Re: Virgin's Protection Magic Translation (v 0.82 released 23/07/2017)
OK, I said there would be some progress updates, so let there be some progress updates!
Translation status: I've now got 98% of v1.1.3 done, within the constraints of RPGMaker Trans v4 (i.e. some bits not translated). I've just got two endings to go. I think I'll have my un-quality-checked complete translation done within the next couple of days; I can then look at fixing the problems with it - I know there's a lot of text overflows.
Font Change: Or perhaps there aren't. The text needs reflowing regardless, but Fira Sans is much more compact for English. There was a technical hitch with this though, which is that Fira Sans does not cater for Japanese glyphs - or the heart symbol which is used so much in VPM. Hence I've made custom font face which uses the characters of Fira Sans with UmePlus Gothic as a fallback. The font face is currently entitled "Fira Sans Ume", and will become part of the patch in short order.
I've (very quickly) patched it in for some initial screenshots:
You must be registered to see the links
You must be registered to see the links
You must be registered to see the links
You must be registered to see the links
I'll admit there are some issues; RPGMaker is not being helpful with it's fairly arbitrary decisions on when it wants to resize menu text (the equipment menu is particularly badly affected), and this is compounded by the fact that Fira Sans is not particularly legible when resized to half horizontal width. I will be fixing these issues for release, of course. I might also knock the font size down a little, or perhaps swap to Fira Sans Light (rather than Regular). I'm still investigating this, but I need to make it so the graphical name tags look as if they're the right size - to my eyes, they look too small now!
Overall though, I'm happy. The extra space that Fira gives me will let me fix some issues that were problematic before, like not as many apostrophes as there should be in menus (because now an apostrophe doesn't take up a full character width!).
Other Things: And I've also made a good start of the problems identified here. I'm not finished on these, but probably about 1/3rd the way through the list.
RPGMaker Trans v5: Is not as far advanced as I'd like it to be, honestly. I've had a few issues, but hopefully these are resolved. And they need to be, because I'm already using some of the new features. But oh well - this is balanced by the rest of my work on VPM being ahead of where I thought I'd be!
A permanent home for the patch: My domain is active, and that's where it will live. I haven't had a chance to make the page for VPM yet, but it will be similar to the page I made for
You must be registered to see the links
. So if you want a good idea of what I'm aiming for, go check it out. The goal for the VPM page will be to be a complement to Searothonc's official site, although my version will probably be somewhat more restrained in design.
I'll probably keep hosting the Patch on Assembla though - or perhaps Mega or somesuch. I don't have much bandwidth of my server at the moment, and the patch is getting hefty.
I'll likely post another progress update in a couple of weeks.