About all-age-ifying translations

[nekoyasha]

First of all, hi everyone - I've been reading this forum for a while now, but this is the first time I've joined in.

I'm currently translating the Littlewitch game Period, and something I read on another forum jogged my memory with something I'd thought of doing from the beginning. Typical of Littlewitch games, the ero scenes in Period are mostly at the ends of the routes and not really central to the storyline. I was wondering what people thought of releasing a separate "all-ages" patch with the ero scenes removed, in the hope that it would gather a bigger audience. (I would release the full patch too, of course.) I think I've heard of that option in other translations (F/sn?).

"All-ages" is in quotes because I would just be removing the ero scenes themselves - not casual nudity/fan service, language, or references to the characters having sex.

[Message]

I've found I can enjoy a good story a lot more if there's no pornography involved. I'm all for an non-ero version.

I checked the VNDB entry for Period. It does not appear that the creators have made a worksafe version.

If your fan translation team wants to create an optional worksafe patch, go ahead. However, I recommend (also) creating a patch which includes the original adult content, so that your group will not be accused of censoring the game.

Thank you for your work and patience.

Originally Posted by Message

I've found I can enjoy a good story a lot more if there's no pornography involved. I'm all for an non-ero version.

I am all for non-installer version.

[nekoyasha]

Originally Posted by dorkatlarge

I checked the VNDB entry for Period. It does not appear that the creators have made a worksafe version.

That usually doesn't happen unless the game gets released on a console (which probably won't happen in this case, since Littlewitch is gone).

Originally Posted by dorkatlarge

If your fan translation team wants to create an optional worksafe patch, go ahead. However, I recommend (also) creating a patch which includes the original adult content, so that your group will not be accused of censoring the game.

Thank you for your work and patience.

As I said, I'll be releasing the full (ero) patch as well. The "all-ages" patch is for those who aren't comfortable playing ero games.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I am all for non-installer version.

Not sure what that means... If you mean a pre-patched game, that's absolutely not going to happen. However, that reminds me that it might be nice to have a combined game installer/patch installer, in English, so people who don't know any Japanese don't have to muddle through the Japanese game installer.

[Moogy]

he was making fun of message

[VDZ]

Originally Posted by Moogy

he was making fun of message

To elaborate on this, Message is known for making fancy installers for fan translations (which allow you to install the game and automatically apply the patch, apply the patch on an existing installation, make the game run on your toaster, etc). Hence the 'no installer'.

[Yirba]

I have actually seen quite a bit of demand for the ability to play VNs without the ero scenes. It would probably be best to have a menu option within the game itself, but two separate patches would also work fine.

One issue with this is that references to those scenes would seem odd if they never happened. Also, if certain important details arise in the ero scenes, that needs to be factored in. So it's not always a simple case of cutting out these scenes. Slight adjustments need to be made to fit around that, too.

Still, it would be nice if ero-free patches could bring in people who would otherwise ignore these games.

[nekoyasha]

Originally Posted by Yirba

I have actually seen quite a bit of demand for the ability to play VNs without the ero scenes. It would probably be best to have a menu option within the game itself, but two separate patches would also work fine.

A menu option would be a little more difficult... For instance, in the all-ages patch I'm going to remove the ero pictures and scene replays from the gallery (that should be easy enough; FFD seems pretty editable); but if I allow the ability to switch between ero and non-ero, I'm not sure how that would affect saved games and the global saved state. It might be possible - it sounds like an interesting challenge in any case.

Originally Posted by Yirba

One issue with this is that references to those scenes would seem odd if they never happened. Also, if certain important details arise in the ero scenes, that needs to be factored in. So it's not always a simple case of cutting out these scenes. Slight adjustments need to be made to fit around that, too.

First of all, I'm not removing references that the characters had sex - just the scenes themselves. I'm also not going to change one bit of existing text. The most I'll do is add an ellipsis and a gentle fade-out or something to indicate that something is going on behind the scenes. Most of the ero scenes should be pretty clean to remove, since they're relatively separate, with the exception of Yukina's, which I'll have to cut off in mid-scene as best I can. I think it'll work.

Originally Posted by Moogy

he was making fun of message

Got it; I'll get the hang of it someday : )

Originally Posted by nekoyasha

I was wondering what people thought of releasing a separate "all-ages" patch with the ero scenes removed, in the hope that it would gather a bigger audience.

It's a wasted effort because you aren't going to submit it to CERO/ESRB/PEGI/ACB/whatever-cancer-there-is (I hope). Also, no sane "17-" male will ever voluntarily skip sex scenes, especially if said scenes are still there just without visuals. Female VN readers can Ctrl-skip the scene if it's not wanted for some weird reason (also, it's not like their amount is significant even by VN standards to make "all-ages" patch worth the effort anyway).
If you're so concerned of this matter, you should be asking "how do I implement boss key functionality?" question instead.

I personally have a firm belief that anything the authors themselves have put into VN is sacred and must stay there in unaltered form even if it was clearly put there just for the sake of it being there.
The only exception is merging content from different versions of the same VN to make product as complete (and in the best quality) as possible (CD music + DC images + PS2 voices + uncensored PC images, for example).

I'm aware that it's likely too late to change anything in this project now, but hopefully this thread will prevent wasted efforts of other translators.

[Ixrec]

Every male I know (myself included) regularly skips sex scenes. The "weird reason" is that we read visual novels for the story, and most of the sex scenes are not there for any story-related reason so they're just annoying distractions. Also the "bigger audience" comes from people being able to recommend the VN to non-VN fans without worrying about the thorny graphic sex issue.

There's really no reason not to have an all-ages options for most VNs, unless the time and effort of implementing it would cause a significant delay. Go for it.

The only VNs I've read where I think I would actually object to sex scene removal on artistic principle would be the WABs, because those are among the very, very few VNs where the author appears to have actually wanted to write those scenes. In many VNs it's quite obvious they don't care since those scenes tend to have a lot of typos, be written very generically, and be so long they completely break any semblance of pacing (if not skipped).

[VDZ]

Originally Posted by Ixrec

Every male I know (myself included) regularly skips sex scenes. The "weird reason" is that we read visual novels for the story, and most of the sex scenes are not there for any story-related reason so they're just annoying distractions. Also the "bigger audience" comes from people being able to recommend the VN to non-VN fans without worrying about the thorny graphic sex issue.

There's really no reason not to have an all-ages options for most VNs, unless the time and effort of implementing it would cause a significant delay. Go for it.

The only VNs I've read where I think I would actually object to sex scene removal on artistic principle would be the WABs, because those are among the very, very few VNs where the author appears to have actually wanted to write those scenes. In many VNs it's quite obvious they don't care since those scenes tend to have a lot of typos, be written very generically, and be so long they completely break any semblance of pacing (if not skipped).

Agreed 100%. I personally skip almost every H-scene, the only exceptions being H-scenes that are actually relevant to the story, like those in Forest. VNs are for reading. If I want to fap, I have actually good porn for that.

In addition to what Ixrec mentioned above, removing H-scenes also gives the benefit of making it possible to play the game anywhere else than just in your own room where nobody will look at you weird when porn suddenly pops up on your screen. (Sure, everybody with enough experience will have a sixth sense for impending H-scenes, but it's still very annoying to have to stop playing because of it, and I still don't feel safe playing VNs with less predictable H-scenes when other people are around.)

[nekoyasha]

Wow... I guess I'm in the minority - I definitely play games for the story (except those I know going in are blatant nukige), but still enjoy the sex scenes and wouldn't want to play the game without them. I'm sure I've skipped one or two (like shota x shota - g*ddamn LoliPara >_<). Granted, some are better written than others, some are more relevant to the story than others, but I haven't played a game where I had the impression that the writers didn't want to write the scene, didn't care about it, didn't proof/edit it enough, etc. (I'm sure I've played far fewer games than most people that are into the genre, and tend to stick to a few companies I know I like.)

I am going to go ahead with my plans to release the "all-ages" version, barring some surprise catastrophic technical issue; although I think I'm going to release two patches instead of one combined patch that chooses the version at install- or run-time. It's just easier, and that way some tech-savvy person can find the patch and give it to a non-tech-savvy friend without the chance of giving them pr0n. I can't really see wanting to switch back and forth, either... I've been working on the English/autopatch installer, and it's going pretty well, except for an annoying limitation in MSIs that's preventing me from easily launching the installer from the hard drive and installing the files from the DVD.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

It's a wasted effort because you aren't going to submit it to CERO/ESRB/PEGI/ACB/whatever-cancer-there-is (I hope). Also, no sane "17-" male will ever voluntarily skip sex scenes, especially if said scenes are still there just without visuals. Female VN readers can Ctrl-skip the scene if it's not wanted for some weird reason (also, it's not like their amount is significant even by VN standards to make "all-ages" patch worth the effort anyway).
If you're so concerned of this matter, you should be asking "how do I implement boss key functionality?" question instead.

I personally have a firm belief that anything the authors themselves have put into VN is sacred and must stay there in unaltered form even if it was clearly put there just for the sake of it being there.

I understand your feelings, but I'm trying to get as many people as possible playing the game, including those who wouldn't play it if it contained blatant sex. I would much prefer that people play it with all scenes intact (hell, for that matter people are better off playing it in Japanese, if they're fluent, but I think that point's obvious), because that's the way that the writers intended it, but given the choice between playing a modified version and not playing at all... Ctrl-skip is a horrible thing to rely on because chances are you're going to skip some other part of the game as well.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

The only exception is merging content from different versions of the same VN to make product as complete (and in the best quality) as possible (CD music + DC images + PS2 voices + uncensored PC images, for example).

I disagree with you here - I'm not all that fond of those Frankenstein projects. Having to modify images to match resolutions or, worse yet, fan-uncensoring (I think that's a bigger sin than leaving scenes out altogether), having people pirate console versions to get voices... That to me is really going against the original intentions of the developers.