Lemma Soft Forums

Apparently, the al|together project to make game translations in a month, has released a number of games.

http://altogether.insani.org/2005/

Looks like mikey will have his work cut out for him to update the MEBGE.

So, just finished "Plain Song". Despite a couple of glitches in the translation/localization and coding (typos, click-to-continue indicators coming up when they shouldn't, etc.), this is a really nifty game. It's a simple story, but I think it is well-executed.

This is especially true from the standpoint of how minimal it was from a production standpoint. It shows that one can make a decent game using only processed pictures and music to set the mood, and without needing any character art.

PyTom wrote:Apparently, the al|together project to make game translations in a month, has released a number of games.

I'd even be as bold as to say "Actually" ^_^.
Seriously, I was amazed! I thought it was going to be a max of three games, but seven?? It's an amazing effort, truly great. Too bad I have a convention coming up and a neverending beta test to do.

PyTom wrote:Looks like mikey will have his work cut out for him to update the MEBGE.

And what a pleasant work that will be. When the updated version will be uploaded is another thing. I'll take my time to go through all of them.

Do we post our impressions here, for all the titles?

*Sigh* I can't handle torrents.... If I could I would be testing them right now... but I just don't go well with torrents.

Oh well... they look good though.

If history is to be a guide, it is quite likely that the games will eventually appear here:

http://www.misu-net.com/downloads.htm

Read the rules carefully before complaining about not knowing the password.

Anyway, I played three games, kind of randomly, turned out to be all text - I started with Plain Song so I would have something to talk about, then did Plain Song Christmas and then the Little Bird. Impressions:

Plain Song
==========
*Gulp*... I am definitely not the target audience for this one, so I'll simply refrain from comments, but I have to mention the complete predictability of the whole story, even down to very specific lines, points and wishes. I have honestly never played a game that was this cliched. This is just about the perfect example of a story I will simply never find my way into. I mean I tried. For a second I liked the coolness of the main character. But there's just too much at once. It feels like a pure overkill of mody elements, like dipping a chocolate bar into chocolate dip... (well that DOES sound good, actually, me and my metaphores ^_^)

I have to make one point though. Cliched and boring doesn't mean useless and stupid to me. I will admittedly be incredibly irritated by the presentation, but I can very well understand a dilemma of career/love and everything around it, as well as someone close dying on a hospital bed. Those are not stupid subjects. Plus, the authors have made the best out of having no character art. It will remain a text adventure in my eyes, but I have to say the images were nicely done and apart from some of the clicking, which more or less didn't bother me anyway, there were no real flaws. Plus, the choices were designed so that there was no confusion about what one was going to trigger, one more reason to like it.

Plain Song CS
=============
The idea of a girl SC is great. It's also great that they made fun of the original game. So overall, an excellent, enjoyable, worthwhile text game. Well done. I am actually quite confident that the team would find an artist if they wanted to, who would be willing to make a few sketches with sweatdrops and SD characters rather than having to write it down, which sort of really begs for some character art. The game really doesn't need much at all - it's all there, the music, the fun, the charisma, it just needs that pinch of salt to be perfect. Very good work.

Poor Little Bird
================
An allegoric story. I am not particularly good with these. However... the graphics... amazing, truly fabulous. It gets that illustrated book feel... a nicely done presentation.

Misu has uploaded the games (except ioChristmasEve) here:

http://www.wingedones.net/alltogether/

Otaku Dash wrote:*Sigh* I can't handle torrents.... If I could I would be testing them right now... but I just don't go well with torrents.

If you need help with torrents PM me with whatever you have a problem with and maybe I can help. I'd be glad to offer any advice I can.

Looks like a very interesting lineup, had no idea about this project thanks for the tip. Sadly don't have the time to play right now But thanks again.

What am I doing up this late?
Anyway, I kind of couldn't get my hands off those new games, so... I played another two of them. Impressions:

A Winter's Tale
===============
What's to say... an excellent VN, period. There are minor things here and there, but who cares. There's nothing that distracts from the experience and even though the artwork was high quality, it still retained that amateurish feel, which is more personal and more touching. It's romantic, it's beautiful to look at and the story is as simple as it is wonderful. I loved it, I really did. Sweet... I think is the term. Oh, and the questionmark with the in-jokes explained is a very good idea.


Kira
====
I'll tell you frankly I may have missed some point with this game. If someone can explain it to me, I'd be glad. I could go on complimenting the beautiful backgrounds, great directing and nice special/character graphics, which were all excellent. But the story... perhaps it was the dialect she was speaking in? There was a flood of apostrophes, but somehow I don't think it was that. The game went past me like Ferrari 360 at full speed. Something tells me it was there for a second, but then, it all went so fast, I still have doubts whether it was just me or whether I really have missed something as beautiful as an italian car.

More...
=====
I have actually some problems with ioCE, the game crashes and a console thing pops up... anyone had a similar experience?

mikey wrote:I have actually some problems with ioCE, the game crashes and a console thing pops up... anyone had a similar experience?

Sounds like something I had with another of their translations (one of a commercial game). I thought it was because I don't have XP or a japanese windows and some characters couldn't be read from the script file (that's what the console shows).

Kira

... It was cute, though I don't know if certain things were supposed to be a surprise or not (they were obvious to me!) and the girl has a charming resemblance to Hotaru Tomoe. But *why* did they decide to translate them as speaking *Yorkshire*?

Someone who knows Japanese culture want to fill me in on strange regional dialects? I've heard comments about "northern accents" in japanese sources, I think, and Yorkshire *is* oop north...

I can't bloody well understand Yorkshire in real life; if I hadn't read the Secret Garden so many times I would have been pretty put off instead of just mildly distracted.

papillon wrote:... It was cute, though I don't know if certain things were supposed to be a surprise or not (they were obvious to me!) and the girl has a charming resemblance to Hotaru Tomoe. But *why* did they decide to translate them as speaking *Yorkshire*?

http://forums.haeleth.net/viewtopic.php?p=8858#8858

Has a discussion of that.

If I get it right, the idea was to translate from a Kansai accent to some other accent that the translator knows. Hardly unprecedented... IIRC, in ADVs dubs of Azumanga Daioh and Someday's Dreamers, the Osaka (?) dialect is translated into a southern accent, while in the AD manga, it's translated into roughly a brooklyn voice. (Fuggedaboutit!)

Then there's Tolkien, translating Westron into English while translating Rohan into Anglo-Saxon...

papillon wrote:I can't bloody well understand Yorkshire in real life; if I hadn't read the Secret Garden so many times I would have been pretty put off instead of just mildly distracted.

That was my problem. I ended up constantly trying to speak those words aloud to see whether in sound they would end up having a meaning. It may be letting the love for languages play a bigger role than it should have, however - I suppose this small point will go on the makers themselves, since as it seems the translation does justice to the original work. I don't like to work my way through slang or accented text in general, sure I may be less capable of understanding a regional dialect in English, but even in my own language I don't like to read Eastern dialects or any other very distinctive forms - if a person speaks like that it's usually much better understandable than having to read it, not to mention ever writer has his own interpretation of how slang/dialect text should be written... it gets confusing at times.

Thanks for this thread! It just got me into playing A Winter's Tale. Can't help but wonder at the fact that "Mother only has the occasional job" and yet the house looks as big as a palace. Did you see the kitchen? That'd be my dream. :)))))))))

Played "Resonance" just a few minutes ago. Cute little story; a little predictable towards the end (and stereotypical too), but very nice in terms of character interaction. The art is just stunningly beautiful - that artist deserves a BIG project of her own!