Fw: Developing new games:
Argh! I just sent this reply to the saturn list :( but here is my reply to the last letter in this thread) > Hello, > Well, I gotta say I disagree that this is preferable to translating > preexisting games. If you think it's going to be difficult to rip into a 5 > star RPG to replace text then it's going to be impossible to create even a > 2 star RPG. Why overexert ourselves like that? IMHO you'd be exerting yourself with the translation. SNES roms AFAIK are more simple to hack compared to the tg16 roms. Do we even have a disasembler that'll work with magic kit yet? Has anyone (other than the guy who translated sonson 2) tried this yet? I know there is one on Zophar, but never tried re-compiling it myself. Also, ever try reading a disasembeled file? They're huge. like 1 meg for KC, you've really got to know what you're doing to find what you need. (no comments at all). Doesn't it ever make you wonder, I mean, there are a TON of fans of the PC Engine, yet, although you see many hacked nes, snes, sega ROMs, other than the 2 translations of wonderboy and sonson, have you seen any other pce roms that have been modified? I personally think this says something about the dificulty of the operation. (this is just my opinion though, please please, prove me wrong!) As (i think) Zeo was mentioning, can anyone here recognise Japanese ASCII codes? > I can't imagine translating a game would take more than 6-8 months once > all the people are in place. Creating a (great)game from the ground up > would be impossible...really. Not really. Say you wanted to make an exact copy of the game you want to translate, ok, get a few graphic artist to build you a tile set, make your sprites, character sets..blah blah blah, then just dupe the engine as best you can. Agree on a vision, map out a proper design, delegate responsibility between other programmers. I mean seriously, duping Ys4 (for instance) although quite an undertaking is not going to be that hard...certainly not impossible. 1-2 years with a team of 3 people I bet. (Granted these people work full time) > With the first project, we are talking about text replacement and > translation. We have the benefit of so many pre-existing titles that we > would love to see in english. We can agree on games to work on and someone > has already done the graphics and story for us! This other way, how fair > would it be to ask everyone to work on a game without contributing their > share of creativity and input into story, character, and such. Creating an > RPG is 20 times more involved. You could also use the gfx. from those games, someone could possibly write a gfx ripping utility, I asked David M. about it once on the T-hack list, seemed to think it was possible. Although the pallettes would not be set correctly (I think that's what he said). Anyway, if you wanna work off of someone elses plan then do so, we don't HAVE to make a brand new rpg. Anyway, aside from doing a bit of planning I don't see how it is that much more involved. > As far as royalties, again, realistically speaking, there is almost no > chance of this happenning. Secret of MAna 3 was tranlated by two different > groups and as far as I know they got nothing from Square in terms of > trouble. Ahh but again, those were ROMs distributed on the internet. I had thought we were working along the lines of actually releasing a legit turbo game to the public in order to show people that the PCE was still alive and kicking? I mean, a translated rom would be fantastic, and really keen in the emulations scene I'm sure. However I don't think it would draw any corporate attention to the PCE. That is what I want to see happen. I want companies to realize that us retrogamers are out here, and we're dying to see new games for our system...so much...that we'll make them ourselves. (ok getting a bit idealistice here) > Let's be honest and look at the reality of creating a gream and the > likelihood that Falcom of Hudson of Japan would care enough to come to the > United States to hunt down 100-200 unauthorized copies of a game that is > probably 8 years old. No way. You'd be surprised. Legally if all we were doing was distributing it for free then they prolly wouldn't care...however sell it and you've got potential problems, even if the game is 8 years old... it is still someone elses work... their copyright, and property. Also I sincerely dbout the distribution would only be 100-200 copies.... I mean...on the tml there are how man members? I bet we'd all want one;). > So, is anyone going to volunteer to help break into a game so that we > can get started?! I'm not saying that translating a rom is a bad idea... I just think it might be just as quick to re-write the durn code...don't see that as unrealistic ether. Even if it twere all done in assembly which it would not be. Heck if I could rip gfx out of Keith Courage and re-make the 1st level with relative accuracy in DOS (in under 5 months at that, and this was like 2 years ago), then I feel confident that ripping graphics out of Ys or whatever would be just as straight forward (and I can't emphasize enough the use of a C compiler vs. working totally in assembly. It opens the project up to many more helping hands). There are lots of tools out there to help works as a team over the internet. Anyway, these are just my thoughts. Take what you like...leave the babble. -Eagan --- Turbo List Information ---------------------------------------------- Turbo Zone Direct is the official NEC repair staion for all American Turbo products. With the highest regard for customer service in this industry, our reputation is paramount, our track record is an open book. Check us out at http://WWW.TZD.COM/ Your feedback is always appreciated. -------------------------------------------------------------------------