Remember when I used to do this?
First, a personal note, because this is a blog and that’s my prerogative. About six months ago, I was laid off. It sucks, but it is what it is. When I joined over a decade ago, I was one of about 35 people on a team doing build and install tech for software development and servers. Recursive, I know. I made it down to the last three after all the reorgs and ‘resource actions’ that tech companies do, and there’s only one poor dude left trying to support a tool used by a billion dollar product and embedded in god only knows how many financial systems. Given that my main work was infrastructure and testing around obscure technology instead of sexy apps or AI, with the AI nonsense, and *waves hands* the world situation, the job market is significantly less than ideal. I’ve gotten plenty of both being told I’m overqualified and don’t have the exact specific skillset required, but mostly, thanks to general en-terribleness, get mountains upon mountains of transparently AI generated phishing emails. Thanks, LinkedIn.
So… yeah. I have a bit more time on my hands now. I’m totally fine as far as finances goes, massively moreso than at the genesis of this blog some 18 years ago when I was still a student. Yes, I’m old. I was kind of doing the whole early retirement FIRE thing anyway, mostly through not having any expensive lifestyle choices or crippling student debt thanks to wealthy parents, plus investing in tech, which has given me some extra time to do things like walk dogs, bake overcomplicated things, play through a number of games and confirm that they do indeed only get worse the further in you go, and ‘finish’ half-abandoned projects.
Such as Bunny Black 3. Which is a game about being fired for a job you already had and having to reapply for it. How topical. Far from my favorite game, the weakest of the trilogy in my opinion, and I can’t say that I’m thrilled with the current state of it, nor that it’s actually ready for release, but this has been festering for about two years, worked on in spurts every 2-3 months or so, which is a horrendous way to do any kind of project, especially a translation where consistency is a premium. More than once, I have opened things up and thought “What moron completely mistranslated this? Oh, right. This moron.” Bunny Black 2, let’s remember, took about seven weeks, start to release. Busting out 3k lines a day feels so nostalgic. A single porn scene is exhausting these days.
But it’s not getting any more finished, the technical issues remaining seemingly not getting resolved without external help, and it does nobody any good to have it sitting in some hidden repository indefinitely. It’s technically playable… as far as I’m aware at least. There are probably bugs, both introduced by the translation and simply existing in the game to begin with. Maybe someone can fix the technical issues that I can’t. Or report new ones I’m not aware of. Now I can say that the trilogy is completed. We don’t talk about the restaurant management sim followup about his daughter. RIP, Softhouse Chara.
And by the way, if you’re wondering what Eushully is up to these days, they’re remaking 20 year old games by replacing the animations with… nothing. Seriously. The original was a straight up Fire Emblem clone. The remake is like a cheap, half-assed mobile game asset flip. Bumper Banchou had more in its animation and style than this. …Cool, guys. Really cool. Way to be with the times. How on earth are you the only company that seems to have survived the transition to the internet market? Can’t say that I’m eager to jump into anything else, especially since the VN industry has self-destructed entirely instead of getting with the times, but who knows. There was a Switch roguelike about getting drunk that had a pretty fascinating artstyle I’m very intrigued by, or would love to have an excuse to touch up stuff like GA or BMW for nostalgia if nothing else, but for now, I walk the dogs, bake, and continue to lament the state of anime until something catches my fancy. Peace out until Thursday.
