Delays and Thank Yous

by goku-no-baka

Hello everyone. I'm the Project Leader, Renasci. I would like to apologize for all the delays of the project and my long term absence. I left all of the work to Bluebird's Circle and Archeia, both of them being busy with various projects, due to my lingering illness. I would also like to apologize about the spam in my twitter. Rest assured that I have unsubscribed. Horoscopes will no longer flood your twitter notices.

I had a long talk with Archeia yesterday and with some luck we might be able to make the progress a tad faster than our current speed. We also have a new person in the team named, Yami. I'll properly introduce him once we get our foundation stable.

I also want to thank the Bluebird's Illusion Group in Deviantart for their support and our followers for your extreme patience. Going back to the blog and seeing the conversations in the cbox always bring a smile to our faces. We're definitely doing our best to get this thing done. 

Another thing I'd like to brought up is the Engine. There had been constant questions about why are we moving to a new engine. It's mostly "Aren't you guys just translating? Why are you guys making a new engine for this?"
 

The main reason is...to make the English translation possible. 

In our dev diaries and early entries, you should be able to see one of the biggest problems we were facing. The last attempt we did is that we kept getting an error message when we use the word, "Brother." The other one would be how ugly the fonts looked and how we couldn't figure out how to change the font. Many other things. There's also the issue of repacking the game. Translating visual novels and working with their engines requires an experienced programmer. 

I'm definitely not one. Archeia, who is the only one remotely close to a programmer, has little interest in learning NScripter and is interested in other fields. The question we had back then, "Should we keep working with this engine or should we just use our own?"

It didn't take long for us to agree that we should just use our own. Because we can work better with an engine we spent our life on. We don't want to keep working with NScripter and end up scrapping the project. There's very little interest in BBI from other translation groups last time we tried to hire people or translators. If we won't do it, who will?

If that isn't convincing enough, Archeia also brought up a few things that I found interesting:

• Windows 8 is supported as long as you play in desktop mode.
• A possibility that they can be playable on IOS and Android devices.
• Everyone can use the engine if they want to make their own visual novels.

I know that our decision might be unclear to some people. But everyone is free to try to translate BBI. If they can do it with its current engine and fix the existing bugs, we would gladly support them. But as it stands, we would like to work with our own methods and develop something that is worth our time and effort. That's why we're working hard on the game in the first place! :)

Thank you very much for your continued support and we will definitely get this game done. We're almost there!

Fun News~

Hola everyone, due to work, universities, Renasci being mortally ill (it's complicated) and unable to go online at all, we had been on halt for a while now. The project has to be returned to my hands and using the scarce time I have to reorganize the project in her stead. But after a talk with my trusty partner, BlueBird's Circle, we decided that we'll release a demo on February 14. 

We were going to surprise you guys this December 25th, but alas, things happened and destroyed our plans. We would like to thank everyone with their patience and we're glad that you guys didn't give up on us! The demo would be extremely short, probably a chapter long, but hey? At least it's a proof that we are working on it. And another good news would be, the translation is now 95% done. All that's left is inputting them in the game.

We still have to fix some images, such as the ever annoying Envy's hair because of artifacts, but we'll get there~

There's also a large chance we can provide IOS, Android and Mac support. But we'll get there in due time. (They're written in LUA so it's like, lol <_<;)

Thanks and have some happy holidays everyone!

Art by Robo-Shark

Some little things

I know we've been sort of inactive lately, it's mostly because of my job that has this project on a halt in terms of development. Currently, I was looking over the old engine and slowly having some features from it to the new one. It's mostly the mouse giving me problems haha.

But the good part is some things that I couldn't do from the old engine was don with the new engine. Except, I'm still having trouble importing some new stuff in...

I'll update you guys on that when I have the chance ;-;

Meeting Ends

Hey there everyone! This is AutumnBirdsCircle, some of you may remember me as BluebirdsCircle until my google account was suspended and I had to make a new one. Copyright be darned! So, my deadline was the 29th, and there's a lot been going on lately. Me and my good friend and editor Alex have been working night and day to get the translations done for Bluebird's Illusion. He's been so fantastic!! Give him a hand everyone! 


I have to say, this passed month has been intense. Waking up only to know you're going back to the exact same line of duty sure gets to you every once in a while. Tomorrow is my 17th birthday (the 29th) and there's nothing more I want more than to say thank you! You guys have given me the greatest present of all, the will to keep at it. Every, "YOU CAN DO IT!!" Makes me feel like episode 63.


To be honest, I want to hate this game since it's consumed my entire life, but I find the will to keep going and going. Anyway, I'm happy to announce it looks like we're on scheduled for the most part! 90% of the translations have been finalized and we're back on track! There's the Search I still need to do, but I can get that done in a little while. Also, thank you Archeia for taking my BS every day~~ ;_; My only regret is that I couldn't finish in time... Blue screen of death is my fiend.

So, thank you. From me to you! 

AutumnBirdsCircle 

LIGHTNING Speed!!!

Bluebirds Circle here... Now recently, I've been living in my cave--AKA my room--doing translations and rewriting nonstop everyday for the past 18 days. So far, I went back and polished up all the previous days in terms of dialogue, finished day 4, 5 and 6 and I'm currently 25% done with day 7. I plan on finishing the entire script by the 29th. But I need your help in cheering me on!! This isn't an easy task to translate alone... But I feel with the power of all you fans rooting this lone warrior on, I can accomplish anything!!

Thank you~

Pride Edward~

Bluebird's Circle has been busy drawing and coloring for the Risembool Ranger's Pride!Ed contest. And so after 3 days of working on it with a mouse and Adobe Flash. Here is the result of his hardwork and effort. Archeia made it so it looks like a wallpaper in here. Enjoy~

Check it out on Deviant Art: http://lordofawesomeness.deviantart.com/art/Happiness-Doesn-t-Exist-301823995

Battles In BBI II

Since the RPG option is winning by a large margin, I suddenly have a brain blast from thinking of what we can incorporate, so here are some things that might interest some people gameplay wise. I would also like to add one thing...I might actually change the GUI/Hud/System graphics the game had due to not being able to emulate the exact same style and I need to make new system graphics for this RPG inclusion. Rest assured that it won't be terrible! ...I hope.

Free-Time Related Gameplay

• Remember how in BBI where you can go to certain areas and talk to people? At one point, there are no scenes in these places and most of the time, it's just Edward just saying nothing to do here and stuff. Here's the possibility of incorporating a gameplay in it. To strengthen the Alchemy of the Playable Characters, you can do requests from certain people in the army or from the city. So what does this mean?
• Falman would like to see a material that is made from X. From here you can do some research, or maybe just some small chitter chatter with the random dudes from the military to think of ways to do Falman's request.

• Did you know? In FMA, Edward actually incorporate people's alchemic techniques for his benefit. One example is major Armstrong's earth spike that he uses in battle. Edward also started doing this AFTER he saw it. He used it mostly on the Greed Battle.

• So what does the above thing have to do with this? Well you can discuss some alchemic achievements by other state alchemists so you can use them in battle too. In a sense, Edward is a learning student :)

• This new feature will also open up new character scenarios and add-ons that the original didn't have. And since we removed the Ocean-X cameos since we thought they contribute absolutely nothing to the story, we can use them to give you guys quests/tasks/requests instead, in case none of the army needs one! 

Character Related Skills

• Edward Elric
• If you guys played the GBA games of FMA, it would be something similar, if not, lemme do a very quick summary. What Edward does is that he combos cards/elements to do a specific alchemic type of skill/achievement. This can range from healing, attack, support and debuffs/hex/cursing the enemy. Another good example of this type of battle system is Legend of Legaia from the PS1.

• So his style of gameplay in BBI is mostly this. You guys can combine many different type of elements and discover new alchemic endeavors. Once discovered, they will be freely available anytime on your skill subset so you won't have to input the same thing over and over!

• Edward is also a Jack of All Trades from what I noticed with his Alchemic Skills. So he can also influence his surroundings to make a specific Alchemic Skill stronger in terms of damage.

• Alphonse Elric
• Alphonse for the most part in The GBA version a physical attacker and let's cats do his bidding. After he collects a specific amount. The same thing goes here for the most part except he can also affect the field to make Alchemic Skills stronger. But you must be wondering, if Alphonse doesn't do much alchemy as Edward, what is this for? Which brings us to the next point:

• Roy Mustang
• The dearly beloved and hated Flame Alchemist. His skills are mostly focused on fire, fire, fire and fire. So what does this got to do with Alphonse?

• Did you know? It's revealed that Roy Mustang isn't really that incompetent under the rain or being drenched in water. But it actually makes his alchemy powers STRONGER after he does some alchemic magic. This is revealed in the manga when Risa Hawkeye said, I just assumed you were useless when drenched in water. We will also have to research back and read the manga to remember the explanation, but for now, let's ride with this one recollection.

• And in BBI, Alphonse and Roy are together when fighting, this is why I thought the two should cover each other's lacking in alchemic...accessibility...that Edward has.

And that's it for now, some things might subject to change depending on your feedback guys, so please keep us updated if you guys would like to add some things or dislike or aren't sure about!

There is Progress! Just not that great.

So instead have an Edward as we work on rewriting and translating the remaining days.

★Remastered Version Preview

After many tears, sweat and bloodshed, the remastered version is finally functional!

Enjoy, ENJOY, ENJOOOOOOYYYY

~Words from the crying heart of Archeia~

OMG! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!? It's actually REAL! xD

~Words from the torn heart of Bluebird's Circle~

Yesterday, I updated the progress report like crazy and early this morning. Hopefully everyone is enjoying our progress so far!

▼Remastering Progress

Hi everyone! Renasci speaking and I'm here to deliver the latest news!
Archeia is working very hard but had to take a break today due to her final exams for this trimester. But she left us with these images to show her progress!

Subtitles are not final

Title Screen is finally implemented!

Monologues are in!

CG and Indicator is now properly placed~ The only problem remaining is using the original size

And finally, I'll leave some art~

★Remastering!~~

=comparison between the original JPG and our PNG=

~CLICK PICTURE FOR FULL VIEW~

Bluebird's Circle here on more updates! So--the team decided we were going to remaster everything from the start. Sound effects, smoothing out the sprite work and replacing the low quality tracks with orchestral ones. Everyone's pitching in to help! Just improving and smoothing. :)

=============================

Archeia here, I successfully worked with the engine and the result can be seen below:

This is NOT, I repeat, NOT in the game.

Now it has italics etc. 

Choices are given a cursor instead of changing font text for the sake of readability and accuracy.