Amagami Game Translation Project

[CirqueForge]

(Beta) Patch Release For All Platforms

https://nishishitranslations.wordpress.com/patches/

Please read the readme first for instructions on how to patch and answers to some questions I gave beforehand to avoid confusion about some things about the project. The SVN has also been updated mostly with a few exceptions for the tool and documentation has been also updated, but since Google Code closed in August this year, the original repository is now readonly. Any new tool code or documentation will be published elsewhere.

I hope you all enjoy.

Original OP post with file links removed:

Originally Posted by CirqueForge

Hello. Currently, I'm temporarily in charge of spearheading the effort along with a bunch of people to see if we can translate Amagami in English for the PS2. I was wondering if I can get any help in regards to this little possibility of translating this game. The translation only remains a possibility for right now for the reasons I am about to explain.

Around 5 months ago, a Russian dude by the name of freesmiler did some poking around and wrote some code in Qt for working with the game files, with the inclusion of extracting .SCF files with scripts which then again extracted into .XML files.

His site with all his documentation, tools, and source code is at http://freesmiler.livejournal.com/.

So around 5 days ago, I discovered his site and started to poke around at his code and got it to work and I managed to inserting my own text.

Despite that, there are now two major problems to work with at the moment that is blocking translation efforts.

1.) The source code and the tool that he provided for download do not work for a majority of users who I have come into contact with in the interest of trying to tinker with the code. I do not know if a full rewrite is necessary at this point for all of the code or not, but only another person running Debian and I was able to get it running and I can not get a fully working .exe with .dlls to work beyond simple extraction of .ARC files. Also, even with the whole thing working, the code is still very very buggy and there are still some specific script files that can't be decoded into an .XML file due to it crashing because of some debugger code in the source code that I still can't figure out the purpose of.

2.) As you can see in the picture above, I am using double-width characters as a workaround right now to insert text into the game because simple ASCII codes of S-JIS are used for some control sequences. The main problem is that the text box is limited to 69 characters, 23 per each line before the text overflows the text box.So, there are two options in regards to that. One is that I need to find the font file for the game and modify it, and I have no idea where it is other than in a .18 file that's in the root of the game with an .ELF header. However, there is nothing of that sort mentioned in the .iso. I have the file up for analysis at in case anybody wants to look at it.

So can anyone help out with this? I would greatly appreciate it. I have an IRC channel set up at #amagamitranslation@irc.rizon.net if there needs to be more talk on this matter that can't be expressed simply by this forum.

[d_fallen_god]

Oh nice...
I'll try to help if you want...
the reason is like that due the font is image...
thats why its like that.
we can adjust that if we edit the image.
I'll try to help you as much as I can..if I can make time. right now I'm very busy..

[d_fallen_god]

Sorry for the double post:
I send to you a useful tool in image editing via email
if you have problems regarding how to use it please tell me..

[CirqueForge]

Ok, so far, we have deduced where the font file is now. It was in GRAPH0 archive, and at the 451th spot, it outputs a .bin file and then two .tim2 files, both of which are 672x4384 images. Both can be seen here, image 452: http://i.imgur.com/c3qqQ.png. image 453: http://i.imgur.com/Fm0jB.jpg. The question is now if someone can tell us how to get a workable font file out of this...

Edit: I realized how unhelpful posting only the .bin would be so I put all three files here: http://www.mediafire.com/?xbbcceoqkb5k8e8

How come not the PSP release of Amagami? That would get more audience. Oh well I guess we take what we can get.

Anyway this is awesome I support this! GL guys

[fujifruit]

Originally Posted by Aaeru

How come not the PSP release of Amagami? That would get more audience. Oh well I guess we take what we can get.

Anyway this is awesome I support this! GL guys

How...?

post too short

[CirqueForge]

Originally Posted by Aaeru

How come not the PSP release of Amagami? That would get more audience. Oh well I guess we take what we can get.

Anyway this is awesome I support this! GL guys

They use the Ebkore+ version with the PSP and I've checked the .iso. They use a different compression method on GRAPH0 archives and SCENARIO.ARC decompression goes awry at one point with the tools. It's the same with the PS2 version of the Ebkore+ version.

I'm not an expert on this and I'm still trying to get in contact with freesmiler. If I had written these tools, I would've targeted the PSP maybe moreso than the PS2 version but sadly, it's all we have to work with for now.

[VDZ]

Originally Posted by Aaeru

How come not the PSP release of Amagami? That would get more audience.

Don't, dammit. I was already rather disappointed I was unable to play Corpse Party in any way (it can't be properly emulated), I want to play this game if it ever gets translated. The PS2 is the best selling game console ever made, with over 150 million sold, and even those who don't have it can emulate it on their PCs. The PSP has sold half of that (75 million) and usually has major problems during emulation.

[CirqueForge]

Well, it's been a while since anything really worthwhile happened. freesmiler commented to let people know that he wasn't dead. Here's what he had to say:

Hi guys,

Sorry for a delay. Actually I've dropped the research because I got stuck with the ASCII output and have a lot of work IRL. The main problem is that one need to find a switch that separetes 'control codes' and S-JIS text. There was an attempt to find all 'compare with 0x80 + conditional branch' patterns, but inverting a branch condition in the found places changed nothing. It would be helpful to have a debugger like GDB or something attached to the PCSX, because it's almost impossible to find that switch in a 20Mb disassembly file. That's for an overview.

So, here are my current thoughts:
1. There's no interest in tools debug since there's no actual motivation to do it until the ASCII solution is found. They work as a 'proof-of-concept', but further development is not planned now.
2. I'll try to build a DEBUG version of PCSX @ the weekend and check it's capabilities. Maybe it has some useful features?

I replied to give him some pointers for debugging the game but basically, the only way around this is to hack around the game's executable and see what happens. I'm getting time shortly after this week to see what I can do in terms of editing around the binary.

On the other hand, I finally was able to compile his tools without error and seeing that I was able to use it on my roommate's computer without error, I might as well post a download link to it for anyone that wants to just play around with the game files and see what they can do with it.

http://www.mediafire.com/?tp4k42fnlldjmm3

[CirqueForge]

Bumping.

All current news is reflected in the OP post. Currently recruiting for the project.

[Kuro666]

Do you need a translator? I'm actually a starting translator, but at least I can translate most of the basic text in any game. For Amagami in particular, I'm pretty sure I can handle most of the game's text, though, can't guarantee it. I have no trouble understanding, but putting it into words might require some time, hehe.
Write to kurosan9712@gmail.com if you're interested.

[CirqueForge]

Originally Posted by Kuro666

Do you need a translator? I'm actually a starting translator, but at least I can translate most of the basic text in any game. For Amagami in particular, I'm pretty sure I can handle most of the game's text, though, can't guarantee it. I have no trouble understanding, but putting it into words might require some time, hehe.
Write to kurosan9712@gmail.com if you're interested.

Sorry, we're done recruiting although by the time you posted here, I've already stopped recruiting translators. Thank you anyways.





In any case, just updated some things about the project and we're currently on track to either make a before-summer patch release for the prologue or release it by early July. It may depend on our schedules.

The script is now in the editing phrase, and after a short testing period, we'll release it to the general public.

[CirqueForge]

Bump. Patch release. Hope you all enjoy.

Thank you for creating this patch. Two questions, if you don't mind...

1) Will it only work with a genuine PS2 game disc?
2) Does it require a modded PS2, or will it work with a computer and an emulator?

I will keep an eye on this project, and hope that work will continue.

[CirqueForge]

Originally Posted by dorkatlarge

Thank you for creating this patch. Two questions, if you don't mind...

1) Will it only work with a genuine PS2 game disc?
2) Does it require a modded PS2, or will it work with a computer and an emulator?

I will keep an eye on this project, and hope that work will continue.

Read the Readme. I believe I put out adequate answers beforehand for both of the questions above in the document.