Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel Finally Released!

You can download it from DLsite here! What are you waiting for? GOGOGO!

Also, would you like to win a physical copy of the game for yourself? Stay tuned to our Facebook page, because details are coming soon!

RKS Freudenstachel Official Release Date Announced

GET. HYPE.

The Home Stretch

We're reaching the end run of Freudenstachel's development, and I'm really excited about that! I'm sure you guys are as well, as we never thought this day would come. The final touches are being put on the game, with package design creation and playtesting going on. When will see the release of the game? Who knows, actually. Comiket 82 has essentially passed, and according to the blog, WOMI has no plans to appear at this winter's Comiket for anything, so we may very well be seeing a straight-to-stores release, possibly even a DLsite release with it. We'll definitely see how that goes.

In the meantime, are you playing The eXceed Collection released by nyu media on Steam recently? You may have already played the series or something, but if you didn't actually buy it, go show your support by grabbing it, because it's really good. Well, the first game sucks, but 2nd and 3rd are fantastic. eXceed 2nd is pretty much "moe Ikaruga", and eXceed 3rd is INTERSECT THUNDERBOLT, so get to it! So yeah, play that for a while (and some Ys too, I guess!) as we wait for the release of the long-awaited Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel. We'll keep you posted!

No Ice This Summer! RKSF Delayed with No Release at C80

Well, it’s the moment everyone’s been waiting for (and maybe secretly dreading). The latest update to the [erka:es] blog brings us news that a Freudenstachel release at Summer Comiket isn’t even possible. Here are the details according to our resident translator:

• No changes, even the weekly updates are gone.
• So WOMI's pretty much just going to just wait it out now.
• He's continuing with his part of the game as much as he can, enemies and such.
• Summer Comiket is an impossibility.
• Even if WOMI wanted to go (because they've already applied for it), it's in Isemiya's name, so WOMI can't do anything.
• [erka:es] is run by Isemiya, so if it happens to just up and disappear, then updates will be posted on WOMI's site. He also has backups of stuff, so that shouldn't be a problem. Hopefully.
• He thanks people for sending e-mails, but he doesn't want to jinx anything, so he's just going to shut up about it getting completed and just work on what he can while he waits for Isemiya.
• And if Isemiya doesn't come back, then RKSF will turn out according to what's in WOMI's head. Which can't be good.

Knowing what I do about WOMI, I would actually love to see a special edition of RKS that features nothing but his ideas. It could only be the Modern Warfare 2 of the doujin world, the pinnacle of independent game, nay, of human creation. Just kidding. It would probably be terrible in the best way, and I’d still pay money for it. Alas, we’ll see how all of this turns out. Until then, have fun playing the original game over and over again. Maybe you can start practicing for the inevitable RKS Challenges I’ve got planned up~

You will probably not see RKSF at C80.

At the rate things are going, this is entirely plausible. The latest [erka:es] update shows a timeline of what’s been going on with RKSF and what’s left to do before the game is finished. This is what’s left:

• The Fortress Bosses (think Sepperin Castle and Iris Palace)
• Variations of normal enemies (probably for the Fortresses)
• Story Mode
• Balance and debugging
• Voices

So, literally, almost everything. The main levels are supposedly finished, and I assume that the rest of the RKS cast are accounted for (aside from the Dark Magi, which are probably part of the Fortress Bosses or perhaps like the Doc Robots). Beyond that, there’s no Story Mode in place, there’re barely any voices beyond what we’ve already heard in the demo, and the game hasn’t even reached the testing phase yet.

Apparently, Isemiya was supposed to have had the Fortress Bosses done by February 19th. At this point, he has pretty much gotten in touch with WOMI every Sunday to extend his own deadline for a week. It is now April, and his latest update is “I’ll have it done by the 17th!”. So now, WOMI just wants to go to his house to punch him. WOMI (along with the rest of us, I’m sure) is hoping that Isemiya still wants to even finish the game, so keep your fingers crossed!

Oh, and don’t bother e-mailing them about it. WOMI can’t seem to read any of the mail form stuff, and there’s a chance that Isemiya, for one reason or another, can’t (or won’t) either. It probably all goes to Isemiya, but because they’re not really in contact, WOMI can’t do anything about it.

Welp, we’ll see what happens, I guess!

Go donate to Japan. Do it.

Yeah, something really crazy happened over there, or something, and they need some MORNING RESCUE, so go find some Japan Red Cross outlet to donate to Japanese relief efforts. Isemiya and WOMI would be grateful, I’m sure.

★ - ★ - ★ - ★ - ★ - ★ - HELP JAPAN NOW ★ - ★ - ★ - ★ - ★ - ★ - ★
►http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/11/tsunami-aid-and-relief-how-you-can-help/..­.
►INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS http://www.ifrc.org/en/
►SALVATION ARMY http://blog.salvationarmyusa.org/
►AMERICARES http://www.americares.org/newsroom/news/massive-earthquake-tsunami-devastates...
►SAVE THE CHILDREN https://secure.savethechildren.org/site/c.8rKLIXMGIpI4E/b.6239465/k.544E/Chil...
►GLOBAL GIVING http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/japan-earthquake-tsunami-relief/
►INT MEDICAL CORPS http://www.internationalmedicalcorps.org/Page.aspx?pid=1970
★ - ★ - ★ - ★ - ★ - ★ - ★ - ★ - ★ - ★ - ★ - ★ - ★ - ★ - ★ - ★ – ★

Links taken from this amazing video about the current state of the hip-hop industry.

A boy has the right to dream.

Greetings, everybody. It’s Letty again (it’s about time, really), and I’m here to give you guys an update concerning what’s been happening the world of Rosenkreuzstilette and Schwer and Schwer Alike. It’s been a while, and I owe everyone an apology for that. I promise to be a little more attentive to this thing, mostly since I’m starting to have a reason to care again. There’s much to be done in the coming days, and it’s about time we get started on it!

I’m going to begin with the first thing that everyone’s dying to know about: the status of Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel. And that status is… I don’t know. The Comiket 79 catalog is out now, and [erka:es], in true IseWOMI fashion, is absent from the line-up, meaning that the game clearly will not be released at this winter’s Comic Market. Unfortunately, that’s pretty much all we know. There hasn’t been any significant update to the [erka:es] website since the end of last August, and not a single update either on this month or November. Back in September, there was a response to an e-mail from one “Danielu Yoshikoto” that, as far as I can tell, translates to “RKS:F is still being worked on, and we hope we’ll be done with it soon.” That’s pretty much the last thing we’ve heard about Freudenstachel. Is it done? Is it close to being done? Did they start over? We don’t know, and until they say something else, we won’t. Patience is a virtue, as they say, so we’ll have to show some virtue for this one.

Speaking of, I’m finally in a position to start up that interview I’d been wanting to hold, so hopefully within the week, I’ll get in contact with [erka:es] so I can ask them personally about the Freudenstachel status and some of the intricacies of the original game. I found myself browsing the Wiki again recently, and I really don’t know where some of that information comes from. I’ve pretty much reserved myself to not worry about it until I get better information anyway, but until then, everything there, unless pretty obvious, should be taken with a grain of salt.

Now, on to greater things. Ravy Comics continues to be straight-up atrocious, but I’ve got to hand it to the guy for figuring out some of what he has in the world of “hacking” RKS (though I can’t say I approve of all of it) and for supporting [erka:es] in his own way. That said, one of his little guides includes a way of putting the English script into RKS version 1.06a, since the current patch isn’t compatible with it. If you want to do that workaround by simply copying the scenario.dat file over, you’re more than welcome to, but there’s a reason we haven’t updated the English patch for compatibility, and no, it’s not because TDOMMX has a new job (or because he can't update his own site due to an evil Digimon that took over his computer). It’s actually because we’re doing it over. There was a lot of bad blood between TDO and myself by the end of the project, mostly due to his problems with the Grolla script, and as a result, things didn’t turn out the way we hoped. Because of this, we’ve decided to revamp the entire translation for both Spiritia and Grolla for one final, completed work. I can’t imagine that Spiritia’s script will be too much different, but we’ll see. Here’s the details of the revamp:

The scripts will be rewritten using the current script, the translations we already have from Tanin and Akira, and finally, a new translation done by Ryusui of Watercrown Productions (you may know him from his re-translation of Capcom's Breath of Fire II). Exciting, I know! I will personally handle all of the rewriting with full roundtable discussions over the new script revision (if you’re interested in participating in this, feel free to send us a line about it). Once that’s done, we’ll work on changing the necessary .dat files, as well as hacking the .exe, to bring the script to the new version. But that’s not all! We hope to get some of the original image files for the game, so we can do some more-complete image editing. It’ll make everything feel a little more perfect to us, and in turn, it’ll be better for you all. What’s the ETA on this, you ask? We’ll let you know when we find out.

The art contest is still being worked on. I feel really bad about not having been able to do anything about it before, as a number of circumstances in and outside of my life screwed that up, but it is still on the horizon. The contest will begin anew after we complete the first physical English release of the game. That way, we’ll actually have a prize to send out. Of course, Kiora’s Rosenkreuzstilette AfterStory doujinshi is still out there to be won, and there WILL be a new item up for grabs in the contest. What is that item, you ask? Let’s just say that some people like playing dress-up. That’s all the clue you get!

Grolla novelization is still happening, but first, I’m working on a re-Let’s Play of Rosenkreuzstilette. “Letty!” you may be saying. “That game has been LP’d, like, a million times! Why can’t you be original?” Well, truth be told, I made the very first Let's Play for the game, and I’m absolutely ashamed of it. I want to redeem myself and create something worthy of the game while adding in some tidbits of information and little bonuses that you may or may not find anywhere else. It’s fun, right? Right. So I’m working on that first.

That’s really all I can think to say for now. Please support [erka:es] by purchasing their game if you haven’t already. Heck, e-mail us a picture or copy of your receipt from DLSite (important info taken out, of course), and I might even give you something, even if it’s a little mention here or in a video. Any and all Freudenstachel updates can be found here, as usual, and we’ll keep you up to speed the best we can. Thanks for reading! If I forgot anything, I’ll append it later.

Fairy Tales Can Come True

Given the rather bumpy turn of events these past few days, I'm glad to see that the week has ended on a high note.

While Mint is sorting things out on his end, here's something for you to enjoy in the meantime. I'm very pleased to report that the full English localization of ef - a fairy tale of the two has finally been released. This is all thanks to the tireless efforts of No Name Losers, a group which Akira and I have had the pleasure of working with in the past. ef is a very touching story, and I'm proud that an English version has finally seen the light of day.

You can read the full details here. It's a free standalone release, so no purchase is necessary. If you're still on the fence: