Title screen

As you can tell from waldrumpus's last few posts, the text side of the translation is going well. The graphics are also going well, and I thought I'd share one in particular -

Thanks to FShadow, we now have a translated title screen!

A very personal milestone

Hello everyone, this is waldrumpus!

Today, I'd like to report the progress made on the localization of Tingle's Love Balloon Trip in the last few months. This announcement is pretty emotional for me, so you maybe want to get out those handkerchiefs, you know, just in case.

When I joined this project in August 2014, I started playing the game from the beginning. The goal was to try and localize everything I encounter on a straight path through the game. After that one quick playthrough, get to the rest of the material.

Well, it turned out that this "quick playthrough" took a lot longer than expected. Working on the project mostly on the weekends, progress was very - sometimes dishearteningly - slow. On the other hand, this way of doing things had some benefits, as seeing the lines in the context of the game makes them so much easier to understand than just freely floating in a text file. On top of that, although it was slow going, playing through the game in a linear fashion provided a way of measuring how far I'd come, and eventually a light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel effect.

I could use some of that

Today I'm pleased to announce that the playthrough has been completed, almost exactly one year after it's been started. This is a huge motivational boost for me, and I vow to redouble my efforts to get this game localized! (disclaimer: efforts may or may not be redoubled. actual results may vary)

Steady progress has been made throughout this time, and we're now at an estimated 35% completion of the entire game script (woot). Furthermore, some of the other team members are working on localizing the graphics that need it, such as signs, buttons, the title screen, etc.

Thanks for sticking with me through this rather lengthy post; but as I said, it's packed with emotion, and I hope to have transferred some of the optimism I'm feeling today to you.

See you next update, be safe and be awesome!

Introduction and Progress Report

Hello everyone! This is my first post on this blog, so just a quick introduction. I'm waldrumpus, and I'm very happy I could join this project as a translator. Since this is my first time doing a fan translation, I didn't know my way around at first, but with the cool people working on this project, I found my feet in no time. Thanks, guys!

Tingle's Love Ballon Trip -- also known as Ripened Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love, as well as several other names -- is a game that holds a special place in my heart. My original reason for learning Japanese was to be able to play games that were never released in the west, and this is the very first one I ever played. If you have played the first game of the Tingle series (Tingle's Rosy Rupee Land), you know what a weird and unique world Tingle's adventures take place in, and the kind of quirky characters you are bound to meet there. Even if not, you probably know that map-vending, balloon-traveling, fairy-obsessed middle-aged guy in green tights, Tingle. It's absolutely worth the effort to localize this charming game so that a wider audience can enjoy its weirdness.

As for the progress of the localization project, I tried to generate some numbers to make it visible. The complete game script -- the text you'll see in the game, minus things like background images with text on them -- is 13,043 lines. As of 2014-12-26, the progress is 2,804 lines, which amounts to 21%. This as yet small chart shows the recorded progress so far. Here is the spreadsheet with the data.

21% is a sizable chunk of the whole thing, but we still have a ways to go. If you're interested in participating in this ongoing effort, contact one of the members of this blog.

Japanese and English co-existing in harmony

Well, things are moving along nicely. Sometimes, though, things like this will happen:

It's pulling the item name from some other location, so it's a matter of tracking that one down and translating it. But still, I found it entertaining. :)

Release date of patch

Hello Tingle fans,
Recently, people have started to ask when I think the patch will be done. I can say right now that I do not know when it will be finished. Look at the most recent Fire Emblem DS translation. That took 2 years! And they had a full team of hackers! I'm the only one working on this, so it'll probably take a while UNLESS you'd be willing to help. Right now I need a translator and someone capable of working with compressed graphics. If you're interested, reply here.