Topic: Watercrown News
Three whole days and no comments for my big self-expose? I'm crushed. Well, not really. Still: if you have any reason whatsoever to read this, even if that reason is pure boredom, it wouldn't hurt you to post a comment or two. No spam or cursing, please.
Anyways. If this post looks a little different from the usual, that's because I decided to try Lycos' new Qumana blogging tool. The verdict's still out on whether Qumana's more trouble than it's worth, but I kinda like it thus far. ^_^
And now the progress update. Out of 14 text blocks (that I know of), 2 are 95% translated (although one has yet to be reformatted for my VWF), 8 overall have been converted for re-insertion, and 13 have been dumped (gotta get to work on that last one). Sorry if those numbers seem small. Translation itself is only about 20% of the job: 75% is setting up the scripts so that they re-insert without glitches, and the remaining 5% is research.
Ah, research. The three big hurdles I've yet to surmount in this translation are all research-based. In order from smallest hurdle to largest:
- The "Hanauranai Jiten", or "Encyclopedia of Flower Meanings". Once you give Emma Furbanks the flower she asks for, she'll give you this book: enter your birthdate and it gives you your flower, its meaning and a little fortune. Since there are 365 days in a year (you know, I never thought to check if the game supports leap years), that's 365 fortunes to translate and just as many flower names to identify. This is more a matter of scale rather than outright difficulty: there's probably more text devoted to the Encyclopedia than there is in the first four Legend of Zelda games combined. Not to mention all the flower names I'll have to work on. (If it puts things into perspective, two of those 14 text blocks are devoted entirely to the Encyclopedia. That's a seventh of the game's text.)
- The furniture list. Sylvanian Families is first and foremost a toyline, and what better advertising could there be than to feature all the furniture you can collect in the game itself? (Side note on that: the "Room" menu option is now "Furniture", as it was in the original Japanese version. Amazing what a little VWF can do.) Counting the three different houses, you have 69 collectibles to buy with your hard-earned Dream Points, and all of them no doubt have different names in the Western world. So that's 69 names for me to hunt down. If anybody has anything akin to a catalogue with pictures and names for all the Sylvanian Families furniture ever released outside of Japan, I desperately need it.
- The intro monologue. I've gotten tantalizing hints that there is an official English version used somewhere in the world, but all the facts I've recieved thus far say there's no such creature. This is by far the most important piece of information I have yet to obtain for my translation. This monologue is featured in four out of the five games I've looked at and it can be found on sylvanian-families.jp, the official website. (The link to the page is http://sylvanian-families.jp/info/map.html.) If there is an official English version, omitting it or using my own translation would be...well, stupid.
I repeat: I can probably handle the Encyclopedia of Flower Meanings on my own, but I have to have the furniture catalog and opening monologue. If you can provide any help with those, please comment. Even if you can't provide any help with those, comment anyway. I'm happy to do this project just for myself, but it'd be nice if I knew someone else was interested...
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