April Update

That’s right folks, it’s time for another exciting bimonthly announcement, this time in conjunction with the Enid Blyton Society! For those unlucky few who don’t know, Enid Blyton is a British children’s author from the 50s, whose delightful novels amused middle class children for generations. Many of her stories involved youngsters having adventures, accusing foreign-looking types of being smugglers, and teaching Americans how to talk properly. However, her books aren’t selling as well as they used to, and now the Enid Blyton Society has turned to visual novels to keep the spirit of Blyton alive in today’s youth.

So it is with great pleasure that I unveil to you: AIR –The Enid Blyton Edition-! Now you too can enjoy the Japanese characters and setting you love, with the retro language you or your distant British cousins grew up with. Here are some screenshots to whet your appetite!

Of course, we understand that not everyone will be happy with this new, vintage interpretation of KEY’s classic VN. So we’ll be producing a second version just for all you Americans out there: AIR –The ‘Murrica Edition-!

Look forward to it sometime in 2014!

February Update

Now that Rewrite has been released, I’ve suddenly got a bit more time on my hands, which is nice to say the least (oh that kinda rhymes). So here we go: a nice mega update!

Firstly, Yoake. I’m happy to formally announce that we’ll be releasing a partial patch in the future. The patch will contain the following routes:

• Feena (normal)
• Mia
• Mai
• Natsuki
• Sayaka

Alongside the Common Route of course. We don’t know when we’ll release the partial yet (there’s still image editing and a lot of QC to do) but rest assured it won’t be delayed by editing :P

And now, AIR! In an amazing act of generosity, Ixrec has agreed to translate Summer alongside his translation checking duties. We decided it was okay, since a) Summer has a different protagonist narrating, so it’s fine if the narrative voice is a bit different, and b) Ixrec is familiar with British English and the way I do things, as we’ve worked together for almost four years now. I will be editing it to iron out any obvious inconsistencies, of course, so hopefully you guys won’t notice a thing.

While I still have a bit of the common route to re-edit, I figured now is an appropriate time to unveil the AIR stats page, since major progress is being made.

Here it is: http://amaterasu.tindabox.net/AIRstats.php

Be sure to bookmark it and such. I’ll still blog and tweet (@Sheeta_Su) major milestones as well. I’m still amazed we’ve got 33% of the game done already. Wow

November Update

Okay, as promised, here’s a November update! (On November 30^th lol)

So the good news: since the last update, my back has gotten a lot better and I’m no longer in pain! Yay! Sadly this has come at a price – I’ve been at the computer a lot less. Those who stalk me on IRC have probably noticed me not being online as much. As a result, things like my dissertation and Rewrite editing have taken priority when I am on the computer.

As you guys might remember, I’m not going to go all out on AIR until Yoake is done. Well, the good news is a lot of progress has been made on Yoake, and there might even be a partial patch coming in the future! So right now…

• Edited routes in Yoake: Common, Mia, Mai, Natsuki, 50% of Sayaka
• Still unedited: Other 50% of Sayaka, Feena (Normal & True), Midori, Estel, Wreathlit, Omake

Wreathlit’s route is very short, while Estel’s route is longer than the Common route :/ The game overall is quite long at 2.23MB of text (AIR is 1.39MB and MuvLuv Alternative 2.73MB, for comparison) so I apologise for the general slowness.

As for AIR itself, I’ve been going through it with a fine toothcomb in my spare time to make the style match up to mine. So far I’ve gotten a fair chunk of the common route re-edited – I’d estimate about 10%. Not amazing, but considering my work load right now I’d say not too bad!

Update

I figured I should post monthly updates, at least until I actually start translating AIR, just so people know what’s going on.

First up, I did some calculations and it seems Edger actually translated a whopping 28% of the game! I’ve also worked out that if I re-edit 10kb of his translation a day, I’ll have his portion tweaked in just over a month. So that’s the plan.

Yoake is going quite slowly right now, mostly because I’ve spent the last month looking for a house to live in for my fourth year at university. I’m also trying to spend less time at the computer, as recommended by my osteopath, to try and ease my back problems >.> (Long story.) I think in the future I’ll have to rethink my workload, because I can really only edit so much because I sit at the computer all day. For now though, full steam ahead on Rewrite, AIR and Yoake!

Project 01 Announcement

A few months ago, Edger surprised me in our staff chan with some important news. He was retiring from the VN community immediately, because he was going to get married soon. This is wonderful news, of course, but as everyone reading this is probably thinking, what about the AIR and Yoake projects? Well, Yoake is already 100% translated, so it doesn’t affect anything. AIR, however, was only a script or two away from having its common route completed. Having been in the VN community for over three years now, I know it’s pointless to sit around and wait for another translator to come pick it up, least of all one that will stick with it. So I’ve decided.

I, Sheeta, will translate AIR.

A few of you might remember me saying that if no-one translates AIR, I’ll do it myself. Well, now I am. Ixrec will translation check me, and it took this long to announce this because I was waiting for him to finish reading it, just in case he decided to pick it up himself.

Now for a few things I should mention:

1)    I plan to start once I finish editing Yoake, which shouldn’t take longer than a month or two. I might start earlier than that though, depending on how I feel.

2)    All updates will be in this blog. I guess *technically* this is an Ammy side project, but honestly Ammy has enough side projects already. Plus isn’t Winter Confetti such a cool group name? What do you mean it isn’t!? Well I think it is!

3)    I’m unsure if I’ll be keeping Edger’s portion or not. It depends on whether re-editing it to fit my style is faster than translating it from scratch. Edger did a great job though, so it’d be a huge shame if his work went to waste.

4)    Even if it takes me three years, I’ll finish it.

Thank you for being so patient, everyone. I’ll work hard.