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

Commentaires (39)

Par meits

Scribe (6530)

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

Par wolf_

Ambassador_ (10076)

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..

Par max_iwamoto

Hero (627)

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).

Par meits

Scribe (6530)

24-10-2011, 20:24

@ Max: _O_

Par max_iwamoto

Hero (627)

24-10-2011, 20:52

@ Meits: ?

Par hap

Paragon (2042)

24-10-2011, 21:07

@ wolf_: gloe

Par Randam

Paragon (1431)

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.

Par Lazzeri

Champion (273)

24-10-2011, 23:08

That's beyond cool! :-)

Par sd_snatcher

Prophet (3608)

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.

Par lionelritchie

Champion (439)

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.

Par max_iwamoto

Hero (627)

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

Par sd_snatcher

Prophet (3608)

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

Par ro

Scribe (4861)

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

Par mesiasmsx

Prophet (3438)

25-10-2011, 10:54

Thanks for your work guys!

Par FiXato

Scribe (1741)

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?

Par wolf_

Ambassador_ (10076)

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.

Par wolf_

Ambassador_ (10076)

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.

Par ro

Scribe (4861)

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..

Par wolf_

Ambassador_ (10076)

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!

Par Huey

Prophet (2694)

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?

Par Randam

Paragon (1431)

04-11-2011, 04:07

AFAIK the patch will be for free.

Par Akiguchi

Hero (623)

09-02-2012, 09:38

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

Par max_iwamoto

Hero (627)

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

Par Gradius2

Hero (652)

11-03-2012, 03:18

Looking forward for the release!

Par Akiguchi

Hero (623)

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.

Par Randam

Paragon (1431)

24-10-2013, 17:42

In case TheMSXchannel also visits here: thanks for posting about the small bugs you noticed in the Japanese version of Fray. We had already noticed the vertical band of pixels in the intro when Fray looks in the direction of the village. We hadn't noticed the slight difference in position in Fray's eye when she blinks. We will put it on the list to fix it when this project is pulled from hibernation. Will check if this error is also on my original. Sometimes there are slightly different versions for Microcabin games when they fixed some error in the game they found after release.

Par Moniz

Champion (400)

24-10-2014, 10:26

ah.. I just saw this in "todays history"
Is there any progress? would love to play this again now the dark and rainy days are back again!

Par turbor

Hero (517)

24-10-2016, 18:46

It showed up in "todays history" again.
So we can assume this died a silent dead?

Par hamlet

Scribe (4105)

24-10-2016, 22:58

He's dead, Jim.

Par max_iwamoto

Hero (627)

30-10-2016, 23:23

Not really dead. More like in anabiosis.

Par Vampier

Prophet (2405)

04-11-2016, 04:53

yep... we're still alive

Par meits

Scribe (6530)

04-11-2016, 12:30

Ah good... Still got some tunes ready for yet another game

Par sd_snatcher

Prophet (3608)

02-08-2018, 01:46

Any news on this project?

Par max_iwamoto

Hero (627)

04-08-2018, 22:59

sd_snatcher wrote:

Any news on this project?

Not much has been done to it since the last comments. Development has slowed down in general. But we did release Mr.Ghost few months ago And almost finish Androgynous. It is fully tested and working 100% & FM music playing 100%. But now we decided to move the game to the INT so it works the same on any MSX and Turbo mode not making it unplayable like, for example, Ashguine 2. As soon as this is polished, we will release it as well. Aster that we planning to finish another very big multi disk project that has been in development for years. And after that hopefully Fray... So you should expect it before 2020

Par sd_snatcher

Prophet (3608)

05-08-2018, 01:43

Good to hear that so many projects are going strong. Keep up the good work!

Par roadfighter

Champion (451)

07-02-2021, 22:41

Any progress on this translation ?

Par max_iwamoto

Hero (627)

10-02-2021, 02:21

roadfighter wrote:

Any progress on this translation ?

So far no additional progress on Fray. But we will release Androgynous this month. It's fully ready, just doing final beta testing on multiple systems.

We got sidetracked by other multi-disk translations, such as Last Armageddon, La Valeur & more... So not sure when we get back to Fray, but eventually we will.

Here is the link of what is completed and in-progress:

msxtranslations.com/translations.php

Par sd_snatcher

Prophet (3608)

17-10-2021, 06:54

@max_iwamoto

Please also try to include a bugfix for 1MB of RAM on the translation.

Par Randam

Paragon (1431)

17-10-2021, 08:35

A Japanese dude made a bugfix for the 1MB of RAM in Fray. I just don't know where it is at the moment. If we can't find it anymore I hope Max can fix it as well. Does someone know where that patch was? There were some other Microcabin patches on that site I remember...

Fray - turboR version goes English

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