sermeno14

[sermeno14]

So this is actually from Monthly Shounen Ace (sorry for the rough translations that follow).

On the website for the game (which is held up by Web Archive), if you go back way back through the archives you can find a blog that used to be there (link to the part of the blog I'm referring to).

On this blog, the producer says "There will be a new Monthly Shounen Ace edition on December 26th that contains information, an interview, and hidden secrets about the game."

On this picture we can see a couple things that indicate this is indeed referring to the game:

"As the anime is coming to a climax..." which means this was around the time the game was going to be released.

Side note: When the original game was released it came out before the manga's climax. When the second game was released it came out before the anime's climax. After all, you're supposed to play it before learning about Yuno's true nature.

Then this blurb says "Read about the new information in the game and the interview with the 2 new voice actors!" (since 13th and her sister have no roles in the original anime).

Where's the interview?

On the previous page.

So close.

Another Japanese magazine spread from the era when the anime was still running — early 2012.

Unlike other magazine spreads I’ve posted, though, I’m not sure what publication this one is from.

[sermeno14]

Future Diary - the 13th Diary Owner, Q2 Translation Update

Future Diary the 13th Diary Owner Q2 Translation Update

It’s been a while hasn’t it? I was supposed to update 3 months ago for the Q4 update. I guess I’ll break down everything that’s important. I can’t use a TL;DR, but the subtitles should work as your TL;DR.

Future Diary - The 13th Diary Owner RE:WRITE’s Translation is Being Worked on Simultaneously!

For those unaware, 2 games were published for Future Diary. The first came out while the manga was still going on. The second game released out of the anime’s popularity. This game is a “re-release” of the first adding in:

A new memory (each chapter is a “memory”)

Changes to the UI. Here’s one such example:

Left: first game; right: second game.

Fixes to difficulty

There are more tutorial cutscenes to explain mechanics.

Yuno’s insanity was too hard to balance in the original game, so they added in more ways to lower it (for Yunoteru fans this means more lovey-dovey scenes).

This is what the other translator told me, so I don’t know if this is true.

Voice Actors (everything is voiced except the current protagonist)

The Addition of Subtitles

With VAs being added in, some lines contain no text, but still have a voice line. So our solution will be to add in subtitles. There is one small problem with this technique, it’s very difficult to implement on a PSP. I won’t go into details, but it requires careful management of multiple things at once to make sure the PSP doesn’t crash.

Our Change in Translation

Originally, our translation was half machine translation and someone studying Japanese checking over the MTL. Our translation perspective has changed, and so has our recruiting process.

Translation is as much of an art form as writing the piece itself, and by translating literally (word for word) into English, we ruin both pieces of art. Therefore, I’ve been revising my translation ability by reading books on translation theory and changing our recruiting process. If you’d like to help translate, great! However, you’ll need to have an N2+ level and be competent in Japanese-English translation theory.

Now, due to this change in translation perspective, it makes the overall translation slower. If you really want to play the game translated with edited MTL, there’s plenty of software you can use, but we won’t do this for your final experience.

How We’ll be Releasing the Patches

Once we get to a stable release for both games (whether incomplete or complete), we’ll release a program that will overwrite your ISO. We won’t be releasing a patch because a patch would be limiting. What we want to do with this program is give you a couple options when “translating” your ISO:

Decide whether or not you’d prefer to have Japanese suffixes on (i.e. -san).

Decide whether you’d prefer the names to be in Japanese orientation (i.e. Gasai Yuno) or English orientation (i.e. Yuno Gasai).

Decide whether you’d prefer subtitles to be on or off.

In case you're a little skeptical of downloading a program, we'll be publishing it on GitHub, so you don't have to worry.

A New Programmer Has Joined Us!

Now that I (Sermeno) am in college, I have a roommate, who luckily has programming experience in ASM! He offered his help to our project, so please welcome Avodkada!

Why Our Update Took so Long

I started college this semester, and getting used to the environment has taken a while. I now seem to have a better grasp on things, so finding free time should be less difficult.

Changing our translation philosophy caused me to have to revise the way I’ve been studying Japanese.

Working on the subtitles is really difficult simply because of how much we have to manage and how they work behind the scenes.

Hopefully in our Q2 update, we’ll have more we can show all of you.

Sincerely, The New Future Diary Alliance

Image Editor: JackPyez Japanese-English Translators: Desi, Sermeno Programmers: Avodkada, Sermeno

[sermeno14]

More Information on the Pachinko

Since I saw @yunoteru4ever post more art for the Pachinko, I figured I should share more of what I posted on the Discord. It's a lot, so get ready:

1. Emulating the Pachinko:

As with any machine, NES, PSP, etc. you can emulate it. The real question is, how hard would it be to emulate the Future Diary Pachinko?

Well, after looking into all of this, I found that it wouldn't be extremely difficult to rip the code off of the machine. It'd just be a little bit of tinkering with some electronics and messing around with binary files to get a working program. Emulating it on the other hand... might take a long while. See, the Pachinko has multiple programs it keeps track of: a phone, the main screen, whether Yuno interferes with your luck, etc. To emulate it, you'd need to get all of those things working on a PC.

However, after ripping the code of the machine, it would be pretty easy to rip out all of the images and videos from it.

2. Survival Mode

After looking more into it, survival mode is actually not all of the episodes. Instead, it's only the fights against the diary owners. There's actually a counter on the left side of the main screen showing which diary owners you've fought:

Sorry for the blurry photo, but essentially it shows a picture of the diary owner, their number, and CLEAR (only if you've completed it of course). However, if you aren't facing off against them, it shows a question mark.

There is many alternate endings to these survival games, such as:

Episode 5 (Omekata Cult Arc)

Episode 15 (7th's Arc)

Seeing the alternate ending in episode 15, it seems as though this is the censored version of the anime because there's no blood coming out of Yuno at all.

Additionally, the Pachinko refers to these fights as episodes (i.e. the fight against 6th is episode 3). After you complete an episode, there's an epilogue summarizing the events of that fight. Here's the picture that shows when you win against the 3rd:

3. Heroine Complete Mode

I found out some more on this mode as well. First, they use two art styles, one is the normal anime art style, and the other is this:

Second, when you fail in this game mode, you get a failure screen:

TL: We can't make out right now~

Here's Murmur's:

TL: Too bad...

Side note: This art seems to be taken partly from the after-credits scene on episode 16.

Speaking of Murmur, here's her success screen:

Translation: I like ya too!

Thanks Murmur.

Lastly, my favorite part, once you complete all 8 heroines - Yuno (2nd), Tsubaki (6th), Ai (7th), Kamado (8th), Minene (9th), Hinata, Mao, and Murmur - you unlock, a 9th heroine, Yuno (Alternate).

It seems like you get completely new art of Yuno's iconic Yandere Face for this scene. Thank you artists, very cool!

And this is what the screen looks like once you complete all of them (including Alternate Yuno):

4. Main Game Mechanics

So far I've been describing the side routes in the game. However, I still don't know much about the main game's mechanics, but I'll share what I know so far.

First, there's a phone on the left side that always contains Chibi characters and Murmur. I'm not sure what purpose they serve in the game, but here's one example:

And another different Chibi style starring Sans Yukiteru:

Second, there's random "Happy End Bonus" scenes. Most of the time they aren't super interesting, but this one reminded me of the Cowboy Bebop OP.

Third, there seems to be custom music. This scene (which I'll explain later) has music that sounds oddly reminiscent of The Creator (the Pilot's OP).

Fourth, that scene I just showed is actually the scene in the Pachinko that determines if Yuno and Yukiteru end up together at the end of the anime. So if you want that depressing alternate ending to Redial (or the after-credits scene in the original anime), here you go.

Fifth, during the loading screens character information pops up. I tried comparing these to the VNs' character information, but turns out the designers wrote completely new information for the Pachinko.

Anyways, that should be all of the information on the Pachinko for now. I need to get back to the VNs. If you're interested in this kind of stuff feel free to join the r/MN Discord!

~Future Diary VN Translator

[sermeno14]

A Little Update on the Game's Status

Turns out a font from RE:WRITE used a font that already had g/j/p/q looking great, so all I had to do was edit it a little bit by messing with the file itself. Below are some pictures from the updated font. Let me know how this looks!

Save Data Menus:

Normal Text:

Colored Text:

The picture above reflects that we got the issue (shown below) with the location not displaying fully in the BACKLOG resolved.

Additionally, the problem we were having before with our lack of space in dialogue boxes:

Has been resolved because we now have more space for our dialogue:

We did fix one other issue which was the patch wouldn't work on actual PSP hardware, so in our next patch you'll be able to play it on official hardware!

We still have approximately 5-6 programming issues left which include:

Images not importing correctly into the game.

A graphical issue with the title screen.

Being able to modify the amount of text we use for certain areas of the game.

A limit on the amount of text space for DEAD ENDs.

Getting images to import into another file type.

Secret Issue 😏

Sincerely, The New Future Diary Alliance

Desi - Lead Translator JackPyez - Image Editor; English Editor Sermeno14 - Reverse Engineer; TLC

[sermeno14]

The Future Diary Pachinko

Usually most people talk about the anime/manga, and occasionally, we get people talking about the lesser known parts of the series - like the light novels or the games. However, next to no one talks about the Pachislot/Pachinko. And for good reason, they’re both unavailable to anyone in the west without at least $1000 to their name and you won’t get much enjoyment unless you know Japanese. With that being said, I’ve been doing a lot of research on these (along with @gasaislut, so give thanks to her as well!) because they actually have completely new and original content! I’ve talked about this on the Discord a lot, - as that’s where most of the hardcore fans are - but I thought I should share it here.

To start things off, let me say that I’ll be talking about the Pachinko and the Pachinko only. The Pachislot is, for the most part, the events of the anime on a slot machine. There is some new artwork custom made for it and a weird mechanic with the phone, but there isn’t a whole lot of information out there for it. Additionally, our data on the Pachinko is also very limited. We only have official screenshots and the first hour of gameplay from content creators. If you look for videos on the pachinko, you will see this:

A very limited selection indeed.

Now let’s talk about gameplay, or at least the gameplay mechanics that I’ve gotten the most documentation on. After progressing through the game a certain amount through various means, you unlock 2 game modes; Survival Mode and Heroine Complete Mode.

Survival Mode contains the episodes from Future Diary, but the results of each episode are entirely determined by a slot machine mechanic. In other words, you will either survive a battle or die. Yes, they actually animated alternative endings to the anime.

Take episode 2 for example or, my personal favorite, episode 25's alternative ending.

Heroine Complete Mode is by far my favorite, mostly because there are so many questions I’m asking myself. Here’s what we know.

1. This is the complete list of heroines:

The heroines available are Yuno, Hinata, Mao, Tsubaki (6th), Ai (7th), Kamado (8th), Minene (9th), and Murmur. At least from what I’ve gathered so far.

2. Once you complete all heroines’ routes, you unlock this image:

This image is cropped to fit TOS, but you can see the full image on the websites I’ll list below. Translation: EXTRAORDINARY!

3. From what I’ve seen from the trailers and gameplay footage, each heroine seems to have multiple routes (as a Tsubaki fan, I am very happy, but I'm ready for disappointment) each with their own HAPPY ENDs.

Here’s someone playing one of Yuno’s Routes and here’s another video with a different route for Yuno.

However, there is always the possibility multiple HAPPY ENDs exist outside of the Heroine Complete Mode.

4. Now here comes the big question. From the clips with Yuno in her Heroine Complete Mode - we can determine that she can only have her HAPPY END with Yukiteru - so either:

A. Yukiteru is dating each and every girl in this mode.

OR

B. There is a respective person for each girl in this mode. For Yuno, 7th, 8th, and 9th this makes sense, as we already know who their respective partners are. With a couple other heroines we can make a guess. But the most important question is, who is the person for Murmur?

Murmur on her HAPPY END in the Heroine Complete Mode.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk, until next time.

~Future Diary VN Translator

Links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phA8IENYS7Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK3z_kTK8e8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc-Z_5pVcEE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrCA150lpb8

https://webnewtype.com/news/article/171293/1/

https://youtu.be/gBOlMzgQzYI

[sermeno14]

Cleaner Recruit!

PLEASE REBLOG THIS POST!!

Hello I am the translator of Future Diary Fragments (read more about it here) and I am in desperate need of a manga cleaner to help me out with this project! 

GENERAL INFO AND RULES:

What is a cleaner? https://youtu.be/2zkFtnqWSNs

Photoshop is preferred, but NOT mandatory. As long as you’re good at cleaning and making the scans prettier, any program is okay!

If you’re an experienced cleaner send me your portfolio (provide also the raws)

If you have never cleaned manga before, you’ll have to take the cleaner test here. Clean those scans, upload them in a folder in your Google Drive, create a share link to the folder and make sure it’s set to Anyone on the internet with this link can view. Send me the folder’s link 

IF INTERESTED, CONTACT ME VIA:

Discord: eleonora♡#2982

Tumblr: gasaislut

[sermeno14]

“Q3 Update of the Official Game’s Unofficial Translation, Future Diary - the 13th Diary Owner!”

Hey, Future Diary/Mirai Nikki fans, we’re back with another update on the game Future Diary - the 13th Diary Owner’s translation!

TL;DR There’s a couple programming issues that need to be fixed. If you are familiar with C or MIPS feel free to help!

If you remember a while back, there was an Alpha Version we released. In this was the prologue and the main menus translated. I gathered some user feedback and some of our teams’ feedback on it. As a result, there are a total of 9 issues/situations that need programming to be resolved. After these are done, unless there is some major issue in the future, programming will be practically unnecessary for the games’ translation.

Keep in mind, anything we show here is tentative and may not be in the actual translation.

Anyways, here are some of the big issues that will be fixed in the next release.

The Font

The game was obviously made for Japanese and Japanese only. 

Side note: There are a couple parts where English-only text is shown. For example, because Takao Hiyama (3rd) is an English teacher, English-only lines are written. However, there are few lines like this and they’re written in a way not helpful for our translation. In fact, they’ll need to be modified because they won’t look like the rest of the translation.

So when we overwrote the game’s text to include English lines, it did not look nice. In fact, it was one of our biggest complaints from users.

Of course, it suffices. It looks irritating to read, but you can still read. However, with a little moving around, we found the game contained a font for “debugging.” Upon switching the font to the debug font, we found a much better solution.

Side note: The switch in font allows more letters to be in a dialog box than the original font. So this change helps more than just readability.

With this, the readability is saved! Except now the font has halved in size and some characters aren’t presented correctly.

In conclusion, we’ll be spending some time resolving the issues with the font. Don’t worry, it is one of the easiest issues to resolve because we already know (for the most part) how it works.

Dialogue Boxes’ Character Limit

In the game, each character speaks in either a “miniature” or “full-sized” dialogue box. For the sake of clarity, I’ll only be talking about the “full-sized” dialogue boxes.

The dialogue boxes have enough space to contain 80 half-width characters. Which works fine in Japanese. However, in English, certain characters have a much longer translation than the Japanese character/phrase. For example, 雪輝 is 4 half-width characters, but it’s translation, Yukiteru, is 8 half-width characters.

So the fix is simple, add in more dialogue boxes! One small problem, the game did not want anybody to mess with their text, and adding in more dialogue is even more difficult. In fact, it requires the file to be rewritten manually. 

Side note: Each text file, or script file as well call them, has 5 separate files, a “director” to another “director” file, a second “director” which describes how functions work in the script file, a list of data points, a list of text points, and the dialogue + data itself. Therefore, the sheer number of content makes it difficult to fully understand these text files.

In conclusion, it’s not impossible, but adding in extra text boxes takes a while, mostly because a program will need to be written to make “new” files.

The PLACE Command’s Character Limit

In the text files, there is a command/function called PLACE followed by a location (duh). When the player runs over this function, it causes the game to “display” your current location.

For some reason however, the character limit on the text is different depending on where it is.

In conclusion, it’s fairly easy to fix, once we find out how it works.

Conclusion

Don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you with all of these intricate details about Future Diary’s code because - while I find it interesting - this was simply to show what we’re working on. Additionally, the other 6 issues are much more in-depth and require lengthier explanations. 

If anyone would like to help out with programming and has experience in either C or MIPS, feel free to contact me (Sermeno14)!

Again, once all 9 of these issues are resolved we will never have to do any major programming (with the exception of bug fixes). From then, we’ll be releasing new parts to the translation, every week (or as often as we can).

Thank you all for all of your continued support!

Sincerely, The New Future Diary Alliance

Desi - Lead Translator JackPyez 🗾 - English Editor; Image Editor Sermeno14 - Lead Programmer; PR; Translator Checker

[sermeno14]

Alpha Release of Future Diary the 13th Diary Owner!

Here is the link to the patch (edit: a couple major issues need to be fixed first, before it can be re-uploaded) enjoy! Small Q&A: Q. Why does the Alpha Release contain such little content? A. It's mostly a proof of concept, you all can now see we can add in English dialog with relative ease. Additionally, in the coming weeks (excluding next week because I (Sermeno14) will be on vacation) we'll add translated dialog to the game week by week. Don't worry, this dialog added each week will be much more than you see here. If there are any bugs, Japanese (before the Alpha version ends), or translation errors please let us know! Sincerely, The New Future Diary Alliance Desi - Translator Jackpyez - Image Editor Sermeno14 - Programmer & TLC

[sermeno14]

Game Translation Q2 Update

Hey all, it's been a while since we gave an update. Some of you might not even know anything about this game.

1. What background knowledge of the series is necessary to fully enjoy this game?

Future Diary’s main series, either the anime or the manga

Hanako and the Terror of Allegory

Side note: None of us have completed this game in its entirety, so we’ll update this if there is anything else in the Future Diary universe you need to be aware of.

2. What is the game about?

Well, here’s what the back of the game’s case says:

3. Is the game canon?

“The game’s story is completely original, taking place midway through the original series.”

I can’t reveal anything more without spoiling the game, but it all fits into the main series’ storyline. 

Additionally, if you’re someone who wants to know how it has a tangible effect on the main series, there is a lot of substantial evidence of effects on the main series. Although, again, spoilers.

4. When will the game be completely translated?

2022. My goal is to get the first game translated by Q1 of 2022, but that all depends on my coding and translating abilities.

5. Wait, did you say “first game”? How many games are there?

Depending on your definition, 1-4. Although, that list of “4” games includes the pachislot and pachinko which are not part of this translation. The full list is as follows:

Future Diary - the 13th Diary Owner (2010)

Future Diary - the 13th Diary Owner RE:WRITE (2012)

Future Diary Pachinko (2016)

Future Diary Pachislot (2018)

This translation project will first be translating Future Diary - the 13th Diary Owner because it’s easier coding-wise.

6. What’s the difference between these two games?

Here’s a list of all the new content in Future Diary - the 13th Diary Owner RE:WRITE:

All chapters received extra content + a new chapter

Some scripts were revised (mostly changes that are near impossible to translate)

Voice Actors (the first game came out before the anime)

7. Okay, so just extra content, why won’t you translate the one’s with VA’s in it first?

It’s not that simple. The first game is much smaller, so it’s much easier to debug and test changes on. Additionally, with the second game, I have to code in subtitles.

(From here on out, when I say the game, I am only talking about the first game.)

8. How is the translation going? 

Really good. Only one small problem.

Good Parts:

The game holds most of its data in a file with a unique file extension. I'll skip most of the nerdy stuff and say I finished writing the program to extract all of it’s contents.

After writing my program (somewhat) backwards, and changing the code in the game, I can change certain files and see those changes in the game relatively quickly.

There is another unique file extension inside of the game that contains images (which need to be translated). I’ve reverse engineered most of the file. I’d like to show some images, but we’re still working on the main menu.

The fonts are somewhat supportive and the second game has a much better font for English characters.

Our one small problem: In the game, the text is held in yet another unique file extension. I understand how it all works, but it’ll take some time to reverse engineer it.

9. So if it’s going so well, can we have an alpha version?

Soon. Before the end of the month we should have a portion of the game available to play.

Sincerely, The New Future Diary Alliance

Desi - Translator JackPyez - Image Editor Sermeno14 - Reverse Engineer and TLC

If you have any other questions, I’ll do my best to answer any and all of them.

TL;DR: Alpha translation - end of this month. Full translation - 2022. 

[sermeno14]

Future Diary’s Light Novel Ending

In the (second) light novel it ends the same way as Future Diary: Redial, with Yuno breaking through space-time to meet up with Yukiteru. This is the translated version of what’s said in the epilogue:

“Yukkii!”

I look up at the nostalgic voice overhead. There’s a crack running through the dome of the empty sky. From the chasm I see “that person’s” head peeking through. Did they really come from the third world? To think, they’re breaking through space-time. No matter how you look at it, way too much time has passed…. But, she hasn’t changed. She’s the same as she was back then. I’m sure of it, she’s… “that person.” I’ve been waiting a long time for that person. There’s nobody that could replace that person.

I faced the sky, and shouted her name. “Yu… … YUNO!”

I heard that there was more to the light novel than just the events of the anime/manga. Turns out there’s less. In total, the second novel seems to remove:

The arc between Yukiteru and his friends

The HAPPY END scene (that’s fine, they don’t even mention it until the end)

The battle between 1st, 2nd, and 9th. 

Of course, I would love it if I was mistaken, but off of what I can see that doesn’t seem like that’s the case.