Translations for Japaneses Mission Objectives? Specifically "Amida"

[taffedinthehead]

Just wondering if there is a thread or a site that has the translations of the various Japanese (or other foreign language FMs) mission objectives?
I am specifically asking for "Amida" - as I completed 1, 2, and 6 - but none of the others. It's hard to do without knowing what you are supposed to do!

[Ponterbee]

Hi Taffed!
Nice to see someone else playing this great FM. Unfortunately you can't complete all the objectives, but what's there is a lot of fun. I'll put each part you need to do in SPOILER so you can try to find stuff yourself first.

spoiler:

First, you need to get into an upside-down room and find a scroll. This is the first objective and isn't too hard to do.

If you can't find it, it's

spoiler:

on the table on the ceiling. Use a rope arrow.

After that, you only need to stay in the big area you're in now. Follow the pipes around until you can get to the center light (the insectbeast cages will be in front, behind, and to the right of you.

spoiler:

There's a button on the light stand somewhere. Press it and a cage will open! Use arrows from afar. There's a switch in the cage that will open the next cage, and so on.

Next part...

spoiler:

OK, let's see if my memory holds up... There's a large base holding the huge thick pillar that holds up the high parapet the archer was patrolling. Get onto the one between the first and second insect beast cages you opened. There will be a small button or lever somewhere on it. This will open a small door on the other large base that sits to the RIGHT of the last insect beast cage. Go there next. There should be a key in there now. From the pipes, shoot a rope arrow up high near a short ladder to the high parapet. You can unlock the blue chest now, I believe. You may have to jump back onto the pipes and take some damage now but you're almost done.

Lastly...

spoiler:

I can't remember if you have a key for this or need lockpicks, but you just get to the other door by following the pipes to the lowest point. Once you get inside, another objective ticks off and there's nothing left to do. I've tried countless things to get into the area behind the starting point, but no dice.

It's still a fun mission though. Very surreal.

[pojkvaskern]

Yes, Ponterbee is right
I've posted about this mission somes threads back, heres the link:

www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=89003

[taffedinthehead]

Does anyone know if the other objectives are completely undoable because of poor mission design, or is it just that no one knows what to do? I mean, I'd still like to know what the objectives are, even if they can't be completed.

[Ponterbee]

No idea what the others are since they are, indeed, undoable. I think it was just unfinished and was released to Jason from a Japanese FM site. I don't understand Japanese so could only know what the objectives were on completion...Get the scroll & go to the inn.

I spent nearly a month in this map trying EVERYTHING and this is all there is. (That's how I remembered so much of the mission) I mean, even if one of the objectives is Kill all the Haunts, that's impossible! I'm one of the few westerners who thrive off Asian fan missions for their nightmarish quality but they are very difficult (and unfortunately often buggy). If you like JIS' style, play UFO. It's 100% complete, no bugs, and really really fun (I have a walkthrough for it at Jason's thiefmissions.com and Peter Smith wrote a complete lootlist). Another terrific one is called "F". I have a walkthrough for that one too but never typed it up.

[demagogue]

It's been one of my goals in life to translate the japnse FMs for a while (sad, i know) ... since they're more fun if you know what you are doing. RL keeps getting in the way.

Since there's demand, maybe i should give them to my japanese study group as a project ... and since 1/2 of them are Japanese, I'm sure we could kick them out pretty quickly.

Is there a way to quickly get the texts to translate? I'm not sure I have all the Japnse FMs on my computer, so...

Anyone care to post them (the texts) or put them into a Word file I can d/l, then I could just print that out, let me and my friends translate them, then send a new doc back to someone who can reintegrate them into new versions??

how's that sound?

[taffedinthehead]

I will see if I can do that for you, dema - but I have limited internet access (at-work only) so it may be a few days . . . keep checking!

[taffedinthehead]

Ponter - I played UFO this weekend and thought it was too cool! Loved the alien mods . . . I also played F - what a cool idea to have unlimited fire arrows - turned a whimpy thief into a fragmaster!!

I also like the Japanese missions - I'm not sure where everyone else stands on them, but I personally think JIS is genius! By the way - is JIS a person, or a group of people?

[aville]

Speaking of Japanese\JIS missions, has anyone completed "Mine shock"? I'm talking about the Gold version here, not the T2 one (called "Mainshock T2" btw). I think its a bit like "Amida" in that the objectives can't be completed? I remember getting stuck at some door that wouldn't open or to be more precise, the lever next to it wouldn't work, although on Dromed there was plenty of more to explore behind it. Anyhow, i too like Japanese missions regardless of them being difficult or frustrating sometimes like "Elevator"

[taffedinthehead]

I haven't gotten to that one yet - I downloaded every FM I could find (up to 400!) and am playing them basically in Alphabetical order (or else I'll accidentally miss playing one!) I am in the H's on Thief Gold and still back in the D's on Thief 2! Sooo . . . it might be awhile!

[demagogue]

so it turns out i do have all the Jpnse FMs on my computer... i just haven't played any of them yet.

I dug into the books and interface folders and got the relevant files. Only a few aren't translated, I think Amida, Ochiru, Garret & Hammer, Elevator T2 books, maybe 1 or 2 others.

Of those that are "translated" (most of JIS's), sometimes the translations are close to incomprehensible (noble & much appreciated effort, anyway). I wish I could get a hold of the original Japanese to see what they were trying to say.

Anyway, I'll get the objectives translated hopefully tomorrow and post them here.

Later hopefully I'll get into cleaning up the mis-translations and the do the books - but that'll take longer. At some point, someone should reincorp everything into the zipped files and release new editions thru thiefmissions.

[taffedinthehead]

Thanks for doing this - you rock!

[pojkvaskern]

By the way - is JIS a person, or a group of people?

JIS is a person (male) and his name is Yoshino

BTW, the mission can't be completed, it has got a bug which is making it uncompleteable

[demagogue]

Alright, today we translated the objectives for Amida, Undeadland, Ochiru, Mainshock, Makiko, Chonmigorosh, & K. I'll go in that order:

Amida (roughly translated ladder game or crosswalk).

1) Get the scroll that explains what it means to be a human
2) Follow the "amida" pipes to the end and get the vase
3) Kill bug-sister #1
4) Kill bug-sister #2
5) Kill bug-sister #3
6) Go to the exit room

Edit: I moved the discussion of this translation to the end of the post to keep things tidy*

Undeadland

Objectives:
(1) For once, why don't you find out for yourself what to do!

(2) If you can't understand what's going on, then talk about it among your friends.

Ochiru

Objectives:
(1) I wonder if you can get downstairs without losing too much of your health and get to Gola's room.

Makiko

Objectives:
(1) Auntie Makiko is in the central tower. Make sure her soul rests in peace.

[this is roughly the literal translation, with the same ambiguity as to whether she's evil and you're supposed to kill her, or she's actually a really nice, dead lady whose soul you want to rest in peace. My bet would be the former.

Edit: After some testing, it turns out the goal *is* to kill Auntie Makiko. Her health level is rather high, though, so it's not so easy!]

Mainshock (sic, meant to be Mineshock. *Main* is the Japanese spelling of *Mine*.)

Objectives:
(1) Steal the so-called "Precursor Mask" golden face-mask.

[remember that the part in quotation marks is in a foreign language to the target audience, so it's not so redundant, a bit like saying: steal the so called "Ougon no Kamen" golden face-mask.]

(2) Escape!

NB, MainshockT2 has exactly the same objectives.

Chonmigrosh

Objectives:
(1) Five North Koreans tried to enter the Japanese Embassy in China to get Asylum. Try to join them and get asylum yourself.

K

Objective:
(1) Search for the exit

---------------------------

That's it. A big thanks to all my friends at the Jpnse Language Table who helped me out. I hope people find this useful. Should probably get these translations into the goals docs and new files uploaded to Jason sometime.

The books will take much longer to translate, so don't expect them too soon.

Cheers...

----------------------------------------------------
*Discussion of Amida translations:


The idea behind this FM revolves around the game Amida which is played in most Asian countries. The game is: there are a series of horizontal lines on a paper with many randomly placed verticle lines crossing them (cross-hatching). The game is, each person picks a different starting point at the top, then takes the nearest cross-hatch going downwards, inevitably leading each person to a different ending point at the bottom, each ending point containing a different score, or fortune, or command, etc... (When I taught English in Korea, we often used it to calculate what % of the bar tab each person had to pay).

The first thing I have to say is, you're lucky I got this translated. My Japanese friends were more than a little offended at my request after they read the text, since it's supposed to be a polite conversation group and all, and we had to move on to another topic. The objectives for this FM are what they termed *chotto sukebe*, that is, *a little perverted*. But I managed to pull one of them aside and get the translations anyway (since I really wanted to keep my word to you guys, and, honestly, their hesitation piqued my interest) and, sure enough, they're pretty perverted. The next thing I have to say is: be glad you can't complete objectives 3-5. I was thinking, for JIS's sake, I might tone-down the language, but then I concluded that it was probably best just to be accurate. It's true that the English sounds a bit harsher than the Japanese, but then again, when you're talking about what he's talking about, there's no real polite way to put it.

So without further ado, the objectives are:

(1) At the beginning of this Japanese-limted-release Mission, the first purpose is to get a scroll hidden somewhere, read it, and learn what it is to be a human being.

[I'll try to translate the scroll later (as long as it's not nauseating). Edit: As it turns out, the scroll is a letter from Warren Spector to the player. Wasn't expecting that!]

(2) Walk across the Amida pipes [i.e., pipes arranged like the Amida game] and get the treasures located at the end. [Edit: a vase]

(3) The youngest "bug" sister is bothering her master by being too tom-boyish. Bring her under control. [strong connotation of "forcefully"] [Edit: a look at the Goaltypes in dromed indicates that the goal here is to kill the bugbeast]

(4) Bring the next little "bug" sister to the heights of extasy. She's shy, but very good at sucking d***. [Edit: again, Goaltypes indicates the goal is to kill the bugbeast]

[This is particularly the part where I went ]

(5) Let's tease the oldest "bug" sister. She's very violent and attacks everything, including her master. [Edit: again, Goaltypes indicates the goal is to kill the bugbeast]

(6) Have an exciting night with the pretty girl wearing the nightgown. [sigh, ] [Edit: a look at the Goaltypes indicates the goal is to enter a room at the end of the mission entitled love_room]

So there you go... Everyone was probably better off not knowing what the objectives were, and now I feel like Pandora for opening up the box. But at least now you know those creatures are actually your personal-bug-sex-slaves.

Edit: Hit Deity looked into the GoalTypes to figure these goals out. Thanks Hit Deity! There are some quirky elements about the objectives here, so it's worth reading his post and my response immediately following. Basically, the catch is:

NB, the so-called "bug" that the mission is not completable is a bit misleading. the goals do *not* check off on the objective screen when you complete them. The reason is that that is not really the objective screen! It is an overlay .pcx file that *looks* like the objectives screen so the author could write the objectives in Japanese script. in other words, it is not operational, so the objectives do not check off. However, the goals are still working in the background. Apparenlty, they *are* operational and goals 1-5 still work to open the portcullis that leads you to the final room. So if you do these 6 things, consider yourself as having "completed" the FM:

1) Get the scroll
2) Get the vase
3) Kill sister 1
4) Kill sister 2
5) Kill sister 3
6) Go to the exit room [/Edit]

Thankfully, the remaining Japanese FMs are just your run-of-the-mill Japanese weirdness and not so sukebe/perverted (said with all due affection for run-of-the-mill Japanese weirdness).
----------------------------------------------------


Edit: added info / clarifications, typos, smiley touch-ups, cleaned up translations to be more fedilous

[Ponterbee]

Whoa, Demagogue! You deserve a big pat on the back from the community for this. There have been people trying to translate these for a while now, but gave up.

At first I thought you were joking with a few of them but your reactions told otherwise. Plus, Japan DOES have that weird sex culture (just watch some anime or breeze through a few pages of manga).

I have a feeling someone screwed around with JIS' text file though- doesn't sound much like actual objectives. I bet he gave up on the mission and some perverted Anime-hound finished it.

In fact, let me just add this edit: I'd bet good money JIS is NOT responsible for the Amida objectives. Aside from getting a scroll and going to the hotel, none of the others make remote sense at all and JIS is pretty serious about his missions. Plus it's the only one that is completely unfinishable!

[pojkvaskern]

(3) The youngest "bug" sister is bothering her master by being too tom-boyish. Bring her under control. [strong connotation of "forcefully"]

(4) Bring the next little "bug" sister to the heights of extasy. She's shy, but very good at sucking d***.

[This is particularly the part where I went ]

(5) Let's tease the oldest "bug" sister. She's very violent and attacks everything, including her master.

So, you CAN complete Amida? How do you do then?

[demagogue]

My guess is, you are supposed to blackjack (I doubt kill; edit: nope, you need to kill) the 3 bugbeasts, and the extra "commentary" to the goals is just a juvenile allusion to the way bugbeasts fall after being knocked out.

If that's true, then I think we can happily re-translate the goals to read: knock out the [younger, middle, and older] bugbeast.

------------

A few notes, maybe, after thinking about this translation project.

First, I may have reacted a bit harshly (esp. with the smilies) to these goals, in part because the language was meant to be read quickly and superficially (as a joke), but it was my job to translate the language one excruciating word at a time and in polite foreign company where nuance is hard to get across, so it made it all seem even more gratuitous, and I felt embarrased for them.

There's often a debate about the border between artistic expression and what might be (poorly) termed "community norms" sometimes in situations like this, but that isn't what prompted me to roll my eyes - just the specific situation I was personally in. At any rate, that debate has been played out 100s of times in other places and isn't what I wanted to bring up then or now.

One war story. It got kind of absurd at points. E.g., with the expression *Bring her under control.*, I asked my friends, what does that imply you should do? And they replied, oh, you can rape her or kill her, something like that. I replied, what! What about just knocking her out? They replied, yeah, you could knock her out, or rape her, or kill her, something like that. It was surreal.

Another note I thought I should add. The first goal (as well as the read-me) hammers the point that the mission was meant to be limited-release in Japan only, which implies not a serious release but an inside joke to a few of the guys that hang out on the keepers-house board, which is just a few regulars (I'm betting about ten or so 20-something guys, the guys whose names JIS keeps dropping in his missions if you pay attention).

So there wasn't the idea that this was going to get released to 100s of people of lots of different backgrounds where one may want to be a little sensitive to at least gratuitous language (this is to my mind different quite from, e.g., the language in Calendra's Legacy, which I felt was an important part of its character), so in that sense, the mission was self-consciously meant to be an inside joke and not a serious mission release, which Ponterbee rightly states is what JIS is normally known for in his other missions. That's not saying who is responsible for the language, just putting into context how a mission with goals like this could get released.

My 2 cents.
Someone should test the knock out theory and see if that's right.

[pojkvaskern]

Someone should test the knock out theory and see if that's right.

I don't think the mission can be completed because of the bug in it.
Blackjacking them is very exiting, though it's EXTREMELY difficult in this mission (nearly impossible). Some great master thieves should try it, like Lytha.

Edit: BTW, You MUST see this!!!!!!!!!!!!!! www.lytha.com

[demagogue]

I wonder if someone couldn't go into dromed and jury-rig it so that goals 3-5 *were* to blackjack the bugbeasts and then it could be completeable, since that's about the only do-able thing I can interpret those goals to be.

And is it kosher to do that, i.e., to interpret the goals of the author like that and make them completable? It's not like it's entirely making them up, just a glorified bug-fix.

If so, I'd recommend we do that, esp if someone is going to incorporate the English translations into the mission anyway.

Okay, I guess I could do it...but not until RL gives me time! Any other takers?

[Hit Deity]

I wonder if someone couldn't go into dromed and jury-rig it so that goals 3-5 *were* to blackjack the bugbeasts and then it could be completeable, since that's about the only do-able thing I can interpret those goals to be.

And is it kosher to do that, i.e., to interpret the goals of the author like that and make them completable? It's not like it's entirely making them up, just a glorified bug-fix.

Oh, it could be done, but I don't think it's a good idea without getting JIS's permission. I'm sure most TTLG'ers would agree that changing the original design of an FM for whatever reason would go against what most of us hold true.

It looks like the mission's goals are setup OK, it's just that we can't see when they get ticked off. A fairly simple test with a "standard" objectives screen could confirm this. However, I couldn't find the key in the game, so I'm not sure how I would even complete it. There also seemed to be a few inaccessible rooms with treasure in them...

[demagogue]

of course I'd get JIS's permission first (if I can find him and ask him without embarrassing myself with my 1st grader Japanese )

I'm not sure if it's changing the original design, since as you found out for yourself the original goals were to kill the bugbeasts... This is just implementing what he had intended from the beginning but (apparently) couldn't get to work. I mean, at the least I just want to get the "mission complete" screen to come up at the end of the mission. I'll try to get JIS's permission, but I can't imagine him saying "No, I intended these goals to be set in dromed and on-screen but not to work in-game." I wasn't thinking about any major amending to the mission design ... just make what is already there completable.

Actually, my real intention was just to re-release the Japanese FMs with literally translated objectives and readables (toying with the files in the Interface and Books folders).

It only occurred to me later that I could do a little bug-fixing for the re-released version just to make the completable (& JIS's missions in general tend to be a bit buggy) since in many cases the bugs appear to be straightforward and the author's intention clear.

What I think I'll do is give JIS a head's up that I'm doing this and get his ok: just literal translations and fixing obvious bugs where his intention is clear (maybe I should list them out just to be sure that I get his intention right), do the work, and last let JIS know what I've done for an English re-release just to be sure he's on board.

But anyway, this is a project for after graduation...

[Hit Deity]

Sounds good. Go for it.

[epithumia]

Your first-grade Japanese seems far better than my two-years-at-University Japanese. I guesss it's because I studied conversational Japanese, so I can't read it except for most of the kana. (And because that was six years ago.)

[demagogue]

Yeah, I guess I just like studying Japanese...

*rushes to hide all evidence that my secret is really a steady stream of over-attendant Japanese girlfriends and push-over Japanese guy-friends*