Sunday, May 4, 2008

Fame, Fortune, and a New Release

Well, the day has finally arrived. This project is finally getting the type of mainstream media attention it deserves. With that, I expect we'll be the recipients of all the fame and fortune that come with such attention. I'm pretty sure that from now on, I won't even be able to shop for groceries without being recognized as one of the guys that brought CFC2 for the NGPC to the English-speaking masses. Oh, and the fortune is sure to follow.

Of course, I'm talking about the recent article posted over at GameSetWatch.com. I was interviewed by Alistair Wallis for a weekly column that he does. Here's an excerpt.

"To celebrate what is a pretty mammoth effort, we talked with Flavor about all the goings-on regarding the project, and received some astoundingly in-depth answers about topics such as his Card Fighter’s Clash fandom, why it’s all taken so long, and why the Lost Church is now a Rooster Church."

Head over to http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2008/05/quiz_me_qwik_card_fighting_with_flavor.php to read the full article.

Oh, yeah, there was a third thing in the title, wasn't there. Yeah, there's a new release. The graphical menus have finally been translated. You can find it at the download link listed on the top-right of this blog. I actually already have a couple of bug fixes that need to be applied to the graphics, so there may be a new update to the files in a day or so. I will probably only post an update to this blog entry when I upload the updated version.

We love to hear the comments, so if you're playing the translation let us know! Have fun!

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

To borrow from Street Fighter: You get PAID??
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111301/usercomments?filter=chrono;start=50)

~Kaz

ArugulaZ said...

Hey! This is Jess Ragan. I think I talked to you a few years back about writing text for this game. Sure wish you had gotten back to me when you decided to restart the translation project... :P

Flavor said...

Hey Jess. I recall trying to look you up. Maybe I had an old e-mail address for you or something. You know, it's also possible that I just didn't try hard enough. Have you tried playing the translation, yet? You're listed in the intro for your help back then. Well, that is unless you play the Nintendo DS version. It doesn't show the intro due to speed issues.

Flavor said...

Oh, and Kaz, I assume that you're being facetious.

ArugulaZ said...

I haven't until now! Yep, sure enough, my name is listed in the credits. Thanks for the props!

I don't know if you used the descriptions I'd written for the characters, as incomplete as they were. Frankly, I'm not even sure I still have the TXT file anymore... it's been that long! In any event, I hope that work was of some assistance to you.

I can understand why you had trouble finding me. I switched addresses from Hotmail to Gmail in the five years since we last talked, and I stopped going to Sector: NGP because I wasn't getting along with the other members.

Have you talked to Mister Raroo lately? He was doing a pretty good video game fanzine for a while, but the birth of his first child must have put an end to that.

Flavor said...

ArugulaZ: I think I still have that TXT file, actually. The problem is that I'm not currently using anything for the "flavor" text. I'd have to go back and look over your TXT file to see if I could use it, but now that I've got this script translation bit down, I think it'd be easier to have someone just translate it instead of trying to use something else.

I post on SNGP still, but there was a long time where I didn't at all (not for any real reson). So, yeah, I kinda know what's going on with some of those guys, but I'm not as much of a gamer as them. You could say that I'm interested in some of the same stuff, but from a different angle, I suppose.

Anonymous said...

Greetings guys!

So yeah, just peeking my head in here to ask if it's possible to have this on the DS without the full screen, aspect ratio correction.

I think I remember someone asking about this before but I can't seem to find that post anymore.

Thanks for such an excellent project!

Anonymous said...

wassup, flavor!

i left a couple of messages in dcemu, in the Race thread. One was praising the hell out of you for this iniciative (check it out) and the other was asking how hard would it be to translate another game for the NGPC. Technically wise. Assuming you have the full translation.

Thanks for your time

zerojfbpt

Flavor said...

Hey guys. Sorry that I've been out of it for a while. We just had a new baby and all. I'm also working on some non-computer projects lately.

James: Yeah, it's possible to make the DS version not stretched. Parts of that emulator were thrown together a bit. When I did it non-stretched, I had issues getting the screen centered. I'm guessing it was just my fault, but I didn't put a lot into fixing it. I prefered the stretch for CFC2, anyway. If anyone wants to work on it, I can get them the source code.

zerojfbpt: Yeah, I did see that there were some new posts over there. I haven't replied, though. Maybe I'll go do that soon. Thanks for the kind words! As for the translation, it all depends on how they created the game. In theory, it's probably not real difficult and I might be able to re-use some of the tools that were made for this project. It would still require a fair ammount of time.

Anonymous said...

You deserved those words, dude. People gotta put credit were credit is due.

Going straight to the point i was thinking of king of fighters: battle de paradise. I would try to get you the full japanese translation. Then you'd do your thing. As you certainly already guessed, i don't know s#%t about programming. Only after i got the full translation would you begin your part because i'm not 100% sure i can do it. Mainly because of time issues (i'm a lawyer). But i sure as hell would like to try. One last tribute to mr. T. Nishiyama. Wadaya say? You in?

Anonymous said...

Just checked your answers on dcemu. Guess my proposal had already been declined. Regarding the translation error, i'll get you the specifics you mentioned soon. Regarding the savestate interchange, i did save it in the right folder, but they simply have a diferent extension. I'll look into it later and give you the full report and extension names and stuff.

Best of luck with your kid. Enjoy the blessing you just got and forget pretty much all else.

zerojfbpt

Anonymous said...

Greetings flavor!

Congratulations on your new kid!

Hopefully it's a stable release! :o)

So back to my earlier question, the only way to have this project emulated in a 1:1 ratio (not stretched) is to completely recompile your source code?

I thought for sure someone mentioned an easier way of doing this, the only drawback was that the emulator was a bit slower using that method. I'm still not finding that post though.

Thanks again!

Flavor said...

Yeah, James, sorry, it's only in the source code.

Anonymous said...

Hello. I've been waiting for this day FOR YEARS. I was waiting for that 2001 translation which died. Even added the guy to Icq back then but he told me he had no plans to finish it. I was shattered. Thought its going to be one of those great games I miss out on. But I am bloody suprised and happy to see t his.
Anyways is there any other hotkeys to RACE apart from L+R to reset? Like save state or load state. And what is the speed hack?
Thanks a ton man

Flavor said...

Hey, Huy!

That guy you talked to on ICQ back in the day was probably me. What name did you go by on ICQ? I may still have you added. :)

There aren't any other keys that I can think of. It doesn't do any save/reload of the emulator state, either. Many people ask about that, but I've moved away from that project (at least for now).

Which speed hack are you asking about? There are a few. There's one that doesn't allow the game to update the color palettes each scanline (I think it limits it to every 8th line). There's another that runs more CPU cycles at a time than actually should be allowed. There's also a couple CFC2-specific hacks that are in the Nintendo DS version.

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure as I don't have my list anymore. I think the nick was alpha something. Something spacey. Of course I could be completely off the mark. Real glad to see this done though. It warms the heart to see people working selflessly for others.
Great stuff mate.

Anonymous said...

I would really, really appreciate the DS version having a non-stretch option. In my opinion it looks terrible and somewhat difficult to read (and some background boxes stretch farther than the borders and stuff too). I realize this is extra work, but it would be nice to actually be able to play this one not at my PC. I'm playing the first SNK version right now (after having already beaten Capcom) and of course it's great but the lack of the backlight also limits where and when I can play it.

Great work on doing this project of course! I was hoping for a long time that someone would. I just have a smallish technical complaint about that one aspect.

Flavor said...

Well, I don't have any real intention of working on the emulator at this time. I might implement CFC2 fixes here and there. I already have some items on my list to add/fix.

I originally had the Nintendo DS version unstretched, but it was also uncentered. I didn't put much effort into it, but I never got it centered. If anyone has any desire to fix it or add any other elements to the NDS emulator. Just get in contact with me if you'd like to mod the source code.

Anonymous said...

A little late but congrats on the translation, the interview, and your daughter.

I don't know if this is the correct place to post this. One thing I wanted to point out is that SNK as misspelled this character's name on both games CFC1 (snk and capcom versions) and CFC2, Fei-Long's name is spelled Fei-Ling.

Flavor said...

In most cases, if a character/card was in CFC1, we tried to use the same name/spelling when we did CFC2. That way people that played CFC1 get the same card names in CFC2.

If you think there are things we misspelled or mistranslated in CFC2, please let us know.

Anonymous said...

Personally, I think Fei-Long sounds better than Fei-Ling anyway.