Fray - turboR version goes English

During Event Eleven, right after the presentation of Project Melancholia (a new, English translation of SD-Snatcher) another game translation project was announced. MSX Translations (Max Iwamoto, Tsunami and Vampier) are working on an English translation of Fray - In Magical Adventure.

A video of the completely translated intro demo was shown during the event, revealing that it's the turboR version of this 1990 MicroCabin gem that is currently under translation. For those who are wondering: the voice acting is not being redone, but subtitled.

Relevant link: Fray English - turboR intro

Comments (25)

By Meits

Paragon (1527)

24-10-2011, 19:05

I'd like to see the PCM samples removed from the demo because a) it's low quality, b) japanese (ok, translated now) and c) the BGM restarts.
The latter is really annoying... The first two were just cuz I wanted to mention 3 points

By Google

By wolf_

Ambassador (9124)

24-10-2011, 19:13

At E11 I stressed @ Sama that the BGM restart was annoying like hell. Here's another fine example of this. So, mayhaps this restart gets fixed.. who knows..

By max_iwamoto

Master (156)

24-10-2011, 20:22

Please keep in mind that this is the beta version. We planning to translate voice smaples. But we need somebody to help us with it. And there will be a separate version with music keep playing and sounds cut from the intro (because too many people hate it). Also translation will include separate patch that makes game playable on MSX2/MSX2+ and possiblity to play without MSX Audio (just PSG music).

By Meits

Paragon (1527)

24-10-2011, 20:24

@ Max: _O_

By max_iwamoto

Master (156)

24-10-2011, 20:52

@ Meits: ?

By hap

Paragon (1714)

24-10-2011, 21:07

@ wolf_: gloe

By Randam

Champion (333)

24-10-2011, 21:44

To substitute the Japanese samples with English ones voice actresses with a similar voice to Fray or Endra are needed. There's not that many lines: only a few in the intro, the ending and when Fray casts a spell. But finding someone for that could prove difficult in and of itself.

By Lazzeri

Expert (102)

24-10-2011, 23:08

That's beyond cool! :-)

By sd_snatcher

Paladin (842)

25-10-2011, 00:10

Great project! Congrats!

I kinda like the japanese voices. But I do agree that fixing the music restarting would be great!

If I may, here are some other suggestions:

1) It would be great if you fixed the game to use the MSX-Music BIOS instead of direct I/O. This would allow stereo music on OPL3 and Moonsound cartridges. On this cartridges, the PSG channels can be output using the SoundChipFish extensions of the MSX-Audio BIOS v1.3

2) An HDD version would be also very welcome. No more annoying disk images, just files on HDD

3) Megadrive joystick support, so the game can be played without using the keyboard.

By lionelritchie

Champion (431)

25-10-2011, 00:35

please, sell the translation so that someone will post it in the internerds and you can then say that you will quit the scene forever.

By max_iwamoto

Master (156)

25-10-2011, 01:29

Sorry to disappoint, but we not planning to sell it Or quit the scene

@ sd_snatcher:

1) Yes, if possible
2) Yes
3) Maybe

By sd_snatcher

Paladin (842)

25-10-2011, 05:44

Curiously enough, the intro on the MSX2 version of Fray has some enhancements over the Turbo-R version:

1) Some animations are better. The school scene and the close-with-latok scene have multi-layers, i.e.

2) The scene were Fray is running and trips is just hilarious. Too sad this isn't present on the Turbo-R version.

3) The Rotating-Pixie intro is also hilarious, and very light hearted

Other scenes are better on the Turbo-R version: some animations are smoother, and the final scene of the intro, where the camera rotates around Fray is very nice

By ro

Prophet (3591)

25-10-2011, 10:15

if there was a mega-like button attached, I'd press it.. twice!
Fray's always been one of my fave games. the gameplay, gfx and musx are beyond any other MSX experience. love to see this translated

By mesiasmsx

Guardian (1324)

25-10-2011, 10:54

Thanks for your work guys!

By FiXato

Scribe (878)

26-10-2011, 16:22

[offtopic]
Max: Meits meant he bows for you with that emoticon.
_O_
imagine the underscores as arms/hands, and O as the head/body. Then you basically get smile.fixato.co.uk/bowingCA.gif
[/offtopic]

I'm looking forward to the translation :D
As for the English audio samples, maybe you can generate something with Vocaloid/Hatsune Miku?

By wolf_

Ambassador (9124)

26-10-2011, 17:21

No. That's for singing only. And while in some way useful (Project Melancholia? ^_^), we're not quite there yet. It'd be easier to find someone with the right voice and a decent English tone to actually provide vocals. At the same time, I think those vocals add absolutely nothing to the game. IMHO the only game where vocals add something is 'Oh Shit'. You were talking about this uncanny valley earlier today.. it's the same with sound. I think I'd rather have no vocals than bad vocals.

By wolf_

Ambassador (9124)

26-10-2011, 17:34

Which, while we're on the subject of uncanny valleys, is the same with samples. FM is easily accepted for sounding nice.. just pick Illusion City, the Xaks, Fray etc. and you'll know what I mean. And then came the Moonsound with its 2MB GM ROM, without DSP chip for reverb 'n such. While on paper having such ROM samples sounds nice, especially after years of FM-only, they're about all in the uncanny valley. It's why I'm not very fond of using them, and why I advocate going for sample RAM instead. As for the lack of DSP: ok, so we have these orchestral sounds like pizzicato, brass, woodwinds, percussion etc. These all need a concert hall to be perfect (the way they should sound), without that they're all in that uncanny valley, rendering them useless to me.

By ro

Prophet (3591)

27-10-2011, 09:51

yeah those samples in Fray were there just because is was NEW, just because it could be done. tho speech in the intro has a kind of "cool factor", I do agree with wolf that it adds nothing special to the game. It can be done much better (hell, even the MusicModule has better sample capabilities) and if it doesn't require to restart the BGM I'm in for new voices. Why don't you come over to my studio and record those

to be frank, I love the old skool PSG, SCC and even FM sounds It suites the MSX just fine. and Fray... MAN! it's got great musix!
OPL4 is kinda "too much" for our beloved system..

By wolf_

Ambassador (9124)

27-10-2011, 10:46

Hmm nah, when used in the right way, the OPL4 suits an MSX well, especially with more contemporary hardware like the G9k. (Hear me! .. 'contemporary' ^__^) As long as you stay out of this uncanny valley by using those ROM tones, and rather mimic older sounds, it'll be perfectly MSX!

By Huey

Prophet (2132)

03-11-2011, 11:25

I see some similarities (font used and Max Iwamoto) in this translation and the one from SD Snatcher.
But this one is for free?

By Randam

Champion (333)

04-11-2011, 04:07

AFAIK the patch will be for free.

By Akiguchi

Master (232)

09-02-2012, 09:38

What's the status of this translation? I'll badly want to play it!

By max_iwamoto

Master (156)

11-03-2012, 02:14

Fray translation is still in development. All texts are translated, but only 20% of them are in the game now. Unfortunately, proper translation takes a lot of time and disk based game even longer (compared to ROM based games). But you should be able to play it this year. But the good news is that a small (2Mbit) ROM based game will be relased soon and it's also features never before seen upgrades

By Gradius2

Champion (370)

11-03-2012, 03:18

Looking forward for the release!

By Akiguchi

Master (232)

11-03-2012, 09:15

Thanks a lot for the information! This game is so great that it deserves to take some time.
Appreciate your work!

Btw. I've been learning some japanese too (not much yet), so maybe I could provide something useful in future too regarding translations.