Compass of Dei Gratia announced by Lemnisca (Kickstarter is now live!)

[Formlose Gestalt]

Lemnisca just announced Compass of Dei Gratia (Dei Gratia no Rashinban).

Here is the Kickstarter link:

Sounds like an interesting science fiction doujin title.

Here is the opening:

They plan to host Kickstarter but I guess the goal won't be to high since there is no voice acting. (But I could be wrong.)

Edited September 30, 2019 by Formlose Gestalt

[Dreamysyu]

Well, I looked through the vndb page, and I still have no idea if it's really worth waiting for. It looks like it could be fun, but it's pretty rare for sci-fi VNs to actually do things right. The rating is pretty good, but barely anyone voted. So, don't know, I guess I'll wait for some reviews or reactions before deciding whether I should buy it.

[alpacaman]

This is one of the rare cases where altering the title for the English release to accomodate a term from a foreign language actually made everything worse, at least unless Dei Gratia is the name of an ingame proper noun. 

[Nandemonai]

Actually, some of the katakana in the still-frame "click here to play" preview for the OP appear to spell out something that's consistent with "Dei Gratia".  I suspect they haven't actually altered anything.

[alpacaman]

Ok, then I take that part back. The Japanese title is equally bad. Still, the "of Dei Gratia" part mixes English and Latin grammar in a really weird way.

Edited July 6, 2019 by alpacaman

[littleshogun]

I thought that they'll rereleased Ever17, and turn out I was wrong. Well good luck to them and hopefully they'll be successful for the release later.

PS - Apparently this is another VN with sci-fi, and therefore very fitting that Lemnisca will take care of it.

[Plk_Lesiak]

2 hours ago, alpacaman said:

Ok, then I take that part back. The Japanese title is equally bad. Still, the "of Dei Gratia" part mixes English and Latin grammar in a really weird way.

Does it? Won't it simply translate to "Compass of God's Blessing"? I'd imagine "Dei Gratia" is both something in the game and has symbolic meaning, as every cryptic doujin title should.

Anyway, the game looks quite interesting. I kind of like reading this kind of stories even if they derail themselves in the end. :>

Edited July 6, 2019 by Plk_Lesiak

[alpacaman]

5 hours ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

Does it? Won't it simply translate to "Compass of God's Blessing"? I'd imagine "Dei Gratia" is both something in the game and has symbolic meaning, as every cryptic doujin title should.

The common use of "Dei Gratia" is as an ablative case, meaning "by God's grace" and was added to the royal title of kings to specify that they weren't subject to earthly jurisdiction. The nominative is identical to the ablative case so technically you could translate the phrase the way you did. Then again, in Latin in this sentence you would use the genitive case so it would turn into "Dei Gratiae". This is probably just me being too much of a Latin nerd, but the ones choosing the title for the OP seemed to be aware of the problem as well, as they translated the title as "Dei Gratia in the 5th Day". That doesn't make much more sense than the title I'm complaining about, but at least it avoids the problem of having to connect the "Compass" with "Dei Gratia" in a way that makes grammatic sense. 

[SaintOfVoid]

great and exciting title announcement with an abhorrent title chosen

[alpacaman]

Abhorrent might be a bit of an overstatement I mean, there is stuff like Schwarzesmarken where I had to read the synopsis to figure out what the title was even supposed to mean although it's apparently in my native language.

To add something to the original topic, the premise sounds like one of those "entrapped group of people" stories with supernatural overtones that have the potential to be anything from outright amazing to total trainwrecks.

Edited July 6, 2019 by alpacaman

[Nier]

53 minutes ago, alpacaman said:

I mean, there is stuff like Schwarzesmarken where I had to read the synopsis to figure out what the title was even supposed to mean although it's apparently in my native language.

It just means that the japanese have a better grasp at the language!

Edited July 6, 2019 by Nier

[Formlose Gestalt]

The Kickstarter is planned to launch September 30th.

But before that there is the link to their Prefundia page:

https://prefundia.com/project/5d824b960d196e65b25aa013

If you have any feedback I am sure they would like to hear it.

[Ramaladni]

$50K is a lot but realistic, I suppose. The highest backer tier being $100 is kinda odd, and it's literally extra $10 for your name on the credits. I fear it won't meet the goal, tbh. 

[littleshogun]

After seeing more well known VN only need at least 20,000 base goal (Even a very well known Aokana only have base goal of 10,000), I felt that 50,000 as the base goal for a lesser known VN is a bit too much. Granted that at least it's cheaper than Irotoridori (85,000 base goal) and that the cheap base goal was only for the physical version, but Irotoridori here is a more well known VN and we know that KS did face uncertainty when it's ongoing. That said, I hope that Lemisca will manage to pull through this so good luck to them.

Edited September 19, 2019 by littleshogun

[Ramaladni]

That's not really comparable since Aokana was a goods-only kickstarter. This crowdfunding campaign is to FULLY fund the game's localization fees and whatnot. 

[littleshogun]

Yeah I know, although to some people who didn't pay much attention out there the difference is very big. But then again we also have Neighbor and the failed Carrion Crow KS, in which the base goal was only at 5,000 for the former and 10,000 for the latter. Granted that those two VNs did have very low development cost, but at least it should be enough for comparison seeing that those two KS also have localization fee as the breakdown. And looking from the Carrion Crow I think the lack of awareness might be the cause of failure here, so hopefully Lemnisca here would promote more on this VN in order to raise the awareness seeing that the base goal here is basically five times of Carrion Crow.

[novurdim]

50 000 is a very... optimistic base goal, I'd say. I expected them to perform around the Fruitbat's level (i.e. 25-35k) but what do I know, maybe Lemnisca have a good plan of how to incite the masses.

[Formlose Gestalt]

The Kickstarter is now live:

 

 

Edited September 30, 2019 by Formlose Gestalt

[littleshogun]

So 57,000 there which to say is 14% more than supposed initial base goal, which obviously quite a lot of number for a less known VN so perhaps the KS will face the difficulty. But still we never know on whether the KS will be successful or not seeing that the situation may change or fluctuate, so good luck to them and hopefully the KS will be successful.

Edited September 13, 2020 by littleshogun

[novurdim]

Even Fruitbat's numbers were too high of a hurdle, it seems.

[WinterfuryZX]

Upped the pledge to 170 usd. I'll probably add some extra cash the last day if the funding will be feasable.

[Dreamysyu]

Well, this wasn't even close.

[novurdim]

A-a-and after looking at the final update, the project can basically be considered abandoned.

[littleshogun]

While I can see their enthusiasm on localized this just like back when Gundam Ace finished Root Double, unfortunately the KS fall here. And let's to be honest that the base goal is quite high for a basically a doujin VN, so it's inevitable that people would thought that it's quite a mistake to do it especially without powerful backer (ie Sekai). In any case they'll say that they may will try this again, so for now the project will be abandoned. Hopefully they'll be able to restart this project, seeing that once again they very enthusiast when they talk about this.

[littleshogun]

I don't know if it's okay to use the KS thread for this, but I figure may as well do it. As for what I want to write, it's in regard of the full translation patch for Dei Gratia that was just released today (The VNDB page of the translation patch), so you can play it in case you're still waiting for Lemnisca to try to do the KS and can't wait any longer.