ blog called rikiki_angel and I never go missing there in case you can’t get in touch with me.