Happy Halloween for Marie! (Editing complete!)

「とりっくおあとりーとぉー」by「桜沢いづみ」

It's that time of year again when ghouls, zombies, vampires, skeletons and other horrid creatures roam the streets in search of sweets and chocolate. If you encounter one of these beings, your best option is to give them a treat. Otherwise you may be in for a nasty prank.

But don't fear, for these are rather lowly spirits and do not pose much harm. Indeed, the most fearsome are the youkai that inhabit the school. They come out at night, when the children have gone home. But they are hungry, and they so desperately want to meet you…

Good for them, then, that you'll be able to encounter them soon, in Higanbana no Saku Yoru ni - The Second Night. I'm pleased to announce that editing is complete! Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be making changes based on feedback from our wonderful beta testers.

Other than that, there are a few minor adjustments to the user interface to be made, and then the patch can be bundled together, installers can be created from them, and then it can finally be released!

Now as some of you may be aware, Witch Hunt have encountered a few issues that have prevented them from releasing installer versions of their Rose Guns Days Season 2 translation (more on that later), and naturally, this affects us, too. However, we will attempt to ensure the patch's release is not held up unnecessarily (even if it means releasing the patch before the installers).

Please bear with us until the release of our translation. We're nearly there!

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A few pieces of recent 07th Expansion news, just to keep you updated:

Higurashi When They Cry has been Greenlit on Steam! Meaning you'll be able to purchase the original murder mystery story in English, right from the Steam store. In fact, MangaGamer are considering using this opportunity to do a re-edit of their translation before it hits the marketplace. Either way, it looks to be an exciting new opportunity for people to discover 07th Expansion's works.

Not only that, but Umineko no Naku Koro ni is now easier to get hold of. Digital download versions of both the original Umineko and Umineko Chiru are now available to purchase from MangaGamer.com. They're the Japanese versions, so you'll still need to use the free English patches, but I think we can all say that the situation is a lot better than it was before. The French versions of Higurashi and Higurashi Kai are also available from the website.

Finally, as you may have guessed from what I said earlier, Witch Hunt have released their translation to Rose Guns Days Season 2. Only a manual patch is currently available, with Windows and Mac installers forthcoming.

That's all for now. Until next time~

Beta testers are go!

Hi everyone! I have just sent out emails to everyone who applied for the beta programme saying whether their application was accepted or not. Since we opened signups a little under a month ago, we received over 100 applications. Here's what that looks like on a graph:

Anyway, for a variety of reasons, we sadly weren't able to accept everyone who applied into the programme, but we'd like to thank you all for your support.

Those who were accepted will have received a special download link in their email to get the beta patch. While we hope you enjoy using it, if you encounter any issues while using it, please let us know via the form provided or by email, so we can fix things for the final release.

We don't yet have an estimated release date for the final release, and it depends on a variety of factors. For the time being, the editing stage is still ongoing, concurrent with the beta programme.

I'll keep you posted as things progress. …The end of this long journey is in sight! :-D

The Second Night: Translation Stage Finished

Hello everyone, I think it’s about time I introduced myself.

I am the other translator who has been working on The Second Night.  You can call me Jorwil.  I joined back in mid-June with the intention of getting a translation done for all you fans before my summer ended and my classes began again.

So, as you may have guessed from the title of this post, the translation stage has just been brought to completion, which should show on the progress bar once Yirba throws an update on it! 

It’s been a long time coming on this project.  It’s been a little over two years since Spider Lily Translations first opened our doors, and although I’m relatively new to the team, I’m very glad that Pascal and I could bring translation of The Second Night to a close.

With that, the bulk of my work is done.  I now pass things on to Yirba for the editing, followed by beta phase.
But before I sign off, I’d like to thank Ronove for starting this project,

I’d like to thank Pascal and Yirba for being great guys to work with,

And I’d like to thank all of you fans for your continued patience and support.

See you again, when the spider lilies bloom

 - Jorwil

Sign up for the Second Night beta!

Since my last blog post, our group has undergone a slight restructuring, which resulted in Ronove passing on the role of project manager to me. I am honoured to be able to lead the project, and pledge to ensure that everyone will have the best experience they can with Higanbana.

Anyway, with the translation at 94% complete, this is an exciting time for us, and we hope you're all excited too. We understand that some of you simply can't wait to read The Second Night, which is why we're happy to announce the Second Night beta programme. By participating in the programme, you will be one of the first to experience the Second Night patch. Don't worry, we'll have done some testing of ourselves beforehand, so we don't expect major problems with it. Even so, if you do find issues, you will be able to let us know about them before the patch is officially released.

Please note that only a limited number of beta applicants will be accepted, so the sooner you apply, the better.

Click here to apply for the beta programme!

By the way, we know a lot of you have been asking about how you can get hold of the original Japanese versions of Higanbana. We used to have links to websites that sold it in the sidebar, but sadly they all seem to have run out of stock by now. We would like to see Higanbana available to everyone who wants it though, so hopefully I'll be able to share exciting news with you regarding that in the not too distant future.

Whether you apply for the beta programme or wait for the official release, I hope you look forward to The Second Night. It's been a wonderful journey working on this project, and the community has made it very much worth it.

Status Update

Chapter 7 is more or less done. I might try translating the extra chapter, but I've had difficulty with it in the past. You'll see the progress when the line counts are updated. [Done. --Yirba]

Another translator has been working on Chapter 6, and it almost looks like it's finished too.

Thank you for your patience,
Pascal

New home sweet home

Hello everyone! We know that you're all excited about the upcoming English patch to The Second Night, and in preparation for that, we're proud to unveil our new homepage.

Although the blog you're reading now is a great way for us to keep you updated on our progress, we felt it's a little cluttered and confusing for those simply stumbling upon our website, or those who just want to download the patch.

Speaking of which, we've moved the patches to a new set of high-speed servers. Although we've worked hard to ensure downloads were speedy in the past, they should now be consistently fast, wherever you're located.

We will continue updating this blog, so be sure to check back here for the latest on the project. Thank you all for your support.

Translation Update

Quick update:

I just more or less finished the base translation of Chapter 5. I may try and address the few lines I left out at some point.

We also seem to have another translator who has been doing edits and working on Chapter 4, which looks like it's about 40% or so complete. Many thanks to whoever has been doing that.

Anyway, it looks like the base translation at least is finally moving along at a decent pace. We appreciate your patience greatly. You'll get a more concrete image of the progress when the line counts update. [Line counts have now been updated. --Yirba]

Thanks,
Pascal

Kickstarter: Printed interview with Ryukishi07? [updated]

British games journalist John Szczepaniak has set up a Kickstarter to publish a book featuring in-depth interviews with as many Japanese game developers as possible.

It's an ambitious project, and one we're sure many of you would be interested in. But why are we talking about it on this blog?

Well, if funded, the book will have an entire section dedicated to visual novels. What's more, we've been promised that this section will contain an interview with Ryukishi07 about his work.

The visual novel section will also likely have interviews with Kotaro Uchikoshi (Ever17, 999, Virtue's Last Reward) and someone from Key/Visual Art's, if not Jun Maeda himself.

The Kickstarter only has a few days left, so if you're interested, show your support! :-)

Update: The project has now reached its goal. Thanks to those who backed it.

Chapter 3 (More or less) translated!

Just reached the bottom of the script for Chapter 3. The line counts won't have updated (they've now been updated --Yirba), but I've translated nearly every line in that script. Some lines are beyond my comprehension, but I might try a super-liberal translation for those. Gonna read over it in the next few days for spelling errors and general edits.

Now I'm deliberating as to whether to go ahead and do the long chapter 4. I think instead I might tidy up the super-short Chapter ?, and then do chapter 5, which should make the translation about 45% complete.

--Pascal

The Second Night translation resumes!

Thanks to all of you who are waiting patiently. 

I'm sorry that progress has been as slow as it has been these past couple months--I've been swamped with exams and university applications and stuff. This is just a quick update to let everyone know that I'm going to start translating regularly again now. I'm aiming for at least 30 lines a day, but hope to manage as much as 50-100, depending on how free I am. Not making any promises though.

Also, please bear in mind that this is just the first step. Once the script is translated, I or someone else will need to edit and do a QA on it.

Regardless, please be excited. I have every intention of finishing this.

--Pascal. 

PS: We're still looking for translators. Contact info by the line counts to the right.

Higanbana - The First Night - English Patch 1.2

Apologies for the wait with the translation of The Second Night, and thanks for everyone's support despite of that. We are gradually making progress and are committed to seeing this translation through to the end. Unfortunately, as is the nature of these kinds of projects, we cannot provide an estimate as to how long it will take.

However, for people who have yet to read The First Night, today we are releasing an updated translation for it:

Release changes

• Windows and Mac installers
• Detection of incorrectly-installed patches
• Save/load system improvements
• Music room enhancements
• Minor bug fixes
• Typo/grammar fixes

Warning: Saves in-between chapters can become corrupted. If you're changing patch versions, wait until you've completed your current chapter to avoid corrupt save problems.

Download
[Windows] [Mac OS X] [Installer-free patch]

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In addition, we are currently looking for additional translators. If you have a good grasp of the Japanese language and would be willing to help us out, we'd really appreciate it. There's no obligation to translate a certain amount of text, so you can try it out and if it's not for you, you can stop whenever you want. Please contact us by sending an email to:

contact (AT) spiderlilytranslations (DOT) com

Many thanks!