This is Kimura-san, your indie-videogame-making Uncle.
As you know, I’m currently hard at work developing a new RPG.
Today, I’d like to talk about “seriousness and unseriousness”.
Game development is something like a “locomotive of seriousness”.
Developing RPGs, especially, is a long-distance train, like the Trans-Siberian Railway.
We are a very small development team… but, day in and day out, we work very seriously to keep the coal burning, in the locomotive that is game development.
Shoveling in programming, drawings, music, and everything else… all of these things become heat energy, which keeps the locomotive moving.
Put another way, we are a busy, steady locomotive that chugs along, puffing out smoke.
But what exactly is the “game itself” that such a serious locomotive produces?
This is Kimura-san, your indie-videogame-making Uncle.
As you know, I’m currently hard at work developing a new RPG.
Everything has been progressing steadily, little by little.
Today, though, I’d like to talk a little about the “Customary Cave.”
Sometimes, when I’m making a game, it feels like I’m in a dream.
In the dream, I’m exploring a dark cave, equipped only with a simple torch.
It’s dark, it’s dank, and you can barely see a foot in front of your face.
But, you forge ahead, armed with the belief that at the end, there will be treasure.
I’m in that cave again, and I’ve been feeling all those same feelings.
You get lost.
You make mistakes.
You butt up against enemies.
But sometimes, sometimes, you stumble upon treasure…
These days, I’ve been hard at work every day, mostly just here at home in my room.
From time to time, I’ve been hearing little voices asking, in English, “are you OK?” Am I hallucinating from working too hard?
Between COVID-19 and everything else going on in the world right now, it’s taken us some time to make a proper announcement, but I wanted to reach out and give you an update on our current situation.
We have finally (finally!) reached the last stage of debugging the English version of moon.
The first draft of its translation was actually finished a while ago, but given that this is the first time ever that you’re all going to play it in English, we wanted to take even more time to polish the script.
Moon is full of so many subtleties in the characters, their strange personalities, and idiosyncratic ways of communicating. We wanted to do even more testing than usual to make sure all of that came through clearly, felt special, and guided you properly through its world.
Today, we’re starting to debug the latest build that includes all that extra polish. We just need… a little more time. The goal is really, actually in sight!
Well, the year is almost over, and it was a good one for me — thank you very much for all of your support as we released Dandy Dungeon on Switch and Steam, and moon on Switch here in Japan.
I’ve been looking over comments you’ve all been leaving on our Discord and our Twitter lately, and I think it’s well past time to give you some direct progress updates from our little studio.
I know we said the English release of moon would be “coming very soon”, and clearly that was a little optimistic. I’m really sorry it’s taking this long, but the translation and implementation of moon is… very delicate. We need more time to finish it, but please rest assured the English version is still on the way, and we hope you can be patient with us!
The English version of moon is being prepared by a tiny, tiny Onion team. I mean… Onion Games itself is very, very small, but these Tiny Onions are working very hard, every day, to get everything ready for you.
The localization of moon is actually going great! But there are many, many more things involved than just translating the text. I’d say that the translation itself is more than 70% done, implementing that translation is around 20% done, and then debugging and checking the translation is about 5% done.
I think, all added up, the project as a whole is at about 40% done…. probably!
We have all been working incredibly hard lately, juggling multiple projects and issues at once (including…. new games no-one’s even seen yet!). But that means even though we’re working hard, we’re working slow. I hope everyone is ok waiting until everything is really, truly ready!
Personally, I want to be even more involved than usual in the localization process, and also contributing more to our New Game Ideas, but… to tell the truth.. my brain, my body… my mind are all so, so exhausted.
I need a proper rest. I have been working too much this year. I need just a little time to recover ahead of everything we’ll have coming in 2020.
Give me time!
Give us more time, please!
Thank you very much,
Yoshiro Kimura
2019/12/24
By the way, here are links to the other Switch games we‘ve released. While you’re waiting for moon, please play them!!!
Hi guys.
We are going to go IndieCade2014 culver city LA. And we want you to play million onion hotel. Please play and tell me what you feel.
And this is trailer.
Please come and play our game.
Me and taniguchi san join this festival.
Taniguchi is composer of Chulip and moon.
and Kimura’s best frriend.
This million onion hotel’sound is 100% taniguchi-san’s music.
I love it
I was not anticipating that I fly to LA again as indie game developer.
I need big courage like a child of elementary school first year.
I love indie game people of USA.I am afraid of watching a lot of good indie game.but I GO.I MUST GO absolutely.
