Tasunke's Random Ramblings

So, in commemoration of Pac-Man’s 30th birthday, Circle K in Japan is going to be selling Pac-Man buns.

No, that’s not a hamburger patty, from what I understand, it’s supposed to be some kind of cookie. Going to be looking for these when they go on sale on the 13th of January for the price of 120 yen each. Here we see the mouth area cut out of the bun to expose the innards of it. Looks delish!

Source: 30周年を記念した中華まん「パックまん」発売 (ITmedia) via Twitter via Kotaku. (Pics from there, too.)

With most of my finals over, I actually have time to resume some translations. Also, Google Translator Toolkit is awesome. So, here’s the information from the latest ai sp@ce update, after the jump. (Pic from Safebooru)
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I’m sure many of you have seen the incredible Kumikyoku Nico Nico Douga automatic Mario video. For those who have never seen it, let me briefly explain. The idea is that by using a Super Mario World level editor, one can create a level that essentially moves Mario through it, by it self, without the player ever touching the controller. Basically, the level auto-plays, hence the term “Automatic Mario.” Well, someone decided to setup an auto-play level, such that it would make semi-musical accompaniment to music. In this case, a medley of songs popular on the Japanese video-sharing website Nico Nico Douga.

Well, the author of the original video has created another one that ups the ante a bit. Without spoiling too much, lets just say you get 4x the the Mario you did before. ;) This one isn’t a medley, but is instead only the opening theme for the Key game “Little Busters!.” Video from Youtube after the jump.
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As part of my effort to translate more ai sp@ce stuff for users, I recently setup an ai sp@ce events page on the ai sp@ce Crunchyroll group, where I’m posting my efforts at translating ai sp@ce event notices from their website. In addition, I plan on translating the ai sp@ce patch notes. Details for the November 24, 2009 update are after the jump.

There’s also a mention that there was a known issue with downloading the latest patch, but, if I’m translating it right, it should be working now. If it failed for you earlier, just try downloading it again.
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So, watching ai sp@ce’s RSS feed, I caught their announcement of the second round of public testing of their squirt gun game. (I know I’ve used “watergun” in previous posts, but “squirt gun” is what I grew up using and feels more natural to me. n.-) This one is going to be running from the November 17, 2009 5 PM maintenance to the November 24, 2009 11 AM maintenance.

Anyone who logs in during that period can participate in the game. However, there will be some stats reset after the end of the test. There’s also a couple of warnings/caveats, and announcement of a gift for testers. Further details after the jump.
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So, something popped up on the ai sp@ce website recently that I missed until this evening, as I was busy with other thing, such as studying. ;) It seems that there is going to be a “comic” (that’s the word they used, in katakana, so I’m using it as well) based on ai sp@ce, which will be previewed in one of the special editions of Dengeki G’s Magazine known as “Dengeki G’s Festival! COMIC Vol. 9,” which is to be released on December 26, 2009. Serialization is to follow. The title of the comic is to be called, if I’m reading this correctly 「あいすぺ＠」 … Don’t ask me how to read that. ;)

What makes this more interesting, however, is that they’ve decided to let the ai sp@ce users decided which of four character templates to base the heroine charadoll off of by using an online poll. This charadoll would be the partner of the main character of this comic. The voting period ended Sunday night in Japan, right before midnight. The four character templates will be explained after the jump.
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As some of you may already be aware, Konami released a new DS dating sim game this fall known as “Love Plus.” Konami is, of course, famous in this market for their Tokimeki Memorial series. The difference with this game, however, is that it continues after the player has successfully wooed the girl. (This is likely the source of the use of “plus” in the title.) From what I understand, the bulk of the game is interacting with the girl with her being the player’s girlfriend.

The website “boingboing” recently posted an article entitled, “Advisor: My husband has a virtual girlfriend,” in which a Japanese couple living in San Francisco was interviewed about the game and if/how it has affected their relationship.
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A notice was posted on the ai sp@ce website on the 16th with regards to the (apparently) widespread client crash issue.

Essentially, they acknowleged, as of 6:05 PM that day, that there was a bug that was causing clients to crash after logging in and selecting their avatar. They also stated that they are currently investigating the cause of the crashes and would announce when they have tracked down the cause of the bug. As far as I can tell at this time, they haven’t put out that announcement yet, so it’s likely they’re still working on it.

This is likely related to the watergun shooting game, which appears to be quite popular and is putting a huge strain on the ai sp@ce servers (as I reported on earlier).

Full text and translation of the announcement after the jump.
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Update: It seems that the shooting game has been temporarily taken offline. After the server came back up from maintenance, the woman you have to speak to in order to warp to the shooting game lobby is gone.

So, I logged on to ai sp@ce today after the weekely maintenance and managed to get a round of the new watergun shooting game in. I didn’t manage to get any screenshots, but it was fun. ^^ A review with screenshots will be forthcoming, but not until after they fix the server issues they’re having.

After my one round, my client started acting funny, and eventually dropped me back to the login screen. When I logged back in, my charadoll was there for a few seconds, then disappeared, and I had to go out of the lobby (into the UDX building main lobby) to get her to re-appear. However, she disappeared again when I tried to re-enter the shooting game lobby.

A couple more disconnects later, I managed to get back to the shooting game lobby with my charadoll, but again, she disappeared. Then came across a message from management about 10:30 PM local time.
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ai sp@ce has announced plans for a 「公開テスト」, or “test open to the public,” for the anticipated watergun shooting game. I translated that as “open beta” for the title of this post. ;) If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I would suggest checking out my other ai sp@ce posts for more details.

In short, what’s been revealed so far about the mechanics of the game includes the fact that it’s a game where you control your charadoll to shoot at enemies with a watergun. In addition, if the enemies shots hit your charadoll, they knock off parts of her clothing. Also, your charadoll can gain various powerups by cosplaying. Different costumes give different effects, and require sets of in-game items to be equipped as clothing on the charadoll to give the powerups.

The announcement post about the test was on September 29th, and is after the jump.
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