Hoping to make your life's design a bit more dynamic!

I been lurking around here and there. Staying busy and yet getting nowhere on anything

You are way more productive than that. Is all ok on your front?

Ditto that question for both of you.

Sent you a privmsg.

Well there have been some rough patches recently with family members. Somewhat similar to the type of things that Wildbill went through a while back. It isn't one of my kids in the situation (I don't have any kids anyway), but still takes time and energy none the less. That all has been keeping my mind elsewhere lately. And then I just have too many hobbies that I have to spread myself over so I feel most of the time like I'm on a hamster wheel running and going nowhere.

Let me share something that explains better than I can what keeps hobbies in perspective - especially those I find creative and uplifting - the way I feel whenever we release a new RPG in English...


At that instant he saw, in one blaze of light,
an image of unutterable conviction, the reason why the
artist works and lives and has his being--the reward he
seeks--the only reward he really cares about, without
which there is nothing. It is to snare the spirits of
mankind in nets of magic, to make his life prevail through
his creation, to wreak the vision of his life, the rude and
painful substance of his own experience, into the
congruence of blazing and enchanted images that are
themselves the core of life, the essential pattern whence
all other things proceed, the kernel of eternity.


Of Time and the River

Thomas Wolfe

Right now, I am actually in the midst of another situation involving a child. As much as it troubles me, this time it's different. Out of this latest crisis some good may come, for we see the possibility of a light at the end of the tunnel for an ongoing situation, finally, a way out of the darkness forever. But writing games and building houses bring joy into my life every day. I forget troubles for a while, only to return to the matter of handling contentious issues in my other life with renewed vigor. Everything is in God's hands anyway, so I try to remember to allow Him to guide me. I'm always here, for God has blessed me with plenty of energy to help family and friends alike whenever they might need me.

This post pertains more to production than dialogue translation, but let me inform those who are following BH that I finally opened the miscellaneous file package Ritchie sent me last week and discovered a pleasant surprise. Instead of updates to just the file that covers the special battle formations of all eight characters, I quickly deducted that Ritchie had reviewed all seventeen miscellaneous files and updated and/or translated all of the strings, as necessary.

For those not familiar with the structure of our work, the translation phase generally falls into three broad categories: (1) dialogue or story blocks - also called the script, (2) blocks of miscellaneous files that contain items, weapons, battle messages, and generally everything that displays on menu structures, and (3) graphics and special category hacks such as title pages, beginning and ending credits, and occasionally screen displays that depict floor numbers, time factors, and game status. Particularly helpful in Ritchie's miscellaneous package is a full translation of a file called "BH_MenuText7.txt". Therein, we had previously extrapolated only a few of the easier battle messages, identifying most of the strings with hex addresses so we could insert rudimentary menu support into our working ROM.

With Ritchie's refinements, we can continue production with much better support, not only in the mentioned battle messages and formations, but also - I just noticed - with majorly refined monster names! It will take me a while to go through all seventeen files and enter the data, because I need to build these changes into the existing miscellaneous structure where I have already added hundreds of needed commands including the [2Line] code.

Thanks, Ritchie! I was expecting just the battle formation file to be in there - not all seventeen. Now, I have lots of work to do again before Ritchie starts sending new dialogue blocks our way. The only drawback to these refined and new translations is that we are still very restricted on menu space. If we could find room to have two-line battle messages instead of just one down the road, this would really pep up the drama and excitement of the action in BH!

For example, we could write, "You've learned a new hot-blooded burning attack!!" instead of "New Hot Blood!" and, "And, Chocolate turned into a star!" instead of, "Shok defeated!"

Ah that's great progress everyone.
I'd better pace up testing with the current version so there is actually something to report before the next haha.
I love the whole death line there, makes death seem almost uplifting doesn't it?
(no pun intended). Anyway, it will be great when we can have non truncated character names
during battle, I hope that's feasible.

Okay, rather than make a new topic, I will discuss my weekend work on the (pre) Introduction here. I took the train and my "road" laptop up to New Haven this weekend so I could visit my son attending Yale, hear his concert, and enjoy "Parents Weekend", and nothing eats up traveling hours and downtime while the kids are on dates and such like digging into a game translation! (Yeah, Tommy... go out with the girl after the concert. Have fun! I have plenty to keep me occupied for a few hours.)

Anyway, BH features nine introductions. Eight are written for the burning heroes individually, but I almost missed the fairly short, optional (six screens) pre-introduction. If a player comes to the screen with the flashing "Start" and doesn't hit "Start", after about a half a minute, the pre-introduction will roll. Not to upstage Ritchie, in the meantime I wanted to have something display in here besides "This is Intro Page 1 - Block 041", etc., so I spent a good deal of the weekend wrestling with a raw translation and re-writing what I believed the Japanese author intended to convey.

I have listed the Japanese strings here in case someone faster and more experienced wants to compare this with my present polished pre-introduction and advise whether I have missed any of the main points. Depending on feedback and what Ritchie indicates when he gets to Block 041, at least now we will have a V0.26 that will play in English from start-up through most of World-I.

; 　　　星の扉が開く時
; 世界は減びの時をむかえる……

; 　　だれが　そんなことを
; 　　言ったのであろうか？

; 　　なぜ世界が終わるのか？
; それを知る者は　ほとんどいない

; 　しかし私は知っている……

; 　　　　扉のむこうに
; 　　復讐のキバをたずさえた
; もう一つの世界があることを……　

; 　　　　アストラリア…
; 　お前が再び　もどってくると
; 　　私の中の　デスワイズも
; 　　　　よみがえる……

Right now, here is what a player will see if he or she hits the "Start" button only once and pauses to allow the pre-intro to load. The third graphic represents the forbidden Star Door.

The segment of my translation that I am least sure about is the second part of the 10th graphic: "Something awful may return..."

As I mentioned elsewhere, Ritchie sent us six completed blocks yesterday, including Block 41 that I discussed above. The whole Intro finally made perfect sense with a few details cleared up by Ritchie's identification of who the speaker was. The changes affected the final two screens in the pre-intro, even though I made a few very minor editing adjustments to some the first four screens.

When I got after Block 041 last weekend, I didn't know if Ritchie would get to that one for months. Heh, he sent it about four days after I started my attempt!

To get an idea how the pre-intro reads now, hook the first four screen above to the two displayed below.