adamstan

Just FYI, I thought Himawari was kinda so-so and liked Island a whole lot more.

So, as expected, now I'm progressing much faster with a TLC - even though I can't do it everyday, I already reached 42% (finished 7th chapter)

So, as expected, now I'm progressing much faster with a TLC - even though I can't do it everyday, I already reached 42% (finished 7th chapter)

Well, from what I'm hearing I guess Island should be on my list.
I guess I skipped over it in my "I bet the romance sucks, not going to play it" phase.

I'm enjoying Island a lot more than I thought it would. I think that's the particular VN formula I enjoy the most- charamoeges with beautiful scenery that more importantly ultimately builds up to a greater plot. Probably why Rewrite is one of my top VNs.
Island really keeps you guessing though. Is all the scientific hypothesis jargon really true, or is it all just some grand delusions from a bunch of wishful islander kids?

 
The heroines are all great. Going off of my 5yearold Grisaia memories, Frontwing was always good at making heroines with top-notch-common-route-bantering-prowess-but-with-fundamentally-flawed-personal-issues-that-will-be-explored-in-their-routes:

 

Karen, who longs to leave the island and its outdated traditions.
 

Sara, who longs to uphold tradition and save the island.


Rinne, who believes she and Setsuna are the same Rinne and Setsuna of legend.
 
Btw, devs were generous enough to give her a whopping 1 CG without her hat:

I CANT HELP IT! YOU LOOK SO GOOD WITHOUT THE HAT!

Rinne is obviously my best gal, and so I bawled absolutely hard at her ending. Now, I would've been fine if things ended the way they did, but hoh boy, Island gains massive bonus points for:
 

For me, Sakura no Kisetsu is a classic. However, it's a bit unapproachable now, with old engine and awkward adventure-gameplay system - which is much more annoying than, say, YU-NO. As I wrote recently in recommendations thread:
 
Well, sometimes I do things on a whim, and shortly after writing the above, I decided to give it a try Actually it's quite fun for now - writing things in Ren'py is almost like directing your own puppet-show .
The goal is to rewrite Sakura no Kisetsu into standard VN structure with branching choices system - getting rid of the "look/think/talk with everything to trigger next scene" system. I do this by arranging texts from various "think" "look" and "talk" sections into the order that gives the best flow (and inserting small connecting bits in between where absolutely neccessary). I also plan to re-edit it or partially retranslate the lines that annoy me too much 
As I see, Brazilian Portugese translation uses similar approach, but they used assets (graphics and music) from the remake, which I'm not too fond of - they are very blurry, while the pixels from dithering are still very visible, so it's like the worst of both worlds . I'm working with assets from PC98 and DOS versions. I also plan to have switchable soundtrack, with all three versions available:  PC98 - original FM soundtrack, GS - PC98 MIDI music replayed with SoundCanvas soundfont and AdLib - PC DOS version FM soundtrack.
While browsing graphic files extracted from both versions I was surprised. I expected Japanese PC98 version to have mosaics (and if such were the case, planned to have mosaics on/off switch in the options), however, the version that is floating around the net is uncensored. Probably somebody hacked files with HCGs from English PC version into it? Graphics and scripts formats are identical between two versions, only music files are different because of different sound hardware.
I looked at files more closely and yes, it seems that some CG files were replaced - while all graphic files from PC98 have 1996-04 dates, HCGs have 1999-10.
For now I have ported first two scenes - talk with parents in Shuuji's home and first meeting with Reiko on the way to school - complete with music and sprites with facial animations, just like in the original Some preliminary screenshots coming in ~12 hours.
Of course for now it is all pretty basic - just full-screen background and standard ren'py textbox. I'm still not sure whether to go with that approach, or try something more like in the original, with borders etc, and the actual scenes taking just small portion of the screen? Also, I'm still not sure how much smoothing (if any) should I use while converting backgrounds and sprites. But we can discuss that when there are screenshots.
 
*I'm not sure in which subforum should I place it. It's clearly not "Original Visual Novel", it's also not exactly "Translation Project" (although probably some translating will be involved). Well, I hope our mods will help me by moving it into most suited section.

Today I reached 23% mark on TLC. I think that from now on, as I go on, I should be able to gradually go faster, because it was the beginning chapters that were the biggest mess.

Today I reached 23% mark on TLC. I think that from now on, as I go on, I should be able to gradually go faster, because it was the beginning chapters that were the biggest mess.

Today I resumed my TLC work, pushing progress counter from 7 to 10%

Ok so, good first impressions on Island
You play as Setsuna, an above average decent looking 5.3 rating guy who wakes up amnesiac on an Island. That's as cliche as it gets huh.

Whew. Unfortunately, buddy, you ain't got nothing on Grisaia's Yuuji. 
Setsuna woke up feeling like he was in the middle of something important- a greater, save the world purpose perhaps- and there are immediate hints that this VN could be dealing with time travel and destiny and whatnot. 

Oo la la, didn't really expect that. Of course, this could all be a big ol' red herring and all the talks of future and time travel is simply a result of Setsuna's delusions. Cuz yeah the guy seems a bit out of it. But he is indeed fairly entertaining, Frontwing delivers with their male protags, as usual.

The poster heroine is Rinne. I think she'd look better without the hat, but whatever floats your boat. Setsuna immediately recognizes/knows her name upon "first" seeing her so maybe there really is some destiny shiz going on here. Rinne a rich gal, from one of the three elite families on the island (the other two heroines are naturally from the other two elite families). She hires Setsuna to be her servant.

TAKE OFF THE HAT LADY
There is a built in flowchart and in general Frontwings' software development team got so pro at coding that you can literally skip or rewind the VN in realtime and jump to any particular scene no problemo. I wonder if they'll narratively make this a plot feature like YUNO's save points

 
The BGMs are fantastic. I guess I have a thing for peaceful/tranquil/surreal/fantasy sounding types and Island would of course be stocked with plenty them. They really do enhance the reading experience indeed.
 

Sadly I got interrupted by life again... But I'll try to get back to it as soon as possible.

Sadly I got interrupted by life again... But I'll try to get back to it as soon as possible.

@Larxe1, you have wrong vndb link in your post - Rupekari is under v29383, not v16338 (16338 is Shirogane x Spirits).

Finished Meikei no Lupercalia/Rupekari. It is a 9.5/10 and I rarely give that score. Even if I haven't read a lot of novels this year, this will be definitely on one of the top ten of what I read this year. It's that good.
If you're looking for a focus on acting, something like act-age, it's not that. Their acting skills aren't the focus. The focus is on the theatre of the characters shroud their lives in. The lies they envelop themselves in just to live. How far should you go for theatre, how far did theatre ruin their lives. How deep the characters themselves shroud themselves in their own lives. This isn't a down to earth experience, expect something like Clannad where there is some sort of KEY magic going on.
First, I'll discuss the more negative parts that I didn't like, and it's not that many.
First, the art itself. While the character designs were fine, their poses are simply strange. The proportions feel off and for such a high quality story, such flaws become more and more apparent. While I'm not an expert in art and honestly, I really don't give much care for it, but it is much more noticeable in such a quality story. Some CG's were absolutely beautiful though and I saved it on my pc as it was just that good.
The beginning is kind of weak. When they do plays, the voice-acting and atmosphere carries the scene through a whole new level but the SoL parts in the beginning were kind of standard fare. I was kinda sick of SoL at that time, so I barely played Rupekari like I only played an hour every day or whenever I remember. However, when they reach the point in which they start readying for theatre, it gets a lot better trust me.
The flashbacks are a double-edged sword, It is also a positive for me in characterization, but sometimes it throws off the pacing of what's going on. And sometimes it can get a bit dreary reading too many flashbacks.
Also, for an MC with that much of a personal history and since this is about theatre, it would have been better if he was voiced but its probably budget constraints or something and I understand that.
That's it for the negative parts for me.
Now for the positive parts.
The music, they didn't have a lot of pieces to play like there were only 26 BGMs in total, but they actually used them quite well, and I never felt much need for more BGMs, what they had been perfect, and it always fit the scenes. I'm not an expert in music too, and I can't delve too much into it, but I know a well-executed sound design when I hear one.
The story and the characters. I'll be discussing them both together as the story and the characters and intertwined. This is a story driven by its characters, not the other way around. All the characters are extensively developed. A certain scene will end up with you hating a certain character, but the more you get to know him through his interactions with others and his flashbacks, his personality, his motivations, all are warped, but you can still see where he is coming from. He is just a human, and I didn't expect the guy I hated at first to be one of the characters to make me cry at the end of his character arc. Moments like that are many in this novel, everyone is flawed just like real humans are. Those flaws will irritate you to no end. They will make mistakes but in the end, you will understand them. They have their virtues, all of them are trying to get want in their own way. However, their virtues don't cancel out their flaws, but that's just being human. All the characters are written well and by the end, you'll be loving them all. 
The flashbacks form something like a third of the story and that's a lot but all of them contribute to the story and make you get to know all the characters. All the characters have their purpose in the story, and getting to know them immerses you more and more in the theatres they play, and their character arc becomes more and more tragic and beautiful. Every side character had their own life, their own mistakes, their regrets, their dreams. 
All of them dream to stand in the theatre, however life is not that pretty, and it reflects well on the writing. Theatre isn't some all-encompassing good thing, it destroyed some actors themselves, the sacrifices they make that chip at their soul, the ugliness of reality is in full display, however whenever they perform on the theatre, you find yourself enchanted. Maybe all those sacrifices were worth it in the end for this piece of art, and the characters themselves often ask those questions to. 
"Why do I love theatre? Did I really love theatre? Am I happy now?" All the characters have their own answers, all of them pursue theatre for their own reasons, some of them are just there because that's what they thought that they were born to do.
As you get to know the characters, the more you will immerse yourself into the setting and get attached to the characters, and when despair hits them, you'll find yourself despairing as much as they do. The circumstances in which they are in are cruel. It isn't because of what they did or what they are, that's just how life is. This story is not pretty, and often you'll find yourself gripped by the despair of what's happening.
There are a lot of separate character arcs happening on screen, and they're brought to their conclusion in their own arcs. In each arc, you'll get to know the character themselves, what lie are they living in, what are they trying to get away from, and how will stand against the ugly truth. The routes themselves are in a way bad ends, and it is obvious why it is. They are bad ends with a story that will let you get to know the characters. The format is branching routes, and it's hard to do a route because the choices you need to do is sometimes morally disgusting. You know it is wrong, but you do it because it's a comfortable lie, but a life built by lies will collapse on its own, and you can never be truly happy. While I liked Meguri's character the most, the choice to go into her route is... Well, I can't stomach it since it feels so wrong. But you know destroying her world of lies will thrust her into the despair of reality, and they show her despair when you make that choice to destroy her lies.
Sewa Tamaki, the main character is as much as important as a character than everyone else. He is not the focus of the story, all of them are. While he maybe the main POV of the game, there will be a lot of moments where you play the VN as the POV of another character. I don't have much to say about him without being too spoiler-y.
Also, while this is a title that will make you cry, it is not an Utsuge as I have previously mentioned. While the despair and hopelessness will make you feel sad, the ending itself is a hopeful one and an earned happy ending. It's a fitting conclusion although while I may hate open-ended endings, this novel did it good and it made me feel satisfied as this is not a story about romance, but how all of the characters move on from the painful reality and face tomorrow head-on. 
I highly recommend people to try this. BTW MEGURI NO.1
I wrote this on the fly after reading the VN's while my thoughts are fresh but not that organized. I'll probably edit this to add more and construct my thoughts better.
 
 

Steam can't just assume everyone who buys vn's are 18+ though. I'd also like to point out that mature games like Witcher 3 etc are not the same experience. You're detached from the characters whereas it's generally the opposite for visual novels making it a wholly more personal experience. If it deals with dark themes such as suicide, madness, death in general then i completely get why they choose to mark it as "adult"

Why are these even questions? Are there people who honestly want every single shikataganai to be translated as "it can't be helped" and every sasuga as "As expected?"  Really? I mean that goes beyond even rigid translation, that's picking the very first choice in a dictionary every time and nothing short of insane.

Yesterday NekoNyan went ahead and did a bunch of announcements, as can be found here:
https://nekonyansoft.com/blog/time-to-reveal-the-sekrit-projects-and-other-news-part-1
And in a nice bit of a prank, they immediately followed up with an unexpected(?) part two! And indeed, unexpected announcements were found within:
https://nekonyansoft.com/blog/time-to-reveal-the-sekrit-projects-and-other-news-part-2
I have to say, NekoNyan has successfully established itself as consistently producing excellent titles. One looks at their translation teams and we get translators like Blick Winkel and ReadingSteiner, and editors like DxS, Decay and FredTheBarber, as well as their own regulars. I'm glad things seem to be going well for them.

Yup, something in that direction could definitely work.  And since you won't have to worry about contrast against arbitrary backgrounds, you can remove the outline and just go with a dark color for the nav text. (Unstroked text will almost always be more legible at small point sizes.)

Like this?

Regarding honorifics and "Onii-chan" I'm really confused myself which is better. I don't like the inclusion of honorifics and "Onii-chan" because it makes it harder to recommend VNs to people who aren't already entrenched in Otaku media. To a certain extent I want to see VNs "get more popular in the west", to quote the Fuwa slogan, but it's hard to appeal to people outside of the niche when they see cringey stuff like "Onii-chan" all over the place. On the otherhand, we don't really have a culture of referring to people by their social rank (kouhai, senpai, Onii-chan, Onee-chan). Yes we have words like upper classman, underclassman, older brother, older sister. But often the context they are used in Japanese translated really awkwardly. In theory I think these translations are more friendly to outsiders looking to give VNs a try, but they also have their own bumps on the road. Constantly calling your older brother "older brother" is just awkward, and vernacularly terms like "bro" are usually used between friends that aren't technically related. Like the saying "Bros before hoes" (a vulgar, but accurate example), refers to male-friends who you feel so close to it is as though they are your brothers. 
I guess all I'm really saying is that I appreciate the complexity of both sides, and ultimately which ever choice a translator makes I respect so long as it's clear they clearly thought about it and are consistent with their choice.  

1) I have no hard feelings about this either way, as long as it's consistent throughout the translation of the work. So if the TLer decided to keep honorifics, they better stay there till the end.
2) Same opinion as with the honorifics. No hard feelings either way, as long as it's consistent and matches the tone of the character who's speaking it.
3) Depends on context. In some works, you can get creative about this. I guess "tsundere" would be fine to keep, but where does one draw the line? At "mayadere"? "Coodere"? Luckily, I don't think I've seen these rarer ones appear in dialogue or narration of some VN, but personally, I'm not sure I'd keep these if I worked on a VN where they appear. Some of these "dere" variants aren't as well known as "tsundere".
4) I prefer western order, for reasons.
5) Definitely something that doesn't need to be always TLed literally, except in cases where it makes sense for the character to speak that way (which rarely happens, really). Not saying one can't use "it can't be helped" for it, but I usually rewrite around it if I see it.
6) Same as with "shouganai/shikata ga nai".
7) Definitely 100% liberal. And it's the number one reason I hate puns in Japanese. They're the hardest to carry over in translation. You really need to find something in English that would work in a similar way. I'm not a fan of TL notes, so I'd rather see an English pun here instead.

This version, 100% — plus, like, 3% percent I had sitting around in my jacket pocket.
It solves so many problems for you. It minimizes the impact of the dithered backgrounds while also giving them visual context. It keeps character sprites from sliding to the far, far edges of the canvas (or behind their own dialogue portraits). And it just looks rad.
Restyle that Ren'py bottom nav with an 8-bit pixel font and you got yourself a winner.

Big news!
Today I reached the end of the script, and that means, that first retranslation phase is completed .

Now I'd like to check first few chapters once more, and then hand it over to the editor. @Plk_Lesiak - would you like to try editing it?
In the meantime I'll try to insert Japanese text into Renpy thus making JP Renpy version. And then, when English text is completed, I'll add it.
Also, I'll try once more to make upscaled/smoothed set of images, but this time I'll do this manually, just recoloring them pixel by pixel - in order to retain original's pixel art feeling. Those automatically smoothed images I showed earlier aren't good enough. And sometimes they're outright ugly.

Big news!
Today I reached the end of the script, and that means, that first retranslation phase is completed .

Now I'd like to check first few chapters once more, and then hand it over to the editor. @Plk_Lesiak - would you like to try editing it?
In the meantime I'll try to insert Japanese text into Renpy thus making JP Renpy version. And then, when English text is completed, I'll add it.
Also, I'll try once more to make upscaled/smoothed set of images, but this time I'll do this manually, just recoloring them pixel by pixel - in order to retain original's pixel art feeling. Those automatically smoothed images I showed earlier aren't good enough. And sometimes they're outright ugly.

Demonstration using one of the first backgrounds (Shuuji's living room)
Here's original 16 color image:

Here's version I did before, using automatic smoothing:

And here's latest version, reworked manually to convert it into 256 colors using "pencil" tool in GIMP:

It's quite tedious work, and I don't know if I will have enough willpower to go through all images - since each image takes few hours, and there are few hundreds of them 😮