Message to the Dev

[Pyreaus]

Hello,

Firstly I wanted to say part of why I purchased this game at a relatively high price is to support the developer officially translating more work. It seems like the dev who answers people on this forum is not the original creator, so I wonder what your role is. Did you request permission to translate and sell this game on Steam? If that is your role, are you planning to do so with other games from this circle or others?

I would like to see things become easier to purchase either through Steam or other websites since many times piracy is the only way to get some games from Japan and fan translations of works are rare. DLSite English is making some progress but many great games are still largely unknown or impossible to play for english speaking users.

Do you have plans to bring more games to steam? Do you have specific developers you can/will work with, or would you be willing with most any dev?

P.S. Thank you for your time in talking to people on the forum

[HappyHand]

Hello,

I'm the publisher, HappyHand. I asked the developer, Black Train, for his permission to publish Niplheim's Hunter in Steam and he agreed. My job is to:

1.Translate Japanese adult games and publish them in Steam and other stores in English.
2.Hire translators for non-English languages and pay them.
3.Handle & answer all questions from customers.
4.Fix bugs if the developer agrees, if something's intended then I won't fix/change it.
5.Add commonly asked, simple features to games if the developer agrees (ie. text skip).
6.Tell the developers what customers liked/disliked about the game.
7.Basically doing all English and publishing related things.

And yeah, I wasn't sure about the price so I went with what I thought it was worth, but if a lot of people disagree, I can make the spinoff DLC free as compensation. I'll talk about the DLC in the next announcement.

I will translate and publish all other games from this circle, however I only translate and publish games with gameplay, so it's unlikely I will publish any visual novels. It is possible that I will make exceptions to that rule if I really like a visual novel. If I like the game I'll ask the developers if they are interested in getting their game published and there are hundreds of games I like so I'm willing to work with most developers.

Currently I have only agreed to publish Black Train's games. I will have make an announcement soon and I'll mention my future plans there among other things.

Hopefully I can publish a lot of games for Western fans and I'm happy to help and answer any questions!

[Pyreaus]

Thanks for the information! To my knowledge most of Black Train's stuff is VNs isn't it? I mostly know them from the Daemon Slave stuff they made before Branded Azel and it's teaser game. As far as the price point goes I think that the normalcy of h-games makes them easier to sell at higher prices. According to DLSite english this game goes for 17.78 US or so, but I think in the western market that would seem high. I don't think there is much appreciation or knowledge about stuff like hiring quality voice actresses and the like that makes even a relatively short game expensive to produce. I don't think you're overcharging or anything, just that it'll be a harder sell in a primarily western marketplace until the niche for these sorts of games grows.

In regards to publishing/translating other adult games, I did have a bit of an ulterior motive with asking: I was wondering if you'd take recommendations for other well made games that could use translations and would probably do well as a game even without the adult artwork.

To that end: https://flamberges.blog.fc2.com/
This developer, MOFULAND, made a game that I went out of my way to purchase on their Pixiv BOOTH to support it. It's fairly inexpensive (970 yen) and the developer continuously updates it. It has an old fan translation but the dev moved it from Flash to Unity and since then there's been no translation effort. It's a really fun game that is basically a mix of pokemon and fire emblem and I think it really deserves more attention. Link to the item on Booth: https://tempoko.booth.pm/items/378803

Do you think you'd be interested in/able to work with other small developers like this one? Another one that comes to mind is the author of Flying Princess -Interbreed-

[Wrongworld]

Fuuju Hime is a pretty awesome game, not my type of H tho.. but still very good game.
Havn't really been keeping up on it since playing it, but im pretty sure the fan-translation is still being worked on. V3.13 - 3.14
not gonna post link to the google docs but u can find it through the website, ulmf

[Pyreaus]

As far as I can tell the ULMF thread for the game no longer exists and no fan translation is being worked on. ULMF has no thread for the game anymore and the old one 404 errors. There's a google doc guide that is, well, a guide, but it's hardly a built in translation.

[Wrongworld]

oh well.. added link to fantranslation on the guide page 2. if not working pm me for link.

also @ HappyHand
should try and track down Eclipse Works who made Ariadne, awesome h-rpg

[Pyreaus]

Thanks. I'll take a look at that, but I still hope HappyHand replies to this, because if the goal is to bring good games to steam I think FuujuHime certainly qualifies as a good one even if not everyone would be into the h content. There's plenty of good stuff out there that never got translated to englsh.

[Wrongworld]

indeed, as said not my type of H but i still enjoyed the game very much and would buy on steam.

[HappyHand]

Originally posted by Pyreaus:

Thanks for the information! To my knowledge most of Black Train's stuff is VNs isn't it?

You're correct, Black Train has released 8 VNs and 3 non-VN games, Sujimon Quest, Lust Brand Prostitute and Niplheim's Hunter and he's working on his next RPG. I love his art style so it's possible I'll publish the VNs too, but no promises yet.

Originally posted by Pyreaus:

I don't think you're overcharging or anything, just that it'll be a harder sell in a primarily western marketplace until the niche for these sorts of games grows.

Yeah, the pricing has been a big question mark for me so far, hopefully I'll be able to release all games with a fair price.

Originally posted by Pyreaus:

In regards to publishing/translating other adult games, I did have a bit of an ulterior motive with asking: I was wondering if you'd take recommendations for other well made games that could use translations and would probably do well as a game even without the adult artwork.

Short answer: absolutely yes. I mean I even have plans on translating some Japanese non-adult games after/if I run out of adult games or if I have the chance to publish them. Like this one: http://tamagawasoft.blog113.fc2.com/
Then again, Japanese developers who make non-adult games don't need a publisher, they can just hire a translator, but I guess even that can get expensive.

Originally posted by Pyreaus:

Do you think you'd be interested in/able to work with other small developers like this one? Another one that comes to mind is the author of Flying Princess -Interbreed-

Originally posted by Wrongworld:

also @ HappyHand
should try and track down Eclipse Works who made Ariadne, awesome h-rpg

Yeah, I would be honored to publish all of those games, but man I wish there were like 3 of me so I could actually make some real progress.

I will talk about my translation plans in the next announcement and that includes talking about contacting developers for future translations and also contacting them for a [mystery reason]. I'll reveal it in the announcement, look forward to it. I'll try to hurry up so I'll have everything ready so I can make the announcement as soon as possible, but it's probably going to be pushed back to next week. I'll do my best!

[Pyreaus]

Thanks for your responses and interactivity with the community, HappyHand. It's a really nice thing to see from a dev/publisher on steam since many just sort of ignore the community. As far as non-h games go, yeah, that'd be great too. The Touhou Project ones, for example, never get actual officially translated releases where ZUN can profit off them, despite some doujin games getting published by NISA. If you are willing to take suggestions later on you could always run polls or ask for suggestions from people for example, I think engagement with people in the forum will only help boost sales because people will keep an eye out for things you publish to steam.

[HappyHand]

No problem at all! It's my job and responsibility to make sure all your questions are answered and I like doing it too, win-win situation for everyone.

Yeah, I'm up to anything, but non-h game developers only need a translator since they can publish the games themselves. Then again, I'm not sure how the laws in Japan work, some countries need you to register as a company and pay company taxes and so on and that can be a real pain too.

I plan on making a

and a non-h game list too, but I still need to search the web for more games, finish publishing Black Train's games and do some other stuff too. But yeah, I'll be making the lists later and I'll be asking for suggestions too. I do get a suggestion email every now and then, the last person was a mind reader haha.I also plan on making polls for a variety of other stuff too to improve the quality of service I can give, but no ETA yet. For now, I'll publish Black Train's games while figuring some other stuff out and I'll make announcements whenever there's big news.

[koskeusko]

I'll be 100/100 okay with pricing once we'll get backgrounds.
Otherwise game is a bit overpriced compared to other H-games here. It's like 8 Material Girls, 4 Dark Elves, 2 Makinas or 1 Meltys. At least for my region, can't check global prices.

P.S. More H-games are always welcomed ^^

[Obscurez]

Originally posted by koskeusko:

I'll be 100/100 okay with pricing once we'll get backgrounds.
Otherwise game is a bit overpriced compared to other H-games here. It's like 8 Material Girls, 4 Dark Elves, 2 Makinas or 1 Meltys. At least for my region, can't check global prices.

P.S. More H-games are always welcomed ^^

yes, but you need to buy an uncensor patch for dark elf and material girl outside steam I think and it's machine translation

[koskeusko]

Originally posted by Obscurez:

Originally posted by koskeusko:

I'll be 100/100 okay with pricing once we'll get backgrounds.
Otherwise game is a bit overpriced compared to other H-games here. It's like 8 Material Girls, 4 Dark Elves, 2 Makinas or 1 Meltys. At least for my region, can't check global prices.

P.S. More H-games are always welcomed ^^

yes, but you need to buy an uncensor patch for dark elf and material girl outside steam I think and it's machine translation

Oh. So they're moved to evil alightment? My bad then, i played those while devs posted uncensor pathches themself, and only game with $-patch was Eiyuu Senki