Hellsinker English patch RELEASED!

[BPzeBanshee]

[O. Van Bruce]

Oh man... I'm tempted to think that Tonnor trolled us stinky Gaijins. I'll be rofling if he makes an 1.10 patch with something new.

[BPzeBanshee]

I'd guess that since he's been keeping track of the thread he spotted the people complaining about the keyboard support and went straight onto it like a good programmer should. Who knows.

[Zaarock]

I'd guess that since he's been keeping track of the thread he spotted the people complaining about the keyboard support and went straight onto it like a good programmer should. Who knows.

Meh, the game has been out for way longer than this thread lol. Sounds like this patch doesn't really matter unless it breaks replay compatibility

[mauve]

Sounds like this patch doesn't really matter unless it breaks replay compatibility

Yup. That's why I'm not going to bother.

You guys are making way too much of this.

[Op Intensify]

On the front page of TIGSource.

Like most shoot ‘em ups, the goal of the game is to advance through the stages and earn a high score

Gee whiz, I never would have guessed!

He did link to Rancor's store though.

[Op Intensify]

Is there any way for this to run in non-windowed full screen? Pressing the maximize button stretches it.

[Cadrin]

Sure there is. Run Hellsinker, then uncheck the "Start in windowed mode (640x480)" box in the settings menu that appears before launching the game proper. You'll get your actual fullscreen but I'm not sure if it will keep the image from becoming stretched. In my case using fullscreen does not help. Which is why I instead use Sizer to resize the window to approximately twice its original size. That way I can still see things pretty clearly without stretching the image to fit the panoramic monitor.

Oh I remember reading Noah's thread on Tigsource about Hellsinker long ago. I thought the article on the game would never be published on the main page. But then it did! Hey, publicity!
The writeup on the main page indeed seems kinda bad, though. Maybe it's supposed to be concise, but, you know, I think it failed to grasp the concept of the game in fewer than 200 words.

That made me re-read the original thread. (I just wonder how Noah managed to put together this picture. It's pretty funny.) I guess the person who was supposed to do the writeup never did that in the end, and so the administrator tried his hand at doing that instead? Then he just pasted the links from Noah's post, including the one to Treasurance's video, wrote what little he knew about Hellsinker and called it a day. Maybe.

I... don't really know. Problem is, Noah seemed too extatic about the game to form coherent arguments, I guess. Kinda like how Treasurance named his video, which Tigsource linked to, as "BEST GAME EVER", without stating why, and instead letting the music and images do the talking. This is where I believe TvTropes got it right: its "Mind Screw: Video Games" subsection has a picture of Hellsinker's final fight at the top, with a link to the video that shows its entirety. There is no doubt that one of the game's unique qualities is the ability to be extremely trippy/delirious. Why yes, yes it is a spoiler, but just to a degree, because you do not know what is going on anyway after watching the video alone. And that video actually got me sold for the game.

(Speaking of TvTropes: heeey, someone finally helps Matteste correct the typos that he makes - neat. You might want to remind him that mistletoes are actually spelled "mistELtoes" everywhere in the game, but I guess that doesn't matter so long as people get the point and what a misteltoe is.)

Then there is the plot, which is never discussed in detail, let alone brought up at all. It might be supplementary to many, but it's actually quite interesting.

So people in Noah's thread always seemed to have reservations towards the game. I don't think that article will change much in that regard, but oh well. At least the game got a mention.
I think I'll try to help develop the wiki during summer to do something productive and help the fandom. It's good to have a place in which newcomers can find out just what exactly is going on when they come looking for more information, having seen one of the cooler parts of the game on YouTube.
Really gotta make a full playthrough with annotations explaining the story, and the many quirks of the game, as well. Something like what that guy, raak1010, did to Touhou 8 (sans fanmade music, I guess, and stretching of the image). He attempts to narrate his playthrough while commentating on Touhou "lore", so to speak. The result is a pretty interesting let's play.

[matteste]

Really gotta make a full playthrough with annotations explaining the story, and the many quirks of the game, as well. Something like what that guy, raak1010, did to Touhou 8 (sans fanmade music, I guess, and stretching of the image). He attempts to narrate his playthrough while commentating on Touhou "lore", so to speak. The result is a pretty interesting let's play.

I had been planning on something like that but I still don't grasp the story fully yet but I'm getting there. The main problem for me is that I suck at this game, I think the Sniper summed up my skills quite nicely.

Also a bit of topic but does anyone know of any full replay on the Hellsinker scoreboard that features Kaleidoscope or Floccinaucinihilipilification in the final section instead of just Garland?

[O. Van Bruce]

Do you want that replay for scoring purposes or just to watch Kaleidoscope?

[matteste]

Do you want that replay for scoring purposes or just to watch Kaleidoscope?

Just watch.

[O. Van Bruce]

Before watching this replay, I would recomend you what most people do: Practice and see it by yourself with you own effort. It's better that way but, anyway:

http://www.mediafire.com/?00rhf212496pyyh

The only thing I spoiled me from this game before clearing it was the first extra and it was by mistake. The rest has given me a very deep impression and I strongly belive it was because everything I reached was completely new for me.

BTW, that replay it's just my 1cc with Minogame... don't expect some high level play from it.

[matteste]

Why do you exhume the forgotten legend?
What promts you to chill your vitality,
filling your veins with artificial blood,
in your search for that which does not exist?
Do you find beauty in each reiteration,
each time you have followed this path?
You will find nothing but the scars that war us all.
Nothing but the remains of the long-dead river, drawing your gaze.
We, echoes of the past, feel it no more.
Have you found reason for it once again?
When all that remains is a name, abandoned by time,
who will notice? Who will find it?
Will the words lose their very meaning?
Will you end the legend, once and for all?
The forgotten legend, masterless and lost!

Now this text really caught my attention. I don't know really what to make of it. To me it seems like a oneway conversation by the protaganists questioning the Prayers motives (Considering they where orignally human). But it seems it can also be interpered as a two way conversation between them and Rex.

What do you guys think?

[O. Van Bruce]

He simply prevents Deadliar and the others about the errors from the past and lectures him about the other times GRAVEYARD has tried to enter the innermost part of the Cardinal Shaft even after continues and bloody failures. Rex Cavalier doesn't want that Garland works again.

[knackerjack]

I thought he was talking more about the mistakes of humankind itself. That they should just let what sits at the center of the Garland system stay there, rather than attempt to reclaim it.

[Cadrin]

I don't know guys, I think Rex might be very familiar with the executors. You know what the Garland system says when you reach it after using a continue, right? It denies you access for about 8400 hours or so - that is equal to almost a year. It probably gives the Perpetual Calendar ample time to completely rebuild itself and the prayer defenses.

The motives behind prayers were always quite unclear. They are very enigmatic. They seem to be neither alive nor dead. Which, when you think about how much mankind tends to fantasize about immortality, kinda makes sense that prayers used to be humans. Inhabitants of the artificial island on which the Device was located, perhaps?

And when you think of what calamity befell the world... What was it, exactly? What really happened there? Did so many people wish for immortality that Garland shaped the tides of karma to allow them to get just that... by inventing a technology that unwittingly turned them into deathless machines? Or was the disaster just an effect of a simple karmic backlash that was growing in power with every second the Hellsinker was active, and when it finally shut itself down and the flood gates opened, it was already huge in proportions, delivering immense amounts of punishment to all living beings affected by the Device?

We don't even know why the Hellsinker stopped working in the first place. And the cat might or might not be related to that.

So anyway, maybe... just maybe... the prayers guard the device in order to prevent other people from turning it on, knowing full well that when, in time, the remaining people out there wish for immortality, they will meet the most grim fate?

Did the prayers shut the Device down? Maybe there never was any karmic backlash? Maybe the Hellsinker was an otherwise perfect contraption, alble to completely nullify negative karmic forces?

Damn me and my theorycrafting. I really gotta read that manual and the ghost archives once more.

But yeah, I think Rex really means just that: "Turn back. Let the legend (and the technology) be forever forgotten. The Device cannot be used to achieve our delusional dreams. And we are a testament to that." - so, pretty much what Knackerjack said.

EDIT - unrelated to the rest of the post, but I propose you this: the Fossil Maiden's Actual Pacifist challenge. Survive the full sequence order up to and including the segment 8 level 3 boss without killing a single unit (so, your kill score has to be equal to 000,000). Ideally, you should use Fossil Maiden because of how screwed over her movement is, i.e. it is independent from your speed setting and depends solely on what shot type you are using. All weapons are allowed. Adept for maximum self-ownage.
I think I am going to play with this challenge for a bit, see if it's even viable, but I don't see why not. The targets during Garland's reboot process cannot be killed repeatedly or even once, Solemn Orchestra does not spray Hidden Archives everywhere repeatedly, you might be able to upkeep the satisfaction from it during Solar Plexus if you are extra careful, or at least use Bacillus Cloak during Quasar and hope you don't accidentally break any of those ever-so-brittle pieces of released data. The final fight is bullspit with all those barriers made of papier mâché - plus I think the final boss itself has to be "killed" repeatedly. But even if it doesn't, then good luck dishing out adequate amounts of damage within the time limit.

[knackerjack]

Adept for maximum self-ownage.

Adept will probably be a necessity; your suppression radius kills things, and so much stuff in Hellsinker spews little destroyables that always get caught in your field. For example, Thorned Chain during the resuscitation process basically forces you into a position where your suppression field is going to kill those Hidden Archives.

It may be quite possible, as long as you keep your stella low. Maybe Kagura's Infernal Sabbath or Fossil Maiden would work best, since you never have to hold down the fire button to use any of your more powerful attacks (and bringing up a suppression radius).

I'm interested in trying this too, since I can't seem to grasp the intricacies of Hellsinker's scoring.

Oh and reaching Lost Property 771 is probably right out; you have to do a ton of damage to Garland to reach it, and each ring you take out counts as a kill iirc. It also spews hidden-archives every couple of seconds, so probably nothing short of a tool-assisted run could do it.

[Captain]

Oh and reaching Lost Property 771 is probably right out; you have to do a ton of damage to Garland to reach it, and each ring you take out counts as a kill iirc. It also spews hidden-archives every couple of seconds, so probably nothing short of a tool-assisted run could do it.

Simply start firing basic shots at it after the phase where it's in the middle of the screen and you have to go around it behind a "shield".
I can only see you having trouble with that if you're using Minogame.

[Cadrin]

The final records you get in the game are confusing to me, because they are no longer told from your executor's point of view, I think. "Memento message in Cardinal Shaft" might be just that - a piece of a journal found inside, probably written by one of the residents, some time prior to the calamity. In comparison, it seems to me that all pieces of information provided in the manual might be treated as excerpts from the GRAVEYARD archives.
"Quadruple One Afterimage" seems to be the Quadruple One itself, talking about itself, what it is, or was, how it once woke up and there was nobody around anymore - nobody but the cat...
And finally, "On the Edge of Circle" seems to be told from the perspective of the cat and how it dreamt together with the Quadruple One, until the cat's wish was granted. Yup. How GRAVEYARD managed to get their hands on the last two records is anyone's guess.

"However, the passage of time proved to be the bane of the Mechanism.
That rhythm of life, reaching from the depths of the earth high into the sky, began to deteriorate, slipped gear upon slipped gear, until at last the waves came together.
The waves, overlapping again and again, their amplitude ever swelling--rising to unparalleled heights, and falling to again just as far.
A failure--a breakdwon--appropriate to the grandeur or the Mechanism. It was known as The Collapse."
That piece from the manual invalidates most of my guesses in the previous post concerning the cause of the Collapse. Reading it really does answer questions. Funny, considering the Quadruple One says that it was built to stand the test of time.

I toyed around with pacifist runs in Hellsinker. Mostly one segment at a time, because my attempts at full sequence order usually end on stage 4. But here is something to consider:

- Since Fossil Maiden's suppression radius does not depend on the Bootleg Ghost radiance setting, you can use Solidstate to no ill consequences. But that feels like cheating. Overall she might be THE best character for pacifist runs, since she trades precision control for a bullet-cancelling attack on a relatively short cooldown and a non-damaging bomb.

- Activating Fossil Maiden's Bacillus Cloak (the 5 second invincibility) seems to actually do some damage to enemies right on top of her or just next to her. I found out by accidentally killing some hidden archives during segment 8 boss fight.

- Segment 8 bosses: shooting them gives you kills. Sometimes, Garland will damage itself on green beams of light coming from the top and give you kills. I recommend the Glitched Kaleidoscope as your choice of the final boss, because it spews those destructible crystals all the time. And I find it slightly more challenging than the regular Kaleidoscope.

- Segment 1 LEAD, while it looks like (compared to segment 1 BEHIND) you could trade a harder main segment for skipping the boss fight... When Rex Cavalier blows up, you get some kills (about 11) for no good reason.

- Only one of Quiet Minstrel's attacks in phase one is aimed directly at you, which makes it an extremely easy boss to time out. Most of the attacks will miss you completely if you don't move.

- Shooting down heat-seeking missiles counts as kills, so you have to juke them like mad during segment 4.

- Saint Mauve releases some tiny, destructible enemies as he/she transits between attacks, you probably cannot nuke him/her down so that he/she uses an attack that is easier to avoid than the first one. Not without accidentally getting some kills.

- Shooting Curious Mediator's named "arms" while they are extended counts as a kill. I find it easiest to just nuke him down quickly to his third attack, but I have to be careful not to shoot the Noble/Rude Gunner. That being said, Curious Mediator's second attack is incredibly hard to avoid for me.

- The extend fountain in segment 6? Gives you kills every time you touch it.

[Zeether]

Will this ever get properly localized by Nyu Media or some other company? I don't want to pay outrageous import prices for it.

[mauve]

Probably not.

We only touched the game because it was like four years old and nobody in sight was looking into it, although Nyu was making some noise near the end there they seemed supportive of our efforts. We did get permission from Tonnor for release as well, though he could revoke it if he felt like it, he seems to have liked what we did.

That being said this game was a pain in the butt to get translated and I'm not at all sure it would sell well (it is, to date, gs.o's least popular translation. Not surprising, but a bit disappointing.). If Nyu or whoever were to come to us, though, maybe we could work something out w/ the existing translation...

Though I have no idea who the hell would want to deal with a game written in Delphi.

[Zeether]

Ugh, seriously? I don't want to pay $25 to import this. Disappointing. I've suggested it to Nyu Media and they would be a great company to do it, but if that's never happening then that's a goddamn travesty.

Also, why are you basing sales on how popular a fan translation is? I would buy this game if it were available via digital download with the translation and I'm sure others would.

[mauve]

Also, why are you basing sales on how popular a fan translation is? I would buy this game if it were available via digital download with the translation and I'm sure others would.

Because it's about the only thing I have to go on. I don't even know what % has imported it, nor do I know how well it does in Japan itself.

"Not sure." != "Yeah this isn't going to sell." but more "I'm not a marketing person, so I have no idea how well it will do, but what I do have doesn't look so great." That much of the translated content would rank it out of the all-ages category doesn't help.

I'd seriously love to be proven wrong. It's not like gs.o's fanbase overlaps with shmup players that much these days.

Fan translations themselves should be done to increase the exposure of a product more than anything else. FWIW I'm getting out of this stuff for good, half because I don't want to touch the majority of non-Touhou things as they do stand a good chance of localization nowadays, and half because modern Touhou doesn't interest me. At all.(Still waiting for Suimusou2/IaMP2. Likely forever.) Hellsinker is just a thing we had all wanted to do for years and the timing for it was finally right, we absolutely don't want to tread over any legitimate localization efforts. But, honestly, we weren't seeing it happening, and we did get permission in the end, so.

[Cadrin]

Hey Mauve, are you still here? You know, back in the day you posted the first menu screen from the game with all the text removed. Sorry to bother you, but I wonder if you could do that with the remaining three menu screens? They would make great wallpapers. Would it also be possible for you to extract some notable bits from the menus like the large, star-shaped symbol from menu 1, or that amazing Garland logo from menu 3? (Especially the Garland logo. I cannot find it anywhere in its entirety.)

I don't even dare ask you about the messages from the Shrine of Farewell. It's not like they are that important to the story anyway, are they?

By the way, for anyone who might be interested: check out my modified version of an official wallpaper that I found by chance by browsing the Google image results. It's probably nothing new. I find it very good-looking, especially that logo, and I'm using it as my wallpaper right now. I rescaled it to a 16:10 widescreen resolution and touched it up a little (the original reads "SHAINE of fare well" instead of "SHRINE"). The original and some more wallpapers are found here.

[AntiFritz]

It's easy enough to rip graphics from hellsinker yourself using a program like dragon unpacker and extracting from the .pak files.

Although due to the way the menus are constructed they're made from multiple pics (to allow animation etc).

Like so.

[Cadrin]

Ah, thanks for that. But could you tell me specifically which program you used to make that happen? I tried Dragon Unpacker 5.6.2 and it says that bbt (and bbt2) is not a valid .pak file. Apparently there are various kind of .paks out there. Maybe I need a certain plugin for DU to be able to open those files, I don't know.

[AntiFritz]

When the message pops up saying its not a valid .pak file, click ok and the hyperRipper window should open. If it doesn't you might have to run that manually.

[Cadrin]

Okay, I've got this. Once again, thanks so much.

There's some scrapped stuff in the .paks in "bmp" folder that nobody has mentioned before. Like some "Forbidden Seal" in the Shrine of Farewell. Or the names for another set of three attacks. Maybe there were originally five relics planned for the Shrine, I don't know.

It also contains the texts of all the endings. That matteste guy was interested in them - and for good reason, it seems. I'm not sure what I'm reading, but I'm almost sure those texts contain many answers. Guess I should show them to him. He's the only one who tends to Hellsinker's TVtropes page. It's not the wiki, but the wiki is dilapidated and abandoned, so I guess there's no better source of information.

There are actually eight endings in the game, it seems. Including the most popular "empty" ending you get for beating the true last boss. That's odd. Three of them seem to be specifically about Deadliar, Minogame and Fossil Maiden. Maybe there's one about Kagura as well, it's hard to tell. That leaves four other endings. One for Rex Cavalier, and three for levels 0, 1 and 2 of Garland, I guess.

Curious...
Those texts are almost indecipherable without context, though. I guess you have to beat the game yourself in order to connect the dots properly.

[mauve]

There are seven endings in total.

Four - for each character clearing Satisfaction level 2.

One for clearing satisfaction level 1.

Level 0 has no ending.

Two for game overing to segment 7 boss's death explosion. (I have never been able to activate the alternate directly via the game, but it was tested with a hack so the translation works. Confirmed location via Japanese wiki, anyway...)

Edit: And yeah about the shrine text, sorry been way too busy to really do anything with it. Take a hex editor to the exe and search for 'Why this time' or something, should be able to find all the text in at least dialogue box order from there...

[Cadrin]

Thanks Mauve, that helps. And yeah, I guess I'll just look for those messages myself.

Also, I've just spent over 9000 hours in GIMP to remake by hand the third menu, using the Garland logo .bmp found in tests.pak, and turn it into a wallpaper: check it out! It's not very good, because the original graphic is 512x512, so this 2560x1600 wallpaper is blurry, but I couldn't sharpen it without messing up the colours. I hardly ever make any images.

Next up: the second and fourth menus. It's not that hard.
second menu: LINK

EDIT: fixed the wallpaper a bit (it cut out at the bottom inexplicably)
EDIT: updated dead links (seriously hope they don't 404 on me again), added the second menu wallpaper