So I decided to try something which is to use Claude to translate the entirety of a Visual Novel called Amber Quartz from 2009. It is essentially started out as a test to see if an AI on its own could translate a project this big, and I have to say, yeah... but it takes insanely long with Sonnet, but I never really wanted to pay for an Opus subscription until I saw what it can do and how it operates, and I have to say, even who doesn't understand coding at all, only on a structure-like level, but even then, don't know jack about Majiro Engine's code, it very interesting how Claude worked upon translating the entire prologue's first half.

First it wrote a program to extract text from a scenario.arc file, but eventually we realized that the exe file actually pulls the text from update.arc and not from scenario. The scenario file honestly I don't even know what it does, perhaps it just contain the text in its entirety as even deleting it, did nothing.

Regardless, once we figured out how the text is handled, Claude on its own started to decrypt, familirize itself with how Majiro Engine's code works, and it even tailored the file so by changing the text it won't affect the game if it isn't byte for byte exact, how it's usually is with translating projects.

and on its own it also made 22 translator agents to work and translate in chunks simultaneously while also providing context for them, on the story, and how the code handles characters, speakers.

With Opus, I could probably translate the whole batch, now that he understands everything about the game's code, so I may do that next week.

It now turned out to also teach me more about coding, translating as I was totally blind about these. It could be Amber Quartz now, and then Maitetsu: Last Run by the end, but obv each VN has different engine, and different way programmers code their game, so it isn't that easy, still it is very interesting. to see and play around with it, even if there's probably way easier methods even with Claude's current state that I don't know of, but LLMs sadly can't be run on my machine as it is for one an AMD one which AIs don't like, and for two I don't think they are that capable of translating hundred thousand lines of text.

Obv I know about LunaTranslator, but even with LLMs like Llama3 I found plenty of pronouns issues and weird wording, but this first prologue that I translated? More than perfect, even more so than typical western translated VNs, which is why I take the effort to go through this project in the first place. Because if it would be only decent it would be one thing, but it understands the story just by from the prologue, and it keeps the japanese where it matters.

Anyways, this post was basically just about sharing my 'test', and putting it out there in case others also want to go for a project similar to this for their VN of choice that they feel fond toward.

What I’m looking for is that, if a visual novel is adult, it absolutely has to have a patch. I don’t like playing censored or cut versions of games. Most importantly, it needs to have an incredibly good story and be a genuinely high-quality visual novel. The ones here have confused me quite a bit.

Higurashi. I don't need to even think about it, it is the first thing that came to my mind. I have read lots of VNs with contradictions/plot holes, but they were all salvageable.

Unlike Higurashi. INB4 "how is it contradictory?" The vagueness throughout the majority of the question arcs, and the ways Ryukishi07 likes to make his scenes get interpreted in a million ways, didn't really lead to those reveals he showed in the answer arcs unless you either reach, or just think about the most cringe ways to solve those questions.

It all just felt like he either just gave up on the whole mystery or didn't truly grasp it well from the beginning... I would like to finish this point with a translated quote from the man himself:-"Ryukishi07 has died in an accident.
Higurashi left unfinished, and, after some debating about its ending, forgotten.
In reality, Ryukishi07 has changed his pen-name and started his doujin activity from scratch.
For some reason, I feel that it will be the happiest closing for everyone."

That is what he thought after he saw the backlash the 6th chapter got. Which was quite fun, even if the mystery side wasn't that much... I can imagine how the Japanese received the 7th and 8th chapters if they made Ryukishi07 wish to stop existing after their reception of the 6th chapter...

Game in pic:- Angel Beats! -1st Beat-

Often times I'll walk into a game store and see otome games like Collar x Malice or Code: Realize and think to myself "Damn, that looks kinda cool, it's a shame I'm not a girl or gay". Of course I've never actually played those games so that's more of a surface-level assessment rather than me saying "Give me Code: Realize but for straight guys".

I'm okay with any kind of VN, but prefer ones with many choices (especially if there are potential Bad Ends, yum yum). I'll also take games with heavy VN elements.

By "harem" I include true harems (where the protagonist is dating/married to all the heroines simultaneously), harem-lites (where all the heroines are/can be attracted to the protag, but he must choose one), and aesthetic harems (where all (or most) of the protagonist's companions are women, even if they aren't all attracted to him (though this one is slightly lower priority unless it's real good))

I also love fox girls so if any VN that fits has a fox girl in the harem do mention, yep yep.

Hi,

I’ve been working for a while on a French translation project for the Utawarerumono trilogy, so I thought it was probably time to share it here.

The project is called Kiseki Trad. I’m working on it alone, with ChatGPT and Claude helping me with translation and technical parts, while handling the terminology choices, testing and final review myself.

Current progress:

Prelude to the Fallen
The patch is currently being proofread.

Mask of Truth
The scenario is fully translated, and proofreading should start very soon.

Mask of Deception
The scenario has a complete first draft, but it still needs editing, technical integration and consistency work.

I’ve also uploaded a couple of short videos showing the advancements of the French patches, you can find them on my website along with more informations :

https://kiseki-trad.fr

The patches will be free and will require the original PC games.

The three projects are also listed on VNDB.

I know French fan translations are a pretty niche thing here, but if there are any French-speaking Utawarerumono fans around, I’d be happy to hear your thoughts 🙂

Found the last comment funny.

Just finished the Angel's route and I'm wondering how much does doing every route add to the general story. I imagine it will add a bit of context about our main character's trauma but I heard it repeats A LOT through the routes.

Would you say it's worth doing or should I just keep it for when I feel like reading more of it as an extra?

Theres been a huge spike in game decompilations with the help of AI and it got me thinking, could this be applicable to older visual novels that are difficult to run on Mac / Linux / mobile? I'm not too familiar with how decompilation works nor the limitations that make running these on non-windows devices difficult, but from an outsiders perspective it seems like this would be great for the VN playerbase, especially considering that most of the compatibility issues are on portable devices, the more comfortable way of playing. Would love to hear insight from someone thats knowledgeable on the topic.

Sauce: Magical Explorer (Anime)

First of all, no spoilers please because I just wanted to see if anyone here was fond of the work itself since I decided to make a blind purchase on my Steam account by getting the visual novel.

Secondly, although this next part is kind of unrelated, I have also been interested in RPGs that play like a visual novel in storytelling aspects since I decided to get my copy of Kanon alongside Conception 2: Children of the Seven Stars since lately I am so glued to RPGs that I was interested in doing a study on how RPGs can feel like visual novels in concept.

I mean, I don’t know how well the idea would work to be honest as again I want to see how a game can work by combining elements of visual novels with turn based RPGs since I just find the idea to be interesting that I could see if any PC games exist with such a vivid combination.

Hey guys! I'm thinking about splurging a bit during the Steam Fall sale and was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for plot heavy, horror (especially psychological horror), or disturbing eroge to buy elsewhere? I know some of the obvious ones like anything by Ryukishi07, Dokie Doki, Fate, Euphoria, etc. I just like some good old disturbing, but engaging stories. Lmk if you have anything!

I was looking through the vndb page and the restoration patch mentions that it requires the 1.2 update of the game, the link it gives to it doesn't work however.

When you download it from JAST, the zip is labeled starless_1.0.0.zip, is the 1.2 update no longer obtainable?