View Full Version : A translator partner (s) wanted for novel games
Hi guys, my name is Mas who is a Japanese student in London.
I am looking for translator (s) who can read Japanese and hopefully make some money with me. For last 4 years, I have had an ambitious plan.
It's a great thing that you people enjoy anime and comics, but there is another great media which has not arrived to America or Europe. It is called the Sound Novel Game. This is a well hot media in Japan and this has to become really popular in next a few years. I explain what this is.
SNG is like the book. There are pictures that frequently changes to show you different places and people. Beside the picture, there are words to give you a story. There usually is quite nice music.
Now if you are quite sharp, you might have thought 'Oh no, bloody bisyojo game!'. I have to admit, the bisyojo game and hentai games usually use this media. But this media is not how it has been from about 4 years ago.
The characteristic of this type of game is that lots of SNG have great story, music and pictures. Far greater than usual animes, because lots of people stick together and take time to produce the game without the time limitation like anime and comics. The pictures are absolutely beautiful because CG artists do not have to make characters move like anime and draw lots of different things like comics. They take hours on drawing each pictures and it's sometimes like looking at art gallaries when you are playing the game.
The terrific thing is that there is a trend that this sort of game of today tries to make the story really good that so it always touches your heart. When the good story, picture and the music stick together and come to you, there is no other media that makes your emotion shake more.
But unfortunately this type of media does not get translated in English usually because people who are making this sort of things are pretty unfamilier with English and also do not know how to sell their things abroad. They have no idea how to deal with foreign people like usual Japanese people and does not even send their products to America even you order!! This is why you find it very hard getting the original game of Kanon and To Heart.
But this is a terrific media that worth start translating. I want some partners who can write good English and start introducing this new media to English speaking nations (and also lots of Europeans). My English is pretty good, but I unfortunately do not have a talent to write perfect English, so I need your help. You can relax and take time, of course. There is no time limit and you can only translate things that you want to translate. We may be able to make a little money. And even if not, I will introduce you extremely good stories!
I have a few plans to start with, there is nothing to lose even you give up, so if you are interested, can you give e-mail to futaomi9300@yahoo.co.jp, or come to futaomi9300@yahoo.co.jp at MSN messenger?
This will be really a very interesting activity for you. I can assure that.
Here is a very nice novel game I love, but you need to understand Japanese.
'Little Lady'
http://my.vector.co.jp/servlet/System.FileDownload/download/ftp/0/178484/pack/win95/game/avg/LITTLEV4.LZH
Now if you are quite sharp, you might have thought 'Oh no, bloody bisyojo game!'. I have to admit, the bisyojo game and hentai games usually use this media. But this media is not how it has been from about 4 years ago.
There are quite a few fans of the bishoujo/hentai games here on this forum. Anime attapted from them has brought the games to our attention. Many of us would like to see more of them translated to English. Hentai or not, I think it's a great medium for telling a story. I'd love to see more fan translations going on (if not official commercial releases)
I don't know if you are aware that some games are being translated by fans currently. It's a huge job and they move slowly but they are happening.
I'm curious what you are planning. How do expect to make money? Are you attempting to start a company translating games or are you just planning to start a large scale fan translation movement?
RunningTARGET
2004-08-03, 23:16
You should also take into account how much the licences cost for these games, for example the one you mentioned. And how much would you sell it for.
There is a fan base for these type of games, like TronDD mentioned before. You just need a way to spread the word, so of course you need money from the start.
But if you start of with fan translations then it will start to build up.
Anyway goodluck.
Hi guys. Thanks for reading and writing some comments on my post.
Of course my final aim is to translate main street novel games, but I want to do it openly without violating the copy right. So for the time being, I am not thinking about translating Kanon and things.
But as you guys know, sound novel game is a very easy making games and there are a lot of amateur people who want to show their games for free, like the one I mentioned above. They are free, but some of them absolutely exceed the quality of market games. So to start with, I am thinking about contacting them to ask if they want to distribute their free games in English.
Then I am going to start providing them FOR FREE, and hopefully I can get you people's credit. So if you people come to my website, you can download lots of the greatest Japanese amateur novel games translated.
If I start feeling that I am getting good response from you people, I want to start contacting NEW COMPANIES who just want to sell their product anyway. I am cautious because I don't think main street companies show any trust on a group of translating people who just started doing the business. There are humangus amount of new novel game companies coming up every milli seconds, so I probably will not find it difficult doing it.
Once I start getting used to translating such products, finally I want to start translating main street ones. This is my plan to make novel games pretty popular outside Japan.
There are some little law things that I have to go through. For example, if I start selling products, I need to pay a part of the profit to the original company. And how does the company know how much of their product I am selling? I think that's going to be about finding a system that allows them check me.
Anyway, this is my plan. Of course things do not move suddenly, but I want to relax and make a steady progress to make a good system that allows you people to get hold of great Japanese novel games half year after the product is released in Japan.
Soulfang
2004-08-04, 16:14
That's very ambitious, translating a visual novel a half a year after it's released. These games have a -lot- of text, which I am sure you know. I guess if you have a few translators working and you split it up... anyway, good luck on that, though.
Oh well, it's easy to say, but difficult to do. I just wrote my plan and no one can be sure if I can actually do them. But I'm going to take it easy and relax, then at least finish off the translation of the one I introduced with the link above, 'Little Lady'. Has someone read this? I reckon this is as good as the original game of Kanon. The picture and the music quality are low quality, but very effective on making this game touching as hell, because of the superb story.
How do you plan to create the finished translated product? Are you planning to get scripts and uncompiled code from the game's developer or are you going to have to hack the game's files, extract the text, translate it, then patch the game? That's a lot of work.
well, I'm planning to get the original script from the developer, translate it and give it back. That's a lot of work, but nothing compared with developing it from the start.
O.K. I got the permission to translate the novel game I mentioned above!!
The developer is sending me the script soon. Hey, can you do the game above if you can read Japanese? You will surely be stunned by its story. If you get stunned and feel like helping me translate, please e-mail me.
futaomi9300@yahoo.co.jp
Hi guys, thank you for reading. I got the script from this auther and this plan actually is moving on. My overall plan is firstly to set up a website where people can freely download translated Japanese novel games and eventually buy translated products like Kanon, Karekano etc. It will not be done that quickly, of course, and I am eager to translate a novel game that I believe is the most suitable for the introduction.
I got a help of a professional translator and I am being very confident that he and I will be able to finish off our work. But to complete the work quickly, I want some more people to help me translate the story. The story is quite short for a novel game and will not take your time.
My final aim is to create a system that allows any of you people in U.S., EU and other places to be able to play the very best Japanese novel games perfectly legally at home. I want more people to read such wonderful story of games like the original Kanon.
If you feel in the same way and feel that you can give me a little hand to complete the first work, please contact me. I am sure that this work will be very famous and the reward will be that you and I can put our name big on the site!
No hiding for translating a novel game without permission.
Let's be kick starters of a big new movement in the world (seriously)!
futaomi@yahoo.co.jp
hamiko_san
2004-08-08, 21:08
10 things more, you never know.
Hi, I see that some people are looking at my topic everyday, and I'm very happy.
The translation is going quite well. The translation may finish within this month, since the guy helping me is very fast at working, and he seems to really like the game I introduced him.
But he is the only translator helping me currently and I do not feel that relying on him completely is a good thing, because it takes a lot of his time, however interesting the story is.
I really want someone who kindly volunteers to this work. Anyone who can read Japanese and write good English. There is no doubt that this work will be very popular amongst most of Japanese culture fans such as anime and manga fans like you guys, so this work will definitely be rewarding. I am not exaggeraing anything.
This translation work will take about just two more weeks maximum if I get two more people. If you are interested, or know someone who is likely to be interested, please let me know.
Thank you.
futaomi9300@yahoo.co.jp
I'd love to help out but I'd only slow the project down. :) I'm most definatly not a translator. MAybe I could QC since I am interestied in playing these games in English.
I believe this kind of games might have a market in Western countries in the future. I think the biggest problem currently is the fact that most Western people have no or very little experience with this kind of games. People don't know what it is and don't want to spend their money on it. Many will also be prejudice and think the entire genre is silly without trying it out first. Not main stream = for nerds. Nerds = not cool. That's a sad fact about society. :(
I myself have only played Kana, which had a very good story, but because of its erotic content it's not something I would play with my family members watching. I admit I did not pay for the game because I really didn't know what to expect and I didn't have a way to pay for it without letting my folks know about it.
I wish you good luck on your project. I am very interested in checking out the results of your work. :)
That's the thing. Western people do not know how touching the story of this genre of game can be. It is absolutely revolutionary because the quality of story, pictures and music you can put in this genre of game can not be exceeded by any other medias. Firstly it can be better than the book, because novel games can have some visual effects, such as scrolling and changing a part of picture. Of course just scrolling the picture does not do any good, but when there is a person who has got a sense of visual effect, it is terrific. Secondly it has music that has the obvious advantage over the book.
Other good points of this sort of game is that it:
1. Can be made freely without money. Anyone can make it if they have creativity and time.
2. The player (or reader is the suitable word, I believe) can have some choices on what the main character does in the story. This creates a far greater depth to the world of the story than any other medias like book and film. It obviously makes it interesting playing the game too.
3. Developers are taking as much time as they want to create novel games. They are not like the TV series, so they have time to draw superb pictures and long stories.
Well, there is no point of giving reasons why they can be really good. I will translate a very good example here and show you how nice they can be.
But as I keep repeating, the example I give you does not have the greatest picture, but don't be turned down easily. Carry on playing and you will be gripped like hell. Lots of you may start weeping(lol
This novel game is does not have any erotic features. This is a pretty game that can be played by young people. Well, I say this is a PG game. Please feel free to deliver this to lots of people.
This sort of game is still under cultual development in Japan also. Because this sort of game derives from erotic games originally, there is still a trend that characters in games are mostly girls and the main character is a man. But I believe this will change soon and there will be lots of people who starts employing lots of male characters too. Two things that are sure is that you will love this game I am translating, and novel games will come in the western market one day. Well, my aim is to bring lots of games to the market myself, if you kindly allow me to be ambitious.
To give you people lots of market novel games, someone has to translate games. But to translate games, I need to get credits from the society, because I'm a only starter of this. To get credet and trust, I will introduce you people lots of superb quality amateur novel games, then I will start moving on to products.
I want to do take each steps as quick as possible, but I am ready to take time. I really want you people to read great stories like Kanon and Air, as early as possible. If any of you people think you can help me completing the first work quickly, but solidly, please feel free to contact me.
futaomi9300@yahoo.co.jp
by the way, this is a very cool opening movie of another novel game that the novel game developer I'm talking about has made.
http://rlp.obi.ne.jp/moon/event/op1.htm
Watch this and share my respect for this developer!
hmm, one third of the translation is done now. I still need someone so finish this off within this week. How are people thinking about my plan?
Good luck with the project. I am impressed the developers of the game were so willing to help.
One thing you might consider;
If you can translate the game to english that quickly, it might be worth it to investigate having the developers inserting the english text back into the game and distributing it themselves.
Currently english translations are done through third parties and distributed by them as well. If the original Japanese developers could distribute for themselves, it would speed up how quickly the games got to market, and they would get a larger share of the sales proceeds.
Not to mention, they would probably be in the postion to pay you for it. :)
Regardless of how it works out, or which route you chose, I wish you success. I do think there is a decent market for these games here. So good luck!
Arwyn, thank you very much for the stunning idea. I had been thinking that it was impossible for a Japanese company to deal with foreign distributers such as Virgin and HMV, but as you say, maybe it is possible for me to stand in the middle of the developer and distributers and make the business work.
Anyway, I am being very commited to let you western guys know how wonderful the novel game can be. It is an expressive media to tell a story. You guys have experienced the joy of films and books, but this media is a completely new media that will definitely give you a new sense of excitement.
Once this game is ready, I will put it on my website so you guys can freely enjoy it. It is going to be a website where you can also get cool softwares to make novel games by yourself, download other people's novel games, talk about novel games on a big forum and get to know about superb amateur and marketed novel games in Japan. You will definitely enjoy the world of novel games!!
Please!!!
I got a kind volunteer from this forum and this translation of Little Lady is nearly half finished. But it is not easy for only one person to do the translation. If I could get a new fresh help, I promise that I can finish this work in two weeks or less. I just need only one more translator to make this work quickly and easily.
I have a huge passion on this media. Please, please help me accomplish my dream of letting western nations enjoy this media. This is too good to keep inside Japan!!
futaomi9300@yahoo.co.jp
Mas
Sorry you're having troubling finding another translator. I'd love to help out but if I could read Japanese well, I'd be playing these games already. :)
Don't worry so much about getting the game out quickly. As a first release, that shouldn't be a problem, no one has any expectations yet. Just let people know when it's done and let things expand from there. Unless your translator is complaining it's too much work. Then that's a problem. :)
Good luck and let us know when it's done. I'm eagerly waiting to play the game.
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