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Post subject: 2015 Minerva Progress
PostPosted: Thu Jan 14, 2016 12:34 am 
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Yep, I've jump-started it.

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Post subject: Re: 2015 Minerva Progress
PostPosted: Thu Jan 14, 2016 1:40 am 
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Spoiler! :
Wildbill wrote:
Yep, I've jump-started it.

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YAY! :) can't wait, good luck Wildbill.


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Spoiler! :
CHECK OUT MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL @ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5DrStvYrMxTrHZR11paQMA/
You can find all types of RPG, JRpg, Mmo, PC, SNES, and PS1 games mini-reviewed with no voice-overs there.


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Post subject: Re: 2015 Minerva Progress
PostPosted: Thu Jan 21, 2016 6:00 pm 
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I seem to have my head back in this story now.

One of the first tidbits Taskforce passed to me when I started writing on this project again was how the main theme was so repetitive throughout. This is because all of the chapters feature the same basic threat, albeit to different "countries". I encountered a similar experience in Burning Heroes. The difference was that varying characters walked through the same world in Burning Heroes' chapters. In Minerva, the same characters walk through different countries in each successive chapter. A challenge has been to find slight variations in the different countries of Minerva's world to keep the same characters interesting.

We have pursued two methods of doing this. One is to have the all-girl squad in Minerva keep internal skirmishing heated up through the actions of having some of the girls function as foils to others. Taskforce and I have kept these mini-central metaphors popping up as the game progresses, even through the use of flashbacks to previous chapters and countries, none of which the girls are able to physically return and explore deeper. In addition to embellishing the humor, this technique has served to tie the chapters together more cohesively.

A second technique we've employed to hold a player's interest has been to build themes in which some of the townspeople become foils for the girls' antics. In doing so, the main girl characters and NPCs make light of real people in our world who are always inventing reasons to have their feelings hurt, when their real purpose in creating trumped-up (phony) "cultural conflicts" is to gain unequal power and control over others. In the real world, in which this so-called "multicultural" concept being mandated by certain nations is failing miserably, this sort of satire illustrates the abject stupidity of governments attempting to force incompatible cultures to exist harmoniously side-by-side.

Spoiler! :
Yet, in Minerva, the Japanese authors have created the illusion that people who dress differently in the same towns and countries all function in perfect concord - that is - except villains who are fomenting the mischief. In other words, the diverse peace-loving citizens who may be distinguished by styles of dress have been stripped of internal fanatics who attempt to convert or murder those who don't believe as they. The stated explanation for this would-be utopia in the world of Minerva is simple. Except for those scurrilous evil beings who are attempting to destroy Minerva's world, all citizens - regardless of how they dress - worship the same "loving goddess".


Another challenge in Minerva has been to localize a game who some have described as verbose. In doing my research a few years ago, one non-Japanese speaker who completed the game reported that copious amounts of dialogue bloated the scenes between moments of action. Well, my good-natured response to that is, "What did you expect? All of the fighters are women! And that's what many girls do: talk a lot!" Recalling from my personal experiences, let me add truth to my declaration in a humorous way. I hope this will explain my perception of how men and women sometimes approach the same issues differently.

I was a member of an intelligence gathering organization once, in which representatives from various government agencies worked in a centralized location to manage resources shared by all. Since the sum of needs from the various organizations always exceeded resources, 10 or 12 of us would sit in a conference room every morning to debate and resolve our priorities, top to bottom. Usually, this meeting lasted between 15 to 30 minutes, depending on whether some crisis-level needs conflicted. Departmental representatives were almost equally split between male and female. An impartial staff member hosted the meeting, arbitrated, and executed final decisions.

Once adjourned, departmental reps returned to their individual work spaces, typed supporting statements of their agency's requirements into a data base, and released this electronic instrument to staff for formal approval and assignment of the task. Typically, I would depart from the conference room immediately, make a few quick phone calls to my organization, type supporting justification into my requests, release them to staff, and have everything approved within 15 to 20 minutes following the meeting. Freed up to perform new tasks, occasionally I would leave my office, walk down the corridor, pass the conference room, and see a cluster of ladies still sitting in there, hotly debating what was already settled, approved, and assigned in the system!

That, my friends, is one difference between men and women. In Minerva, we have expanded some of the verbose, repetitive girly prattle into humorous conflicts that build directly from the game's culture and story line. From my own previous work environment, I quickly deduced that we who had the advantage of military combat experience processed requirements quickly. Although some of the ladies wore military uniforms, at that time none had served in war zones. Therefore, the ladies frequently took a more leisurely approach to debating our subject matter, especially in crisis management situations with competing priorities.

The men's approach was similar to final preparations for a military operation about to shove off. The ladies approach was more like a courtroom procedure in a peaceful town with lawyers yapping every little detail to death! Men who have been in battle know that the very first thing that can happen is you throw out the plan and play it by ear as the situation develops. A few women are serving in combat units now. Maybe some of these have returned and changed the culture upon assignment to stateside bureaucracies that plan and manage tasks that support the operators and decision-makers.

Spoiler! :
In Minerva, the ladies are the ONLY combatants who confront the villains, yet they retain the verbosity (my own wife calls it "venting") that many women seem to demonstrate in both real life and Minerva's world. In fact, the girls frequently engage the villains in long epiphanies both before and AFTER their battles - especially when the "evil ones" are other women! Taskforce and I have striven to keep this elongated dialogue both snappy and interesting - interjecting humor and color at every legitimate opportunity.


Due to personal reasons and what I've outlined in this update, I'm needing longer to do my part in writing this game than some others that came before, but I believe the effort and wait will be worth it. I hope to do my second pass and have this one ready for beta testing in March-April - of THIS year.

Currently, I am working the last town in Chapter 4.

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Post subject: Re: 2015 Minerva Progress
PostPosted: Fri Jan 22, 2016 9:12 am 
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A fascinating discussion. I can understand what you are saying from what I've skimmed for now. I'm sure the second pass will be totally worth it!


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Post subject: Re: 2015 Minerva Progress
PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2016 5:59 pm 
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ObiKKa wrote:
A fascinating discussion. I can understand what you are saying from what I've skimmed for now. I'm sure the second pass will be totally worth it!
One must always see the ending in order to ensure continuity throughout. Normally, we writers form outlines for penning original fiction. Non-fiction contains fixed facts. The trick is to serve it up as a banquet instead of a day-old doughnut. RPG-writing is at least twice the work, but the end result seems to justify. We had a similar challenge in Silva Saga-II, where according to some we made the characters interesting enough to keep them playing to the end, just to see what crazy thing someone would do, say, or find next.

Eien and Taskforce put the Minerva banquet together. I'm adding a few appetizers, side dishes, and vintage wines to the spread, along with the Noritake china, Gorham silverware, Christofle tea set, and Waterford Lismore wine glasses.


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Post subject: Re: 2015 Minerva Progress
PostPosted: Tue Jan 26, 2016 9:22 am 
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Spoiler! :
Wildbill wrote:
ObiKKa wrote:
A fascinating discussion. I can understand what you are saying from what I've skimmed for now. I'm sure the second pass will be totally worth it!
One must always see the ending in order to ensure continuity throughout. Normally, we writers form outlines for penning original fiction. Non-fiction contains fixed facts. The trick is to serve it up as a banquet instead of a day-old doughnut. RPG-writing is at least twice the work, but the end result seems to justify. We had a similar challenge in Silva Saga-II, where according to some we made the characters interesting enough to keep them playing to the end, just to see what crazy thing someone would do, say, or find next.

Eien and Taskforce put the Minerva banquet together. I'm adding a few appetizers, side dishes, and vintage wines to the spread, along with the Noritake china, Gorham silverware, Christofle tea set, and Waterford Lismore wine glasses.

Haha! Your metaphors and analogies are so funny!
I've tried to read a little bit about this game from Mobygames and Wikipedia but still really have no idea of what the plotline is all about. OK, so from part of what you were saying before the world that the so-called 'good girls' are living in is kind of like an utopia, right? But their enemies are not really composed of a rival government/country but more of a fanatical group that is trying to forment dissent in the communities, right? So they'd be a bit similar to Lord Voldermort and his henchmen in the Harry Potter stories. Did I get that kinda right? Does the plotline veer off into complicated branches?


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Post subject: Re: 2015 Minerva Progress
PostPosted: Tue Jan 26, 2016 5:51 pm 
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ObiKKa wrote:
Spoiler! :
Wildbill wrote:
ObiKKa wrote:
A fascinating discussion. I can understand what you are saying from what I've skimmed for now. I'm sure the second pass will be totally worth it!
One must always see the ending in order to ensure continuity throughout. Normally, we writers form outlines for penning original fiction. Non-fiction contains fixed facts. The trick is to serve it up as a banquet instead of a day-old doughnut. RPG-writing is at least twice the work, but the end result seems to justify. We had a similar challenge in Silva Saga-II, where according to some we made the characters interesting enough to keep them playing to the end, just to see what crazy thing someone would do, say, or find next.

Eien and Taskforce put the Minerva banquet together. I'm adding a few appetizers, side dishes, and vintage wines to the spread, along with the Noritake china, Gorham silverware, Christofle tea set, and Waterford Lismore wine glasses.

Haha! Your metaphors and analogies are so funny!
I've tried to read a little bit about this game from Mobygames and Wikipedia but still really have no idea of what the plotline is all about. OK, so from part of what you were saying before the world that the so-called 'good girls' are living in is kind of like an utopia, right? But their enemies are not really composed of a rival government/country but more of a fanatical group that is trying to forment dissent in the communities, right? So they'd be a bit similar to Lord Voldermort and his henchmen in the Harry Potter stories. Did I get that kinda right? Does the plotline veer off into complicated branches?


Maybe this OVA will help you get a taste of what the game is about .. considering it servers as the prequal to the Snes game. I have to warn you though,
the dubbing on this anime is REALLY BAD! so you might be better off trying to find the subbed version.

OVA1 - http://en.animesoul.tv/adventure/892-pr ... qeiaH-LSUk


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Spoiler! :
CHECK OUT MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL @ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5DrStvYrMxTrHZR11paQMA/
You can find all types of RPG, JRpg, Mmo, PC, SNES, and PS1 games mini-reviewed with no voice-overs there.


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Post subject: Re: 2015 Minerva Progress
PostPosted: Mon Feb 29, 2016 3:48 pm 
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ObiKKa wrote:
Spoiler! :
Wildbill wrote:
ObiKKa wrote:
A fascinating discussion. I can understand what you are saying from what I've skimmed for now. I'm sure the second pass will be totally worth it!
One must always see the ending in order to ensure continuity throughout. Normally, we writers form outlines for penning original fiction. Non-fiction contains fixed facts. The trick is to serve it up as a banquet instead of a day-old doughnut. RPG-writing is at least twice the work, but the end result seems to justify. We had a similar challenge in Silva Saga-II, where according to some we made the characters interesting enough to keep them playing to the end, just to see what crazy thing someone would do, say, or find next.

Eien and Taskforce put the Minerva banquet together. I'm adding a few appetizers, side dishes, and vintage wines to the spread, along with the Noritake china, Gorham silverware, Christofle tea set, and Waterford Lismore wine glasses.

Haha! Your metaphors and analogies are so funny!
I've tried to read a little bit about this game from Mobygames and Wikipedia but still really have no idea of what the plotline is all about. OK, so from part of what you were saying before the world that the so-called 'good girls' are living in is kind of like an utopia, right? But their enemies are not really composed of a rival government/country but more of a fanatical group that is trying to forment dissent in the communities, right? So they'd be a bit similar to Lord Voldermort and his henchmen in the Harry Potter stories. Did I get that kinda right? Does the plotline veer off into complicated branches?
This game is so "different" (in good ways), I don't want to spoil it. Taskforce said I would need to do two passes after I experienced the ending. He's right. I just saw it. Heh, that's about all I can say. But girls saving a country/world? If feminine banter was military power, this game would have been one chapter long instead of five, hee-hee...!!


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Post subject: Re: 2015 Minerva Progress
PostPosted: Mon Feb 29, 2016 3:51 pm 
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SylarDean wrote:
ObiKKa wrote:
Spoiler! :
Wildbill wrote:
ObiKKa wrote:
A fascinating discussion. I can understand what you are saying from what I've skimmed for now. I'm sure the second pass will be totally worth it!
One must always see the ending in order to ensure continuity throughout. Normally, we writers form outlines for penning original fiction. Non-fiction contains fixed facts. The trick is to serve it up as a banquet instead of a day-old doughnut. RPG-writing is at least twice the work, but the end result seems to justify. We had a similar challenge in Silva Saga-II, where according to some we made the characters interesting enough to keep them playing to the end, just to see what crazy thing someone would do, say, or find next.

Eien and Taskforce put the Minerva banquet together. I'm adding a few appetizers, side dishes, and vintage wines to the spread, along with the Noritake china, Gorham silverware, Christofle tea set, and Waterford Lismore wine glasses.

Haha! Your metaphors and analogies are so funny!
I've tried to read a little bit about this game from Mobygames and Wikipedia but still really have no idea of what the plotline is all about. OK, so from part of what you were saying before the world that the so-called 'good girls' are living in is kind of like an utopia, right? But their enemies are not really composed of a rival government/country but more of a fanatical group that is trying to forment dissent in the communities, right? So they'd be a bit similar to Lord Voldermort and his henchmen in the Harry Potter stories. Did I get that kinda right? Does the plotline veer off into complicated branches?


Maybe this OVA will help you get a taste of what the game is about .. considering it servers as the prequal to the Snes game. I have to warn you though,
the dubbing on this anime is REALLY BAD! so you might be better off trying to find the subbed version.

OVA1 - http://en.animesoul.tv/adventure/892-pr ... qeiaH-LSUk
I think maybe I should watch this video again before I start the second play-through, probably this evening. Thanks for posting the quick link.


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Post subject: Re: 2015 Minerva Progress
PostPosted: Mon Feb 29, 2016 4:23 pm 
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Okay, as I mentioned in a response above, I have finally seen the English ending of Princess Minerva.

I suppose it's been around five years or so since I first did a few strokes on the introduction to this game. I'm pondering over what might be altered in the body of this game, now that I know the ending. Usually, in an original story, a writer builds an outline in which he withholds no secrets from himself. In RPG-writing based on full or partial translations of fragmented script files, however, due to the nature of the beast, frequently an English storywriter is blindsided by twists and unexpected turns of events. A full abstract of the story - if such existed - would help writers while navigating from scene to scene and minimize anything being "lost in the translation" during first passes. Second passes remedy this hardship and enable writers to "clean up" everything.

The main point I need to consider in the second play-through is NOT to add to or enhance any preliminary scenes in ways that would excessively foreshadow critical plot elements - to an extent that these might act as spoilers. Any changes that seem to be called for must only heighten suspense and deepen mysteries!

I will start my second play-through shortly. Last evening, I transmitted the updated script files to Taskforce. If he gets a chance to play through the ending I worked on and pass along feedback, I will have a good feel for proceeding through the second pass.

As with many of our translation projects, this one has taken a while to reach this point. For those who enjoy these vintage RPG games in a Western language, I believe Princess Minerva will fit right in with others that many people have found enjoyable through the years. In other words, it will be worth the wait. Barring any more family crises at my end, this project should be ready for beta quite soon.


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