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                                 Shi Kin Jou
                               (Forbidden City)
                             English to Japanese 
                                 Translation
                                   v. 1.00

-------------------------- DEDICATION & INSPIRATION ---------------------------

This translation is dedicated to Bongo' even though he kept "forgetting" to
actually attempt to decompress the font. I figure he's done enough other things
for "the scene" to warrent it anywayz, so there you go. Now if he'd just get up
off his lazy ass and learn a worthwhile programming language, he might be able
to do something useful.

I'd say that I was listening to Tori Amos' covers album Strange Little Girls as
I was hacking this game but since that album hasn't come out at the time of this
release, that would be admitting to pirating it, which is wrong. So we'll just
pretend like I was listening to the 3 track demo that was sent to radio stations,
even though the Depeche Mode cover I'm quoting isn't actually on said demo.

		All I ever wanted / All I ever needed
		is here, in my arms / Words are very
		unnecessary / they can only do harm.
       
               - Tori Amos "Enjoy The Silence"

------------------------------ TABLE OF CONTENTS ------------------------------

    I. Dedication & Inspiration
   II. Table of Contents
  III. Introduction
   IV. Version History
    V. Distribution Notes
   VI. Technical Notes
  VII. Staff
 VIII. Tools
   IX. Patching Instructions (** READ THIS BEFORE ASKING QUESTIONS!! **)
    X. Contact Information
   XI. Closing

--------------------------------- INTRODUCTION --------------------------------

Shi Kin Jou is an interesting puzzle game where you can play as a Hopping
Chinese Vampire, a Cavalier Knight or a Shadowy Ninja in an attempt to escape
from the Forbidden City. You do this by matching tiles so that you can open a
route to the door and escape to the next level. There are amusing cut scenes
interspersed every so often to ease your frustration.
	This is just a menu patch, as there is no in-game text, but it was far from
an easy hack do to the compressed font. See the Technical Notes section for
details.

-------------------------------- VERSION HISTORY -------------------------------

v. 1.00 - September 03, 2001

What's Complete
 - all text translated

What's Incomplete
 - Nothing that I'm aware of...

----------------------------- DISTRIBUTION NOTES ------------------------------

This Shi Kin Jou translation should be distributed in a file named skjv100.zip
and should contain the following files:

	   skjv100.ips - the translation patch
	 shikinjou.txt - this readme file
	   skj-man.txt - a manual for the game

All three files are (C)opyright 2001 by Suicidal Translations. All rights
reserved. You may distribute this translation in any manner you desire as long
as the original archive remains intact with no modifications and the archive is
distributed free of charge.

Shi Kin Jou is (C)opyright 1991 by TOEI Animation.
	

------------------------------- TECHNICAL NOTES -------------------------------

The translation is pretty much 100% accurate to the original meaning. The only
minor exception is that there wasn't room for Chinese Hopping Vampire so I just
stuck with the shorter & simpler Vampire.

The font in this game is oddly compressed. It shows up clearly in Nesticle but
there's no VRAM so I couldn't hack it that way. When you look at it in a tile
editor, the font is hopelessly scrambled in NES mode and in 1Bpp mode there are
duplicates of each tile. I also tried viewing the font in 2Bpp on someone's
suggestion but it was still scrambled.
	What I eventually figured out was that by moving the alignment around in
Tile Layer, I could isolate individual characters and then edit the character
as long as the new tile didn't use anymore color 1 "dots" than the original
tile did. Also, for some odd reason, the font would become corrupt if I
inserted any tiles that had exactly 5 "dots" on both the right and left sides.
More or less on either side and it was fine but 5 on each caused a problem.
     Well, as you can see, I eventually got all of the tiles I needed inserted.
This was possibly the most frustrating hack I've ever done but I'm proud to say
that I managed to do it on my own and you can see the results for yourself.

Recommended Emulator: Shi Kin Jou works just fine in Nesticle which is my 
emulator of choice due to the fact that I'm on an extremely slow computer. It 
will presumably work fine in just about any emulator.

------------------------------------ STAFF ------------------------------------

    Hacking - InVerse - http://www.pigtails.net/ST

Translating - Tomato - http://www.starmen.net/tomato
              
------------------------------------ TOOLS ------------------------------------

The following tools were used during this translation:

     Hexposure: hex editing
Tile Layer Pro: font hacking
      Nesticle: beta testing
   Patch Maker: IPS patch creation

Most of these tools, as well as ROM hacking tutorials can be downloaded from
RHDO (http://www.romhacking.org) or Zophar's Domain (http://www.zophar.net).

----------------------------- PATCHING INSTRUCTIONS ---------------------------

Patching a ROM is extremely simple. You need three things. A ROM, the patch and
a patching program. To patch with ips.exe, you simply type:

	ips <ROM name> <patch name>

So if your ROM was named shikinjou.nes and the patch was named skjv100.ips you would
type:

	ips shikinjou.nes skjv100.ips

Make sure you have the ROM, the patch and IPS in the same directory.	
	
To patch with SNES Tool, simply select USE IPS, choose the patch and then 
select the ROM to which you wish to apply the patch. It's self explanatory. If 
you can't figure it out, the game is probably too hard for you anywayz.

To patch with IPSWin, you simply select the ROM you want to patch, the patch
you wish to apply and then click Patch. Once again, if you can't figure it out,
the game is probably too hard for you.

------------------------------ CONTACT INFORMATION ----------------------------

 The official Shi Kin Jou home page is currently located at 
 http://www.pigtails.net/ST

 E-Mail addresses concerning the project can be located on the official page.

 Do NOT, under ANY circumstances, ask for ROMs. You will not only be denied,
 you will have your request for illegal files forwarded to your ISP.
 
------------------------------------ CLOSING ----------------------------------

 So there you have it. Have fun and remember, it's just a game.

 -InVerse