Patch is up (v1.01 incoming)

Talk about Kojima's hard sci-fi masterpiece.
lion589
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by lion589 »

5 more bugs.
I hope it won't take you too much time fix those bugs.
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by Solivagant »

Registered just to say that I'm anxiously awaiting for this project. Another victory for the community!
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Stratoslava
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by Stratoslava »

OFFTOPICsicing (?) a little:
Fly wrote:Wow!

Maybe it's because I'm used to Kojima games, but the title text doesn't look too Engrishy to me.
Don't know why... but when I read this post, a final comment in SCD's Snatcher bumped into my mind

"Throughout history (...) THIS CONFLICT HAS JUST BEGAN"

as well as the intro dedicating the game to all ciberpunkers who fight against injustice every day of their lives.

Very Kojima, indeed :P

-------------------------------------------
Regarding the patch... let's assume the 5 remaining issues are solved... then the patch goes alpha or directly to beta stage?
Titties & Beers!
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by The Prince II »

Just popping in to offer my continued congratulations. Regardless of how long this takes, you guys have done a fantastic job. Also I've been using the Policenauts translation sig on all the forums I've been a part of.
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slowbeef
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by slowbeef »

If anyone's interested, I posted a technical explanation of the most recent bug fix in the LP thread on SA as well as the current one I'm working on.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth ... id=2899139

As it stands now, all bugs getting fixed would bring us to Alpha and we would still have to do some development before beta complete.
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by abhi »

erm alpha, beta

what does that mean, sorry I am not very good at PC programs and stuff
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by Fly »

abhi wrote:erm alpha, beta

what does that mean, sorry I am not very good at PC programs and stuff
Like Slowbeef said earlier in the thread, a lot:

Alpha and beta are production terms for different stages of a project. Alpha is a working build, beta is a good build, and then it's onto the proper release which is the same as beta, without the bugs.

In terms of the Policenauts translation, alpha is going to be 'a stage where a non-Japanese speaker can play the game and enjoy it'. While all of the in-game text will be translated, things such as character-intro-text won't be, and there will be a few parts that look a little unfinished in terms of minor detail, and there will probably be bugs.

Beta is going to be 'looks professional, may still have bugs'. So character-intro-text will be hacked and it will look mostly professional, but every now and again a bug might still be encountered.

The final release will be the same as beta, but with no bugs. Hopefully.

EDIT: Oh, here's Slowbeef's quote:
Slowbeef wrote:We've actually started discussions on (gasp!) doing an alpha build!

What's that mean?

Well, in modern software development, not very much. "Alpha" and "beta" get kind of thrown around, especially on a project like this where it's not so much creating a whole new product as it is developing a mod. (I mean, you could theoretically say the completely unpatched game is playable, and therefore an alpha build. But that doesn't mean anything.)

I consider beta to be "feature complete", which means we've put everything we want into the product and it's all about beta testing and looking for bugs.

Alpha, I consider to mean "critical functionality", which means that if we were all shot out into space tomorrow, we'd at least have something to show for our efforts. The problem with alpha builds is that they're missing stuff or contain known bugs. So in our case:

"I can play the game, easily read the English, and enjoy the story with no difficulty. There might be a typo here and there that the team hasn't caught yet. There might be placeholder text in some miscellaneous - but not necessary - part. There might be things with the graphics that seem a little off, but ultimately, this is starting to look like a finished product, only with known bugs."

Whereas Beta is:

"This is what final product should look like and we are only checking for bugs in it. Nothing new is intended to be added to this before final release."

So when I say "We're discussing Alpha Build" that basically means we're gonna put all the text into Discs 1 & 2 and play through the whole thing, writing down stuff we want to add or change. (And reporting critical bugs like "hey, the game crashed when I did this" of course)

Just one thing I'm going to let you guys know is that it's gonna be an internal beta. We'd like to keep it in-house until we're all done.
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by slowbeef »

Do these count as good omens?

Manager brought a black guy to my desk a couple weeks after I started "officially" working on the hack.

"Hey, slowbeef, this is the developer you'll be working with on X project."
Me: "Nice to meet you, slowbeef."
Him: "Ed Brown, likewise."

Also yesterday, while on vacation with the family in Disneyworld (yeah, I fixed a bug in Disneyworld, eat me), I ran into a bunch of strollers in the Magic Kingdom with families' names printed on them.

Image

These events were so weird, I had to tell my albino friend Tony Redwood about them.
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seraphssavior
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by seraphssavior »

Well...watch out for him...something tells me he may not be the most trustworthy person...
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by Fly »

Of course, this being a Kojima game, the events were probably arranged by FOURTH-WALL-BREAKING NANOMACHINES in order to manipulate you into believing luck is on your side in order to achieve something or other, so don't get too cocky.
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by Marc »

Also, our first programmer has the same name as one of the main characters.
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by Pizuz »

Fly wrote:Of course, this being a Kojima game, the events were probably arranged by FOURTH-WALL-BREAKING NANOMACHINES in order to manipulate you into believing luck is on your side in order to achieve something or other, so don't get too cocky.
There is no fourth wall ;)
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ROM of Metal Gear Solid Mobile!

Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by Fly »

That was an interesting article. Thanks for showing me!

It doesn't have anything to do with the topic, though, really.

To get it back on it - without spoiling too much, could the people on the project tell us how much Kojima fourth-wall-wankery there is in Policenauts?
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slowbeef
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by slowbeef »

Fly wrote:To get it back on it - without spoiling too much, could the people on the project tell us how much Kojima fourth-wall-wankery there is in Policenauts?
I hope too many fanboys don't get pissed, but sometimes his 4th wall stuff gets to me. Like the Raiden mask in MGS3 would have been a cute joke... but then I actually need it for the game and there's no remotely realistic explanation as to why I'd have it. I guess I like it when it's funny asides, but it irks me when it's important to the story that they're video game characters.

That said, so far nothing's pissed me off - it's all been pretty humorous in that sense.

Going from Disc 1 of 2, it's about MGS1 level, I'd say - if Psycho Mantis weren't there. I've kept this vague enough you can't really infer anything from it, but still spoilered if you don't want more detail than that.
Spoiler:
A lot of it is akin to the Colonel's "Press The Action Button" where someone gives you control instructions in character or things like that. There's also a scene parallel to "Meryl's Codec is on the back of your game case." A couple funny things if you game over in a couple special scenes.

Jonathan will make remarks if you quit the game as opposed to continuing for example, but I don't want to say too much more than that.

So far, nothing important to the story requires that Jonathan and the people he meets are actually just video game characters.
Also, sorry there hasn't been too much to report. This bug I'm working on is an out-and-out nightmare. Of the five remaining, this and one other are going to be really intensive.
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by Marc »

The shooting range has some fourth-wall smashers. The more time you spend there you more such conversations you'll discover.
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by silent_snake »

Hi guys!
I registered some time ago, and after a couple of days I simply didn't have enough time to be active. But I didn't forgot about this site and Policenauts :)
Just a couple of days ago I finished Snatcher for the first time, and although I knew it was amazing, I was totally blown away by the superb quality of the whole game. That makes me even more anxious waiting to play Policenauts.
In the meantime I tried to make Policenauts at least a little bit more known in Croatia. So I created a thread on a forum of Croatian gaming magazine called "Gameplay". I have put some information about Policenauts (mostly translated from Wikipedia) and as the patch development is going on I will update the thread with new information.
The link to the thread: http://www.gameplay.hr/modules/newbb/vi ... 2&forum=23 (Croatian language)

One big THANK YOU for everyone working on this translation, you have my full support and gratitude.
Keep up the good work guys!
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by epitaph »

slowbeef wrote:Also, sorry there hasn't been too much to report. This bug I'm working on is an out-and-out nightmare. Of the five remaining, this and one other are going to be really intensive.
Let me guess... the other one you're referring to is summaries?
"The west, so afraid of powerful government, now has no government. Only financial power."

Localization, not translation.

It is a title screen.
Something pushes a button.
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slowbeef
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by slowbeef »

epitaph wrote:Let me guess... the other one you're referring to is summaries?
Give the man a cigar. The five bugs I have to do:

1. One scene in the game doesn't do font printing like the rest of the whole game, I think because the PSX version was overhauled from the PC9821 version. That's the 9 lines of dialogue I'm trying to get to print nicely right now.

2. One scene in the game seems like it has Japanese hard-coded in. This is related to bug 1 as they're using the same font functions (I think), so knocking out bug 1 should make this go a lot faster. Not a terribly hard fix at all, but I just haven't gotten around to it because Bug 1 is taking forever.

3. One voiced conversation's subtitles in Disc 1 goes over its allotted space. We have a solution, but Scarboy doesn't have time to look into it, so I'll probably get to it when I get other stuff out of the way. This problem occurs again in Disc 2, but they're the same bug.

4. The bug in the original game I had mentioned, where bugs (haha) stick around if you load a savegame. I actually haven't verified this happens in the original, and with my luck, I probably did introduce it somehow. I just don't see how yet.

5. The summaries. We've got a couple ways to handle this, though I'd personally like to finish the game in English first, so I can verify they all work correctly in English.
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slowbeef
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by slowbeef »

silent_snake wrote: The link to the thread: http://www.gameplay.hr/modules/newbb/vi ... 2&forum=23 (Croatian language)
Thanks, snake - this is our latest tech demo:

http://www.viddler.com/explore/slowbeef/videos/67/

That's of 2 1/2 months ago so we've actually gotten a lot further, but that one has fixed menus and linebreaks.

If you've noticed, too, the bugs have all gone into "individual scenes" as opposed to whole game functionality, so... it's getting there.
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by steveG »

Hey slowbeef, former SA games poster nachobox here. Awesome, awesome, awesome to see you join in on this project. I know you're a super-devoted dude, so now I can finally be optimistic that this project will really be released. Go, man, go!
Last edited by steveG on Mon Dec 01, 2008 12:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
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slowbeef
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by slowbeef »

steveG wrote:Hey slowbeef, former SA games poster nachobox here. Awesome, awesome, awesome to see you join in on this project. I know you're a super-devoted dude, so now I can finally be optimistic that this project will really be released. Go, man, go!
Haha, I remember you. Good to see you again - yeah, don't worry, I'm not leaving until we're done. (And afterwards, I have the feeling I'll be on the Saturn version, though maybe not in full capacity like I am for this one... but hopefully, the codebase will be similar enough that it won't be so bad.)
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by silent_snake »

slowbeef wrote:
silent_snake wrote: The link to the thread: http://www.gameplay.hr/modules/newbb/vi ... 2&forum=23 (Croatian language)
Thanks, snake - this is our latest tech demo:

http://www.viddler.com/explore/slowbeef/videos/67/

That's of 2 1/2 months ago so we've actually gotten a lot further, but that one has fixed menus and linebreaks.
I saw that video at the time it was originally posted, including other development videos. I posted two of them in my Policenauts thread at that time, but I will edit the post and include this one as well.
slowbeef wrote: If you've noticed, too, the bugs have all gone into "individual scenes" as opposed to whole game functionality, so... it's getting there.
So that means we can expect an alpha version soon? I'm not impatient but that would be a great Christmas gift :)
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by slowbeef »

silent_snake wrote:So that means we can expect an alpha version soon? I'm not impatient but that would be a great Christmas gift :)
I can't really say when we'll get where we want to be - it just depends how hard it is to transplant font functionality from one part of the game to another. It could be fixed this week, maybe next week. Maybe tonight. Then there's more bugs and beta features. Just don't know, really.
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by The Spoony Hou »

silent_snake wrote:So that means we can expect an alpha version soon? I'm not impatient but that would be a great Christmas gift :)
I don't think they're planning on releasing the alphas (or the betas) to the public... We will have to wait untill the final version.
slowbeef wrote:1. One scene in the game doesn't do font printing like the rest of the whole game, I think because the PSX version was overhauled from the PC9821 version. That's the 9 lines of dialogue I'm trying to get to print nicely right now.
Hey, Slowbeef, when you figure that out, try to keep the solution in mind for when someone tries to hack the PC98 version :wink: .
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Re: Current Project Status (11/01/08)

Post by Marc »

The Spoony Hou wrote:
silent_snake wrote:So that means we can expect an alpha version soon? I'm not impatient but that would be a great Christmas gift :)
I don't think they're planning on releasing the alphas (or the betas) to the public... We will have to wait untill the final version.
That's right.
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