Progress ~ At long last, an update
# Posted on July 27, 2009, 4:08 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

Before I launch into the update proper, let me first express regret at the silence on the front page lately. Marathonning Alpha Gaiden like I did was taxing and tiring, and my state of exhaustion is/was not helped by a rigorous work schedule; I do 38 hours over three days, and by the time I come home after that I barely have the energy to do ANYTHING. I'm lucky if I get that energy back by 9PM the night before I have to go back to work. That said, in the last several weeks (not to mention the last several months) I've made quite a lot of progress on several of my projects.

To begin with, I've reinserted the majority of Holy Umbrella's text, and it's gone through an initial alpha test phase. There are still several issues and a couple of untranslated text boxes, but nothing that a few days hopefully won't fix. See the first of the accompanying screenshots for an example of inserted text.

Similarly, some fairly major strides have been made in Majin Tensei recently. The last of the technical issues surrounding font replacement have finally been resolved, and some theoretical assembly workarounds for text expansion that I'd been thinking about have proven to operate flawlessly in practice. The result is that, at least for now, I can insert roughly 3/4s of the "main" script with no issue, and that the rest shouldn't be far behind. Meanwhile the demon dialogue has been fully dumped and translated, and is ready for insertion as well, but I want to get the rest of the text into the game before I futz with that any further. Again, see the other accompanying screenshot for a sample of inserted text actually working correctly in-game.

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned on the front page or not, but Romancing SaGa 2's script has finally been translated, thanks to Eien ni Hen, translatress extraordinaire. I've outsourced script formatting to local forum and IRC junkie Arle, who has already completed a good chunk of the work. Screenshots will be posted as soon as they're available, but I have no idea how long that'll be.

The last game I'm going to mention in detail is LUNAR Walking School. As I'm sure I've probably mentioned before, the entire game has been hacked and translated, and has been "sort of" ready to go for a while; however, I'd wanted to give its script another going-over before releasing it. Well, I've gone through the first of the main plot arcs and done all the edits I've wanted. This, if I recall correctly, comprises chapters 1-7, or about half the game. It takes about three to four hours to edit a chapter, so call it fifteen to twenty hours of hard work on my part before this is ready to go. That said, I can only work on one thing at a time, and there are a lot of other things vying for my hours, so don't expect LUNAR immediately.

All that said, I'd like to remind everyone, myself included, of the loooooooong list of games with translated scripts that are also vying for my time. These are all in varying states of completion, so remember, just because the script is translated doesn't mean that the game is anywhere near ready for release. So, without further ado, the list, excluding the four games mentioned above: Adventures of Hourai High, Ancient Magic, Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem, Ganbare Goemon 2, Ladystalker, Lagrange Point, Laplace's Demon, Madara 2, Makaitoushi SaGa, Megami Tensei, Mystic Ark, Rejoice, Slime Morimori Dragon Quest, Solid Runner, Super Puzzle Puyo 2, Super Robot Wars 4, Super Robot Wars EX, Super Robot Wars Gaiden, Tactics Ogre, and Ys 5. I have not forgotten about ANY of these. It's a question of time and motivation, both of which have been at an unfortunate premium these days.

Hopefully I'll have a release coming in the next few weeks, but I'm not going to make any promises. Again, sorry for the silence. I've just been extremely tired of late.

Release ~ Merry Christmas - SRW Alpha Gaiden
Super Robot Wars Alpha Gaiden
# Posted on Dec. 25, 2008, 6:03 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

Yep. There's not much else to say at this point, other than that this is a basically untested beta patch. Also, I'm really sorry for taking so long with this. Because it's basically an untested beta patch, we ran into some crippling last-minute issues, first with the patch not properly replacing the game's executable and thus leaving the asm hacks out of the resultant disc image, and second with the Premium Box version of the game just not working at all. Both issues have hopefully been resolved! Note that the patch was developed based on the original release of the game, so patching the Premium Box release has been tested even LESS. But it should work, fingers crossed.

Huge, huge thanks out to Excellen (Chrissy on some boards, Hokuto on others) for her extra-hard work over the last four years translating this game's mammoth 3+ megabyte script. Thanks also to SilverSonic, whose initial (sadly failed) attempts at translating the script got the project on its feet in the first place! Thanks as well to everyone else mentioned in the readme who contributed to the project, and to Masaki and Iriliane from our IRC channel for performing some last-minute grunt testing on the Premium Box version of the game.

Well, I think that about covers it. Enjoy the game, everyone!

Miscellaneous ~ Tomorrow's release
# Posted on Dec. 24, 2008, 2:10 a.m. by Gideon Zhi

Please do not panic if nothing shows up at midnight tonight. I've done midnight releases in years past, but this year I'm going to be visiting family today and tomorrow, and will be staying overnight in a place with no internet access. As such, tomorrow's release will be arriving later in the day, rather than in the morning.

Miscellaneous ~ It is going to be a good Christmas.
# Posted on Nov. 14, 2008, 10:01 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

The likes of which we've not seen in several years! More than I can count on one hand! Just don't, you know, complain. And I know some of you are GOING to. We went with canon wherever possible.

Yes, I'm being deliberately cryptic. But you'll like this.

Progress ~ Last but not least, Madara 2.
Madara 2
# Posted on Nov. 14, 2008, 9:57 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

Tom finished this one a while ago, but I never mentioned it, because I do so love posting screenshots of this stuff. But alas, again! Nothing to show for it yet, I'm afraid.

Progress ~ Lady Leaps Ahead
Ladystalker - The Apocalypse Engine
# Posted on Nov. 14, 2008, 9:55 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

This one too! Ladystalker has also been fully translated, also thanks to satsu! Unfortunately again, nothing to show for it yet :/

Progress ~ Hourai High marches onward
Adventures of Hourai High
# Posted on Nov. 14, 2008, 9:53 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

satsu finished translating Hourai High's script about a month ago, maybe a little longer. Again, nothing to show off, I'm afraid :/ Also, mind not the busted previous news post (and its missing comment link); it'll get fixed soon.

Progress ~ Slime DQ Squidges Along
Rocket Slime: Terror of the Tail Troop
# Posted on Nov. 14, 2008, 9:14 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

Just dropping a quick word about the first - of several - games whose text translations have reached the "complete" marker in the last few months. Slime DQ is the most recent, thanks to Tom/DDS, who is now working on something else for us which I'm sure you're all rabid for! No screens, unfortunately; I haven't hacked the text into the game yet, so I don't really have anything to show off.

Announcement ~ LUNAR announced - feedback wanted
LUNAR Walking School
# Posted on Aug. 3, 2008, 3:42 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

So here it is, ready to be playtested... or is it? The script is still slightly wooden, in a translated-from-Japanese sort of way. It's hard to pinpoint what's wrong with it, and maybe it's only something that a trained eye can see, but it's certainly not on par with recent stuff like LaL 2.0. Passable, maybe? I'm not sure.

So, I'm asking for opinions. Would you all rather see another edit pass, or should I just toss it into betatesting? It's certainly otherwise ready.

Miscellaneous ~ Looking for investors.
# Posted on July 3, 2008, 10:36 p.m. by Gideon Zhi

Do you love what we do here? Do you enjoy older games from days gone by, or perhaps feel that the current generation of games is lacking something? Have you ever wanted to support Aeon Genesis, but haven't known how?

Well, here's the thing. I'm looking for investors to help fund what I'll call a "splinter" operation. This isn't going to be AGTP, although it will follow similar lines. It won't replace AGTP either - at least, I hope it won't - so your favorite WIP projects aren't going anywhere. (In the event that I AM forced to close AGTP, all current project files will be made public for acquisition by other groups.)

While I can't divulge much just yet, I have put together a viable business plan; the only problem is, this is going to be stupidly expensive for one person to fund. Now, don't get me wrong - I'm not asking for free money. I'm looking to drum up some capital that I can then take to a venture capitalist to say, "Look what I was able to raise on my own!" I will *not* take any money until venture capital comes through, and even then you will be paid back with commensurate interest within a few years. This is not without risks, of course, but if I wasn't confident in my plan I wouldn't be throwing this out here.

If you're interested and can help fund this, even a little, please send an email to this address. Let's do something awesome and show the industry who's boss.