We tasked young master Caldwell with exploring the dungeons of Fortune Summoners: Secret of the Elemental Stone, the latest translated Japanese indie title from Recettear Anglifiers Carpe Fulgur. He returned with these words.>

As the son of a shopkeeper in real life I know for a fact that helping out in the storeroom is not a magical experience. So Recettear, while jovial in spirit and generally compelling, didn’t appeal to me in the same way as it did others. In the storerooms of the non-digital world there are lots of cardboard boxes to tear apart and smelly bins to stand on in an effort to crush rubbish and make space. Once, there was a fist-sized hole torn in the wall by an errant RPG of a completely different nature. It was dreadful and there was rubble in the 10p mix-ups. But that’s Northern Ireland for you, and another story altogether. (more…)

Just a quick one, as I’m supposed to be in the middle of cooking a curry and if my girlfriend catches me posting instead of chopping onions she’ll… WhatwasthatohgodI’mgonnadie.

Okay. Okay. It was only a passing seagull. Got to be speedy here. Side-scrolling RPG Fortune Summoners, the next translated Japanese indie game from Carpe Fulgur, now has an English-language demo. That’s here, at a svelte cost of 66MB. And its release date and price are newly confirmed as January 17th, 2012 and 25 USD/20 EUR/£16. Right, I need to slice some mushrooms before I get sliced up myself. Have fun!

Recettear merchants Carpe Fulgur recently released their second translated Japanese indie title, Chantelise, to the English-speaking world. The all-action dungeon-runner has been a little more divisive than its shopkeeping-centric predecessor, but it’s definitely picked up fans. Seems like a good time to chat to Carpe Fulgur’s Andrew Dice about the reception to the game, the debate over its difficulty, the argument around whether old Japanese gaming traditions such as painful low-health noises and repetition should be revisited, what the Japanese indie scene is like compared to its mainstream, and what to expect from project number 3, Fortune Summoners…>
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I’ve spent a few hours nuzzling up to Chantelise, the next Westernised translation/do-over of a Japanese indie title from noble Recettear chaps Carpe Fulgur. Because I appear to be pretty terrible at the game, a full Wot I Think is probably some days off. Meantime though, here’s some early impressions ahead of the release on Friday.>

It strongly evokes Recettear while being absolutely nothing like it. Obviously much of that has to do with the love it/hate it/be a grown up and not be too fussed either way art style, but even beyond that a confluence of tone (via Carpe Fulgur’s extensive and breezily charismatic rewrite of the dialogue), references (many items bear similar if not the same names) and interface design paints this as a clear companion piece.
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All of a sudden, we’re just days away from the next release from the merchants of Recettear. Chantelise: A Tale Of Two Sisters is, as is Carpe Fulgur’s M.O., a diligently-translated Western do-over of a Japanese indie title – in this case a dungeon crawler. Which means ACTION rather than COMMERCE.

Chantelise will finally be released later this week- the 29th, specifically. You can warm yourself up with a demo right now, however.
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They’ve not even got out their second game Chantelise yet, but already Recettear‘s translator/Western publisher Carpe Fulgur have lifted the lid on project the third. It’s another translation of a Japanese indie game – this time being side-scrolling RPG/platformer Fortune Summoners: Secret of the Elemental Stone, which apparently has been something of a pet project for CF boss Andrew Dice. Have you heard of it? I haven’t. But then I haven’t heard of most things, like dinosaurs, cheese and the offside rule.
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Recettear, o Recettear. The out-of-nowhere translation of EasyGameStation’s Japanese indie shopkeeping/dungeoneering hybrid has done pretty well for itself, recently passing 100,000 sales with barely a whiff of marketing or promotion. While that’s just 10% of Minecraft’s paying userbase, it does proves that you don’t need to go mega-viral to make the creation and selling of indie games a plausible career choice. Given that milestone and given the recent announcement that Chantelise will be US translat-o-developers Carpe Fulgur’s next project, it seemed like a good time to chat to the team’s Andrew Dice about what happened, what he expected to happen, more about Chantelise’s when and why, and what game(s) they’re hoping to turn their attention to next. Go words!> (more…)

Joyous tidings from Carpe Fulgur, translators/Western distributors of the ever-lovely indie shopkeeping game Recettear: they’ve only gone and sold 100,000 copies of the bally thing, without promotion or publisher and solely via digital distribution on PC. Oh, and they’ve cheekily revealed what the next Japanese indie title to pass through their Westernisotron will be…

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Or rather “Recettear plus Gish, And Yet It Moves, Jolly Rover and Puzzle Agent” for £4/€4.5/$5.”

An incredible price for the incredibly lovely Recettear alone. Go gets. Also discounted today are EVE Online, Defense Grid, Cities XL, Audio Surf, Kane & Lynch 2 and Arkham Asylum. Only ten hours left, as the RPS collective was too busy waging its vigilante war against street crime last night to post this when it first happened.