Starmen.Net

OFF Characters to note

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THE BATTER

The mysterious, taciturn hero of this game appears as a man in a baseball batter’s attire and equipment. He has been assigned to a sacred, righteous mission, and only you, the player, can make him accomplish it.

THE JUDGE

This Cheshire cat-like feline and sole inhabitant of zone 0 talks and acts in a sickeningly overblown, Oxford-professor like manner, and puts high interest and hopes into the Batter’s and your own mission, repeatedly lending you his helping paw and cryptic advice.

ZACHARIE

The one and only “traditional items merchant” of this game, the masked man Zacharie, uses many opportunities to taunt you and the Batter throughout your mission while also aiding you in the form of advice and useful items, repeatedly breaking the fourth-wall to pieces in the process. Aside from that, he’s friendly and not that bad of a guy for a video game character.

NOTE: It is possible to transfer your saves from one version to another by simply locating the “.lsd” files inside your OFF folder. HOWEVER: Saves that were done after a boss will, for one reason or another, NOT WORK ON OTHER VERSIONS THAN THE ONE THEY WERE MADE ON. If you wish to transfer a save where you’ve played until after a boss, continue to the next zone’s red cube before proceeding to transfer.

WINDOWS:

MAC OS:
(Please note that the Mac wrapper used for this version was not created by us, but by zchr. Please contact him if you run into any issues.)

Well, we never really stopped working on Mother 3.5, we only slowed down a bit. But of course we’ll go high-speed again now!

And oh, that reminds me, I added the link to the original for our French members above. A few bugs haven’t been fixed in that one though; I wouldn’t recommend saving after a boss, for instance.

This is… interesting. I’m stuck in the Library, though, with the four books. I put three pages in the right place, but the fourth (Hearts) is nowhere to be found.

Great ! I’m French and I’m happy to see OFF translated in english. It’s a very appreciated game in a few community in the “underground” of french video game, and I’m glad that Starmen.net guys are interested by this. Good job, and make OFF a new popular game in America, like EarthBound or Mother 3

I know there’s a way to fix the font in RPGMK 2003, I had to get it because it was driving me crazy.

There is a way. A quick Google search should resolve this if you ever feel the need to change it.

@XXStone Naaah, I’ll just stick to advising to install the fonts. I’m not much of a coder.

@handish2000 I'm guessing you meant the Burnt guy in the underground railway? Yes, that was the first time I personally realised the truth behind everything.

Also I agree; he is the best character to me as well. I picked him during my first playthrough too in the end, because I couldn't handle the other option.

A question to you though, have you collected the five elements?

@handish Generally speaking, a lot can be interpreted into this game. I would keep typing here, but really, that’d be too many spoilers; I’ll send you per PM.

About the elements, I think you either forgot one or didn't do what's necessary for them to work. I'll write you in the PM what you have to do to make a use of them.

just finished this game, really reminded me of early david lynch stuff and reminded me alot of some of the cartoons that david firth has done! Who did this soundtrack btw? Was really impressed by it, very Ulver or Akira yamaoka.

This was a great game man, thanks very much for the translation, I really enjoyed it. Definitely gonna be quite thought provoking in my head for a long time!

Please, put that in a spoiler tag… <xI

And hmmm… It means that an image is missing; you probably accidentally left it out. Maybe you should try to download it again and copy your old save into the new folder.

…I’m surprised nobody’s commented on the main battle song yet (or at least, the battle theme that plays the most up to zone 3; I can’t testify for anything past that because I’m stuck at the door in the factory that you need a specific name to go through, but it says something about thugs if you get it wrong ). I don’t know how to describe it….it just really seems to fit the theme of the game. And it’s really, really catchy; I keep catching myself trying to hum/sing/whistle/drum it every once in a while.

Oh, Pepper Steak? Nope, it’s no remix, but it uses some sound fonts ripped from some Ragtime tunes, I think! …I think. Frankly, I’m not sure about what it is exactly either, but it certainly is no remix.

Speaking of the soundtrack, the whole thing has been published by Alias Conrad Coldwood in a .RAR file, with extended versions of most songs within!

Here it is! I’ll add the link to the first post too; But please note that these songs are spoiler-filled, and, generally speaking, it’s ill-advised to download the OST before completing the game.

EDIT: Nevermind, I fixed the bug with the image file! Everything will be fine in the next version.

Alright people,

UPDATE TIME!

Version 1.3 is out!!

The bug with the “missing” image should be fixed now. This fix is the only one I know, so if the problem persists still I won’t be able to do much. I tested it here and it worked fine, though.

The last line in French handish pointed out earlier has been translated as well!

If no more typos or bugs turn up this should be pretty much the last update of this game’s English translation. Meanwhile, I’ll be busy with school, Mother 3.5 and a German translation.

Thanks a lot for translating this game. As a French, I was pained to be unable to share it with English-speaking friends, and it is now possible thanks to you. Cheers.

There are some rare translation errors here and there, I believe, but nothing too shocking. I’ve played the game up until the beginning of zone 2, and so far the translation is quite accurate and faithful to the original version. I’ll probably send a PM if I find an error that really ought to be corrected, but I don’t think I’ll need to do so.

Finally, after a month of… slacking off on it:

UPDATE TIME.

This SHOULD be the final version of the game, unless I manage to find a way to correct the French messages that seem to be implemented in RM2003’s script. What I DID manage to correct thanks to a PM by Le Shad are a few misplaced events, typos and grammar mistakes and a missing line!

The download link has been updated; Enjoy!

Agh, this old error again… Every time I played this part the image was displayed correctly. Seems like it happens on Vista only…

I cannot fix that one, sorry. Looks like I’ll have to write a disclaimer into the first post.

Thanks for re-reporting the bug, still.

I’ve found the source of the bug:
In the Picture folder, the file 11février was misnamed 11f‚vrier

I fixed it myself by changing the file’s name to the correct one. I needed to use Character Map to get the correct character, but it worked.

Question about whether I screwed myself out of one of the endings:

After I found out that I had downloaded this (awesome) game while I was browsing my molded files, I finally played it from start to end – and because I wasn’t with internet to read this topic and I couldn’t translate the FAQ from the readme, to know what to do about the unintelligible text that appears if you don’t install the font, I had to though it out.

But I still managed to read the dialog just fine.

I must say that I appreciated this game much more that I expected. It has the exact amount of a creepiness, weirdness and simplicity combo that I’d like in a video game – sometimes it even reminded me of Yume Nikki. I also liked a lot The Batter; always cold and dead serious, with fear of nothing and ready to do what has to be done.

The spotlight, however, goes to the story. Albeit short, it was definitely an experience, comparable also its dialog to the Mother games.

…C’est magnifique ! :b

EmbiggenedJ:

Question about whether I screwed myself out of one of the endings:

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I got a certain item in Zone 3 and gave it to someone (an act which is optional), but in The Room, that item was mentioned. Is it needed for at least one of the possible endings?

Don’t worry about it, Embi, as late as this post is.

I love this game. Downloaded it earlier this week and beat it twice. Video games don’t usually affect me emotionally, but I honestly felt bad about several of the late boss fights and had trouble sleeping because of the white world. Very creative presentation; excellent use of sound.

The only thing I haven’t gotten is the third ending. I have Grand Finale, Grand Brachial and Grand Chocolatier, but I don’t even know where to look for the other prerequisites. Can I still get them after clearing all of the zones up to the final red cube, or do I need to start over?

jkd003: I haven’t experienced the same bug, but I did get some movement glitches once in Zone 2. Have you tried saving, exiting all the way out and then running the game again? Your first and second questions are related to my question, so I really hope somebody can answer them.

Well, that’s what I gathered from looking at spoilers. It _seems_ like you unlock something by collecting special items representing the five elements. I have the items for Sugar, Meat, and Smoke, but I'm missing the ones for Plastic and Metal, and I have no idea how to get them.

Thank you, zaratustra! Everything was exactly as described, except the Zone 2 item was actually in the residential area. You get in through the mall, and in one of the houses you find the code to the one door you couldn't open earlier.

In the same boat as Erich.
I get that I should flee, but the option is grayed out and inaccessible - no matter how I massage the menus it only lets me Attack and Auto on that fight. Flee just goes BZZT and does nothing. It's basically locked me out of continuing the game.

oh DUDE I got it. The flee in the far left menu is dysfunctional. But, after selecting attack, your right menu - with attack and technique and item - can scroll down, and there's a "flee", as well as a "rang", whatever that is. And that works. Also, with the same menu scrolling, your circle buddies can use items. I thought they couldn't. The moar you know...