Visual Novel Fan Translation Index

[Shii]

http://www.shii.org/translate

Some surprises within. Particularly, I note that the number of stalled translations is actually fairly small. Donkeys may bray and sheep may bleat at the prospect of translating an entire visual-novel game, but it looks like it is getting done.

Please let me know of any projects, living or dead, that I've missed.



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NEW! Track translations at the Visual Novel Antenna! http://a.hatena.ne.jp/Shii/
(An Antenna is like a primitive RSS reader for pages without RSS feeds. It doesn't work on the dynamic Mirror Moon site, sry)
For even more redundancy, the Antenna is available in RSS feed form! http://a.hatena.ne.jp/Shii/rss Add it to your Bloglines!
For just the translation projects without the American stuff: http://a.hatena.ne.jp/Shii/rss?gid=236297

[gp32]

Nitpicks follow.

First of all, the Wind translation was 100% complete translating a long time ago, and just yesterday I was told that installer creation was getting to completion. The project is much farther along than you note that it is.

Second of all, your definition of "in progress" is pretty lenient. There's good enough reason to place the MAW2, FSN, AIR, and Clannad translations into the "stalled" column until otherwise proven ...

Third of all, the "Mizuiro" translation isn't stalled; it's been dropped. alamone and I joke about it all the time in our IRL conversations.

Fourth of all, you missed this.

[Shii]

Originally Posted by gp32

Fourth of all, you missed this.

I've heard of it, but it seems to me like an RPG that sometimes uses a fullscreen view for its storyline.

As for the other projects, I'm sure you know more than I, so I'll fix that now.

[gp32]

Oh, "Castle Fantasia"?

Actually, it's fairly representative of Studio e.go!'s games -- which is to say, eroge with gameplay mechanics borrowed from other game genres (and character design borrowed from ... other e.go! games, but that's quite another story). Play some of the demos from e.go! sometime and judge for yourself ...

That said, IM(NS?)HO the game falls squarely under the category of "eroge" ...

Also: I don't know if you want to mention this, but there *was* a private effort to translate "Canvas" by F&C for a time. It was dropped at about 1% translation completion; the guy who was working on it approached me to see if I wanted to continue his work, and while I now have an archive of all that he did, I have no wish to continue doing full game translations. In the same light, there was also a group coming together to try to translate "Galaxy Angel Eternal Lovers". No one knows what became of it. And then there's Revolve's stalled(?) translation of "Vagrants" -- which, despite its RPG underpinnings, falls entirely into the realm of eroge.

There are several more dropped private projects that I can think of off the top of my head, but I know for a fact that the people behind them wouldn't want their projects mentioned. So from my perspective, I find that the number of stalled and dropped projects far exceeds the number of projects for which any significant work is being done. I do agree, however, that a new age of eroge fan localization seems to be upon us. insani is proud (wait, Ed, are we?) to be at the forefront of this wave.

(Aside: A SHUFFLE! translation in 2 months? Granted, he's doing it full-time, but he'd have to translate at something like 2.5x my speed in order to pull this feat off. Amazing ...)

[ChocoEd]

Originally Posted by gp32

insani is proud (wait, Ed, are we?) to be at the forefront of this wave.

Pride is the path to the dark side, so, yes, of course we are!

[Shii]

I think private projects are more of a "can I do this?" sort of thing, so they don't all need to be listed. If AnimeSuki listed all the failed attempts at anime fansubs they would look in bad shape too.

To see that there are three major games nearing completion... Maybe they should all be released on the same day. And then that day could be hailed as "Otaku V-Day" and celebrated every year.

Aside: A SHUFFLE! translation in 2 months? Granted, he's doing it full-time, but he'd have to translate at something like 2.5x my speed in order to pull this feat off. Amazing ...

Maybe I'm just blatantly biased, but I personally don't think that someone who can't spell "interested" (or "personally", or "sure", or "familiar"...) would be able to produce a good translation of anything.

And of course, crappy jobs probably don't take much time.

Eh.

40 CrossChannel FlygShine None (secret project)

Huh? Any more info on this one?
edit: I mean info on translators, I'm aware of the game.

[gp32]

Hmm. 3 or 4 translators, huh ... let me see ...

Note: take the below with a large grain of salt. These are the translators that I know about/have had personal contact with. There may be more.

Edit 1: added <strike>Yoda's</strike> Haeleth's and l|ammamama's changes.

gp32's (<strike>somewhat</strike> very biased) list of community translators

The Pioneers
- alamone (Mizuiro dropped, Majipuri Trial, Kujira Trial)
- Haeleth (Kanon, planetarian programming :P, Narcissu)
- BtAxis (Castle Fantasia)
- metachronism (Gin'iro dropped [?], FSN dropped [?], now retired [?])
- Reikoku (Wind trial, now retired)

<strike>The Insane</strike> Darth Vader (orz)?
- gp32 (Wind, planetarian, Narcissu, bunch of Trial Editions, multiple rants on eroge piracy)

Revolve / Mirror Moon (and alumni)
- AstCd2 (Tsukihime, Kanon, also probably translates To Heart 2 in his sleep [委員ちょハァハァ])
- zalas (AIR in-progress, Vagrants in-progress)
- TakaJun (Tsukihime, now shifting to MAW2?)
- RyuuSoul (Tsukihime, now retired)
- Soulfang (Clannad in-progress)

The New Challengers
- chiisai_nezumi (Anonono Trial)
- Great St. Louis (various apocalyptic projects in-progress)
- heklin (Shuffle in-progress)
- Misu-Net team (unspecified number of translators and at least one Dictionary Operator^TM)
- Randy Au (Gin'iro in-progress, Narcissu alternate)

[Haeleth]

I don't remember translating anything in planetarian...
Also, you can add Kanon to AstCd2's list, because he probably translated between 30-40% of it in the end. (A few other people translated other odd bits - the titles here are a clue - but I don't know that any of the others is active in the sense of your list.)

[l|ammamama]

Originally Posted by gp32

- Misu-Net team (unspecified number of translators -- two, I think)

lol, so far as the misu-net team goes.. I dont even know how many translators we have. But we do have one dictionary operator for sure ;;>_>

[Shii]

Originally Posted by byndhrzn

40 CrossChannel FlygShine None (secret project)

Huh? Any more info on this one?

The author sent me a PM; he wishes to keep further details a secret right now. I would be happy to receive any other information about secret things. (´・ω・`)



vvv @zalas: For now, I want this to be an easy index so people will know what's being worked on in the PC novel field. Before, we had only The Whirlpool and little organization. Maybe once there are more games complete I'll look into wiki hosting.

[zalas]

I have a feeling who that might be... and if I'm wrong, I'm sure he can pool resources <_<;;

As for Vagrants, there are no immediate plans to ever translate the full game.

Don't know exactly what you plan for the list, but you might want to consider a wiki or something if you want instant public feedback. However, a managed text file might reduce the amount of confusion.

* http://4-ch.net/games/
Comedy option.

d('-' )

[Misu]

Gahh.... I was trying to keep a low profile, but I guess that was ruined.

Btw, we use a four person team to do our translation, and also have one translation checker go over our scripts.

[gp32]

Originally Posted by Misu

Gahh.... I was trying to keep a low profile, but I guess that was ruined.

Revenge for casting me as Darth Vader （´∀｀）