CornStarch Afterword

Salutations Craftknights,

My name is CornStarch. I'm one of the leaders of the translation patch.

I first encountered the Swordcraft Story games back when I was in middle school. I remember I played each one annually for a few years. At some point, I think shortly after I entered high school, I found out there was a third game. I found the translation project that was underway on the GBAtemp forums. I checked on it every week. Then every few months. Then once or twice a year.

At some point I found out there was a Discord server where things were more active. I tend to be a bit... cautious about certain things. I already had a Discord account, but I only used it to talk with friends. I had never joined a public server before. So I went ahead and joined one. Not the Summon Night server by the way. Joining a server was a new thing for me, so the first one was a practice one before the real thing. They had some bot in there that automatically says hi to anyone who joins. It scared me so I left immediately.

About 2 years later I managed to muster the courage to try again. Finally, I had joined the Summon Night server. They also had the bot that says hello to newcomers. But this time I knew it was coming. Well, I didn't know. But I had enough reasonable doubt to accustom myself to the idea of it.

While the server was more active than the GBAtemp forum, there still wasn't much in the way of progress updates. So still, I just waited around until the patch would finally be complete.

On March 8th, 2024 Zelly sent out a recruitment post. I was interested but hesitant. I've never really been part of a team for anything before. But I had seen the names "Zelly" and "Pablitox" for years so I felt oddly attracted to them, despite never actually talking to them before. I also happened to fit a lot of the role requirements. I knew Japanese, I'm a native English speaker, and I like programming. So I sent a message to Zelly stating I wanted to join.

In my typical fashion, I presented her with a detailed list of my exact skillset. What I could do, what I couldn't do, what I want to do, and what I don't. After becoming a leader of the project and doing some recruiting myself, I came to a realization. Most people don't do that. Like. At all. It's usually like 2 sentences tops most of the time. But oh well.

Btw I don't really know how to rom hack. I kinda wanted to learn how, but we have someone who's really good at it, so that was never necessary.

For the next year and a half I worked on and off on the project. Sometimes coding miscellaneous programs, sometimes translating, sometimes proofreading. I took weeks to months long breaks sometimes. I really only worked on it when the mood striked.

On October 31st 2025 Zelly asked me how I would feel about taking over the project. I was unsure if I could do it properly but my main thought process was "f*ck it why not?" But I wanted to ask some questions/talk about a few things before I commited to it. On November 5th it was agreed that Zelly would retire and I would take her place. November 5th also happened to be my birthday. Though she didn't know that when she suggested that time for a meeting.

There was... a lot of work to be done. A lot of work had been done already, but it wasn't very organized. Most everything had been translated, though it was very rough. A lot of the data was spread around in different places. We weren't able to make a new patch for a while because there was no standard, centralized location for all the work to go where it could also be easily converted into a format readily able to be used in the creation of a new patch. So my first job was organize that and streamline the workflow so the team members could edit things easier and we could update the patch quicker for testing. Once I had that all set up, I decided to recruit some more team members.

Since then, progress has been very smooth. 95% of the game had been translated already, though it had very poor grammar and a lot of mistranslations. So I felt it would be better to wait until we were fully done to release the patch, rather than do it incrementally when we finished a chapter.

All of the team members put worked hard to make this a good translation. Though I would like to shoutout a few members in particular.

Firstly Pablitox and Zelly. I'm very grateful that you kept the project alive for this long. If either of you had given up, the translation may never have been able to finish. Pablitox, I've been familiar with your name for over a decade now. I'd check the GBAtemp forum often to see if you had any updates since I was a teenager. Similar situation with you too Zelly. Though I did interact with you much more since I joined the project. You regularly checked up on me and asked about the project's progress. I really appreciated that.

Kuroba. I always wanted to learn about the hacking side of romhacking. Though you were so good at what you did that I didn't need to. I remember when you first joined. It was a couple months after I did. At the time, I think most everyone believed that our program that created the patch was pretty complete. At the time it seemed like you didn't have much to do. Though I could be wrong about that. But after we started picking up steam, we found that there were several problems with the program. And you managed to fix all of them perfectly. You did annoy me at times but I do appreciate all the work you put into the project. If you were not on the team or left at any time, we may not have been able to release the patch at all.

Rielinne. You helped a lot with translating the final untranslated parts of the game. You said often that you felt like you couldn't really contribute after that, and as we keep telling you: You have helped immensely. You are the single most knowledgeable person about the Summon Night franchise as a whole. You participated in just about every conversation. You offered a lot of insight which influenced the way we translated things. And cleared up some mistranslations too.

Blizihguh. I think you are probably the best proofreader we have on the team. You have a lot of knowledge, not only on grammar, but just for writing in general. A lot of your edits were of a quality that I can tell I'd have a very hard time mimicking. I thought I was pretty good at it, but now I feel like I'm just average. This may come off a certain way, but I'm typically very good at the things I like doing. Maybe I like doing them because I'm good at them though. It's been a while since I felt so thoroughly humbled. I always enjoyed reviewing your edits. Especially when you cross-proofread the files I worked on. I know you're still working on your edits which will be added as a later update. I do want to wait until you're finished, but I feel like it's time. The translation is of a quality we can be proud of. The time-cost ratio was just not in your favor to me. You're the only one who can make any significant enhancement to the script anymore, but that takes time. Also. Similar to Kuroba you've also annoyed me on the occasion. Probably not in the situations you'd expect though. I actually quite enjoyed our debates about things.

Alabastiar. You are a proofreading beast. While you may not have the same eye that Bliz has, I was impressed by your dedication to the the project. You were consistenly able to deliver good, quality edits at a very fast pace. You probably sped up the completion of the patch by a few months at least. I appreciate all the time and effort you spent despite being a relatively newer member on the team.

JoZerp. Joey. Joe. You are one of our top testers. You filed 83 bug reports. So about a third of all bugs were found by you. If only your phone didn't break... I know you could've done more. A lot of our testers never actually reported many bugs. Some did, but didn't go through the appropriate channels. I appreciate all the time you took to find and report those bugs. Also that you were able to properly follow the correct procedures. Good boy.

Commander Keller. Another one of our top testers. You joined later than most in the projects lifespan. You applied back in January but we were full on testers. I went back around and asked if you could join sometime in April. You were testing more refined versions of the patch so there were less bugs to find. Nonetheless I was still impressed with how many you managed to find. And the dedication to play through the game several times. I wanted to, but I only managed to do one playthrough. Tbh, my retro gaming days ended a long time ago. So I really appreciate how thorough you were able to be and your dedication to test multiple saves with different combinations of gender and partners.

Lord Vlad. I view you as a very good proofreader as well. Though you haven't made as many edits as others. You were also planning to proofread the script after Bliz finishes his edits. I look forward to seeing what changes you make. You're not as talkative as some other team members, but you participate in a lot of our more important conversations. You tend to exude this aura of wisdom when you speak. To me, at least. I wish you the best on your French translation of the game. I can answer questions you may have on how some of the tools, or quirks about the script, but I don't know any French so I can't help there, unfortunately.

Sincerely, CornStarch