Album Announcement!

Hello, Popfan here!

I thought I’d take the time between bi-weekly updates to get around to revealing the album I’ve been working on this whole time. Finally got the cover art done today, so now seems like as good as time as any. Therefore, without further ado…

器用貧乏　～ Dextrous Yet Destitute

A collection of various tracks, some of which were salvaged from WIPs I started and never finished. Almost every single song has me trying something new, though. Experience my journey of musical self-improvement over the course of 2020 and early 2021…

…Once it actually comes out, anyway. I’m still at an 80% completion rate with not much progress in the past seven days, but it would be deeply embarrassing if I couldn’t get it all out of the way this month.

The track list is as follows:

1. Nostalgia for an Unexperienced Period
2. Sopor ~ Counting Sheep (CD ver.)
3. Deja Vu Girl
4. The East-Western Wind Carries Vigor
5. Tale of the Bespirited Tree
6. Dream of Self-Vanishment
7. Glittering Sphere in a Fatal Labyrinth
8. Windriders to the Moon Kingdom
9. Revered Lighting ~ Curse in Disguise
10. The Retro Century Reflected in a Lava Lamp

More info next week, provided I’ll have anything to talk about by then. Look forward to it!

色々な更新の記録、其の弐

　２週間ぶりです。とは言っても、報告する事は二つだけなので、今回は前回ほど長くありません。

　一つ目は、もちろん、アルバムのことです。昨日までに作曲のことを終わらせようとしていたけど・・・完成したと言えば完成したかな？　メロディやコード進行などは全部出来上がったとなら・・・ですが、お察しの通り、ミキシングの進捗を入れなくても、実際の制作はまだまだです。

　英語には「最初の犠牲者は作戦の内」ということわざがあります。気が散ってしまったせいで、スケジュールがズレ、進捗のない日々が続いてしまいました。また締切に間に合わないのが非常に悔しいですが、来月に入らないとアルバムは完成しないでしょう。

　達成率は今75%ぐらいです。少なくとも月末までにはトラックリストを発表出来るように、今週の制作をなるべくはかどらせます。どの曲も少なくとも取り掛かっていて、二曲は後もう少しです。

　二つ目は、ホームページの更新です。ここ２週のツイートを見ている方ならお気づきだと思いますが、「version 3.0」と名付けました。ようやく決まったデザインには満足しています。レスポンシブウェブデザインのルールに従っているので、どんなディスプレイサイズにも合うのは、2017年に作ってみた携帯版よりもずっといいです。

　ですが、URLの整理などもあるので、バックエンドの方はまだ難航しています。その上フロントエンドにも問題があって、いつ更新できるかまだ分かりません。

　今回は以上です。最近寝すぎて、勤労意欲もうっかり弱ってきてしまって、ここからしっかりしないとなりません。僕にご運を祈って頂ければ・・・

General Update Log No. 2

Two weeks have passed, and here we are again. This update is going to be quite a bit shorter than the first one, though, mostly since there are only two things I’ve been working on.

Number one is, of course, the album. I was planning to have all the composing work out of the way by yesterday… and I guess I technically managed to do that? At least in the sense that I’ve at the very least got all the melodies and chord progressions I need to complete each track… but as you can probably guess, actual production has yet to come anywhere close to concluding, even without counting the mixing.

As the saying goes, the first casualty of any battle is the plan of attack. My schedule slipped, I had more days with no progress made than I’d like to admit, and distractions were aplenty. As much as it frustrates me to miss yet another deadline, I probably won’t get the album done until at least February at this rate.

Currently, the album is a little over 75% done. I’ll try my best to get as much progress done as possible this week so I can at least do a reveal of the track list before the month is over. Every track has at the very least been started on by now, with two that are technically already done but may need some tweaks all across the board.

On to my second project, though: the new website. If you’ve followed me on Twitter over the past two weeks, you’ll have seen me referring to it as “version 3.0”. I’m really happy with the aesthetic I decided on, and I’ve been following the concept of responsive web design in order to allow it to smoothly fit to displays of any size, which is so much better than the mobile version I tried to do back in 2017.

Unfortunately, though, I still struggle with backend stuff, particularly since I want neater-looking URLs, and the frontend stuff still has issues that have been frustrating me to no end, so no telling on when that update will go live.

And that just about covers the past two weeks. Both my sleep schedule and my work ethic really went down the crapper without me even realizing it, so wish me luck on getting my act back together.

色々な更新の記録、其の壱

　最近のツイートを読んだ皆さんはすでに知っていると思いますが、僕はブログを復活させ、新たな意味を持たせようと思っています。隔週で何をしていたかのまとめを載せるのは価値があるかもしれません。すでにツイッターをその為に利用していますが、ツイートはバラバラになってしまいます。しかし、ブログならしっかりまとまっていて相応しいです。

　さて、2021年は皆様に去年よりいい年になればいいなと思います。僕としては、時々の夢界幻魔伝の更新以外にもっと出来上がりたかったんです。大アップデートもまだ開発中ですし。実際は、2020年に夢界第二弾を完成させて公開する予定でしたが、精神衛生上の関係で全然進みませんでした。

　ですが、新たな音楽アルバムを作り始めました。まずはそれについて話したいと思います。

　前回のブログ更新では、2020年の年末までに完成させたいと書いてありますね。もちろんそうはなりませんでしたが、予定外の事がなければ、今月の月末までに完成すると思います。トラック数は10曲、Bandcampにて10ユーロ（約1300円）で販売しようと思います。Bandcampなのでもちろんそれ以上の値段も払うことが出来ます。アルバムには英語と日本語でコメントが書かれたPDFのブックレットもついてきます。

　アルバムの現在の完成率は7割ぐらいです。僕に合ったスケジュール配分は見つけたので、残りの作曲は後二週間ぐらいで完成させられると思います。そこからはミキシングとジャケットイラストだけです。数週間にアルバム名とトラックリストを発表する予定です。全アルバムのYouTubeプレミアも出来れば・・・

　一番重要な情報は以上です。その他の予定は以下です。

1. 外人アレク現作団HPの完全更新。現在のビジュアルデザインがあまり好きじゃありません。特にテキストの書いてある画像を多用しているところですね。それとHTMLとPHP（そう、PHPです）のコードもめちゃくちゃなところがあって、書き直した方がいいかもしれません。まずはどんなデザインを目指そうか決めなければいけません。メニューを縦のままにするか横にするかまだ決まってもいません。携帯版も作ってみるかどうか考えていますが、優先度は低いです。
   
   
2. 何年か前に作ったちょっとしたゲームやパクリなどを手直しして公開するかもしれません。何もないよりはマシなので・・・
   
   
3. 先述のアルバムを公開してから、作曲コミッションを受け始めようと思います。しかし、東方風を求めている方は、僕は他の作曲家さん達ほど相応しくないかもしれません。
   
   
4. もちろん夢界幻魔伝の最後（だったらいいな）の大更新（多分v1.20a）を公開したいです。v1.1〇以外に要素を追加する予定はありませんが、コードを書き直し、会話・エンディング・リプレイの三つのシステムがオーバーホールされます。それを全部片づけたらようやく夢界第二弾の開発に取り掛かれます。
   
   
5. いずれもう一個の音楽アルバムを作りたいです。案はもうあります。

　はい、これで以上です。数ヶ月間も音沙汰がなく、本当に申し訳ありませんでした。やはり辛い一年でしたね・・・

　とにかく、いつも応援ありがとうございます、そしてこれからもお楽しみに！

General Update Log No. 1

As you might have read by now if you’ve seen my tweets, I thought I’d try resurrecting the blog and giving it a bit more of a purpose. Giving a general bi-weekly recap of what I’ve been up to seems like a worthwhile thing to do, as while I do use Twitter for journaling to some extent, the tweets end up all scattered and fragmented, whereas a blog post is going to be a lot more organized for that sort of thing.

So with that said, I hope 2021 is turning out to be a better year for you than the trainwreck that was 2020. Personally, I wish I could have gotten more done than a few small updates to COL, especially since a bigger update is still in the works. Hell, 2020 was supposed to be the year where I would finish and release the second Mukai game, but with my mental health in decline, I ended up not getting anything done on that front at all.

I did, however, divert my focus to creating a new music album, which is going to be my first talking point:

You may remember from my previous blog post how I wanted to get it done by the end of 2020. Obviously that didn’t happen, but assuming no further curveballs are thrown my way, I may be able to finish and release it by the end of this month. It will have 10 tracks and I plan to sell it on Bandcamp for €10.00. As with all Bandcamp albums, though, you can of course pay more than that if you want. Buyers will also receive a digital booklet in PDF format, containing song comments in both English and Japanese.

Current completion rate of the album is just a little under 70%. I found a work schedule that works for me, though, so I should be able to get the remaining tracks composed within the next two weeks. After that it’s just mixing, getting the mixes evaluated by my audio consultant, and drawing the album cover. Expect a reveal of the album name and track list within the next few weeks. Hopefully I can also do a premiere of the entire album on YouTube.

That’s the big thing, anyway. Other plans for the near future are as follows:

1. A complete overhaul of the TGA website. I’m not too happy with the current visual design, especially the overreliance on images with text, but the HTML and PHP (yes, PHP) are a hot mess in parts, too, and may warrant a rewrite. First I have to figure out what direction to take the design in, though, and my current biggest conundrum is whether I want to keep the vertical navigation or replace it with a horizontal one. I also want to try again with a mobile version if I can manage, but that’s relatively low-priority.
   
   
2. I might polish up and release some of the small games and clones I wrote years ago to wrap my head around coding, just to have something to show in this absolute content drought.
   
   
3. After I’ve released the aforementioned album, I may start taking song commissions. Do keep in mind, however, that if you’re looking for Touhou-style music, I may not be able to capture the style as convincingly as many other composers in the scene.
   
   
4. Obviously I also want to bring out the (hopefully) final major update to COL, which I’ll probably be dubbing v1.20a. It probably won’t add any new features on top of the v1.1x family of updates, but I do plan on refactoring the code as well as overhauling the dialogue, ending and replay systems. Once that’s all squared away, I can finally start working on Mukai 2 for real.
   
   
5. A second album later down the line. I already have a concept for it.

That should just about cover everything. I apologize from the bottom of my heart for practically disappearing for months on end and providing nothing noteworthy. Suppose it’s been a tough year for all of us…

At any rate, thank you for your continued support, and I hope you look forward to what I’ve got cooking!