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Why am I not impressed, as usual. I have to admit there's a bunch of cg art that looks really promising, but the overall concept and the renderings are just poor; speaking of which, this game is WAY TOO EARLY in development to be even considered worthy of kickstarting. You should only kickstart your game when it's more or less fleshed out and ready to go. All that's left should boil down to building upon the game. When I see projects like this getting kickstarted, it makes me even wonder whether people who do that are mature enough to pull off anything properly. I agree with InvertMouse upon the rest - vn's are a niche medium. A lot of western players are actually illiterates with not a single working braincell, you can't expect them to not frown upon the very fact someone wants to give them a game where basically 100% of gameplay is compromised of reading a story and nothing else. A lot of people also dislike eroge and h-content in general, that's usually associated with it; it's not a problem in terms of a playerbase, as it actually picks more of it's interest (if the art and story are good), but the main issue here is that it also attracts unwanted attention from mass media and certain people who'd like to see such type of art burning. Eternally. Another issue with western developers is that they often blindly follow japanese cliches and settings and build upon them, instead trying to adapt them properly beforehand. This won't ever work and results in very awkward, unrealistic stories that look more like a poor attempt to wank at one's weeaboo'ish dreams. A lot of the stories themselves are ridiculously bad as well, since most of their writers don't even know what prose actually is. I will state it once again - school settings are a BAD foundation and they DO NOT work well for western vn's. Japan is the culture of cute; school settings only sell in Japan, not around here. On the other hand, I can state what western readers like and would LOVE to see in western visual novels. We are generally full of angst and like deep and relatively dark stories - ones that are very few amongst japanese industry out of the same reason why people roll eyes upon school setting based vn's around here. In other words - MORE DRAMA & PSYCHOLOGICAL. We'd like to see more decent fantasy & sci-fi settings and by sci-fi I'm not talking about space opera; people often think sci-fi means STAR TREK, which is as bad as school settings (no honestly - if you want to make space operas, you'd better stick to your fucking school settings). We'd like to visit strange worlds and see incredible creatures (surreal stories or stuff that happens inside our heads, or dreams). Where's the magic? Where are the swords? We love ghost stories. We love horrors. We love thrillers and crime stories. MAKE IT HAPPEN. WHY IT DOES NOT HAPPEN? Of all the western vn's I've seen so far, only very few of them actually managed to break the mold and become something more than another bland mecha space opera or another school setting based galge, where the main premise still revolves around fucking all the girls so you can get their hcg's and forget about it. Everything is so cliched with bad japanese setups, that it makes me cringe every single time when I hear about a new, "prominent" western vn project. All of the western designers divide into two categories - those who either blindly follow the cliched, japanese routines or those who completely separate vn's as a medium and make it so "western" - so boring and unattractive - it makes me want to read a book instead trying to give them a chance. There's a lot of issues with proper direction. I know a lot of people for example, who won't read certain western developed vn's just because they aren't that appealing, their stories are very average and unorginal and they often lack the anime styled graphics and certain kind of approach, which attracts us otherwise. Then there's the main issue where a developer has to balance between all those things to make a really good western vn; it's a very delicate matter that more often leads to a failure when people making the game lack any sort of actual knowledge about visual novel medium. It often leads to cases where creators simply don't know or can't see, what could be done to make them more appealing to western fans and readers alike. I don't doubt it's possible vn's will slowly gain more interest on the west, but it won't ever be some sort of a boom. Things need to change, people need to grow and mature as well. Some things might perhaps have to change in order for this medium to flourish. If anything, there's still a very long, rocky road ahead of us. TL & DR I think that in overall, people actually aren't that interested in reading anymore. I should stop getting all worked up over this; it's not like you can force illiterates to read a story.

This thread still needs help to grow. Feel free to post your useful resources, with a small description of what it is. You can also ask any questions related to this topic. ------------ Chances are, if you read VN, at some point you'll get interested in learning Japanese. This thread will NOT tell you how to learn japanese, I'm not qualified for that. This is a compilation of useful resources you might need, put together by helpful members and myself. If you know absolutely nothing about the language, I recommend you to read a bit about it before. Read some wikipedia pages and the introductions of various guides. The best way to approach things is probably to try out a bit of everything and see what works for you. Here are the categories of resources presented: *Learning methods: more-or-less complete schedule other people put together. *Useful softwares, apps & cie *Kanji & Kana *Grammar *Practice material Learning methods Those hardly consist of rigid guides that'll take you all the way, but they might help to give you an idea on how to approach learning the language. Don't spend too much time looking for methods, you'll most likely end up doing things in a different way anyway. Tae Kim's complete guide to japanese (everything is not complete yet) Nukemarine's Suggested Guide for Beginners "It's a guide on how to learn japanese by plowing through anki cards in a effective manner. It's made by a community member at Koohi forums. (I'd like to mention you can learn vocab very fast with this method and keep it in memory. But you learn without a lot of context, which has its negative sides.)" (Bolverk) The Tay way (note that this is from 2013 and no longer in use) Aaeru's "learn how to read VN in two years" Useful softwares Those are basic tools you'll almost certainly need, or at least try out, in your learning of japanese. Google IME: Allows you to type in Japanese. Click this link, click the big blue button, install: you can now switch your typing mode to japanese. Rikaichan: Firefox app that gives you a dictionary entry for a word by simply hovering over it. Extremely useful. Also exists for Chrome. Anki: A flash card software with a built-in algorithm for learning efficiency. Exists on Android and iOS too. (Regular hand-written flash-cards can be a useful tool too). Use shared decks to find vocab/kanji pre-made decks. Note about Anki: the use of Anki is advocated as necessary by some and deemed completely useless by others. Starting out with basic vocab/kanji grinding will probably help you ease into practice material, however learning tons of words, or worse even tons of kanji out of context is not a good idea. It's up to you to find out whether you want to use Anki (and whether you can). ITH, TA, Mecab, Jparser: ITH is a text hooker that'll extract the text from, say, a VN for you. Translation Aggregator will pass said text through parsers and dictionaries. Extremely useful to practice on VNs. Some tips and other softs for ITH here Chiitrans: a useful alternative to ITH/TA. Same principle. Read the tuto for more details. Visual Novel Reader: Another alternative to ITH/TA. Note about text hookers: it might seem obvious but do NOT use machine translations with your text hookers. You won't learn anything from the garbage it feeds you and you won't even actually understand what's going on, whether you think you do or not. It is also not a very good idea to rely on parsers for grammar purposes. Parsers are far from perfect. They certainly can't replace a grammar resource and basic googling. Think of text hookers as crutches you use until you become able to read without constantly looking up vocabulary. It is also a good idea to switch to japanese-japanese dictionaries as soon as you can - only they will give you the nuances of the words, and they're also much less flawed than existing free j-e dictionaries. Kanji & Kana Learning the hiragana and katakana should be about the first thing you do. It's not very long or difficult. Becoming accustomed to reading them is longer but it eventually comes. Kanjis are probably the biggest psychological barrier for japanese learners. I don't have a magical method to suggest, but do tell yourself it's really not that hard if you stop thinking too hard about it and trying to find the best, most optimized method for learning them. Try to learn the basic ones, see where you can get, and start practicing on reading as soon as you can. RealKana: This is just an example among others of ways to learn the kana. It's the first thing you should do anyway, and it's not hard or long. Heisig's Remember the Kanji: A method for learning kanji through memo stories, by association with an english keyword. Good for starters, probably won't get you through the whole kanji learning though. See Tay's guide and this website too. Kanjidamage: Learning the kanjis through radicals and memo sentences. I'm not a fan of his method, but it has some interesting information in the introduction and on some kanjis. Grammar Basic grammar: Tae Kim's guide: The most popular (and free!) guide on the internet. Rather compact, has all the essential grammar with good explanations and examples. A must. Genki: To take things more slowly, or have a different view on points you didn't get. (No links for that one yet, it's not free, sorry) Nihongomori: this is a youtube channel with videos explaining grammar, but also vocab and other misc things, done by native speakers (in english for the basics, japanese later). It goes from basic grammar (JLPT N5-N4 level) up to finer points (N2-N1 level) so it actually covers intermediate/advanced grammar too. The videos are pretty fun and well done, if you like the video media it might work good for you. More advanced grammar: Imabi: Lots of in-depth explanations about various grammar subjects. Not recommended for pure beginners and not written as a guide. If you want to go further than that, you'll need to go into japanese grammar books. Don't forget a simple research on the internet can give you lots of explanations about pretty much anything anyway. Advanced grammar: If you want to go further into grammar than that (for example if you want to read 古典 and such), you'll probably need to go into japanese grammar textbooks. This guide is approved as being really good. (Change the encoding of the page to Japanese EUC-JP for it to display correctly) This page could be useful too. Feel free to do your own research! Others: A grammar cheat sheet. Not for beginners, obviously. Nihongoresources: A grammar guide. Never tried it. Practice Material General advice: Try to avoid material based on comedy (because you need a good enough knowledge to get the jokes), or that rely heavily on slang or local dialect. Also, avoid things that have too much technical vocabulary (hard sci-fi) or chuuni stuff with abstract concepts and archaic kanjis. Chokochoko: Some practice texts (articles on various stuff), ranked by JLPT difficulty. Children's tales: easy place to start. Japanese subtitles for lots of anime. VNs in japanese: *Relatively easy language for a story-focused VN. *List of VN for beginners, with two levels of difficulty. *A big list of Visual novels to read if you are confident enough (~JPTL N2). I won't point you out to raw mangas, of course, but if you can find high enough quality scans (or can afford to import them) it's obviously a great way to practice. Every shoujo and shonen manga have furiganas on every kanjis. Seinen/josei may not have them, but it doesn't mean they're necessarily more difficult. Dictionaries, vocabulary resources Note: Japanese-english dictionaries (the free ones you'll find on the internet) are pretty much all based on Edict. Of course, as a beginner you have to use j-e dictionaries, but 1) edict is far from perfect 2) j-e dictionaries are inherently limited anyway: only japanese dictionaries will give you the right nuance (and they're rather excellent). So as soon as you can, switch to japanese dictionaries. The jump is not easy but it's necessary, especially if you intend to read VNs with a higher level of language. Overall, the internet is your friend! A simple search will often yield whatever you're looking for. Finding your way, especially in japanese websites, is the most useful skill you can develop (although once again you need to reach a certain level of confidence first). Jisho: Jap/eng dictionary. Tangorin: Same thing. WWWJDIC Dictionary site. Japanese online dictionary. Requires good enough knowledge of japanese to be used. Slang dictionary. Same as above. Writing recognition: Tries to find a kanji directly written with your mouse. Tanos: Various JLPT-related resources: vocabulary and kanji lists, etc. Blog posts and articles about learning japanese Blogpost by garejei: Tips and a view on kanji memorization. ----- Thanks to Clephas, Bolverk, cryofrzd, Okami, garejei, Mephisto and probably a bunch of others I forgot to add (sorry!) for their contributions.

Well, I said that I would do it once The Temple of Mare reaches 100 points but I was bored so I did it earlier xD Although only short versions Warning before you click the play button: I can't sing! Eternal recurrence: I hope you liked my special effects Hoshizora no Memoria:

I can agree. The main problem is that Manga Gamer itself is it's worse enemy. Instead of focusing on genuinely interesting story based games they prefer to work on "classics" such as "Suck My Dick Or Die!", "Miles Knight Of Anal Tyranny" and "Imouto Paradise". They are seemingly unable to listen to feedback. In the sense that nukige can screw itself and that Kickstarter could be a great plattform to fund more plot based projects. Unfortunately even when they have the chance to open up the VN market they just can't deliver since they are a living contradiction. Just look at their constant teasing of a possible Euphoria translation (Which admitedly is quite extreme, even with the surprisingly good plot) or even more Innocent Grey games that end up being ignored constantly. That said... I did preorder Sakura Spirit, just because I'm a masochist that can't believe that game isn't a nukige. I'll post impressions as soon as it gets released since I can't imagine it being very good. The artwork is surprisingly decent even if does cater to the Ikki Tousen/Highschool Of The Dead/Queen's Blade audience way too much.

I've enjoyed NGNL since the start, but it wasn't until episode 7 that I became horribly engrossed in the experience. It's likely due to this thing I have for philosophy. Despite all the previous works I've read that have some kind of philosophical theme, the one that Sora had on humanity was something I've never had the chance to come across. There have been stories in the past that have covered this particular theme, but they've never been delved into this explicitly and I've yet to see this idea covered so accurately. It adds an unbelievable amount of depth to Sora's character and to the writing of this series in general. I can't help but applaud the original writer for his genius, and I'll definitely credit Madhouse for adapting the story as well as they have (especially with how well they managed to maintain the story's thematic depth). That episode also put Sora at the top of my list of favorites this season. Since the season started, he's been sitting at 3rd with Kaori and Tensai as my top 2, but that philosophy. Actually, now that I think about it, Sora kinda somewhat reminds me of Kumagawa from Medaka Box. http://myanimelist.net/character/36753/Misogi_Kumagawa

Welcome to the forums! Hope you enjoy your stay! Have a moe:

Hello, reyaes. Welcome to fuwanovel Go ahead and explore and you'll have fifty more friends to share your common interest before you know it. Be sure to check this thread for more VNs, also, read CLANNAD. Hope to see you around~

Doesn't look exactly like all ages XD! Best of luck with these folks, though .

Welcome to Fuwa! Have a lemniscate: Read Clannad, even if you're familiar with the anime, it's a masterpiece. Hope you have fun and I'll see you around.

Hello! Welcome among us and enjoy your stay on the forums! Have a headphone:

I guess it's a rock hard lunch today.

Yeah, I'm just starting out with my baby steps right now. I can't wait till the book starts phasing words out with Hiragana. I'll look forward to asking questions in the future .

please, tell others., i will waiting the translator

my submission for something emotional . my wife suggested i draw our son. i never tried real people before so i figured i couldn't do it, also i did it in pencil and im not very good with soft mediums. but here it is i hope you like it. i learned alot from drawing this and challenging my self.

Marry is such a kind soul. You need to learn from her~ I don't know how I should feel.

I ended up doing another short comic-style thing, just because this was the best idea I had.

I'll present mine tomorrow, now it's too late and the computer won't allow me to numerize it. EDIT: okay here's my drawing, I've drawn my version of sleeping beauty:

All of my saddest moments have been brought up, but what did I expect? To shed man tears is no easy feat, it has to be truly sad. My top one has to probably be Angel Beats though. I just sat there, tears rolling down my cheeks, for like 15min after the last episode.

"Cactus-Senpai, your "spike" is pricking my petals!" exclaimed Petunia-chan, whose petals were turning a reddish purple in excitement and embarrassment. As we both started moving uncontrollably because of our instincts, I felt sticky pollens fluttering around my spike. Gradually, we started moving faster and I feared that I would dig right through her (death by snu-snu) and tried to slow down to no avail. As we both neared our climax, there were more and more pollens in the air, I hoped that my severe pollen allergy would not destroy this moment by making me sneeze. Petunia-chan reached the climax first. She suddenly jolted, and shaked her petals wildly out of pleasure. Her base was all exposed, and golden, sweet-smelling pollen was flying everywhere. She started breathing deeply, "Thank you, Cactus-Senpai." she muttered. She looked like a little daisy, unaware to the pains of this world. However, she did not stop. She moved wildly, now to help me reach the heavens. I suddenly felt myself reaching the point of no return. I shouted "Ooooooooohhhhhhhhh!!!" and let go of the cactus-water in my body, letting it wet Petunia's frail body. As she shivered because of this feeling she never felt before, she moved so fast that my spike got torn from off my body and got lodged inside her. As she muttered "Cac-Cactus senpai! Your... your delicate..." I hugged her tightly and muttered into her ear: "It's okay, I have a thousand more spikes." Petunia-chan smiled at me with a resigned expression, her flower fully exposed, her pollen everywhere and yet, it did not matter to her. That was the best moment of my dry life.

Visual novels for the world... It's funny, isn't it? Fuwanovel's infamous mission statement...ya know, sometimes I stop and think to myself just how powerful those words really are. To some, they are just words plastered on a page to make it look good, but to others they have a much deeper meaning. When I first discovered this website a few months ago, I too like many of you came here for a purpose, a purpose that may have had little to no meaning whatsoever. Perhaps I came here to download a visual novel, or maybe I just wanted to read about the release date of some translation. It wasn't until I stopped to really read the purpose of this community that I started to realize what Aaeru was trying to create. Those 5 words...to me, no, to everyone, those words speak something. They aren't there for show, but rather they are there to remind us that this community is in itself the representation of many cultures from around the world. We form relationships with those around us no matter our differences and interests and unite under one banner to show everyone on the outside that we are brothers and sisters in arms. To us, those words speak a truth, and it is because of them that we continue pushing forward like we do. You may ask yourself, why am I writing this post? I am not running this show as a staff member, nor am I really of any importance seeing as I am just another cog in the wheel, so why bother? To answer that, let me ask you a question instead: why do you come here? For some, we may answer something as simple as "I love visual novels," but when you really stop and think about it, it's more than that. We are family, and Fuwanovel is a home to many of us. No matter our interest, no matter our race, no matter our language, we come here because we separate useless boundaries and unite as one collective mind. Sure, we have some pretty strict parents (the staff) and some rascal children in the bunch, but in the end what we share as a group is far greater than anything I have ever seen. We may not all come here for the same reason, but we come here because to all of us, this is and always will be considered home. People come and people go as the winds of change are constantly blowing. Still, I want to remind everyone that Fuwanovel is and always will be a home for you. The main reason I posted this was to remember who we are, and what this community is. It may seem mundane and sort of useless to state, but take a second and really read these words; remember why you joined Fuwanovel in the first place. The moment you posted something as simple as the word "hello" in the Introduction Forums, you made yourself a part of the family. No matter where life takes you, no matter what happens, this is a place that will always welcome you back. We may be faces hidden behind a computer screen, but we are faces that care. No matter where you come from, no matter what language you speak, no matter what you love, Fuwanovel's doors will always be open, something I am sure the staff and founding members will always agree upon. From the lolicons, to the tsunderes, to the senpais, we are a family. No matter what you love, you are always welcome. Aaeru got it right. She gave us a building block that we as members and staff continue to build upon. There are always trials and tribulations to overcome, but in the end, we as a community and we as a family push through it. For me, that will always bring a smile to my face, as I hope it does the same for you. I just felt like reminding that to everyone...

Subtitled: How Fuwanovel/Aaeru saved my life. Hello dear Fuwanovel community, Many people around the forums and IRC already know me under nicknames like "the Fuwanovel coder", various variations of my alias like "Naynay", "Naylicious", or simply "the German" (because I'm the only active German person on IRC as far as I know). In real life I'm called Timo by coworkers and family and "Dieter" by very close friends who know the origin of that nickname. I'm working as a professional web developer for a few years now, but have been creating web sites for various purposes for more than 10 years already, mostly for private servers for Ragnarok Online and Lineage 2 back in the day and later guild homepages and forums when I was actively playing World of Warcraft. Not too surprising that I signed up here and immediately PMed Aaeru back when she was asking for PHP help for the site as I have just been waiting for this opportunity. Many people ask what keeps me going for me to invest quite a lot of time, even going as far as reworking the entire backend and quite a lot of the frontend AND introducing many new features to a site I have absolutely no relations with. There are two reasons for that, one is very simple while the other is quite complex, the first and easy one being that I was looking for a project like I did 10 years ago for quite a lot of time; Now that I'm professional and not just a random script kid I really wanted to start making a name for myself, so I loved the idea on working Fuwanovel because it's a site about something I hold very dear, Visual Novels. Now the other one is quite complex and reaches back about as long as I can remember. I've got crippling depressions and anxiety issues, bad enough for me to feel too powerless to even leave my bed save for basics like eating, drinking and sanitary needs. Most people don't even notice it except when I vanish for weeks at a time - because I may be shy and pretty reserved, but I love getting to know people and am fairly talkative once I warm up to someone, so they can't even imagine me being depressed. I'm introverted (meaning social interaction expends energy for me) but generally love being around people I know and feel I need social interaction to function properly. This is also why staying at home also depresses me even further, until I either snap out of it or it spirals completely out of control like it did last winter, where I stayed at home for a whole five months. Which, as most people can imagine, is long enough for my medical attests not being enough for me to keep my job. So I was depressed, missed social contact - my best friend who used to force me to go out with him when I was feeling down was working in the US, so he wasn't around to save me from the downward spiral I was in - and about to lose my job (which wasn't perfect, but had its fun days and at least paid the bills), spiraling everything even further out of control. All I did during that time was sleep, eat, drink, shower and read. I read the Visual Novels I torrented earlier that year but never came around to read because of work and other stuff leaving me too tired to even read in the evenings. It didn't take me too long to either finish or tire of them, I simply didn't have enough; Going through the hassle of searching VNDB for new translated Visual Novels that interested me and then having to torrent them, find and apply the TL patch was too much of a hassle at the time. I was seriously considering just ending my life right there, because reading Visual Novels made me tear up and feel for the characters, it's the most touching medium for me because of the combination of graphics, music and writing - especially the songs in some of them and acted as kind of a substitute for all the social interaction I was missing out on because of my depressions. That was when I found Fuwanovel and its easy-to-use interface, most VNs were prepatched so everything was pretty easy for me to work out. I started and finished HoshiMemo, G-Senjou no Maou and the MajiKoi partial patch and began reading Rewrite. They kept me going long enough for the worst to tide over, for me to finally pick up the broken pieces of myself again and start getting back into life again, get back on medication and search for a therapist to work this out once and for all, as I was having these downtimes annually. Fuwanovel literally saved my life; It was my main motivation for wanting to help out when Aaeru was asking for help on the site and it still keeps me going today, 3 months and thousands of lines of code later; I owe this site so much, and I love the community and working on new features with everyone involved. A special shout-out here to: Naomi, Aaeru, Tay, solidbatman, shcboomer, Kendjin, Rakushun, DrKleiner, Lewycool, Zakamutt, ThatPlayer and Mephisto - and everyone else I'm forgetting to name explicitly. Please stick around so I may never lose interest in the site. I hope everyone who reads this enjoys this small, very personal write-up. I'm looking forward to continue working with everyone to keep this site running and become even more awesome, complete and more widely known with each passing day. I love you guys.