Japanese HeroQuest: Rulebook Translation

[AerynB]

So, I'm not exactly sure where to put this. Mods, feel free to move it to the appropriate subforum. I just want a place to keep track of my translation attempts.

I started with the rulebook, thinking, if I could get used to some common phrases -- like Barbarian, Wizard, spells, attacking -- I'd understand the quests a little better. It's slow-going so far, especially when the text isn't easily copy/paste-able. Here's what I've been working on for about an hour. It's the first two lines of the rule book.

Japanese copied/transcribed from scan
ヒーロークエスト
ルールブック
ある日、4人の勇者がニーフ島の王に呼び出された。
これがヒーロークエストの始まりで ある。

Google Translation
Hero Quest
Rule Book
One day, hero of four is called the king of Neef Island.
This is the beginning of Hero Quest.

My Best Guess
HeroQuest
Rule Book/Instruction Manual
One day, four heroes were summoned by the King of Neef Island.
This is the beginning of HeroQuest.

Not bad, huh? Hopefully the rest of it will be just as nice and simple. *fingers crossed*

EDIT: Pages 1 through 11 translations done. See the attached pdf.

EDIT 2: Deleted previous file. All pages complete except Index on page 23. See the attached pdf below.

RuleBook_english.pdf

[AerynB]

Well, the first page is done. I wonder what's the best way to get this information to you nice folks. ...*thinking*

RuleBook_1a_jap.jpg

Oh good, attachments are uploading again.

RuleBook_1b_eng.jpg

RuleBook_1c_eng.jpg

RuleBook_1d_eng.jpg

I realize this was probably an easy page because it's basically the same contents as in our western versions, but it's a good basis for translating tougher stuff. I think. I hope. And it only took me...*looks at clock* 4.5 hours. Well, one page down, 22 to go. *looks at rulebook* Oops, one of the pages is a blank game board. Ok, 1 page down, 21 to go.

[Sjeng]

the red text is obviously the game box's contents
nice work!

[AerynB]

the red text is obviously the game box's contents
nice work!

True. I just don't know why google translate has something so entirely different. And I can't corroborate it on any other internet translation sites.

[AerynB]

I'm chugging along this fine Saturday morning. I'm working on page 3 for now because page 2 looks like assembly instructions for the gargoyle and furniture and such. I'll come back to it later, but I wanted to get started on the rules parts of the manual. I'll leave this post as a placeholder for when I get to page 2.

[AerynB]

Done with page 3. There was a lot more text, but it was all very similar to the basic HQ introductory stuff. One thing that did catch my eye was that the Evil Wizard/Morcar/Zargon character is called the Demon Lord Grimdead of Darkness, or Grimdead the Demon Lord of Darkness, or something like that. Throughout the rest of the rulebook, he'll be referred to as just Demon Lord. Also, the quests are broken up into chapters and difficulty levels. Quests 1-3 are Chapter 1 and they are Beginner level. Quests 4-8 are Chapter 2 and they are the Intermediate level. Quests 9-13 are Chapter 3 and they are the senior or advanced level. Finally, Quest 14 is the Final Chapter and uses the advanced level rules.

It does say that Maximum (or Starting) BP will increase when a Hero levels up, but Maximum MP do not increase. Lastly, a Hero whose BP or MP go to 0 dies. Apparently MP become more important in the second half of the quests.

Here's my translation efforts.

RuleBook_3a_eng.jpg

RuleBook_3b_eng.jpg

RuleBook_3c_eng.jpg

RuleBook_3d_eng.jpg

[Daedalus]

On page 3 your changed Hero Quest to HeroQuest. This doesn't match up with the NA Instruction Book, which refers to the game as Hero Quest within the text found on its pages. This common misconception that the name of the game is one word is derived from the block-lettered title of the game found on the box cover and outside of the books.

[AerynB]

doh! *smacks forehead* I'll go change that.

[AerynB]

Found a small error of mine. A lot of the Japanese letters and characters look similar and because sometimes I can't copy/paste, I have to look closely at the kana and choose the correct one from my Insert Symbol button in Word. Well, I messed up one letter and the heading for page 3 that was once nonsense is now Introduction.

I had transcribed the heading as:
はじぬに
when it should have been:
はじめに

Whew. I feel much better about that.

[AerynB]

Cruising right along. Done with page 4 now. We're in the Game Parts section, discussing the gameboard, character cards, and character sheets. The only weird thing is trying to figure out adjacency and if it includes the diagonals. I think they talk about the four front, back, left, and right squares surrounding a figure as "facing squares," and all 8 squares surrounding a figure (the four "facing" ones and the four diagonal ones) are known as "contact squares." Maybe that's their way of distinguishing weapons. Most weapons just attack the facing squares, some weapons can attack all the contact squares (i.e., weapons with reach), and some weapons can only attack figures NOT in contact squares (i.e., the ranged weapons). Hopefully this will be explained further when we get to a section on attacking. *crosses fingers*

Here's screenshots of my recent progress.

RuleBook_4a_eng.jpg

RuleBook_4b_eng.jpg

RuleBook_4c_eng.jpg