********************************************************************************
*                                 Ripple Island                                *
*                           English Translation Patch                          *
*                              v1.00 (22 Aug 2018)                             *
*                                                                              *
*                              Supper -- Hacking                               *
*                       TheMajinZenki -- Translation                           *
*                              cccmar -- Editing and Testing                   *
*                                                                              *
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The tiny isle of Ripple Island was once a peaceful and abundant land. But since 
the evil Groaker appeared, kidnapped Princess Nasarell, and proclaimed himself 
the Emperor of Darkness, black magic has begun to destroy the island's natural 
environment. Seeking to end this conflict and claim the reward promised by the 
good King Dotella, a young boy sets out on a journey to Groaker's stronghold 
north of the island...

Ripple Island is a 1988 Famicom adventure game developed by Tokai Engineering 
and published by Sunsoft. It's a significant departure from the murder mystery 
and detective adventure games that dominated the Japanese market at the time, 
instead focusing on gentle themes, colorful graphics, and a fairy tale 
storyline.

This patch fully translates the game into English.

                    ****************************************
                    *          Table of Contents           *
                    ****************************************

  I.   Patching Instructions
  II.  Authors' Comments
  III. Localization Notes
  IV.  About Area 2

                    ****************************************
                    *       I. Patching Instructions       *
                    ****************************************

You'll first need a headered ROM image of Ripple Island. Historically, the game 
has been labeled "Lipple Island" in ROM set databases; the standard name 
recognized by No-Intro is "Lipple Island (Japan).nes". Its MD5 sum should be 
1c4434d47e58a41ed3752fd2bd4fc916.

Before trying to apply the patch, make sure the ROM image has an iNES header. If 
your ROM's filesize is 131,088 bytes, it's headered. If the filesize is 131,072 
bytes, it's unheadered (and will not work with this patch!).

This patch is a standard IPS patch. Use a tool such as Lunar IPS to apply the 
IPS file to the ROM. The patch will expand the ROM to 256 KB, so don't use any 
ancient patching utilities that don't support that.

                    ****************************************
                    *        II. Authors' Comments         *
                    ****************************************

  ------------
  -- Supper --
  ------------
  
This is another project I ultimately owe to Game Center CX. Ripple Island was 
featured in a bumper segment of an episode I watched some time back; it seemed 
interesting, but when I looked it up, I discovered there was no translation 
available for it. Fast forward a few years, and it turns out that (a.) there's 
still no translation and (b.) I'm now in a position to do something about it. So 
I started in on the hacking, brought it up with cccmar and TheMajinZenki, and -- 
skipping a few hacking headaches in between -- here we are.

This is a really nice little game, and one I'm very surprised wasn't already 
done at some point in the twenty-odd years the game translation community's been 
around. It's got good graphics for 1988, excellent music, and even multiple 
endings; the only big strike against it in my book is some really awful puzzle 
design in Area 2 (which is bad enough that I've devoted a section to it below). 
Nonetheless, it's quite a charming game and well worth a playthrough.

As far as hacking goes, this game wasn't too tough. The big thing is that it 
originally used a nice 8x16 font, which I ended up reluctantly converting to 8x8 
for the translation. I hated doing it, but anything else would have required 
reprogramming most of the game (not happening) or drastically shortening the 
dialogue (really not happening). Hope no one's too disappointed, but I think the 
replacement font gets the job done. At least the original font is still used for 
the credits.

Since I don't have anywhere better to put it, I'll mention here that this game 
has a cheat code: to view the true ending, enter "ATSUSHISAKAI" as the first 
part of a password (the remaining letters don't matter).

Enjoy the game!

  -------------------
  -- TheMajinZenki --
  -------------------
  
This is the first game of this genre I've ever translated, so this was a 
somewhat different experience as far as translating goes, as this game has less 
direct dialogue and more "reaction" text for actions. At any rate, it's a 
charming, cute adventure, and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did 
translating it.

  ------------
  -- cccmar --
  ------------

When I contacted Supper regarding Kishin Douji Zenki, he was looking for someone 
to translate Ripple Island, a text adventure game by Sunsoft -- one of the few 
text adventure es Sunsoft has ever done. I decided to ask the translator I knew 
best about it, TheMajinZenki, and he agreed to give the script a go. It didn’t 
take him long to complete it. Afterwards I did some proofreading of the script, 
so as to present a more complete version of it to Supper. Interestingly, some 
characters in the game speak using dialects (like Groaker) or with exaggerated 
accents (like the Armadillo, who is possibly a Chinese Pangolin -- hence the 
Chinese accent). Overall, this is a pretty simple, heartwarming tale, very 
similar to old fairytales in structure, but with some twists and turns on the 
way. Hopefully you will enjoy it, because I most certainly did!

                    ****************************************
                    *       III. Localization Notes        *
                    ****************************************

Mild spoilers follow.

This game had a few bits that didn't translate very well to English, so we 
localized them as best we could. Anyone familiar with my (Supper's) project 
history knows I have a bit of a thing about accuracy in translations, so I'm 
including notes here on what we changed, plus explanations of some jokes that 
didn't make it in. Hopefully this will placate others like me.

  Groaker: The only name we actually changed. Originally "Gerogeeru" (from 
"gerogero", onomatopoeia for a frog's ribbit). Groaker has what TheMajinZenki 
thinks might be a Nagoya accent; I ended up going with a sort of mobster dialect 
for him. I hope no Nagoyans are offended.
  
  Dotella: From the Japanese name, "doteera" (a pun on "dotera", a type of 
padded kimono worn for warmth; he wears one).
  
  Nasarell: From the Japanese name, "nasareru" (a verb meaning "to do").

  JUSTINBAILEY: Originally "TOMOYONODAIPINPON", which can be understood as 
something like "Tomoyo likes this a lot" -- literally "Tomoyo's *BA-DING*", in 
the sense of a "that's right!" sound effect. This was the tagline to a 
contemporary Japanese commercial for the Toyota Corolla II Windy starring idol 
Tomoyo Harada, which as of this writing can be viewed here: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilSzBp7FtCY Obviously, none of this makes any 
sense in English, so I went for something more recognizable (and spent a 
thousand times longer debating this dumb throwaway gag than the game designers 
ever did).

  Tanuki: The drunken tanuki uses Edo dialect on top of being drunk. We 
basically just went with drunk-speak.

  Armadillo: The nameless armadillo speaks in a stereotypical Chinese accent, 
which the translation hopefully conveys well enough. We have no idea why he has 
a sign reading "fitness"/"health". Apparently he's just a proponent of a healthy 
lifestyle.
  
  ATSUSHISAKAI: The cheat to view the true ending. Atsushi Sakai is, presumably, 
some staff member's name. The Japanese version uses hiragana and Japanese name 
order ("Sakai Atsushi").

                    ****************************************
                    *          IV. About Area 2            *
                    ****************************************

While most of this game's puzzles can be solved with appropriate application of 
logic, there are some very, very unfortunate design issues in Area 2 that make 
it far more of a pain than it needs to be. The rest of the game is fine, but 
Area 2 is bad enough that I've decided to include some critical information here 
to try to make it more tolerable. If you find yourself stuck in that area, I 
suggest you check the information below, because even if you manage to find the 
solution on your own you probably aren't going to feel terribly rewarded.









*** PUZZLE SPOILERS FOLLOW ****









Three required items in Area 2 can be acquired only through a blind hunt. Here's 
how to get them:

  1. From the start of the area, go North, West, West, North to enter the foxes' 
cave. Choose the PICK UP action, and click on the stalks growing out of the 
leaves in the bottom-left corner of the screen (don't click on the leaves 
themselves!). The female fox will then give you the White Flower. Don't do 
anything else while in the cave; angering the male fox will cause him to 
permanently kick you out, rendering the game unwinnable if you don't already 
have the White Flower (note that this is the only unwinnable scenario in the 
game).
     
  2. From the start of the area, go North, North, West. LOOK at the bush on the 
left side of the screen to reveal a Red Fruit. Note that if you pick up and 
subsequently lose the Red Fruit, you can come back here and repeat the process 
to get another one.
  
  3. From the start of the area, go North, North, East, East, North, North. PUSH 
the tree on the right side of the screen and an acorn will fall from it. As with 
the Red Fruit, this can be collected multiple times if needed.

The rest of the area, and the game, should be perfectly doable without further 
help.









*** END OF SPOILERS ****









