Making progress in the investigation yet, Seed?!

On this page, we place an update every time we make some progress in our SD Snatcher translation project. In order to give you an idea about how we made progress before even launching this website, we have logged our progress before the launch of the website as well. Please check this page every now and then if you'd like to know how the project is going and what kind of problems (if any) we encounter!

As we mentioned in the about section, Max and Rieks initially got in contact with each other because Rieks wanted to make a translation of Randar III and Max offered his help for this after reading this thread at the MSX Resource Center. We started with Randar III, but soon switched over to SD Snatcher. The first e-mail Rieks received from Max concerning Randar III was dated November 27th, 2010. The first step we took to translate SD Snatcher was initiated by Max by sending Rieks an e-mail containing the first SD Snatcher kanji set, on January 15th, 2011. This probably is the date Project Melancholia officially took off.

The progress report

2 November 2019	Our Melancholia patch is now available for free download at the Project Melancholia website!
17 October 2019	Max and Rieks agreed that the Project Melancholia patch should be downloadable for free from now on. Preparations are made to put the patch online for free download.
23 January 2014	We released an updated and extended demo version of the Melancholia patch!
2 January 2014	The Project Melancholia SD Snatcher patch is finally released!!!
1 January 2014	While having a bit of a hangover from New Year's Eve, Rieks opened his mailbox to find an e-mail from Max containing the first final release candidate. Rieks changed some minor details in the manual and sent it back to Max. As soon as Rieks receives green light back from Max, the patch can finally be released!
29 December 2013	Max processed all Rieks' comments in the script files. Rieks and Max also created a small manual to be distributed together with the patch.
28 December 2013	Rieks checked all updates and sent his comments to Max.
25 December 2013	Max processed all textual improvements Rieks sent him. Version 0.9.1 is ready for the final test.
24 December 2013	Mail with payment details sent to people who preordered a copy of our patch, so that when the patch is released, people won't have to wait for payment verification before receiving the patch. In case you preordered, didn't pay yet and didn't receive the mail, please send us an e-mail. Also, Max implemented all in-game textual improvements and fixed a glitch with the disk change message before the Elijah demo.
22 December 2013	Rieks finished the final testplay and encountered no software issues. He did come up with a few minor textual improvements and decided to annoy Max with those, even though the project seems to be (almost?) ready for release.
15 December 2013	Max fixed all new issues and updated the version to 0.9.0 - the pre-release version! Max also did extensive testing on a real MSX2, MSX2+ and MSX Turbo R with flash cartridges to ensure full compatibility.
12 December 2013	Max found new issues that required to be fixed.
9 December 2013	Max finished all planned updates for all three disks. Max started the final testplay!
17 November 2013	Max finished his testplay up to disk 3 and didn't find any new issues.
11 November 2013	Max finished all planned updates for disk 2; disk 2 is now ready for the final testplay! Max also made some optimizations to the game code and optimized the intro timing for both the original and the mapper versions.
26 October 2013	Finished a new mapper version with fully automated SCC search. Support up to 16 SCC cartridges; the best option present is automatically selected. Downgrading is also possible (SCC+ -> SCC/PSG/NO MUSIC). The SCC cartridge can be located in the sub-slot. So, at this moment, any SCC cartridge available can be used to play the game!
7 September 2013	Max fixed original game map bugs: the player was able to walk through both the right wall outside the Master Snatcher room and the wall in the bottom left part of the Snatcher Base; now he isn't anymore!
2 September 2013	Max sent Rieks an updated version: English translation of Survival World is now working; modified the Survival World script; now the second part of the map is connected to the first part and Survival World is accessible by normal gameplay; made the second part of the Survival World map "unrollable", like in the Abandoned Factory; activated all 21 messages in Survival World and attached them to specific characters, as it was originally intended.
31 August 2013	Max sent Rieks an updated version: fixed a glitch in the Magical House (the map was damaged on the yellow floor); internal release of version 0.4.0 - a stable release of four versions (translation, Snatcher SCC, Mapper + SCC, Mapper + SCC-I).
28 August 2013	Max fixed a glitch in the SCC/SCC-I mapper version which caused the game to crash when entering the battle mode after the Elijah demo.
25 August 2013	Max sent Rieks an updated version: updated mapper version of the translation. Now original SCC cartridges are supported whlie MegaFlashROM SCC will work too; this is still a beta version; fixed a glitch with the slot machine graphics in the "Dice Shaker" casino (Godzilla movie graphics patch appeared to be too big); fixed a glitch in the North Downtown, Syd Garden North and Syd Garden South graphics patch; these appeared to be too big and damaged the data that immediately followed them; fixed a textual glitch appearing in the battle sequence.
24 August 2013	Max created a mapper version of the translaion that works on an MSX with 128kB+ of memory which does not require any memory in the sound cartridge. This version supports SCC+ sound cartridges such as MegaFlashROM SCC+, MegaFlashROM SCC+SD, but the original Snatcher and SD Snatcher SCC-I sound cartridges will work as well.
17 August 2013	Max added support of the Snatcher sound cartridge.
10 August 2013	Max finished the final playthrough of disk 1 without finding any bugs.
4 August 2013	All formerly unplanned updates for disk 1 are done; disk 1 is now 100% ready for the final playthrough.
26 July 2013	Max finished all planned updates for disk 1 and 2; there are only a few formerly unplanned updates left on these disks. Now, disk 1 and 2 are almost ready for the final test playthrough. Disk 3 still requires some more work.
15 July 2013	Max fixed an issue with the Panasonic FS-A1FM (hanging after entering player's name).
7 July 2013	Max made some minor changes to the texts in the battle sequence and finalized all intro parts!
1 July 2013	Max sent Rieks an updated version: updated the SAVE / LOAD system; now all names will fit inside the frame, even if they use "g","j","p","q","y" lower case letters; also made some minor textual changes; updated some in-game text messages (disk change, etc.); updated the battle menu.
30 June 2013	Max fixed issue 65 of 79: he inserted a dot after the 'W' in Rieks' name in the intro credits.
29 June 2013	Max sent Rieks an updated version: improved code in turbo mode search subroutine (it now properly handles MSX computers with RAM in SLOT 0, such as Daewoo CPC-400); finalized first and third parts of the intro demo; applied 64 fixes/updates/improvements out of the 79 that we decided on after the previous playthrough.
16 June 2013	Finished all planned graphical updates for the game!
11 June 2013	Max sent Rieks a list of things he has done the past few months: optimized game font (now it's 99 bytes less) so the printing is faster and more space created for some other parts of the translation; optimized font printing subroutine so it works faster; fixed issues with in-game print subroutine concerning printing of text after the player's name; re-synchronized intro and ending demo because of new code improvements and different timings; optimized intro code and moved all code (intro and in-game) from upper memory addresses so universal hard disk loaders have more compatibility; this also resulted in minor speed improvements; translated graphics in North Downtown; fixed some remaining text errors found in the game script; slightly altered game script so that all texts are in North-American English; optimized the in-game menus so they all have the same style; ...many more changes; the list would be too boring and very long...
9 June 2013	Max sent Rieks a picture showing the translated version of 'Cult Shop Kojima'.
9 February 2013	Rieks returned the list he received from Max to Max with his comments on the listed items.
15 January 2013	Max sent Rieks the list with items that (optionally) need to be done before the final release.
20 August 2012	Max updated all disks with the revisions Rieks sent to him and wrote to Rieks that there still are things that need to be done before we have a release candidate.
8 August 2012	Rieks sent (final?) minor revisions to Max from the Magical House to the end of the game.
7 August 2012	Max updated all disks with the revisions Rieks sent to him and finished the revisions of the texts on disk 3. He also slightly modified some (graphical) logo's in South Downtown.
5 August 2012	Max updated some graphics and updated all texts of Syd Garden and the hospital. Rieks sent minor revisions up to the Magical House (but including the Elijah and ending demo) to Max.
4 August 2012	Max implemented all minor revisions Rieks sent to him.
2 August 2012	Rieks sent minor revisions up to North Downtown to Max.
30 July 2012	Max updated all texts on disk 1 and 2.
23 July 2012	Max updated all texts on disk 1 and the graphics of the 'Godzilla' movie.
22 July 2012	Max updated the graphics of 'Whack-a-Snatcher' and the texts of Outer Heaven.
20 July 2012	Max updated the texts of JUNKER HQ part 3 and fixed some details in Center Plaza and Joy Division.
17 July 2012	Max updated the texts of Center Plaza and Joy Division.
16 July 2012	Max updated many details, both visible and invisible.
12 July 2012	Max updated the texts of Gibson's house.
11 July 2012	Max updated the texts of JUNKER HQ part 2.
10 July 2012	Max updated the texts including the abandoned factory.
9 July 2012	Max updated the texts up to the abandoned factory. He also changed some graphical data.
8 July 2012	Max made some improvements to the previously updated parts.
27 June 2012	Max updated all texts of Junker HQ part 1, outside JUNKER HQ and Pier 17. He also made adjustments to the battle reports.
26 June 2012	Max updated all texts in the intro demo.
24 June 2012	Max updated and made some adjustments to the Elijah demo, the end demo and Snatcher base part 3.
30 April 2012	Finished the final proofread and sent all revisions to Max for implementation.
29 April 2012	Continued the final proofread of the Elijah demo.
24 March 2012	Started the final proofread of the Elijah demo.
14 March 2012	Continued the final proofread up to the Elijah demo.
10 March 2012	Continued the final proofread up to the Snatcher base.
8 March 2012	Sent all revisions coming from the final proofread up to now to Max for implementation.
7 March 2012	Continued the final proofread up to the cave.
4 March 2012	Continued the final proofread up to Queen.
21 February 2012	Continued the final proofread up to the occupied church.
28 January 2012	Continued the final proofread up to North Downtown.
21 January 2012	Sneak preview on demand at the MSX fair in Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
9 January 2012	Ending demo working!
7 January 2012	First version of the Elijah demo working! Also started the final proofread together with Dennis.
3 January 2012	First half of the Elijah demo working!
12 December 2011	Snatcher base part 3 working!
4 December 2011	Finished translation of all remaining text: Elijah's story, the last part of the Snatcher base, the ending demo and Survival World. In short: translation of all texts in SD Snatcher finished!
28 November 2011	First two parts of the Snatcher base working!
21 November 2011	Magical House working!
19 November 2011	Hospitalized Petrovich working! Also finished translation of the first two parts of the Snatcher base.
17 November 2011	Syd Garden part 2 working!
14 November 2011	Finished translation of Syd Garden part 2, the hospitalized Petrovich and the Magical House.
8 November 2011	Rieks finished the transcription of the remaining kanji tables (except for the ending and possibly Survival World) and sent them to Max.
7 November 2011	Max started investigating the Elijah demo and the remaining kanji tables.
5 November 2011	Syd Garden part 1 working!
3 November 2011	Finished translation of Syd Garden part 1.
31 October 2011	Project Melancholia website finally launched! From today, the demo version can be downloaded and preorders can be placed as well. See also this newspost on MSX Resource Center.
30 October 2011	Finished the IPS patch to make a demo version of our translation, which can be played up to Gibson's house. Also dove into our mail archives to write the contents of this progress page from the beginning to the 30th of October.
27 October 2011	Finished revision of the texts in the demoversion.
23 October 2011	Max talked with Manuel Pazos about adding support for his newly developed SD Snatcher cartridge (click here for discussions in English). The idea arose to make a special version of the translation to work with the cartridge, without having to switch disks.
17 October 2011	Started the development of the website you are currently viewing. Also tested the first demo version and decided to revise some texts before releasing the demo.
16 October 2011	Cave working. Also finished the first version of the playable demo.
15 October 2011	Revealed our project to the public with a presentation on Event Eleven in Amsterdam, an event organized by the MSX Resource Center to celebrate the upcoming launch of the new installment of their website. OeiOeiVogeltje made a video with his smartphone of the first part of the presentation, which you can find here. Check this link for a photo shoot of Event Eleven, including the presentation of Project Melancholia by Rieks and René. During this presentation, we also revealed another project Max is working on together with Tsunami: a new English translation of Fray (Turbo R version).
11 October 2011	Max created video footage of our English version of SD Snatcher for the presentation.
11 October 2011	JUNKER HQ part 8 working.
10 October 2011	Wolf finished the teaser video for Project Melancholia.
9 October 2011	Queen hospital and JUNKER HQ part 7 working. Also made the intro to the presentation of Project Melancholia at Event Eleven, which is played before Wolf's teaser video.
7 October 2011	Sewerage working.
6 October 2011	We agreed to create a platform eventually where we can offer all MSX game translations Max and I have worked on.
5 October 2011	Finished translation of the seventh and eighth part of JUNKER HQ and of the cave.
4 October 2011	First version of the teaser video by Wolf ready. Also finished translation of the sewerage and Queen hospital.
3 October 2011	Church part 3 working.
30 September 2011	North Downtown part 3 working.
26 September 2011	Sixth part of JUNKER HQ working.
25 September 2011	Latest version of the intro demo, with revised texts, ready and working. North Downtown part 2, church part 2 and the mayor's office also working.
15 September 2011	The teaser website went online, showing nothing more than 'falling snow' (or: Lucipher Alpha) and the word 'melancholia'. Below that word, '11/10/15/EE/XX/YY/MSX2' was written in a very small font. The first part is the date we would reveal our project (15-10-2011), EE stands for Event Eleven, XX counted down to zero (number of days), YY was the number of pageviews. MSX2 obviously hinted to the MSX2 system, which we thought was necessary to make clear that it concerned an MSX2 project. Also plugged it at the MSX Resource Center by having Robert Vroemisse pointing to the site in this forum thread (in reality, this message was written by Rieks with permission from Robert, by the way).
14 September 2011	Implemented a new font for the translated text on top of the logo in the title screen. Had Dennis register the domain name www.project-melancholia.org.
13 September 2011	Finished translation of the second and third part of the church, of the second and third part of North Downtown, of the mayor's office and of the sixth part of JUNKER HQ.
7 September 2011	Dennis Bakker had a look at our translation and offered to conduct a final proofread together with Rieks and possibly René when all translation work is done.
4 September 2011	Church part 1 working.
1 September 2011	All weapons, options and drugs are now displayed with their full names. Also finished translation of the first part of the church.
29 August 2011	Decided to reveal the project at Event Eleven, came up with the name Project Melancholia and further elaborated on ideas for the teaser website.
28 August 2011	First part of North Downtown working.
24 August 2011	Finished translation of the fifth part of JUNKER HQ.
22 August 2011	Finished translation of the first part of North Downtown.
19 August 2011	Fourth part of JUNKER HQ working, half of the revised texts (see 18-7) implemented.
17 August 2011	Finished translation of the fourth part of JUNKER HQ.
12 August 2011	Adjusted the text printing speed to the English text reading speed.
4 August 2011	Baran's apartment working.
3 August 2011	Finished translation of Baran's apartment in South Downtown.
20 July 2011	South Downtown working and area names are now displayed in full in the Tricycle menu.
18 July 2011	Rieks and René revised all texts up to South Downtown and sent them to Max.
13 July 2011	Finished translation of South Downtown.
15 June 2011	Third part of JUNKER HQ and 'game over' working.
7 June 2011	Joy Division working.
6 June 2011	Commemoration of the "Catastrophe", which occurred exactly 20 years ago ;).
5 June 2011	Finished translation of Joy Division and talked about introducing the project with a teaser for the first time.
4 June 2011	Outer Heaven working!
3 June 2011	Center Plaza working!
2 June 2011	Finished translation of Outer Heaven.
1 June 2011	Finished translation of Center Plaza.
27 May 2011	Gibson's house working.
26 May 2011	Finished translation of Gibson's house and the in-game pick up texts (e.g. when you open an item box).
25 May 2011	René joined our team; the first text he proofreaded was the text inside Gibson's house.
24 May 2011	Text routine adapted so that lips only move and sounds are only played when displaying letters and numbers and turbo mode switched off during intro for correct synchronity with the music.
21 May 2011	English names for weapons and options during battle implemented.
17 May 2011	Second part of JUNKER HQ working, as well as the adapted save and load menu.
16 May 2011	Finished translation of the third part of JUNKER HQ.
15 May 2011	Finished translation of the second part of JUNKER HQ.
14 May 2011	English version of the abandoned factory working!
10 May 2011	Finished translation of the abandoned factory.
9 May 2011	English area names for the Tricycle implemented, battle messages improved and English shopping improved.
5 May 2011	The first version of the translated map outside JUNKER headquarters and Pier 17 were finished!
1 May 2011	Finished translation of the map outside JUNKER headquarters, Pier 17 and the area of the abandoned factory, after receiving the text dumps from Max on 28 April.
24 April 2011	The first version of the translated JUNKER headquarters was (partly) finished! This is the first in-game part of our English translation that could be played.
3 April 2011	Finished translation of weapon and item information and battle messages.
23 March 2011	Finished translation of the shopping part inside JUNKER headquarters.
20 March 2011	Finished translation of the first part of JUNKER headquarters.
19 March 2011	Max completely disassembled the text routine in JUNKER headquarters, enabling him to create a new text routine for the game.
4 March 2011	The English version of the name entry system (now also enabling names of up to seven characters) was finished!
27 February 2011	Rieks sent the last message to Max concerning the Randar III translation. This is the point where the SD Snatcher translation totally took over.
16 February 2011	The first version of the translated SD Snatcher demo was finished, featuring the third (and final) version of the new font! Max also placed the picture of Gillian in the second intro demo to the left, in order to fit more text next to it.
3 February 2011	Rieks realized that the protagonist's name in English should be Gillian, which counts seven characters. He asks Max if something can be done to the six character limitation of the name entry system. Max will think about it and realizes that this would mean that also the saving system (writing data to the user disk) should be changed. He also enabled the turbo mode for Turbo R, MSX2+ and Brazilian clones.
28 January 2011	Max made small revisions to the font and implemented the translation of the first three messages in the intro demo. The very first version of the new SD Snatcher English translation was there!
23 January 2011	Max created the new font for the SD Snatcher English translation.
20 January 2011	Max responds to Rieks' mail with the translation. In reaction to Rieks' first impression, he writes 'First of all I want to say that I am very impressed with the speed with which you translated it. I am not used to this fast translations... I cannot write code so fast :). I am not surprised about all extra details, because I was 90% sure that this is what we would see. There are a lot of small details missing in the Oasis translation, that usually make the story so rich in most Kojima games. And in some parts of the game, there is even more stuff missing. I don't exactly remember the whole story, because I played the game around 13 years ago. But in the middle of the game, there is a mid-tro that takes around 40min of only gfx and text... After we finish, everybody will be able to play this like a new game. I am sure that all MSX fans will be very happy about it.'
19 January 2011	First translation work is done; the intro demo text dump was translated and sent to Max! In his e-mail to Max, Rieks writes about his first impression: 'Please find attached my translation of the SD Snatcher intro text dump you sent me. I think you might be surprised when you take a look at this. At least I was - noticing the large amount of discrepancies between my translation and the only other English translation, by Oasis. The Oasis one feels more like a rough summary than a translation. If the rest of the game is translated similarly, I'm more than sure that retranslating this game is really worth the effort. We will be able to amaze many MSX fans for sure! Therefore, I'd really like to hear what you think of this translation!'
16 January 2011	Rieks sends the first kanji transcriptions to Max.
15 January 2011	Max sends the first kanji tables to Rieks (intro demo), asking for a Unicode transcription to be used in the text dumps.
10 January 2011	Max responds enthusiastically to Rieks' thought of translating SD Snatcher. He had thought about it as well and had even done some small preparatory stuff.
4 January 2011	Rieks sent a mail to Max concerning the Randar III translation project, in which he talks about having thought about retranslating SD Snatcher.