Thursday, January 31, 2008

Text Extension Success

I took a little vacation, so there was a period of inactivity on my part. Though, there was work being done by some of the others, so there has been progress since the last post. The variable-width font output code has been updated and is in the process of being tested. The problem here was that some text at the end of a string would get cut off. I had figured out which circumstances lead to this problem and came up with a workaround, but another coder has taken up the task of actually fixing the problem. He has also created a cool little intro that will be shown when the game starts up.

After vacation, I actually got something accomplished. When I announced that we reached the end of the storyline translation, I hadn't realized that this finally pushed us over the edge of available space for text in the game. Well, it filled the current buffer, anyway. I came up with a way to start using another unused area in the game to store the rest of the game text. It seems to work fine, now. It even looks like we will have enough room for the "origin text" to be included in the game. This, of course, is good, but it means more translating.

I have yet to decide what we will do with this origin text. My inclination at this point is to leave it out of the initial release and then see if someone wants to volunteer to translate it. Maybe Calden (our current translator) would want to do it, but so far it's not part of what he agreed to help with. If anyone else would like to try translating it, please go ahead and volunteer. Leave a comment and I'll let you know how you can help.

So, we're back at it and I feel like we're on the home stretch, now. There isn't much text left to worry about, and there are some bugs to fix up. I'll see if I can get a new video posted sometime soon. (EDIT: Soon = Now See video below)



CFC2 English on Nintendo DS Lite

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Premature Party Time

Well, I worked on this for the last two nights. This work, combined with new translations from Calden have brought us to the end of the storyline. There are still about 5-10 storyline strings that we need to go back and fix because of some translation issues. Then, there are some non-storyline strings that are still not done. Of course, there also are some technical issues to work on.

It is exciting to finally reach the end of the storyline, though. There are some interesting things in the text, too. I have had to read almost all of the storyline (even parts that may never come up in normal play), but you guys will have the pleasure of "playing" the storyline. It's probably more fun to play it than just read it, but you might miss out on some stuff, I guess.

Oh well, it will be revealed in time. For now the news is that the time is nearing, and I'm excited that we have just reached this important milestone.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Not Dead

Well, unfortuntaly, I don't have much to say, today. I just felt like I should post and let you know that neither the project or myself are dead. You might say that we both took some time off for the holidays, though.

Here's the current status from my point of view. The file I have is now down to 278 strings of storyline left to translate. From what I understand, though, Calden has translated much of these 278 strings already. I've just not seen it. In fact, in his last message to me, he said, "I feel like I finished more than this. The story is done, all the rest is menu dialogue it looks like." ... "I am pretty sure I have one that is basically done, with a few exceptions. Cheers!"

So, that's great news. I just have to get that stuff from him and get to work inserting it into the game. Then, there will be some effort that needs to be put in to fix up some loose ends like the low-level stuff I mentioned last time.

Oh, and finally, "Neo Geo Pocket Color" JUST pulled ahead of "Nintendo DS" on the poll. It's now 36 to 35. I wonder if someone is stuffing the ballot box. :)

Happy New Year!