Musumaker Translation Project (Mikan, Karin, Ichigo, Suika, Zakuro, Yuzu routes complete!)

[tymmur]

Looks like I finally nailed how to inject translated images back into the game. I have only tested it a little, but so far the majority of the images works as intended. There are however exceptions, meaning it still requires some work. Also I obviously haven't added the images, which have yet to be translated.

 49.2% TOTAL             +0.8%  
30101/61164              +510   

 85.6% Routes            +0.6%  
 30.1% Side Stories             
 24.2% Training          +2.5%  

Routes
 96.0% Common                   
 87.0% Karin             +4.2%  
 13.3% Ichigo                   
100.0% Mikan                    
100.0% Yuzu                     
100.0% Suika                    
100.0% Twins                    
100.0% Zakuro  

 

[FilthyUrchin]

I haven't played Musumaker since it released a decade ago. It's great to see work on the translation still persists after all this time (I remember the original project over at HF).

 

Just a query regarding the twins. The progress updates show them listed as a route, but is that just the H-scene you can spy on? I don't recall there being an actual proper route for them, much to my own disappointment.

[tymmur]

15 hours ago, FilthyUrchin said:

I haven't played Musumaker since it released a decade ago. It's great to see work on the translation still persists after all this time (I remember the original project over at HF).

What's even more amazing is that while the original project died in 2010, it restarted in 2011 and since then nobody who worked more than a month has dropped out. However it started out slowly due to nobody having tried translating a VN before and based on experience parts have been retranslated due to quality concerns. Experience also allows more lines to be translated on a daily basis, meaning time passed is a poor guideline for telling when the translation is complete.

 

Having said that, we still want more people to allow faster progress.

 

15 hours ago, FilthyUrchin said:

Just a query regarding the twins. The progress updates show them listed as a route, but is that just the H-scene you can spy on? I don't recall there being an actual proper route for them, much to my own disappointment.

Short answer: it's a route according to the script, though it is the shortest route (even shorter than the prologue) and it doesn't have a route ending feel to it.

Really long answer:

Spoiler

To be completely honest, I suspect development ran out of money and just released the VN "as is" at some point. As a result, the twins route was never finished. In fact it's the only route, which has a route ending flag, which can't be set and it's not used for anything either. There are other indications of a rushed release, like one of the girls had missing training activities, though that part was added in the HD remake. Some voiced characters lacks voice files for some lines, though without having a precise count, I would estimate it to be below 10. The script itself it not flawless either. Possibly most important is a typo, which makes a scene unreachable and a copy paste error, which can make another one repeat (checking wrong flag). There are also some graphical glitches, such as wrong sprite usage and girl stat changing behind the text "window", making it nearly impossible to see the number. Some HCG are only used in the history, making it impossible to make a 100% clear savegame without cheating.

 

All this points towards a rushed release. Another indicator is that they released patches, which actually added more features, which weren't ready for the release day. They also fixed countless bugs. What I'm talking about here is the issues, which still exist in a fully patched version.

 

The HD remake repeated the "success" of a rushed release. They postponed the release for a month due to fixing a critical bug, which was found very late. Since the discs were already in production at the time, they had a patch on release day, which is the only savegame breaking patch they released. They did add the missing training stuff, but oddly enough they didn't fix any other issues (at least not anything I have found). Instead they added a few in the new code and for some reason I will never understand, added at least one new one in an old file, which is otherwise unmodified. In other words a fully patched HD version is a bit more buggy than a fully patched SD version.

 

At least the story telling and the graphics doesn't seem to be rushed. In fact quite the opposite, what is included seems to be well made.

 

Luckily the vast majority of issues seems to be fixable by modifying the files already modified by the translation. This mean the translated version will (hopefully) only contain the unfixable issues, like the missing twin route files and missing voice files.

 

I too would have liked the twin route to be included. It seems to die abruptly just as it starts to get really interesting and both setup and characters have a lot of potential. The fact that it's the only girls, who aren't "inhouse" could be an interesting twist as well.

 

One thing I have been wondering about is what would have happened if they finished the twins route instead of focusing on non-story H scenes? They would have been able to market it as "added an extra route". In fact it would only require 25% of the HD only lines to make the route as long as the shortest complete route and 50% to make it within the normal side character route length. Looking just at the number of lines, it doesn't seem farfetched to finish the route. The problem might be voice files. Despite the high number of new lines, only two characters have new voiced lines. However to be completely honest, I would accept an unvoiced twins route if the alternative is no route.

 

[FilthyUrchin]

Interesting. Thanks for the insight into what's going on under the hood. I was unaware of all that. Once everything is done, are you guys planning on making any cut/unused stuff accessible outside the game for interested parties to look at?

[tymmur]

9 minutes ago, FilthyUrchin said:

Once everything is done, are you guys planning on making any cut/unused stuff accessible outside the game for interested parties to look at?

Nothing is decided or even planned, but I have been wondering about that. Actually it has never crossed my mind to release extracted contents. What has crossed my mind is adding a button to the main menu and clicking that one will bring up a brand new screen, which I will have written from scratch. Doing it ingame will allow me to say write comments on character X and then only make it accessible if the route clear flag for character X is set. This way it will be possible to write something, which will spoil the route without actually spoiling. Being the game engine, allows adding graphics and audio as well, though I haven't really thought about that.

 

It's also possible to modify the ingame experience and add stuff, which only triggers if a certain flag is set/unset. Currently it's only used to disable white flashes in H scenes (fast forward the same H scene many times to test stuff and you know why I added that). This approach can be expanded to cover other stuff if needed.

 

All those options are however a dilemma. On top of the time needed to write such contents, there is another issue. The release should ideally target giving the reader 100% the same reading experience as somebody reading the VN in Japanese. By this definition, even bugfixes are wrong, but there is no reason not to include those. Another issue is that we should be nice to the developer/publisher (same people). For instance, the translation patch should not in any way end up as a tool to get game contents without first buying the game. That's another reason for doing stuff ingame instead of using external files. Also they are obviously good people. They made a great VN and they wrote their own VN engine, which is by far the best VN engine I have ever seen and so far I have seen quite a number of engines.

 

In short: anything other than just plain translating the text has to be carefully considered.

[tymmur]

We have a newcomer to the team. @maulen09 has joined and has started decensoring some of the images. The work is still in the early stage and it's unknown how much will be decensored, but the results so far looks very promising.

[tymmur]

 49.6% TOTAL             +0.4%  
30341/61164              +240   

 86.2% Routes            +0.6%  
 30.1% Side Stories             
 24.6% Training          +0.4%  

Routes
 96.0% Common                   
 91.4% Karin             +4.3%  
 13.3% Ichigo                   
100.0% Mikan                    
100.0% Yuzu                     
100.0% Suika                    
100.0% Twins                    
100.0% Zakuro  

 

[tymmur]

 49.9% TOTAL             +0.3%  
30548/61164              +207   

 86.9% Routes            +0.7%  
 30.1% Side Stories             
 24.6% Training                 

Routes
 96.0% Common                   
 96.4% Karin             +5.0%  
 13.3% Ichigo                   
100.0% Mikan                    
100.0% Yuzu                     
100.0% Suika                    
100.0% Twins                    
100.0% Zakuro  

 

[MrZangaroo]

No more weekly status updates?

[tymmur]

4 minutes ago, MrZangaroo said:

No more weekly status updates?

Look back. You ask 18 hours after the status update. It takes longer to write an update if I add text to tell what happened, meaning I skip that part if it will just end up being a description of what you can read from the numbers. Sometimes some changes happen, which can't be read directly in the line counts and then I will write about that.

[warzorro]

thanks for the job

[MrZangaroo]

Oh, sorry about that. I think I was looking at page 7. Thanks for the hard work!111

[qwerer22]

Thanks for the hard work and congratulations on reaching almost 50%

[NODA12011]

On 3/8/2018 at 1:47 PM, tymmur said:

 49.9% TOTAL             +0.3%  
30548/61164              +207   

 86.9% Routes            +0.7%  
 30.1% Side Stories             
 24.6% Training                 

Routes
 96.0% Common                   
 96.4% Karin             +5.0%  
 13.3% Ichigo                   
100.0% Mikan                    
100.0% Yuzu                     
100.0% Suika                    
100.0% Twins                    
100.0% Zakuro  

 

So close to another route done   

[thefox101]

can we download the current snapshot of the translation patch or have you not implimented the translations into the actual game yet?

[tymmur]

   We hit the 50% mark   

 50.1% TOTAL             +0.1%  
30632/61164              +84    

 87.2% Routes            +0.3%  
 30.1% Side Stories             
 24.6% Training                 

Routes
 96.0% Common                   
 98.4% Karin             +2.0%  
 13.3% Ichigo                   
100.0% Mikan                    
100.0% Yuzu                     
100.0% Suika                    
100.0% Twins                    
100.0% Zakuro 

 

 

On 3/15/2018 at 7:32 PM, thefox101 said:

can we download the current snapshot of the translation patch or have you not implimented the translations into the actual game yet?

I answered the question earlier in this thread.

On 10/15/2017 at 1:02 PM, tymmur said:

To be completely honest we aren't talking about partial patches for the time being. Part of the reason is that the interface is untranslated. It's a bunch of png files, which needs to be remade. We have the guy to do it, but he is currently busy with Majo Koi Nikki. Another reason is that while the text has been translated, it has yet to be edited or otherwise checked for quality. In other words releasing a partial patch in the current state would result in a worse reading experience than we intend and using such a partial will spoil the final version.

While the situation with the interface is a lot different today (new people and it's partially translated), the part about spoiling the story still stand.

 

Regarding injecting the translation, it does work and while I have fixed most issues, it's still not glitch free. I prefer to play it safe and injecting translated text was my first task before doing anything else at all. When switching to the HD version, the first thing I did was to make sure I could control the text ingame. I did that even before transferring the already translated text. It wouldn't be fun to finish the translation and then discover the VN engine refuse new text.

[skrewball717]

Congrats on the 50% milestone as well as being a week away from completing another route. Keep up the good work!

[tymmur]

Karin's route is translated

 50.2% TOTAL             +0.1%  
30698/61164              +66    

 87.5% Routes            +0.2%  
 30.1% Side Stories             
 24.6% Training                 

Routes
 96.0% Common                   
100.0% Karin             +1.6%  
 13.3% Ichigo                   
100.0% Mikan                    
100.0% Yuzu                     
100.0% Suika                    
100.0% Twins                    
100.0% Zakuro 

I better figure out how to present the routes from now on. it looks like the translation is near completion as it is right now despite being just half done. The reason is there are more hidden routes and side stories and training takes up a larger amount of lines than this overview makes it appear that they do. I'm still not sure how to present it correctly without giving away too much, like what hidden routes are or how big each route is compared to the rest.

[twisted]

Can't you just do Hidden Route #1, Hidden Route #2, etc.? Also I don't think most people consider route length to be a spoiler.

[tymmur]

Musumaker fandisc announced for release 2018.6.29: https://digitalcute.com/cuteresort/

Technically it's the 10th anniversary company fandisc with heroines from 3 different titles, but it does include Musumaker heroines.

[tymmur]

 50.6% TOTAL             +0.4%  
30949/61164              +251   

 64.2% Routes            +0.6%  
 30.1% Side Stories             
 24.6% Training                 

Routes
 96.0% Common                   
100.0% Karin                    
 19.9% Ichigo            +6.5%  
100.0% Mikan                    
100.0% Yuzu                     
100.0% Suika                    
100.0% Twins                    
100.0% Zakuro                   
  0.0% Secret A                 
  0.0% Secret B 

Note: Route completeness dropped significantly. This is because now that number includes two more routes, which were not actually included before. They have however been included in total from day one.

On 23/3/2018 at 4:32 AM, twisted said:

Can't you just do Hidden Route #1, Hidden Route #2, etc.?

I had apparently called it Secret A+B in my script and now I stick with those names. I can't remember why I wrote the names in the script and then decided not to display them in the output, but now they are included. Maybe I was wondering if I could come up with a better name or something. Turns out I didn't, but it's not that important.

[skrewball717]

Keep up the great work, also good to know side stories and training dont account for 50% of the script lol

[tymmur]

28 minutes ago, skrewball717 said:

good to know side stories and training dont account for 50% of the script lol

That's what made me wonder about the numbers. It really started to look like that, but when I start to write numbers in spreadsheet to calculate manually I ended up with completely different numbers and nothing would add up. Compared to routes, training is a bit shorter than the two longest routes combined while side stories wouldn't even be the longest route. There is no way that can add up to anywhere near 50%.

Oh and it's worth remembering that both side stories and training contains hard to get parts. When you play, it's certainly possible to clear all routes without clearing all training. I'm not sure if you need to clear all side stories to reach all endings, but for most routes that's not a requirement. They certainly aren't as dominant ingame as it would appear from the previous numbers.

Edited March 29, 2018 by tymmur

[FilthyUrchin]

So I assume one of these "secret routes" must be

Spoiler

Miu/Hikari?

What's the other one? I would guess

Spoiler

Subuta?

 

Edited March 30, 2018 by FilthyUrchin

[tymmur]

1 hour ago, FilthyUrchin said:

So I assume one of these "secret routes" must be

  Reveal hidden contents

Miu/Hikari?

 

Unsurprisingly that didn't take long. It's not like it's an extremely well guarded secret. However if it's contents where you do not even get a hint that it exist by the time you finish the common route on first playthrough, it should most likely be considered secret/spoiler.

1 hour ago, FilthyUrchin said:

What's the other one? I would guess

  Reveal hidden contents

Subuta?

 

Wrong. While there is some story progression there, even if I stretch it and add as many files as possible to this "route", I can't even reach 300 lines of non-H contents. Like everything else less than a certain minimum length, it ended up in the common route regardless of how much of a route feel it has. The alternative is to bloat the overview to death.

As for what the other secret route is... well you are not even close.