Main Script Powered Up

15 years ago by Mato

Technical blah blah stuff, ignore if you don’t care!

In the last update just a few hours ago, I mentioned I probably wasn’t going to do the 210-letter hack thing because things were too complicated. Indeed, moving the final strings in RAM would be like doing brain surgery with a chainsaw, but this morning I re-realized something — since we’re only using 2 of the 40 glyph buffer structs, who says we need to use the first 2 of those 40?

The strings come directly before the buffer stuff, so by moving the buffers we use to further ahead, that would mean tons of free RAM without having to move the strings at all. I calculated it and I think theoretically we could fit 2146 or so letters on screen this way 😯 But rather than try to push things too far, I made the limit 512-ish. I could get more if we need it, but already we’re in the realm of incredible luxury. 256 letters per line is already like winning the lottery twice 😛

Here is what it looks like with 210 lowercase “l”s on the screen at once. This new hack allows for 256 letters per LINE — which is way way more than can even fit on the screen. The original game only allowed 22 letters per line.

Anyway, this means less limitations on the final script, plus less time worrying about the # of letters per line, which would’ve slowed the editing phase down a good amount. Good news all around!

Now to get started on Draft #2, hurray! Updates will probably be scarcer and less interesting while the draft revisions take place. Mostly they’ll be like “Draft 2 is now blah blah % done”. So though the updates may not be very meaty, I think that’s actually a great sign of progress 😉

Posted on Friday, May 23rd, 2008 at 12:49 pm by Mato, filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments and pings are currently closed.

163 Responses to “Main Script Powered Up”

  1. Tarik said 15 years ago:

    wooooo!!! well done mato!

  2. Saturno said 15 years ago:

    Awesome work you’ve been doing. Keep it up!

  3. soheezy said 15 years ago:

    sweeeeeeet!

    gj guys

  4. Jasondm300 said 15 years ago:

    You guys are awesome. I can’t wait to play this. I have been a fan for years and this game, after reading about it, is sure to fill the expectations.

  5. Biff said 15 years ago:

    llllllllllllllllllllllll

    yeah…biff likes…

  6. Shingo Yabuki said 15 years ago:

    Wow! That was awesome!

    I thought it was going to be hell for you, so it means that just one night rest was enough for you to have an awesome idea!

    Things seem to start getting a faster rate each second!

  7. billol25 said 15 years ago:

    Mato, Mato, Mato, Mato (with the song “Rock Lobster”)

    You are “the best”

  8. Count Orlok said 15 years ago:

    amazing. You guys are doing a great job. I’m very impressed by your progress…Hacking is tedious work, I wouldn’t have been able to make it this far =D

  9. Rokugo said 15 years ago:

    Aren’t those “Aha!” moments the greatest thing ever?

    Mad props, Mato.

  10. starmand said 15 years ago:

    This is really fantastic news. Progress on the main script hacking moved way faster than I thought it would. Didn’t you think it might take a few months or more? Just goes to show how much you’ve improved since last year. Good update A++++ would read again.

  11. V-King said 15 years ago:

    So wouldn’t it be a better idea to set the letter limit to, say 256 maximum letters on screen insteda of 512?
    I only think “possible RAM issues” here, that’s why I’m asking.

    But anyway, REALLY GREAT progress!

    Although I’m a bit sad because the draft revisions may take a good while but as long as I can play it on my DS via flashcart in a few weeks/months I’ll be as happy as ever 🙂

  12. Bribo Baggins said 15 years ago:

    2 updates in one day? what is this i don’t even

    You’re an animal, Mato. A WRECKING MACHINE!

  13. GoldyK said 15 years ago:

    More letters each line.
    Mato realized the power:
    PK Boob Wizards.

  14. Adam said 15 years ago:

    WOOHOO!

  15. piero said 15 years ago:

    grrr!! this is just sweet!! 😛 cant wait to play it… well in fact i can : )

  16. Typhin said 15 years ago:

    Awesome win. Gotta love those moments of, “Hey, I won’t REALLY have to kick a dead whale down the beach, I can just blow it up!”

    I can’t wait for it to be finished. ^_^

  17. megamanac said 15 years ago:

    Wow, 15 minutes in and there are already quite a few comments. This translation project is gathering a lot of attention. That said, nice progress guys. 😛

  18. zLeed said 15 years ago:

    Man, I’m really surprised at how fast the you progress.
    I remember when you had a LOT of things to do on the “to do list”, but now it’s just a bunch of criss crossing. 🙂

    Anyways, just came by to thank you for the hard work you are doing.

    A question:
    Is demi still going to do draft 3? (mostly because I’ve never seen the guy post here)

  19. Dr. Meat said 15 years ago:

    And you weren’t even gonna do it. Now how do you feel.

  20. jdawg said 15 years ago:

    BOOSH!!!!!

  21. buttfrenzy said 15 years ago:

    My favorite part was when you said while you were going main script hacking you wouldn’t be updating much, but somehow, you managed to post almost every other day. I think you’re mildly addicted to our adoration, sir.

    Regardless, that is amazing. I’m incredibly stoked. I hope the draft #2 goes fast 😀

  22. Mato said 15 years ago:

    buttfrenzy: To be honest, it’s more like a case of “I NEED to get this hacking done so I can finally focus on other things better argh” It would gnaw away at my mind otherwise.

    zLeed: Yep, demi’s still onboard for the editing I think. I think Gideon is too. I really don’t know what that process is going to be like/who’s going to be involved, so that’s why I’m giving such a large amount of estimated time for that process. demi’s been working on an awesome game for the iPhone that’s gotten a lot of attention recently, check it out here. I don’t even have an iPhone or want one, but this game makes me almost want one now 😯

  23. Peach said 15 years ago:

    Haha, isn’t that so often the case? You rack your brain trying to figure out how to do the seemingly impossible, and then it suddenly dawns on you that “OH! There’s another way!”

    In any case, all these updates and things crossed off on the to-do list are making me really excited to play this game. Thank you everyone on the team for all your hard work! 🙂

  24. Tarik said 15 years ago:

    so when do you think that you will take on the text editing?sounds like youve got some real life work to catch up on.

  25. Charles said 15 years ago:

    Wow, I wish I suffered burn-outs like you do, Mato.

    “Argg, it’s impossible… I’ll never get 210 letters per screen… I know, I’ll do 512 letters! There, done!!”

    Seriously, awesome work.

  26. Beanopolis said 15 years ago:

    GJ GL HF

  27. A Fan said 15 years ago:

    Tell him to quick slacking and get to work on Mother 3 😉

    No, seriously, this is great news! I hope everything goes well and we can get this finished soon!

    Thanks for all your hard work!

  28. Fudgehat said 15 years ago:

    Would a new video of the prologue chapter be asking too much once you’re done with the prologue in draft #2? I’m sure a lot of us would be really interested to see just how much the project’s come along since you made the early preview last year (it was last year wasn’t it?)

  29. Poo said 15 years ago:

    How many lines of text do you have to translate? I really don’t know anything about the process or the game, but it seems like translating/editing wouldn’t take all that long. Anyway, awesome job with hacking and everything. Can’t thank you enough.

  30. mitch said 15 years ago:

    Hmmm.. I’m sorry.

    http://i25.tinypic.com/2n8bexv.png

  31. OnionRingOfDoom said 15 years ago:

    Mato, does all this hacking eat into your money-earning times?

  32. Ryan said 15 years ago:

    Hey, great work!

  33. Light Wolf said 15 years ago:

    Wow, that’s awesome news!!

    It’s incredible to see so much dedication put into this project.

    Keep the good work. 😉

  34. hasone said 15 years ago:

    mato: so you’re going to wait to you get to the end of the game script to fix the end of game text?

  35. Magus said 15 years ago:

    …Isn’t funny how the easiest solutions are always the last one you think of.

    Geat job Mato.

  36. Kool-Aid_Man said 15 years ago:

    Awesome work, Mato, seriously. You guys never cease to amaze. Keep it up!

  37. Killa B said 15 years ago:

    Holy shit, since when does demi have a company?! That’s… weird. I must give him my money. @_@

    Anyway, that’s freaking awesome with the letter-limit. I’m confused though, have you already done the hack or is it just a plan?

    Good luck with the project, and don’t let yourself burn out! Tomatoes taste better at room temperature. :3

  38. Magus said 15 years ago:

    He just did the hack. It was extremely simple after realizing he could use different glyphs than the first. It’s all good. Killa B.

  39. Kamion said 15 years ago:

    @mitch lol 😀

    @mato
    You know, you got me into MOTHER. I played through the japanese game because of it which really helped my japanese skills, so I’m should be thankful 😉 It was rather easy to read. I can’t wait for the english version though, to get *everything*.

    Since you’re a professional translator, won’t this part be boring? Since you’ll be doing the same thing you’re doing at your day job :/

    (btw. I understand that “it gnaws away on my mind” thing. I’m still searching for a good algorithm to find the nth Permutation of the string “softwareengineering” (n is like 5,559,470,524,600). I COULDN’T SLEEP TONIGHT BECAUSE OF IT.)

  40. Magus said 15 years ago:

    *shrugs* I’ve got the strange feeling that Mato likes his job (translating things). Or at least he likes it much much more than hacking things.

  41. Devin said 15 years ago:

    Friggin’…
    Amazing…

    You deserve a lifetime supply of Captain Crunch…

  42. Nutsjesmoar said 15 years ago:

    Oh, mitch! Are you shy to draw a Boob Wizard? 😉
    That’s so chwarming!
    j/k j/k you’re the man.

  43. OMGZ said 15 years ago:

    inspiration! woot!

  44. Arashi said 15 years ago:

    *hysterical laughter* ALMOST NO HACKING!!!

  45. Alato said 15 years ago:

    Hah, great! Really great! Looks great!
    I’m really glad things worked out. That’s really awesome.

    Also, Demi’s games does look pretty awesome, and it’s cool how it’s becoming an actual game.

  46. Poe said 15 years ago:

    Okay, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now, and I have no idea how all this hacking business works.

    As long as that light isn’t one of those creepy fish from the deep-down depths of the ocean, I’m happy with anything. :3

    Hmm, come to think of it, I would prefer a firefly at the end of the tunnel! That’d be so neat.

  47. PSI Supernova said 15 years ago:

    Tomato, please tell me you were kidding me about four to five months in the other update! I REALLY don’t want to wait till the end of summer to play Mother 3! I mean…testing really can’t take that long, now can it? (Well, of course it can, but…)

  48. Dedede said 15 years ago:

    Smaaaaaaaaashhhhhhh!!!!

    Great job, mato!

  49. MasterInsan0 said 15 years ago:

    D=

    That’s my “jaw-dropped” face. My jaw is dropped. I believe I just stepped on it.

  50. hounddog said 15 years ago:

    ooh snap the patch is getting closer guys nice work

  51. Vagn said 15 years ago:

    So; does this mean that all the majour hacking is done?

    Great job Mato and Jeff!

  52. Jeffrey said 15 years ago:

    So How many words can fit on the screen that aren’t “I”s?

  53. Old West said 15 years ago:

    This is beyond fantastic. As soon as I saw the picture, even before I read the entry, my heart jumped.

    You have come far, Mato.

  54. TheBird said 15 years ago:

    you’ve worked so hard on the hacking already. make somebody else write and edit the script.

  55. FMArthur said 15 years ago:

    Although it’s probably just irritating to you, I have to admit that I find it endlessly amusing that you came up with the solution for the problem after you’d given it up as being hopelessly difficult.

  56. Nutsjesmoar said 15 years ago:

    Jeffrey:
    I think the point of the lowercase L’s is that those are the thinnest letter in the game, so if the line can be filled with those without glitching or barfing, then they can certainly fit as many of any other combination of letters on there as they like, that fits within the confines of the text box of course. Rather than being limited to a smaller number of letters per line, and having the text only fill about 2/3rds of the text box, which would look sad.

  57. J said 15 years ago:

    Wow, if you’re moving on to the second draft things must be going well. Awesome.

  58. DaMarsMan said 15 years ago:

    This is one of the joys of hacking. There are often ways that are simple that can’t be spotted at first. Then it just comes to you.

  59. wasp2020 said 15 years ago:

    Two updates? oh wow…It’s great to see that you can finally get working on the thing you really wanted to work on in the first place – the script. Very cool.

    Keep on truckin’!

  60. Mike said 15 years ago:

    I find that happening to myself all the time, I’m working on some issue in a program that looks like it’s going to suck like a vacuum, and then at some random time when I’m doing some random thing, I think of something and BOOM, problem solved! It’s awesome how much of this you guys are banging out, keep it up!

  61. triangle said 15 years ago:

    Oh Jeebus! This EFFING GUY!!! — Mato… i knew somehow you wouldn’t settle for that limit… i knew that you’d some how come up with a fix like that!!! what a guy… no wonder everyone always says you’re an inspiration to them

    Mitch.. can i just say that you’re like the powdered sugar on this here cake?

    Great Job…. Great Effin’ job 🙂
    **takes hat off to you*

  62. Pilot said 15 years ago:

    SO.MANY.UPDATES!

  63. hasone said 15 years ago:

    Mato, that solution is so simply brilliant because your problem was self-created, in a sense. Ya need to start thinking out of the box earlier 😛

    I’ve done that before. It’s great when it’s easy to fix a problem by fixing own “problems”

    I also reiterate my question about the Block 0 stuff.

  64. Oron said 15 years ago:

    Great that it’s coming along so heavily. It certainly seems that things are coming to a close. Enjoy your nice little “vacation” with the script there.

  65. lbc101 said 15 years ago:

    Mitch: did you ever get that site set up for all of your artwork? I’m a big fan. Thanks.

  66. GIANTSTEP said 15 years ago:

    Man this is so awesome, almost every hour is a new update xD.

    To Mato: You said to Butter-wateva his/her name is that you must hurry up with this hack so you can Ease your Mind… Lets not forget your other project now 😛 but go ahead and do wat u want after M3FTP you need a break.

  67. Lena said 15 years ago:

    Mato, you are AWESOME. It’s hard to believe that all of this has happened in a year. It feels like just yesterday you posted the “To-Do List” for the first time and it seemed like there was ten years worth of work in there.

    Ha ha–enjoy the non-hacking bits!

  68. Trebek said 15 years ago:

    Too awesome. I love coming here and reading about how something is going to be really difficult to do, and then I come here the next day and it’s done. You guys are great!

    Thank you! And keep up the awesome work. 🙂

  69. Wallace said 15 years ago:

    shweet!

  70. Devin said 15 years ago:

    Now that pretty much all of the hacking’s done, I feel…strangely, empty on the inside. I’m gonna miss not having many updates. I’ll probably do what I did with Brawl-forget about it until the end of summer, then check back to see how much is done. I’m gonna try to keep this outta my mind for a bit, or else I’ll check here pretty much every hour. So the next time I’ll go on this site will probably be July or August.

    SO LONG!

  71. Zeruel 21 said 15 years ago:

    Good lord, Mato! When did your hacking level go up 10 levels?! Did you just get out of Magicant, and got 200,000 EXP like Ness did?

  72. EmpoleMew said 15 years ago:

    Each day, this gets closer to completion. And each day, I get over-hyped, calm down, and then get hyped on a normal level. I hope I won’t have a heart attack before I can play this.

  73. BreakingOrder said 15 years ago:

    Wow Mato, you’re on fire! So much progress in such a short time. Seriously, you guys rock!

  74. Lothis said 15 years ago:

    Awesome. It was like “I give up… but wait if I do this… and done!”

    You are amazing Tomato, just when we think all is lost you come from out of no where with some kind of amazing miracle fix.

  75. solidpit said 15 years ago:

    How come you hacked in the first draft instead of doing all of the drafts and then hack it in? Probably has an obvisous answer.

  76. Typhin said 15 years ago:

    I have a feeling I’m going to regret asking this, but what the HOLY FLYING HECK is with these “boob wizard” things? It’s been gnawing at my soul…

  77. Nathaniel said 15 years ago:

    I think I speak for most people when I say we’ll take any updates we can get as often as we can get them. If something theoretically took a week to get done, I’d rather have a 50% update in the middle and then a finishing update rather than having to wait to see what happens.

    Reading this update literally raised my pulse up at least 10 beats a minute. It’s been a long damn time since I’ve been so excited about something.

  78. Vers said 15 years ago:

    This made my day, Mato. Thank you so much for all of your hard work. It won’t go unappreciated!

  79. Mato said 15 years ago:

    solidpit: Because the specs/limitations of the final main script hack would dictate how further main script drafts should be handled. Doing further script stuff first might’ve meant having to redo a lot of tedious work later on if certain limits showed up. Plus the hacking needed to be done, and might as well do it now while we’re doing all the other hacking.

  80. Paige(Halfmetal Alchemist) said 15 years ago:

    This is awesome! You’re sooo close!

    I have a question, it’s about Flash Carts, so could anyone answer me? I’ve never used one before, and didn’t know that they existed till I came here. I plan on getting a flash cart when the patch is done, so here’s my question: Will a GBA flash cart work on my DS? I just wanna make sure before I get one, and then find out it doesn’t work. <.<;;

  81. Redlandman87 said 15 years ago:

    So wait, is all that is left to be done are two script drafts and revisions, inserting the english sound clips, various small cosmetic hacks (i.e. blinky letters), and then just testing the overall translation?

    That’s my understanding, anyway. That To-Do-List looks beautiful with damn near everything crossed off. ^^b Great job Mato! Everything is coming along amazing well (not to mention fast!).

  82. Magus said 15 years ago:

    There’s something about Block 0 hacking still but yeah…that’s about it Redland.

  83. G.Wicks said 15 years ago:

    Awesome. From what I’ve heard about Mother 3, the script was written thoughtfully by itoi-san, so in a translation, having to worry about text limitation would have been detrimental to a true, flowing, accurate translation. And Mother games deserve to have a lot of attention paid to the text because they’re written so beautifully. Now that the text has more room to breathe, I’m sure you guys will be able to finish this amazing game and keep it true to the original.

    I am so freaking geeked about this. It’s gonna be balls to the wall. You guys are heroes.

  84. G.Wicks said 15 years ago:

    EDIT: I meant to say “true to the spirit of the original”.

  85. Typhin said 15 years ago:

    Paige: Yes, GBA flash carts work *exactly* like normal GBA cartridges. That’s their entire purpose, after all. ^_^

  86. Fredishungry said 15 years ago:

    Awesome updates are kicking in real fast 🙂 can’t wait :O

  87. ALX said 15 years ago:

    CELEBRATE MY BROTHERS FROM ANOTHER “MOTHER”!

  88. ALX said 15 years ago:

    It must have been a moment of pure inspiration Matio.

  89. Charles said 15 years ago:

    Biff is very self-important.
    He should stop talking about himself for once.

  90. ncsbert said 15 years ago:

    Commenting in Epic update post.

  91. neonix said 15 years ago:

    😯

  92. That Guy said 15 years ago:

    WEENAR WEENAR CHEEKAN DEENAR

  93. Animus01 said 15 years ago:

    There’s gotta be some third rank Foppy (Foddy or Foqqy?) breeding ground below Giygas’s lair or something, because there’s some mad skills getting levelled up here.

    Congrats on starting the 2nd draft, Mato and co.! I can’t wait to read more about your progress!

  94. Durelle said 15 years ago:

    YAY Updates

  95. ZombiePaul said 15 years ago:

    All hail Hypno-Toad! er…. Tomato!
    🙂

  96. Anomic said 15 years ago:

    I believe you mean:
    All hail Hypno-Tomato

    but then again, Tomato doesn’t need hypnotism for us to worship him.

  97. me said 15 years ago:

    i’m really glad this got done. as you mentioned, the game not being able to display all the letters of the script would put some lame limitations on the translations. this is my first post in the comments but i’ve been a regular reader since at least January/February and the progress has been so incredible to watch. thanks a bunch, Mato.

  98. A Fan said 15 years ago:

    > Because the specs/limitations of the final main script hack would dictate how further main script drafts should be handled.

    Won’t the Block 0 text impose any limitations, or…?

    What’s in there, anyhow? I thought you fixed all the “Nut Sell XX DP?” type stuff …?

  99. Mato said 15 years ago:

    So many responses, will look through later and respond.

    But to answer the questions about Block 0, the game’s text is organized in the same order as the maps. So if you use the map viewer, the map # corresponds (+ or – a small #) with the text block #. Except TextBlock 0, which contains random text used throughout the game that don’t correspond to actual maps. Stuff like scrolling text, cut scene overlay text, all text in the overworld part of the game that isn’t displayed using the normal “print text in the black rectangle at the bottom” method.

    Because it’s kind of a huge pile of random text used in random places, it’s pretty big and a whole bunch of different code uses the text here. Luckily, it doesn’t look like too much hacking will be needed here, but at some point we’ll need to look at a couple things and fix them.

    Menu text is 1000% completely separate from all this main script stuff.

  100. Arashi said 15 years ago:

    At least he’s doing translating now, something he enjoys

  101. xlr0 said 15 years ago:

    100th comment!

  102. ZombiePaul said 15 years ago:

    That was an obscure Futurama reference 🙂 Meh. You know it’s a great one when you have to explain it 🙂

  103. Vagn said 15 years ago:

    Hey mato:

    Have you considerd adding yourself as a NPC into the game as an easter egg? It may be kinds tacky, but I think it would be fun and also well deserved on your part.

    Also put your feet up and drink a beer, or any beverage you might prefer, you deserve it and we all owe you 🙂

  104. Bubble-gum monkey said 15 years ago:

    @Mato: Jeez! You’ve already gotten the text limit hacked? O_O
    To quote the Malo Mart guy from LOZ:TP,
    “THANK YOOOOOOOU!!”
    I have 2 quick questions on the brain:
    1) Can an NSTC GBA play PAL GBA carts like MOTHER 3?
    2) Can flash carts be bought in a regular store or do they have to be bought online?
    If you could answer these questions for me, I’d appreciate it. You have done so much quickly and asked so little. I just wanted to tell you again…
    THANK YOU! To show my gratitude, I’ll sign up for the forum once i’m done with RL work. =D

  105. Typhin said 15 years ago:

    Bubble-gum Monkey: The GBA and the DS are both region free. Any system can play games of any region. (The only exception, if I recall correctly, is the DS when it comes to Korean. Korean DSes have an extra chip, something about their fonts or something.)

    My Japanese GBA Micro (Mother 3 Edition) can play any GBA game just fine, and my Japanese Mother 3 cart works on my US GBA SP, my US DS, and (of course) the Micro it came with.

  106. Rog said 15 years ago:

    Something I’ve been wondering: If you’re able to get more letters to fit on the screen, does that also mean characters can carry more items in their inventory?

  107. Typhin said 15 years ago:

    Sorry for the double post, but just thought this might be helpful: NTSC and PAL are both referring to video formats for televisions, which is why handhelds don’t usually have such restrictions. NTSC runs at 60 frames per second, while PAL runs at 50. It has to do with the fact that US power outlets supply ~110-120V at 60Hz, while most other countries have ~220-240V at 50Hz, I think. (It’s been a while since I messe with any of that stuff… >.< )

  108. Nintendo of America said 15 years ago:

    We’re gotta take this code now. And release this game in the following months.

    (laughs)

  109. Sammy said 15 years ago:

    Nice job man
    So close to the end

  110. Typhin said 15 years ago:

    And Rog: I would severly doubt it. Inventory space isn’t limited by screen size (since they could always add in a scroll bar), but limited mostly to provide a bit of challenge with inventory management. The menu system (if I recall correctly) was having its own problems with the length of item names, but had been fixed, so now you can have items like “Favorite Timber” instead of “FavStick” or something. ^_^;;

  111. Rog said 15 years ago:

    So basically the 256-letter-hack-thing has no affect on the menu systems?

  112. Joshua said 15 years ago:

    this is great

  113. Foffano said 15 years ago:

    Wow! Look! A lot of “l”s! I love every single one of those “l”s!!!

  114. Vague Rant said 15 years ago:

    Not to mention that Japan is an NTSC territory, so if handheld systems did meet television standards for some reason, a Japanese GBA would probably be NTSC, anyway.

  115. Combo Baker said 15 years ago:

    Hey, Mato I was just wondering which flash cart will work Mother 3. I know that there are technical difficulties that your team has figured out how to avoid, and i was just wondering what products they worked on.
    Keep up the amazing work, reading these updates have been fascinating, and I am more excited than ever about playing this game in English.
    Thanks in advance

  116. FennecusKitsune said 15 years ago:

    Wow! I’ve been following all these updates, and every time it’s very exciting and interesting to see all the progress that has been being made. Every update feels like another victory, and in many ways they definitely are. All of the solutions that you guys come up with are so fantastic! I don’t know how you come up with some of them.

    With this update, are you sure it’s safe to go into ram like that without encountering memory issues? I can see it not being a problem, but it seems somewhat dangerous for some reason.

    In any case, keep up the good work! I am looking forward to enjoying the completed project!

  117. A Fan said 15 years ago:

    > I calculated it and I think theoretically we could fit 2146 or so letters on screen this way

    Dammit man! You need to relocate it again so we can fit an “It’s OVER 9000!” joke into this power up thread… 🙂

  118. hasone said 15 years ago:

    2000 in base 16 is OVER 9000!!! in base 10 🙂

  119. A Fan said 15 years ago:

    Oh, and as for Block 0, I guess that means that ‘all’ you have to do is translate the text, then either fit it into that specific block or somewhere else, and finally make sure that any code that goes looking for a particular string inside it can find the correct text?

    I hope there’s not a lot of text in there 🙂

  120. Negi said 15 years ago:

    Mato, it seems like a lot of your code is an improvement on the original code. Is this assessment accurate? Which parts specifically are better? Which parts are still ugly hacks?

  121. usagininja said 15 years ago:

    soooooooooooooooooooo friggin excited keep it up

  122. Kahran042 said 15 years ago:

    Wow, I am really looking forward to this! If you need any help proofreading the script, let me know- I’m a pretty good proofreader, if I do say so myself. 🙂

  123. Landon said 15 years ago:

    Nice job with the game! I can’t believe you all got so far! ;_;
    By the way, do you think you could change the title graphics with tiles from this image:

    http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o209/Ih4x/earthbound2title.png

    Or do you think that’s pushing it?
    You can E-Mail me at CrispyYoshi@aol.com for any reason. Thanks!

    P.S. Go Earthbound, and to all of it’s fans!

  124. Sax said 15 years ago:

    Yaaaaaay! Squee!

  125. Effluvium said 15 years ago:

    Heh. I hadn’t thought I would be seeing THIS update for another two or three months at least. In fact, I will confess I often expected progress to stall hopelessly as you encountered some impossible problem. Congratulations, guys. This is quite the mighty beast you’ve slain. Even though there’s still more work to be done, it must feel kind of like retirement to suddenly not have to worry and struggle all the time. I hope the rest of the project is as relaxing and enjoyable as this endless nightmare was chaotic and intractable; even if you never wanted to rest before, goodness knows you’ve earned it now.

    I still can’t believe the hacking is already done… you two really are incredible, you know…

  126. Effluvium said 15 years ago:

    By the way, just how much of this Sonic the Hedgehog work progress do we owe to XKAS? Heheheh.

  127. ScaryMonster said 15 years ago:

    @Hasone

    Actually, 2000 converted from base 16 to base 10 is 8192. 🙂

  128. NecrosaroIII said 15 years ago:

    I’ll be honest, Landon, I think that logo is ugly.

  129. Retro Hippie said 15 years ago:

    I have alot of respect for you mato!
    Your awesome bro.
    we the fans are very proud of you for doing what seems impossible.

    GREAT JOB!!!

  130. Jenova said 15 years ago:

    Mato is God.

  131. Anony said 15 years ago:

    Landon while I appreciate the effort (though to be honest, I prefer the one line approach others have provided), I’ll go ahead and make a very quick statement here.

    Mato would prefer no conversation about changing the title to Earthbound, and further he’s revealed the sheer scale of difficulty that a seemingly small change like that actually entails (there’s an animation that would have to be made, and numerous title references in game that have to be altered, and the main screen isn’t all that easy to alter itself). Further, he’s made it clear he will save that debate for one his team will decide on it’s own at the end. There are numerous reasons to leave the title as-is (story, it’s already english, and a few others) so there’s a good chance he’ll not alter the title at all.

    I may have already gone too far saying this, but I suppose all I’m really saying is that officially, Mato doesn’t want people talking about title changes in his blog. I suppose technically I’ve gone against that…

  132. Anony said 15 years ago:

    By the way, Mato, I hope you realize that your story is very final-battley.

    “Just as Mato had nearly lost the light of hope, as the looming dread of the main script bug had dashed his dreams into dust, suddenly a breathe of life fills his mind and he summons his greatest courage wisdom and strength to come up wiht a brand new attack, vanquishing the last of the Great Bugs for all fankind!

    HACK ON MATO, FOR EVERLASTING PEACE!”

  133. Typhin said 15 years ago:

    Landon: I think Mato has said they’ll be keeping the “Mother 3” name in the past, but I could be wrong.

    Personally, I hope the name stays, ’cause it’ll look awfully weird on my Micro if it’s changed… ^_^;;

  134. Aaron said 15 years ago:

    Well, Mato, I worship God, I’m planning on having babies with my own future wife, and all my saliva is still in my mouth. That being said, I’m still really excited about this project and you can bet I’ll be playing it as soon as it’s done. I know just enough about programming and Japanese to understand what a difficult job you guys are trying to do, but I can tell you, Jeffman, and the others are really giving it all you’ve got.

    It’s been a fun ride so far, too. The little community that has developed here on these comment threads is actually pretty cool (mitch, one more vote for the art page!) and like a lot of other people here, I’m going to be sad when the project is finally done. Keep up the good work.

  135. Mato said 15 years ago:

    A small bug popped up this evening, the flyover text at the beginning of the game gets cut up strangely, seems to be a result of moving the main script text, except this routine needs some slight changing too. As one might expect, flyover text is Block 0 text, so this wasn’t completely unexpected.

    I’m too sleepy to follow the code any more though. Normal scrolly text is unbuggy though (though the flashing is still present).

    I’ll try to get to questions and stuff tomorrow. For now it’s some Fobbies are Borange and then sweet delicious sleep.

  136. Karma said 15 years ago:

    Yeah, I gotta throw my hat in with a comment about Landon’s logo as well. No offense, but that is pretty terrible looking.

  137. Aaron said 15 years ago:

    References made within the last 24 hours, either by Mato or a commenter:

    * Leeroy Jenkins
    * OVER 9000!
    * Hot Coffee
    * will verb again
    * Exploding whale
    * The World Ends with You
    * Earthbound, obviously
    * The Simpsons
    * Futurama

    That’s why I love this site so much. XD

  138. Long Pants said 15 years ago:

    THE GAME.

  139. A Fan said 15 years ago:

    Out of curiosity, Mato, what do you do while translating when you hit some odd bit of Japanese you don’t really understand like slang, dialect, obscure words, historical references, or pop culture?

  140. Tobias said 15 years ago:

    This is good to hear! I really am hoping for this one to be as literary as its predecessors–moreso, actually, because it seems Itoi took extra care with the plot in Mother 3.

  141. Bryan said 15 years ago:

    Wow thats was fast it seems like yesterday you guys finished the battle hacks, I’m impressed.

  142. Eddward said 15 years ago:

    I am glad to see that the script can actually do the max value for a char that has a maximum of postive 255. Crazy, why would I need 255 letters at once?

    For something that will totally mess with your friends, When they approach you. Yell “Spy Check!” If they don’t reply, or act weird then they are a spy and you should do what people in TF2 do to spies. Kill em. I take no responsibility for you going to jail for that though. Enjoy messing with others with that and rember, you only are here on Earth for so long then you gotta go somewhere else. Party hardy.

  143. EBP said 15 years ago:

    woot….

  144. StageProps said 15 years ago:

    *sigh* I REALLY wish people would stop with the whole EarthBound 2 thing, and possibly read up on the subject.

    Mato has said several times that he really doesn’t want to think about that right now and even if it was currently on his mind, changing the title to EarthBound 2 would be extremely difficult because there is an animation that happens with the title logo (a little shimmery sort of thing I think). Thus, if he wanted to change the entire title graphic, he’d also have to make a new animation, which is, from what I’ve gathered, fairly diffifcult.

  145. Itoi said 15 years ago:

    I’M GOING TO SUE YOUR ASS

    Sorry, hope it gave you a chortle

  146. PHOENIXZERO said 15 years ago:

    Good news amazing how things can pop into your head out of no where to resolve something, I appreciate all the time and effort been putting into this over the years by you guys, not to mention all the other headaches. I’ve been waiting for Mother 3 since it was originally planned to be a N64 DD game. I still can’t believe they didn’t put any effort to bring it over here despite a decent size fan base, even if the GBA had been nearly dead by the time it’d be released I’m sure it would have sold well enough to turn at least a small profit. But oh well…

  147. grandleon said 15 years ago:

    -With every day that passes,
    -the light at the end of the hacking tunnel becomes brighter.

    Good job you guys. May the boob wizards watch over you. xD

  148. Majora said 15 years ago:

    Good bye Mato, great hero of hacking. let’s hope Ganondorf doesn’t take over in you absence!

  149. sunzo132 said 15 years ago:

    I agree. Great hero of hacking tis here

  150. Evan said 15 years ago:

    Insert generic, near-copypasta “awesome job” post here.

    (nahh, seriously, though, it fills me with nothing but glee to see you’re going to work on the second draft. Good luck putting up with everyone whining that you don’t need to do one, if it hasn’t started already.)

  151. Amon said 15 years ago:

    Hey Mato, Great Work so far, but I have a question. I’ve been playing Mother 3, but I stop at the end of chapter 3 so I can play the rest translated. I’ve gotten to this point now on two separate save files and I’m starting to have trouble deciding on wether to continue or wait until the patch is done. Do you think it would be a good idea to keep going?

  152. ALX said 15 years ago:

    Amon: WHAT?!?

    Talking to Mddonald’s Employee… Do you think I should get a happy meal or a Big mac?

  153. GoldyK said 15 years ago:

    This “Please Note!” warning.
    You should add something like this:
    *No title-change posts

  154. Landon said 15 years ago:

    Haha. It’s okay everyone. I understand. All I did was copy and paste, anyway. And in the picture, I moved the copyright and menu. I understand that they would have to move the menu and everything, and maybe even expand the Title tile-set! I agree it does look ugly, anyway. But whatever.

    To get off this topic: We’re so close to getting it done! Keep up the good work! ;D

  155. sam said 15 years ago:

    Are you guys planning on translating the “alternate” final battle in the game that you can only get to with a game shark code? I saw a video of it and it’d look interesting to play considering it was the intended final boss but was “too creepy”

  156. Mato said 15 years ago:

    There’s nothing to translate, it’s just normal battle text. I should add that to the FAQ too, people seem to ask it a lot.

  157. Dko said 15 years ago:

    I love that when I’m programing. I first see a problem and its so extreamly difficult but when I lay down my eyes pop open. “Ohh crap its so simple!” Great job Mato (even though 20 bajillion people have said it already).

  158. Crass said 15 years ago:

    I know it’s crossed off the list but I’m unclear on the matter;
    did you guys finish the silver and gold star thing?

  159. Mato said 15 years ago:

    Yes, gold star has been implemented. Now to make a blueberry muffin star.

  160. Coconut of Enlightenment said 15 years ago:

    Good work. I understand, though, that the translation is not exactly a walk in the park. Between translating a video game and a novel of 200+ pages, I think it would be easier to translate the novel. At least the novel’s sentences are in order, instead of being in this part of the game or that part of the program, etc.

    But can we still get at least weekly updates. Even if they’re just about how your dog barfed on your computer and your girlfriend left you. We just want to know you’re still alive.

  161. VEGA said 15 years ago:

    Finally!! Hope this won’t cause any new bugs…

  162. That Guy said 15 years ago:

    mato-kun mato-kun

    im just saying this but, will you release a text file of the 1st script?

  163. NecrosaroIII said 15 years ago:

    Tomato, how relieved/excited are you to actually get back to working on the text of the game instead of going all out on the programming?