A Sky Full of Stars: Fine Days Translation Patch Released

FINALLY here we are at the end of this complete mess of a road. Firstly, of course, we’re incredibly sorry for how long this has taken and how many expectations we doused. But we promised it would come, so it has come. And in the time it took for that, I’ve somehow grown to the point where I look back at this with much scrutiny and doubt as to whether my early translation decisions deserve to see the light of day. This wasn’t just my endeavor, though, and everyone’s combined effort throughout these absolutely nonsensical few months absolutely needs to come out. This was my first real project and I will be proud of it and think special of it for that. I learned a lot. Like, a LOT. And I very much enjoyed working on it, so I hope you all enjoy reading it. A big, big thanks to the entire team, Bish for the extra editing help, Inferno for the invaluable tech assistance, and Saito for finishing off the patch coding as well as the images!

I want to address something while I’m here, though. Some of you may be frustrated with a seeming lack of transparency here, but please keep in mind that we’re people behind that screen. While we will endeavor to maintain our characteristic openness, there are things we may not wish to be made irreversibly public. Transparency to us does not mean explaining ourselves for every decision made or delay incurred. It means being open with you all. Open to feedback, to your comments, suggestions, and showing you all that we are, indeed, people behind the screen. We want to share in the hype throughout our work and share in the frustration when there’s a delay. Please understand that we do this as a passion. When things fall behind or walls are hit, we’re frustrated too. We love the support you guys show for us, and we make apologies like this because we set expectations high, then crashed them down with empty promises, and that’s not right. Mistakes were made and, moving forward, we will learn from them. However, while we will apologize for our blunders, remember that we’re all just a bunch of fans (until someone decides to pay us).

Now, that said, I know a lot of you are here to ask where the restoration patch for Miazora’s H scenes is. To which I would like to answer, and make clear once again: This was never confirmed. It has not been, and is not being worked on. I would also like to make clear: This will likely never be confirmed. There were times when we were more inclined to do this in the past, but as everyone moves on to new things (both in life and in our work here at Alka), we get less and less motivated to put things on pause for this. While I would love to be nice and say “This isn’t a hard no,” I’d rather not get anyone’s hopes up and just come right out and say this is most likely not happening. Anyone who might want to do their own translation is welcome to get in contact with us and we’d love to help with what we can (IE set up and the like, not actual technical, editing, or translation work), but we, at Alka, are moving on.

Okay, all that aside, a little about the actual game! A Sky Full of Stars: Fine Days is the fan disc to just plain old A Sky Full of Stars, developed by Pulltop and translated by their western branch Moenovel. It’s a story about stars (go figure), childhood regret, and forgiveness. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good romance, or if you’re an astronomy buff! Now Fine Days includes after stories for each of the four heroines (all fun in their own right) as well as three, short, new routes entirely, including Honoka, Miharu, and Hinami. Anyone who enjoyed the original game will find something to like here, so by all means, give it a read! Also, as you might have guessed, this game was a technological nightmare, and although we tested things rather thoroughly, we are but human. Please give us a shout if you encounter any issues!

Before I sign off, some comments from the team:

Hello, Bish here with my first release under Alka! Originally I wasn’t going to work on this project at all, but due to all sorts of circumstances, I ended up testing and editing several routes. I haven’t read the original Miazora yet, but still found this game enjoyable overall! Not sure who best girl is, but for now it’s a tie between Pikarin and Honk. – Bishounen-P

This project was honestly a massive learning experience for the team in a lot of facets. There were a myriad of ‘never again’s that happened this project and while that does mean that the project had a pretty wild road to get here… it’s turned out for the better because we turned out a stronger and more learned group in the end. Here’s to the other projects going along much smoother. – Kitaro

Okay, now it’s finally time to move on to greener (or should I say BLUER. HA.) pastures. Head over to the Downloads section for instructions on how to enjoy A Sky Full of Stars: Fine Days, and look forward to Reflection Blue!

43 thoughts on “A Sky Full of Stars: Fine Days Translation Patch Released

  1. Jackkel says:

    I still haven’t gotten far in the original game just yet, but I’ll be sure to download this and make sure it works soon so it’ll be ready for me. I was really bummed out when I finally began playing the first game, only to realize my favorite character’s route was only in this fandisk. I’ll probably end up liking some of the original four as well, but I’m super excited to know that I can finally play the route I wanted to exist from the start. (Too bad I didn’t wait for the game to go on sale, only for it to do so right as this comes out…)

    Also, while I’ve never experienced people coming up to me and saying some of the things I’ve seen said to you at Alka about the hypothetical other Miazora patch, I know–as a writer and developer–the feeling of not wanting to burn bridges while also not wanting to commit to something halfheartedly. The one time I caved and decided to start working on something that many people claimed to want, all of those very people lost interest because it wasn’t what they expected and/or it wasn’t being finished quickly enough. So when it comes to hobby projects (like a fan translation almost always is), it’s certainly better to follow passion rather than expectations.

    Short version: I, for one, understand that you may not ever pick up the other patch. I’m sure others will express anger or disappointment, but you don’t have an obligation to give your free time to people who don’t respect your time and effort.

    At any rate, thank you for working on this translation! I’ll almost certainly show up again if I find any bugs that make it hard to play the game; I’d like to actually play through the translation, after all. But hopefully whatever you did behind the scenes was able to quash the bugs and we can enjoy the finished product.

  2. Below Average Joe says:

    A little hiccup I ran into while installing the patch… I was only able to install it with locale emulator set to Japanese (admin). Otherwise, Windows Defender craps the bed and the patcher won’t behave. That said… works like a charm once I got past that!

    • Infernoplex says:

      Ugh… Yeah, this needs investigating. Thanks for bringing it up. I’m in JP locale on my PC, but I didn’t know it would cause the installers to misbehave on non-JP locale setups.

      Edit: Okay, tried the ENG locale. The patchers work fine for me in ENG locale, but I am on Win7. I think I know what the problem was on your end. Admin rights + Win10. It’s possible that Windows Defender doesn’t like the fact that I compiled the installers on a JP locale Win7 setup. I’d verify this, but sadly, I don’t have Win10 to test this. Are you sure the problem wasn’t related to Admin rights perhaps? The patcher is setup to require it by default and will not work properly if the user hasn’t got complete Admin-level control. I might look into this later if it proves to be a problem for many users. Thank you for your report. Let me know if you find any more issues.

      Edit 2: Okay, we found out that there is indeed a problem when you try to run the patchers on Win10 ENG locale. I tried to fix it, but no dice. Even if I switch to ENG locale on my end and compile the installers that way, they won’t run on Win10 ENG locale at all. It seems to be a bug with Win10 regarding Japanese filenames (although there aren’t any Japanese filenames at all inside the installers… I don’t know what’s going on). So for now, we’re gonna update the info page and ask for Win10 users to switch to JP locale just for the installation of the patch. Thanks for the report 🙂

      • Kyle says:

        I followed these steps and have my windows 10 running in Japanese locale. Even running as admin it keeps saying it can not find the AdvHD.exe

        I got mine from the DL site and I have tried all the patches all giving the same error.

        • Infernoplex says:

          Did you remember to put it inside “data” folder? DLsite copy’s game files are inside “data”. Ignore the “AdvHD.exe” outside the “data” folder.

  3. Roddyboii says:

    HI! Just downloaded and installed the patch on the Regular Version! It patch successfully but there’s currently an issue with Saya’s route. For some reason, at the start of the route during the scene on the convenience store, the whole scene is in Japanese. Everything after that is fine, but that scene has like, a lot of dialogue.

    Other than that, I really like what you guys did with the user interface. It’s really good! The translation of the dialogues are super top notch! Thank you guys for this great patch!

    • Infernoplex says:

      Thanks for the report. I looked into it now, and all the text script files are translated. The problem may have happened with the script compiler. Can you send me a savegame at the exact spot where the text becomes untranslated?

      Edit: By the way, while you’re at it, check if you have a “Rio” folder (specifcally “Rio” folder, not “Rio.arc”) inside your Fine Days folder. If you do, delete it completely, and then let me know if that fixed the issue.

      • Infernoplex says:

        Yeah, I knew we should have mentioned it from the start. The copies that have Hinamin DLC already installed would have that bug after our patch is installed. It’s because there are conflicts with some script files. We updated the Downloads page info now. Our patch is aimed only at non-Hinamin raw copies of Fine Days + Anniversary Edition that has it by defualt.

        Anyway, I’m glad the problem went away 🙂

  4. You-kun says:

    Thank you for your hard work and release of the patch!

    Now, I don’t really want to demoralize or offend you guys but I don’t think very high percentage amount of people going to read a fandisk without reading actual vn. I mean maybe this is a fandisk rather than an actual sequel but who would start reading a series of book from second book?

    I know there is a moenovel translated version of first vn but most people tend to dislike censored/butchered products and don’t read them (except for mostly ignorant steam community maybe?), so, because most people would’t read first vn they wouldn’t read fandisk either. As for mostly ignorant steam community, since they are ignorant they will not know about existence of fandisk let alone a patch for it.

    • Infernoplex says:

      Yes, we’re aware of that, but it’s what it is. The Fine Days patch was aimed toward those people who read the original Moenovel release and didn’t mind the lack of H-scenes there. Maybe the targeted audience isn’t that big, but we’re fine with that. This project was done mostly for fun and experience building (at least speaking in my own name, but I believe it goes for all of us at Alka). Sadly, we don’t feel nearly as motivated to do the same for the original game right now (or have the time for it in my case). On top of that, we’re currently more interested in other projects. Log will correct me if I said anything wrong.

  5. Mathiel says:

    Hi guys,

    Just wanted to thank you for what you’ve done on this game!
    I’ve not finished the original game because I couldn’t get my ‘after route nostalgic CG review’ due to the patch breaking the CG viewer…
    But now thank to you I’m back at it, and I will follow up with Fine Days right after. And maybe even use Interstellar Focus to finally start learning kanjis again (is it good by the way ?).
    Motivation overflowing !

    Anyway, I am really grateful for your work. Thanks again.

    • Log says:

      We’re glad you’re excited! I’ve never actually read Interstellar Focus myself, but summer uniforms are always nice, ya know? Also, good luck in your studying!

    • Infernoplex says:

      Thank you for the kind words ^^

      As for Intestellar Focus, I heard it’s just a threesome fandisc scenario for Hikari and Saya. So it’s more about the porn than plot. I don’t know if it’s any good or not, but I myself am interested in it 🙂

  6. hibarign says:

    Guys, i don’t know how to express my gratitude, so for now just Very Thanks. I’m from Brazil, a country that VN is even less popular than those that speak english. I’m with you since the first try to translate Summer Pockets and my experience in the community made me cetic about finishing the work, but always support nontheless because warm my heart see people spend their time to make a game reach wider audience just for love. Keep in mind that always will be people that think you must do for them just because you said that you would try but i belive that most of us take your efforts in consideration and know that you’re people who’re doing out love and trying their best. Anyway, thanks again and i’m anxious for your next work.

  7. Cube-Chan says:

    Actually, speaking of the base game, is it any good?
    I mean I’ve never heard anything but the worst kinds of horror and shocked disbelief at Moenovel’s translation quality.
    So I guess what I’m asking is if the original game is even remotely a good experience?

    • Log says:

      Personally, I understand people’s distaste with the game. It’s not the best translation and the H scene censoring sucks. But all that said, it was still fantastic enough to motivate me to spend months of my life translating the fan disc, so I’ll let that speak for itself. I very much enjoyed the base game.

    • Infernoplex says:

      The base game has become one my favorite VNs ever, but to be honest, I am not very happy with how Moenovel did it. The VN is good, and I like it, but Moenovel simply didn’t do this masterpiece justice. I am not talking only about censoring, but the general quality of the localization itself.

      Can it be enjoyed? Yes, certainly. Many already enjoyed it, in fact.

      Is it a good localization? No, I wouldn’t say so. But it’s what it is. We won’t get a better one.

  8. Tennouji Kotarou says:

    So it’s finally out. Thanks for your hard work.
    For some reason it feels like Alka Translations group used to function more properly when Rinny was there. Well at least that’s how it looked like from the public perspective. Of course I don’t know how things are behind the scenes and of course I’m not trying to be rude here.

    Looking forward to Reflection Blue btw. Good luck.

    • Log says:

      We at Alka decided unanimously that it would be better for all of us, individually, and thus collectively, to continue our work separately. We apologize that it’s seemed that way to the public, but this project has its origins reaching back several months and was disorganized from the outset. You have our promise that we will learn from these mistakes moving forward and we thank you for your support!

    • Infernoplex says:

      You mean of the patch or the game itself? For the patch installation, the instructions are on the Downloads page.

  9. Cube-Chan says:

    Actually, why does Honoka’s route say “Yoshioka After” in its initial transition screen?
    Neither Hinami nor Miharu have “After” as part of their initial transition screen.

  10. MD. Nafiul Haque says:

    I have finished playing Fine Days today (16:46, 7 September 2020) by Hikari After Story, and I loved it!!! Extremely thanks to all of you ‘cos it’s my most favorite VN and I was really waiting for the translated Fine Days by MoeNovel, (which isn’t needed now) but it came from you guys. Thank you, thank you and thank you. And I have a request. If you guys wish, then please please please, sooner or later, take the pain of translating the Interstellar Focus. Thank you so much again…

  11. terwoonwin says:

    Sorry I’ve just seen this patch. I’m so happy but I wonder if this patch can be used to a sky full of star steam version?
    I installed the patch for regular version then did everything as admin told but it told me that it didn’t find advhd.exe
    Can someone please help me? TT

  12. Andrew says:

    Guys , I downloaded it from Steam but it’s called A Sky Full of Stars but without the “FINE DAYS”, can I still download the regular edition fine days patch?? I tried but it failed or maybe there is another way?

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