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

You mean you're *not* going to completely rewire the combat interface like I did with Ancient Magic? ;)



Actually, looking at it now, I could potentially truncate the menu horizontally, which would give me a lot more space for character names in the display window... But beta is already well under way, and I have other things to do! Oh, choices, choices...

I can hardly wait to dig my teeth into Burning Heroes myself and start using my picky radar antenna to make sure our work
turns out as polished as possible. A game as promising as this deserves the best efforts from us all.

BH has a menu system similar to Lennus-II's five box array. Four of these are choices that radiate to the points of the compass. The box in the center translates roughly to "Select an Option". Once you start entering the sub layers of the menu commands, some of those screens become busy, busy, busy with highly compacted and sub-compartmented data. The question may be whether we can have long names in some display systems while using short versions at the same time in others where tight space is immutable. Anyway, this is Bongo`'s bailiwick. I'm still trying to catch up the writing to the sum total of Ritchie's submissions. I'm getting there, but it's slow work sometimes with four character scenarios clamoring along at once. Your Ancient Magic battle screen data is nicely revamped, btw.

Hahaha I was just thinking to myself while reading "He could decrease the size of the Menu data's window and add more name space."

I say go with it.

Speaking of the battle menu for BH, I have my notes already on possible changes. Looking at your menu gave me an Idea I didn't see before. Thanks!

Ah, it's nice to see you again Bongo`. As well as this thread active again.

I was wondering something about Burning Heroes. I remember reading that you only get the true ending after beating all eight scenarios. That being said, all eight characters have an ending... Does this mean that the player would have to make eight different save states with each hero right before the final boss fight in order to see each character's "true ending"? If so, that will be kind of strange. Having to re-beat the last boss eight times just to see these endings. Non the less, it's not a big deal. This is an awesome game, one of my favorites in fact. I don't think that I need to say that it has high re-play value (what with the eight characters and all).

By the way Wildbill, thanks for approving the character list. Should I start fixing the names in the text files or have you already a plan for that? Let me know if you need any help with it, I'll be glad to lend a hand. I have been a little bored after finishing those misc files.

Yes, I need your help. You are one of the key members of the BH team. I am looking to you to set a lot of directions for the overall tone of this game, but I hope you and TF will consider GZ's input and look for areas of possible compromise. As for the length of the names, I have a few unreported developments, but I'll say this much here. Due to immutable menu considerations, we will need a dual name system. What I'm proposing is a full name in the dialogue (text) files and a nick in the menu (misc) files. The reason for this is that menu names must be no more and no fewer than four characters.

Mulling over these implications, I believe we can turn this into a quaint positive in the story line. For example, Shokola can be Shok in the menus, and someone can say she's a real "shocker" when it comes to her exploits - that sort of thing. Right now, I am using a preliminary set of names that work for me in this early going, but all of that will be refined as the game takes shape. Also, I will report that profanity is indicated in this game - especially in regard to the Gaou character. I plan to use it occasionally , to stay true to the literal translation, but I feel compelled to tone it down somewhat in a few places, especially after Ritchie dropped the "MF" bomb!

Finally, I have a very good grip on the basic plot now. I see no problems beyond sorting out Naga's gender! As for those other points you raised, that's your job, to reconcile all of the perturbations! Writing multiple endings - remembering how I wrestled with Feda - will be a real treat, I'm sure, and probably hold up release!

But it'll be worth it in the end.

Okay, what I need to do next is hook you up with a link. Give me a few days, and I will send you the English game in it's present highly unfinished form. Do you still have the same e-mail?

Yup, same e-mail. I agree about keeping the profanity to a minimum in this translation whenever possible. As for shorting the menu names, it seems like a good idea if text expansion isn't possible. I wouldn't really mind seeing some names shortend a bit in the menus. As for Naga... I guess I'll look through the game and text files some more to see if there's a hint as to the gender.

I haven't written/investigated the Naga scenario as far as possible yet, but when I get into it, I will be on the lookout for gender clues as well. Right now, I am treating Naga as a woman.

Dialogue progress so far...

The Ryuu scenario "dies" on the Old Mountain Trail due to a needed block translation. So far, I have unlocked the first two cities and Hell Valley.

I am working on the Laila scenario now. I have made it to Rain Port, Sand Town, and the Sandstorm Tower, but I haven't yet tried the Whitecaps Sea Route.

I already worked the Gaou scenario in his first town earlier, but I haven't gotten to later possibilities in Ritchie's most recent file translations. That work comes after Laila.

Naga follows Gaou among the four initial "unlocked" chars.

Okay, as I said, I need a few more days to get organized and send something along. I will hook you up with a link soon.

Nice update on front page Wildbill! I must say, you've certainly written great intro screens for the eight characters. Especially considering the text limitations that were involved. I tip my hat to you good sir! Even though this is still far away, I have an idea about the implementation of accented letters into the font. If we could slightly reduce the size of these letters such as ă or ş, they might fit. An 8x16 font sounds sufficient, but if not, an 8x8 font could be designed for international translations. This is just a thought.

Heh, with that limited space, it's rather like writing newspaper headlines in basic journalism class many years ago. However, maybe it's better having pithy profiles for piquing interest, now that I think about it - exactly what a news story headline is crafted to do. Anyway, I've already tweaked Ryoga's profile just a tiny bit more. Now, for the last couple of hours, I've been majorly bogged down in the poignancy of Ryoga's sparse opening strings prior to taking actual control of his character in Fire City and going after the Aqua Clean. Writing is like that sometimes, but who knows? If I make Ryoga's prologue tear-jerking enough, you may end up liking Lithia and him even better than Ryuu (but I doubt it, knowing you)! Ryoga's sister may be an angel by temperament, but you and I both appear to have jaundiced attitudes toward "sister acts".

I'll update you later tonight or tomorrow - as soon as I get Ryoga fully launched and have an opportunity to check some of the status icons in the field that are supposed to be fixed now. The one poisoned, paralyzed, (or whatever he was) character I saw with Naga's team in the Star Relic didn't look fixed, but that could have been the zst's fault. The symbol looked sort of like this: |O

Basically, for a scaled down 8X16 font with all of the diacriticals added, I believe we need someone to painstakingly go into all of the tiles and hand-build each letter slightly smaller, pixel by pixel. Taskforce is the best graphics artist I've ever known who has designed fonts for 16-bit games. His font for Taloon's Great Adventure is my all time favorite game font, commercial or otherwise. Bongo` knows how to calculate the geometry for what font sizes and designs can be loaded into specific games, both fixed and variable width. To mount a serious effort toward internationalization, we need someone with the proper expertise to step up to the plate and take charge.

I still want to set up FlashPV (who designed our BH English title page) with a matrix for a French translation of Feda.

Finally, it will be so nice to have translations of these scattered blocks someday that will flesh out the final segments of the World-I story lines! The second graphic is inside the Star Relic complex - Ryuu's scenario, I believe. After all eight scenes conclude inside the room with the Star Door in the background, the World-I scenarios conclude and each character and his or her party board a ship for transport to World-II.