Progress ~ Chaos World Redux
Chaos World
# Posted on April 30, 2018, 4:45 a.m. by Gideon Zhi

Chaos World was one of the very first RPGs I worked on, and as a result the current patch isn't quite up to standard; I had to cut down a *lot* of the text in order to fit the game script back in, and I never released it with a v1.0 status. Today I'm announcing that I still have Xeur's original script before all the paring-down; with the help of TheMajinZenki I've mapped it to a new proper script dump and am preparing it for reinsertion. No new screenshots yet as it hasn't gotten that far, but this is something I'm legitimately excited about and wanted to share the progress that has been made.

Progress ~ Yu Yu Haksuho Tokubetsu-Hen
Yu Yu Hakusho: Tokubetsu-hen
# Posted on April 23, 2018, 5:01 a.m. by Gideon Zhi

Today I'm providing a progress report for Yu Yu Hakusho: Tokubetsu-hen. The main script is translated and inserted, but there's a lot of fiddly technical bits left. I've been slowly re-drawing the menu graphics (the text on the menu items is actually painted on; it's not on a different layer so when it's removed, whatever was supposed to have been underneath it needs to be filled in by hand) and working on the menus. The tournament mode has a few problems and the attract mode still needs to be done, but the project is in fairly good shape. I've replaced the screenshots on the project's page to reflect the work that's been done. No ETA though; other things are taking priority.

Progress ~ Monstania Redux
Monstania
# Posted on April 16, 2018, 4:59 a.m. by Gideon Zhi

Monstania was the very first translation patch of meaningful size that I released, and it is correspondingly more than a little creaky in a lot of ways. To that end I've spent some time reworking it. I'd like to be able to have user-entered 8-character names and it still has the weird soft-lock semi-hang bug that the original version has, but I've gotten the script completely retranslated (thanks again to TheMajinZenki, who did JoJo, SRW2, Magical Drop 2, and Masoukishin.) I'm attaching a couple of sample snapshots of current work to this news post, but as they don't reflect the currently available patch I'm not going to add them to the project page. As with Lady Stalker, the Monstania redux's future could go a number of ways; I'm not going to say much more here about it, other than that it's amazing how simple this game is to work on now that I've got nearly 20 years of experience under my belt!

Progress ~ Magical Drop 2 Commercially Available
Magical Drop 2
# Posted on April 9, 2018, 4:33 a.m. by Gideon Zhi

Today I'm going to be talking a bit about Magical Drop 2. The translation is complete and the game is now fully playable in English, end to end! But I'm not releasing it just yet, primarily because it is currently available for purchase - yes, with the English translation applied - as part of the Data East Classics Collection from Retro-bit. That's right: we've been licensed! I've ticked the progress counter on the project page up to 99 (it doesn't go any higher for projects without downloads) and updated the screenshots to showcase current work. From here I need to ask for some patience while I figure out where Magical Drop 2's future lies.

Progress ~ Laplace's Demon in Beta Testing
Laplace's Demon
# Posted on April 5, 2018, 5:48 a.m. by Gideon Zhi

Laplace's Demon is a very strongly thematic game. Most years since its original release I'd think to myself, 'I should make sure to get this done for Halloween' or 'Wouldn't it be funny to release this on Valentine's Day' or something along those lines. The problem was that the thought would occur way too close to the holiday in question, and there was never enough time to fully fix the game in time. Then the holiday would pass, and Laplace would once again cease to be a priority.

I'm no longer aiming for a holiday-themed release for this. It's been in playtesting for a while, and a second round is scheduled to start as soon as Masoukishin is done, but there are enough bugs in the original game that it can be kind of hard to tell if an issue is something caused by the translation or if it's something that was always there. In the interests of personal sanity I'm not aiming to fix anything present in the original game, though the new version of the translation does look much nicer than the version I released back in the day. To that end I've completely replaced the screenshot slideshow on the project page with 15 fresh snaps showing the current state of the translation. I don't think this one is very far off, though as usual I'm not going to commit to any given release date.

Progress ~ Ladystalker Update
Ladystalker - The Apocalypse Engine
# Posted on April 2, 2018, 5:36 a.m. by Gideon Zhi

Today on "things I haven't talked about in a while", I want to highlight Ladystalker. Some progress has been made in formatting strings for line length, and most (but not all) of the interfaces have been hacked. I've also hacked the scrolling introduction. The work is currently imperfect (see "Lad" instead of "Lady" below) and probably two thirds or more of the game still remains to be checked for both line length and context. For a variety of reasons Ladystalker isn't a priority at the moment, but I did want to drop a note to say progress is being made, if slowly, and that it hasn't been forgotten about.

Progress ~ Super Robot Wars Gaiden in Beta
Super Robot Wars Gaiden
# Posted on March 28, 2018, 4:08 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

Hi everyone, I'm just dropping a note here to say that SRW Gaiden: Masoukishin/The Elemental Lords is currently being playtested. The screenshots on the project page were old, so I've replaced the lot of them with 21 fresh new snaps. I'm extremely pleased with how it looks, and even though it won't be conveyed in screenshots I'm also exremely pleased with how it sounds, as we've got music persistence working in the game! The patch will be provided as an optional extra when release happens, and barring any major disasters that should be sometime in the next few months.

Progress ~ Dark Half enters beta
Dark Half
# Posted on May 11, 2015, 3:24 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

Just dropping a quick note to say that Dark Half has entered the beta test phase. The screenshots on the project page are a little out-of-date; they're pre-edit and I've since added a drop shadow. There'll be new snaps up before the release, which I'm predicting will be some time this month.

Progress ~ Lagrange Point - Last of Three
Lagrange Point
# Posted on Oct. 12, 2014, 11 a.m. by Gideon Zhi

Last but certainly not least, Lagrange Point! Betatest has been underway for a full month at this point; I blame Destiny for my, uh, lack of timeliness in addressing bugs. Sorry about that, testers! They've reported a total of 228 issues so far - typos, bugs, localization and consistency issues - and I've smooshed all but four of them at this point.

But we're getting really, really, really close to release. Next couple of days close. Updated the project slideshow with 20 new screenshots, but that's where I'll end the post; I'll talk about it in more detail when we release.

Progress ~ Second of Three - Romancing SaGa 2
# Posted on Oct. 12, 2014, 10:56 a.m. by Gideon Zhi

Okay, so, Romancing SaGa 2. I'd be lying if I said the project was in pristine shape, and it'd be disingenuous to upload gorgeous screenshots without showing some of the, uh, not so gorgeous screenshots. I've replaced the entire slideshow with screenshots indicative of the current state of the project, warts and all. You can see one of the problems below.

That said, these will *hopefully* not be too difficult to overcome. As with SMT if..., there's a SaGa anniversary coming up soon. I'd really like to have this out then as well, but it's a bit more of a long shot than SMT. We'll see.