And you thought your Planets were safe... these marines in their FrogDropPODs are designed to enter planetary defenses and drop the green marines directly into battle!

Fleet sets sail in a few days for BC!

--

I actually realized my last show I had used the Dark Green/Bley colour scheme before, and with a bit of work could repurpose it for a FrogMarine drop vessel with orbital shock pods ;)

With the BC Expanse invasion only days away, the brave FrogPilots test out their newest addition to their fighting fleet - the FrogBomber.

These bombers were specifically designed to destroy any SHIPs that they may encounter, including the mighty SHIPs from the:

Pascal Group,

The Elephant Empire,

Krakozhian systems,

Dover Divide,

or even the Vas vermin.

With the support of the humble frogPod these pilots will make short work of all those that stand in their way...

The original FrogPOD, this shuttle was the first reusable Space Transportation System the FrogNation used to reach lower orbit.

--

Built for Calyin cause she's awesome and made my day when she took a FrogPOD on a tour of Cape Canaveral

HAPPY #FROGust!

The FrogNation Carrier safely transports the Frogsplorers in style to explore strange new worlds.

Procrastinated way too long, was reminded of this great month by flickr.com/photos/193793729@N04/ and got this guy out. He'll be protecting it's precious cargo to @BrickCon

You still have time for FROGust!

RIBBIT!

That'd be a Destroyer class vessel, not a thing that destroys Frogs. You can't destroy FrogNation silly.

Fleet sets sail in a few days for BC!

--

I actually realized my last show I had used the Dark Green/Bley colour scheme before, and with a bit of work could repurpose it for a Destroyer class vessel.

Hokus Croakus! It's a Wizard Frog! - Built initially for #frognation at Brickworld Chicago 2025 but it is #frogust so I get 2 birds with one stone... or maybe two frogs with one stone?

Hokus Croakus! It's a Wizard Frog! - Built initially for #frognation at Brickworld Chicago 2025 but it is #frogust so I get 2 birds with one stone... or maybe two frogs with one stone?

HAPPY #FROGust!

The FrogNation Carrier safely transports the Frogsplorers in style to explore strange new worlds.

Procrastinated way too long, was reminded of this great month by flickr.com/photos/193793729@N04/ and got this guy out. He'll be protecting it's precious cargo to @BrickCon

You still have time for FROGust!

RIBBIT!

Sample: Radio Free Mars

I was fairly lucky when it came to writing/translation credits, in that none were ever expected and none were given. While most people in the content localization trade stick to straight-and-narrow translation, working on big titles made me realize early on that the job had to involve a lot of rewriting if one were at all interested in doing quality work. With established agencies like INTAC, credit is not an issue. The agency is listed in the game's translation credit, and the translator gets decently paid for most parts because it's understood that she's both a ghostwriter and a translator. This sytem ensures that no personal jockeying for credit takes place, and nobody feels screwed over.

It was when I took a small 'fun' job with an agency I'd just hooked up with that I ended up with a bad case of the morning-after.

The job involved translating a fictitious DJ spiel for the newest "Cowboy Bebop" album. It seemed fun, and the agency partner I met with encouraged me to write more stuff, since the Japanese original he'd written was a little slim and pop culture reference wasn't quite on the mark. I did a significant amount of additional writing, renamed it "Radio Free Mars", and gave it a more hipster feel with overt cultural crossovers. My boyfriend ended up providing the voice of the DJ — we went over to the guy's apartment (it was a 3-person outfit with no office as yet), and recorded stuff on a portable ADAT. Very homebrew, seemed issue-free, except that when the album came out, I was listed only as the translator, and the agency guys took full, personal credit for the writing. They even translated my English DJ sequence back into Japanese and printed it in the liner notes.

Is there a point to this? I am turning this into a cautionary tale even as you shift about impatiently. Now where was I? Oh, yes. When an agent shows a predilection for indulging in completely unnecessary forms of pettiness, you know you're not going to have a good relationship, and they're probably not going to get too many juicy contracts. Content localization is a pretty narrow and very competitive industry, and while there's a lot of small, disorganized outfits operating in it at a given time, none of them do very well over the long haul unless they shape up. Case in point, I had to permanently ditch this particular agency after they proved very leisurely with their payment following the PostPet job. Six months, a dozen unhappy translators, some appalling excuses—no way to do business. So if you're thinking of doing some work in this field, keep your contracts non-exclusive, and try to avoid hooking up with inexperienced agents. Payment as promised: that's the point of being freelance. After all, if you prefer not to be paid for the hours you put in, you can always take a salaried position.

Sample: Turtle Dialogs

In Japan and the rest of East Asia, newbies have an alternative to AOL: Sony. With their unerring insight into our silliest desires and boundless supply of SSEN (sugar 'n spice 'n everything nice), Sony created an ISP division, then dressed up the humble e-mail in a pretty thing called PostPet. After all, who wants to tell sendmail what a good little protocol it is when you can do the same to a pink teddy bear that lives inside your computer and carries your mail to other people? While your pet is out visiting other PostPet users online, you can even buy her digital treats and furniture (yes, the pets have their own rooms, unlike many of their owners). They even talk to you via e-mail.

PostPet was a logistically difficult project since it wasn't arranged by my usual agent, but by a very small operation that was way in over its head. The organizational horrors aside, it was a nice break from mutants and aliens. I ended up doing the dialogue for threeor four characters in addition to a lot of UI stuff, and was pleasantly surprised by how much care had been put into the characters. They're flat little things by all accounts, but they really are designed to grow on the user. Sort of like Sanrio characters that way.

The success of the PostPet franchise in Japan, HK and Singapore indicates a hunger for 'comfort interaction' that is distinct from other types of virtual socialization. Massive multiplayer games, ordinary chat rooms, online dating and porn are predictably popular, but a large number of people are also willing to pay money to maintain an illusion that they have a little friend they can love living in a bright little room inside their computer. Kinda makes you want to put that yearning to good use, doesn't it?

For all the hard work, alas, PostPet 2000 did not take off in the U.S.

"PostPet 2000"™ and its characters and images are the property of Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. This low-resolution image is solely used to identify the game in question. No free equivalent of this image exists. This image does not allow users to make illegal copies of the software, and does not diminish the copyright holder SCE ability to market the software.

Sample: Demo file

AC3: Electrosphere, the third installment of the successful Namco franchise, is a FPS/flight-sim-action set against a sweeping backdrop of intense corporate warfare (yes, WAY too many people read Gibson) in a bright, high-tech and trigger-happy future.

I was brought in to do a demo translation of a story chapter by people who were supposedly contracted to write the screenplay. Soon after, Namco decided to lighten the budget by ditching much or all of the plot content for the non-Japanese release.

For whatever reason (though my admittedly biased view is that cutting the story didn't help), AC3 didn't make quite the splash that a release of its size should have. All the pre-localization hype surrounding the massive storyline turned into a chorus of boos and then fading grouses when the change was announced, which meant that there wasn't a lot of interest left when the title was finally ready to ship. A shame, really, since gamers who did play it almost universally praised it and it won a respectable number of "Player's Choice" distinctions.

"Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere"™ and its characters and images are the property of Namco Bandai Holdings Inc. This low-resolution image is solely used to identify the game in question. No free equivalent of this image exists. This image does not allow users to make illegal copies of the software, and does not diminish the copyright holder NBHI ability to market the software.