Targenor

Hi folks!
My name is FBates, and I am the author of the Fate/stay night re-translation project that some of you may have already heard about. I've been quietly working on this project since the fall of 2019, and have already put out a preview release of the Fate route at Christmas 2021, and now a preview build of everything up through the end of Unlimited Blade Works that I've released today. My editor Hobusu and I both work full-time jobs, so progress isn't always fast, but I'm very proud of the quality of the work that we've put together.

Anyway, I could go on and on about it, but what's really important are a few pieces of information, and then the download links. 😅
First off, this patch is designed explicitly for use with the most recent version of the Fate/stay night Ultimate Edition (1.1.2) found over at Beast's Lair. It may work with other versions of the Ultimate Edition, or even other versions of the game, but I can't guarantee that it will, and it will almost certainly be missing textual features that this patch makes use of.
Secondly, included in the download is what we've taken to calling the Official Fate Font (actually a modified version of Noto Serif JP) which we strongly recommend that you make use of. Hobusu has put a lot of work into cleaning up the formatting and making sure that it both looks good and reflects the character of the original JP script, but because of the way the engine handles fonts and text sizing we can't guarantee that you'll have the optimal experience using any other font.
Thirdly, and I want to stress this, the version available here is intended for preview purposes and is not final, Any text of this size, especially when it's being worked on by a small team, is going to have typos and lexical gaffes, and some portions of the text could still change fairly substantially as we continue to edit them in preparation for a complete release of the VN. So I ask that you be understanding if and when you run across those sorts of textual goofs, and would be grateful if you'd drop me a line either here or on Discord if you find one so I can clean it up.

Anyway, as a final word I just want to say a sincere thank you to anyone who does decide to pick this up and read it. This is very much a labour of love for me, and I hope that you'll get as much enjoyment out of reading it as I've had from writing it. On that note, I'll wish you happy reading, and leave you some links!

First a couple of short Medium posts I wrote explaining my goals and my philosophy with regard to this project (for anyone who is interested):

Re-translating Fate/stay night
https://medium.com/p/98b9cadff967

Editorial decision-making; or, translation is tricky (and also interpretative).
https://medium.com/p/97d269c2cf39
And finally, without further ado, the patch itself:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aox3h23kjAB9kHUwV1wODssBvlulI3mJ/view?usp=share_link

Two weeks on in the editing process and I've now gone through the common route along with Matsuri's and Kimika's routes to get over 50% of the editing done. As a result, I'll probably finish up the editing sometime in early August, and then there will be around a month of the QC phase along with tweaks, adjustments and testing. So I can now finally give a definitive release window: The English patch will be released in September. So if you haven't already, go buy the game on DMM (Japanese proxy required to access and purchase via paypal) or you could also buy the physical copy if you can find it in a second-hand store or distributor. I actually purchased both (mainly because I wanted a physical copy after I had already bought the game from DMM), but the patch will work on either one, so no need to worry about that. My physical copy:
So thank you for all the support, and I'll get back to editing.

Hi there, fellow VN fans,
I always had a thought: why do we have so many proprietary and semi-proprietary VN engines? There are *many* defiencies in having a closed source engine (and kinda inaccessible VN content): there are problems with running it on many platforms (like 95% of modern VNs are released for Windows, good luck trying to read them on your Android / iOS device), there are these infamous problems with "Japanese locale required", sooner or later platforms become inaccessible (good luck trying to run some less popular games of Windows 95-98 era - they won't
run on modern Windows 7/8/10 in any of the compatibility modes). If one wants to grab text for translation, one has to resort to really ugly API hooking hacks. Etc, etc.
So, why not just convert VNs to some easier, more universal, accessible format? I've followed the pattern of ScummVM project (a universal engine that runs adventure games) and thought - why not?
There are 2 projects close to what I thought: that is VNDS, which is, unfortunately, dead, and Asenheim, which is, unfortunately, not free/open source and I can't participate in it.
Today I'd like to share some of my progress, proof-of-concepts and ideas.
I've studied several VN engines, namely:
Kirikiri2 (AKA TVP) NScripter BGI (Buriko General Interpreter) Whale Caramelbox SysAdv Ren'Py Tyrano Yuka VNDS Asenheim What do I have now:
An understanding of some common baseline capabilities that all these engines have A project of JSON-based format (basically, some metainformation plus an array of simple instructions like "show text", "show graphics", "play sound", etc) A proof-of-concept engine written in HTML5+JavaScript (well, actually CoffeeScript) Most important: some working converters for several games that can be used on original games' data to make a "port" that my engine will be able to run A list of VNs I currently support and working on:
Koisuru Shimai no Sextet - https://vndb.org/v13353 (Yuka) Zutto Tsukushite Ageru no! - https://vndb.org/v8439 (Yuka) Moshimo Ashita ga Harenaraba - https://vndb.org/v100 (SysAdv) Sakura Swim Club - https://vndb.org/v18261 (Ren'Py) Edelweiss Eiden Fantasia - https://vndb.org/v2093 (BGI) Koneko Doumei - https://vndb.org/v153 (BGI) Nora to Oujo to Noraneko Heart - https://vndb.org/v18148 (Whale) Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru - https://vndb.org/v195 (Caramelbox) Here's how it looks like:

A few nice things that I already have is full customizability (like using any skin for every VN for UI), support for multiple simultaneous languages (like showing original Japanese + English translation for the sake of learning Japanese from it), support for annotated Japanese (i.e. adding furigana and/or hovering tooltips with word translations), etc. It's very easy to run HTML5 engine on Android and iOS (tried both), thus enabling one to enjoy reading VNs on the go.
I want to ask if anyone would be interested to take a look and possibly join me in developing / using such a concept? I'm almost ready to publish it all as open source software - actually, I just need a good name for the engine Any ideas?
If anyone wants to try translating any of mentioned games using my engine - please contact me too. Anyone who wants to participate in any way (i.e. checking out demos, porting more games, playtesting, etc) - also feel free to contact.
UPDATE: The engine is released in public and available to download at https://github.com/mnakamura1337/mikan_engine

Beautiful art. I look forward to playing a demo

Beautiful art. I look forward to playing a demo

Welcome to Fuwa! Have a loli:



 
If you're taking recommendations, I strongly recommend Umineko no Naku Koro ni, and don't listen when people say it's a mind screw, just play it with a open mind and you'll be okay.
Hope you have fun and I'll see you around,
 
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