ROM Hack Game Center CX : Arino no Chosenjo 2 (New Start?)

Aaron Chmielowiec

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Since I know Sora to be a perfectionist, I'll take this as a compliment. Sora, you worked on this, too. You should show some confidence in your work. :)

Well, everything *did* work until we realized we had to do the ending epilogue. The images are all in place but the game doesn't seem to like them. Pity. If all goes well that should be fixed soon, hopefully.

I'm just patching up the adventure text (appearance) but that is an ongoing effort. Once that ending slideshow is in place there isn't anything left to do, I hope, other than cosmetic changes.
 

Aaron Chmielowiec

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Okay, I've got two bits of good news about the adventure games.

One is that I put ellipses into the font, as in "..." instead of two dots in the middle.

The second is that by taking a character I don't use like full width @, I can set it to be 1 pixel wide of nothingness and use a bunch of those to perfectly align the text once and for all. This is going to be a very slow process, though.

(I'll post some pics later to show the difference)

Before / After: (I think I may only use this at first when one line is a good 3 or 4 pixels off though, not 1)
loveandgame1.png
loveandgame2.png


And here are some ellipses. Look, they aren't 2 dots in the middle of the line anymore!
loveandgame3.png


Of course, should any dialogue in the adventure change that may also affect spacing for the other lines but I'm not convinced it is that much more work.

This applies to the RPG as well but this isn't so much of an issue there.
 

Normmatt

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The second is that by taking a character I don't use like full width @, I can set it to be 1 pixel wide of nothingness and use a bunch of those to perfectly align the text once and for all. This is going to be a very slow process, though.

(I'll post some pics later to show the difference)

Before / After: (I think I may only use this at first when one line is a good 3 or 4 pixels off though, not 1)
loveandgame1.png
loveandgame2.png


Wouldn't that be easier to do by just adjusting the hard coded position for the second line?
 

Aaron Chmielowiec

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It doesn't work that way in the game, though. at least from everything I've seen. It takes a string of characters a page at a time, separated by new line characters. You have to add spaces each line. The original Japanese version worked the same way. I don't have such control over position.

I do like that idea, though. Even though that position varies depending on the speaker. Maybe there is a dirty hack for that. But then again by the time I figure that out I'd have the game done anyway :/

The exceptions are the full screen pages of text and the ending credits, I think.
 

Sora de Eclaune

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Since I know Sora to be a perfectionist, I'll take this as a compliment. Sora, you worked on this, too. You should show some confidence in your work. :)
Only when the occasion calls for it, good sir! I try not to be like that all the time because Chell gets ideas and tries to get me into the Android GLaDOS costume again. :blink:

Well, everything *did* work until we realized we had to do the ending epilogue. The images are all in place but the game doesn't seem to like them. Pity. If all goes well that should be fixed soon, hopefully.
Maybe the edited images are a different byte size or something and the game freaks out. Wouldn't be surprising.
 

Aaron Chmielowiec

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We'll see. In the absolute worst case I can always swap back the original Japanese slideshow. All that is in there are
the game titles, release dates, and some screenshots. Oh, and Arino holding up a few signs "Thanks for playing to the end!" "No, really! There isn't anything more to see!" "Kacho Off!"

It is a nice treat but there isn't anything deep of philosophical in there.

EDIT> It looks like it's been partially figured out. It works now but there are a few palette issues that should be resolved.

Oh, but as a nice bonus to yesterday, I remembered that the RPG and the Adventure share the same font, so ellipses in the RPG automatically got an upgrade, too.

My only concern is that to make it fit right, ellipses are actually 9 pixels wide. Does that 1 pixel difference cause problems in the dialogue somewhere? I'm not sure. I'd love to say "No" but knowing my luck, I probably have a few lines that are packed in right to the last pixel, and one more will end up cutting off a character. I guess it is a small price to pay.

newRPGellipses.png


EDIT> Bonus fun fact! It takes about 5 minutes on my Vaio core i5 to recompile all of the text in the game.
 

Aaron Chmielowiec

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Okay, I just got the fix for the epilogue ending crash and that is now fixed along with the ending character (完) to the 2nd Adventure and updated the Wiz-Man BG image for the manual.

The text in the Adventure has been majorly changed, hopefully for the better. It looks okay at a glance but I can't guarantee that extra pixel in width isn't going to end up cutting off a character or something. Then again, perfectly aligning the Adventure game text is an ongoing effort anyway.

The next major patch (1.1) is imminent and should be out soon. I just want to test a few things with it first.
 

coredecepts

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I've been playing the patch, and you really did a fantastic job of it. Glad to see the continued support as well.

I'm considering restarting once you release this new patch. I'm only up to Demon Returns anyway.
 

codezer0

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Okay, I just got the fix for the epilogue ending crash and that is now fixed along with the ending character (完) to the 2nd Adventure and updated the Wiz-Man BG image for the manual.

The text in the Adventure has been majorly changed, hopefully for the better. It looks okay at a glance but I can't guarantee that extra pixel in width isn't going to end up cutting off a character or something. Then again, perfectly aligning the Adventure game text is an ongoing effort anyway.

The next major patch (1.1) is imminent and should be out soon. I just want to test a few things with it first.
Honestly I have to say that I am really, truly impressed with the work in this fan translation, and how good this game has been. It's sad that my DSi XL that has this ROM, has been getting more attention now than my 3DS with the Gateway in it. :P

Funny enough though, I'm now down to the last set of challenges, and was wondering if anyone else got this far... has anyone found or got a walkthrough for the adventure games? Honestly I'm just really stuck trying to figure out where to go next in Part 1, and had been gearing up to want to get into part 2, but honestly my big hang up with point-and-click-adventure games like this is that often times, the logic they expect me to follow to get on with it is lost on me. :(
 

Aaron Chmielowiec

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I've been playing the patch, and you really did a fantastic job of it. Glad to see the continued support as well.

I'm considering restarting once you release this new patch. I'm only up to Demon Returns anyway.

Oh, you won't need to restart your game with a new patched version. Just keep the filenames the same and you're good to go.

Codezer0> I have a temp page that needs a rewrote but if you don't mind a walk through. http://www.gccxpatch.com/extras.html
 

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Aaron & crew, thank you all for translating the game! I've been having a lot of fun with it.

I've noticed some bugs in the translation, I hope this is an appropriate place to report them.

In Arino: Ace Detective, both parts, there's some odd behaviour on the text entry screen.
Going LEFT on the END or BACK marker will select invisible characters (@@@あえういお going left)

In Arino: Ace Detective, part 2, there's a text overflow if you 'Think' near the game's end.

Code:
Arino: The entrance to
the basement
      of CX Industries is at
 
Arino: PLAYER....
      We're almost at the
      heart of the Love&Game cul
Identation as shown.

In Guadia Quest Saga, there are a few text overflows and some inconsistencies with the original Guadia Quest:
Centran was called Centraan;
Far-off Town was called Timbuktoo;
Demon Dungeon was called Dungeon of Darkness.

In Centra(a)n, the shopkeep's text overflows/cuts off:
Code:
Do you see anything you like?
 
This is dirty....
  You can have (x) ducats for
Identation as shown.

Some large enemy names (11 characters) can also cause trouble, the following all overflow.
Code:
CHICKEN MAN became confused!
CHICKEN MAN is running amok!
But it had no effect on CHICKEN MAN!
Did (x) damage to CHICKEN MAN
CHICKEN MAN takes (x) damage!

A bit nitpicky, but there's some stray gray pixels on the 'EQUIP' option.

Last, a feature request: would it be possible to add a patch version number, perhaps in the game's header, something like:
Code:
Retro Game Challenge 2
English patch v20.x.6
Bandai-Namco

Apologies for the long post, and keep on keepin' on.
 

Aaron Chmielowiec

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Thanks for replying! Though Arrrgh, just as I'm pushing out the 1.1 patch...! (as in, I'm uploading it now)

Alright. I'll see what I can do by today at lunch (my time). If I can't fit it all in, these will have to wait until the next release. 1.1 fixes a crash (ending epilogue) so that has priority and I want to get it out ASAP. It also has about 500 fixes, big and small. Mostly small.

Edit> Hmm, which version of the patch are you using? Some of this is already fixed.

About the RPG spacing, I think I have some of that patched up for 1.1 already. Not all the overruns (BLUE CORPS had problems with some moves, too before) but I'll have to put that in a later patch. I'll try to patch up the inconsistancies, too. That stray pixel...I'll look for it. The Save option used to have one and it took a while to export/patch/import and recompile the image. Tedious but doable.

The Adventure has partly been fixed for spacing but I'm not sure about those. (Edit> I think those are already fixed) The selectable options in the text entry screens are blanked out but I can't null them out. Those were originally for switching to Hiragana and Katakana modes. I don't know if there is anything I can do about that.

About the header, I can make it 4 lines or 3 longer-than-usual lines. Is that going to cause problems, though? Most default headers I have worked with have 3... and I'm not sure what will happen if I make one line too long.


In any case, thanks for the feedback and trying to make the game even better.

By the way, *FOR EVERYONE*, is there a good patcher for the Mac? I have had numerous people mailing me asking how to do this on Mac and nobody seems to be having any success.
 

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Hmm, which version of the patch are you using? Some of this is already fixed.

Whoops, you're right. I thought I updated to the 1.0.7 patch but in my hurrying I accidentally used the 1.0.3 patch which was in the same folder.

I don't think 4 lines is possible; however I think extending the lines won't be a problem, as some other games have quite long titles as well; for instance
"Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2;March of the Minis;Nintendo".
 

Aaron Chmielowiec

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Whoops, you're right. I thought I updated to the 1.0.7 patch but in my hurrying I accidentally used the 1.0.3 patch which was in the same folder.

I don't think 4 lines is possible; however I think extending the lines won't be a problem, as some other games have quite long titles as well; for instance
"Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2;March of the Minis;Nintendo".

That's okay. I totally messed up the 1.1 patch this morning by inserting a tab character in the Adventure game and making the whole thing blow up, taking the game with it. Haste makes waste...or something like that.

Okay, that sounds fine. I know there are always going to be cosmetic issues with the Adventure game text until the end of time so I can play with the header information after this 1.1 patch along with the RPG to make it more consistant with the first one. Maybe when I get started on that I'll message you about it. I know a few others here were interested in making a strategy guide for all the mini-games. The RPG has quite a lot to it, though.
 

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One thing that strikes me a bit weird on a general level is the non-cursive "2" in the title, which makes it stand out since the entire localized title is in cursive but only the first line is in Japanese. I guess it's an intentional decision since the logo is slanted in similar manner but the 2 isn't.
 

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