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You can download the teaser Demo here. https://theblacksands.itch.io/black-sands-legends-of-the-rift Please leave feedback. There may still be room for improvement Eventually we will have a major Demo coming which will launch before our Kickstarter. It will feature some of the gameplay mechanics and will be 45 minutes long roughly. Fully voiced of course. The Demo is crashing for lower spec comps so we will be optimizing it tonight. Be sure to leave your specs if it crashes on you.

I figured there's no reason why the toolbar wouldn't get its previous buttons back after the forums last broke down, so I added the spoiler button back on because nobody remembers how to use BB codes anymore. Enjoy. No, I'm not re-arraging the toolbar and make it the way it was before, just in case this actually does somehow break everything and then it all goes to shit anyway.

Read the review here. I liked Kindred Spirits a lot. It's a pretty simple story but sometimes that's exactly what you need. I've seen barely any discussion on it here. Anyone play it yet? What did you think of it?

I know they use real places in VNs, especially those set in Japan. But some of them are quite far away. As I was playing ef. The First Tale. I suddenly recognized the place they were in, because I've been there countless times myself. The anime has a lot of German in it. Makes sense as this background is the main square in Rothenburg, Germany! Does anyone else have any remarkable places to note that they've noticed?

Okabe is complicated. Here's my perception of his character, as of where I am somewhere in Chapter 4, supplemented with as much evidence as I can get. Some of this comes from the very rare honest introspection on his part, but more of it comes by assessing his relationships with other people: - He doesn't believe all the nonsense he spouts. The best evidence for this is how he acts when he's with Faris, since she's better at this nonsense game than he is, and he freely admits it (to himself). The way he acts during his banter with her, where she's directing the conversation, is basically identical to his ordinary Organization shtick, except that he occasionally admits that he can't keep up the game as well as she does. - Although he doesn't actually believe in any Organization, Okabe seems to be deeply entertained by pretending to believe in it. The reason he goes around telling everybody about it is on the off-chance they'll play along with him and he can have some fun. To some extent you can see this when he chats with Faris, but much more so when he chats with Luka, since Luka is so deeply invested in Okabe that he'll play along with anything Okabe does. - This is the most interesting point, to me: Okabe is as unsure and worried as all the people around him about the severity of the situation he suddenly finds himself in. He reveals this pretty directly through a big internal monologue, at one point, after some of the events in chapter 2 or 3 (can't remember which). I don't think they're trying to make him funny in particular, so much as they're trying to show that he's just a goofball playing around all day who suddenly ends up way, way over his head.

The Road to Interpreter Since there seems to be a bit of interest in this, I will detail the exact steps I took to arrive where I am. 1. I began studying Japanese in high school through correspondence. During this time I really only learned hiragana, katakana and some very simple sentences but anyway I got started early. 2. I then studied it at my local community college. This was still pretty simple stuff and I was mostly just biding my time until I turned 19 when... 3. I went to Brazil and lived there for 2 years preaching the gospel for my church. During this time I learned Portuguese and also learned to break out of my loner shell and talk to people and open up. I also learned to love other cultures and accept cultural differences, which I think was very important. 4. I got back and went to a real college instead of a community college. I picked a college based on its strong study abroad program because I intended from the very start to study abroad in Japan. 5. After doing a little bit of study at that college I studied abroad. I cannot stress the importance of studying abroad in Japan for learning the language. It is such a nuanced language that is tied so deeply with Japanese culture that you really can't learn the one without the other. I realize not everyone has the finances for this, but there are tons of financing options for students, so you should take advantage of anything you can to make it over, even going in debt. I went pretty far in debt to do my study abroad, but it was worth it. If you don't take advantage of this while at college it could become very difficult for you to make it over to Japan later as you get caught up in working, then having a family etc. 6. While studying abroad I took the JLPT levels 3 and 2 and passed both. This is important. The JLPT unlocks many options later on, since it is the only real way to get certification of how good at Japanese you are. Many companies will want to know what level you are at, and being at at least level 2 is an important starting point for you in the Japanese industry. 6. After graduating (actually while graduating) I signed up for the JET Programme: http://jetprogramme.org/en/ Most people know this as an English teaching program, but there is also the option of being a 'CIR' or Coordinator of International Relations. This is a position for people who know Japanese already. You will be put to work in a community center (City Hall, international center etc) helping to run events and promote international friendships. The pay is good (especially for a person fresh out of college) and all they require is a degree in anything. If you have the JLPT and can interview well you have a good shot at becoming a CIR. This is invaluable. Being a CIR gives you 2-5 years of experience living and working in a Japanese office. Office Japanese is a lot different from what you'll learn in textbooks or what you'll see in books/manga/anime/VNS. And it's very important because: 7. The JLPT N1. It's entirely based around office and work words. It is meant to test whether a person would be capable of communicating in a work environment in Japan. Actually having worked in an office gave me a huge leg up in passing this. 8. After 2 years I decided to come back to America. I discovered that in Japan, with my lack of any other area of study, I would only be able to take minimum-wage jobs in big cities like Tokyo where I would barely be able to make ends meet. Unfortunately, minimum-wage translation jobs in Japan don't really care if the people they hire are native English speakers or not. They'll hire just about anyone with English experience, so you're competing with tons of people in Japan. Without a special skillset to offer beyond just English-Japanese it's very hard to find a good job in Japan without spending a lot of time making very little money and gaining experience or getting very, very lucky. 9. Before coming back I posted my resume up on Monster, a site for uploading resumes and searching for jobs. Very soon I received a contact from a headhunting company that specifically finds workers for automotive jobs. They told me that automotive companies based in Japan are in dire need of translators/interpreters in the US. If I was willing to move wherever they needed me, they could definitely get me a job even though I had no background or training in automotive terminology. 10. And so here I am. Living and studying abroad, I feel, was the thing that really gave me a boost in finding this job. Living abroad by yourself shows independence and drive that companies really love. It gave me the confidence I needed to do well at interviews and adapt to crazy situations (like moving across the US with no car or house and getting all of that figured out in a week before immediately starting work). I think the market is very solid for automotive translation, and it's a very good thing to aim for right now since they are always going to need translators and interpreters at these companies (and the turnover rate is a little high, just due to folks getting experience and moving on to higher-paying positions at other companies).

Down-Yesterday at 11:45 PM if he has shitty internet you guys should just use irc Decay-Yesterday at 11:45 PM fuuuuck that solidbatman-Yesterday at 11:45 PM except fuck that Down-Yesterday at 11:45 PM wut Down-Yesterday at 11:47 PM I find irc more convenient than discord or TS tbh (and let's not even talk about skype lol) light and simple solidbatman-Yesterday at 11:47 PM but but fuck irc Decay-Yesterday at 11:47 PM the problem with irc, is that I don't use irc which I guess was the problem with discord but fuck irc Decay-Yesterday at 11:47 PM so there solidbatman-Yesterday at 11:48 PM irc is too silly and doesnt have voice... does it? Down-Yesterday at 11:48 PM what can i do against such a barrage of arguments

New Video. Enjoy

Oh my sweet summer children, what do you know of waifus? Waifus are for the Fall season, my little weebs, when the shows release a hundred at a time and shit taste reviews come flowing from Facebook anime pages. Waifus are for the long night, when you hide from the outside world for months at a time, and millions of potential children are ejaculated and live and die from your excessive masturbation while you grow gaunt and hungry, and your parents decide to move you out of the house. ... so uh, monster girls are the superior form of waifu, as evidenced below :^)))) )

My opinion: "Who cares?" I use the two interchangeably because it really doesn't matter. I couldn't possibly think of a less important issue.

Tumblr | Twitter | Facebook | Itch.io | LemmaSoft | VNDB | Indiegogo >>> SoulSet's Itch.io store page <<< >>> SoulSet's Steam store page <<< SoulSet is a Mystery/Romance Visual Novel, in which you can try to avoid death and pursue a relationship with both male and female characters. You play as Mariko, who finds herself trapped in an eerie mansion with 5 other people who claim to have no recollection of their past. Who will you trust? This game contains content typically considered mature, such as: strong language, blood, violence, disturbing content, use of alcohol, partial nudity, implied sex and sexual content. Player discretion is advised. Note: There are no H-scenes in the game, hence why it's considered 17+ rather than 18+ (no actual Adult Content) a total of 7 pursuable characters (both male and female) over 20 possible endings 100k+ words with an estimated 10-15 hours of gameplay multiple story lines with unlockable, alternative paths multiple route mystery (only by playing all of the routes will you be able to learn the entire story behind the game's events) a fantasy setting where magic is a part of everyday life mystery, suspense, romance, comedy, fantasy 18 beautiful backgrounds, spiced with the arcane over 30 character sprites, including alternative outfits a CG, BG and Ending Gallery to help keep track of your progress Steam Achievements and Trading Cards available for Windows, Mac and Linux You find yourself in a world where magic is a common sight, dragons are rare but exist, spirits roam the lands and people's souls hold a lot more potential than one might expect. The player follows the predicament of Mariko Blairnot, a young woman who finds herself trapped in an eerie mansion with five other people who claim to have no recollection of their past. Mariko herself can only remember scattered bits and pieces of an event that supposedly happened years ago, involving the death of her mother and the appearance of a mysterious stranger who offered his help to her and her closest dragon companion, Isshin. With both of them nowhere to be seen inside of the mansion, Mariko and the rest of the cast investigate their surroundings, only to find more questions with no answers. When someone comes up with a way that could help in getting their memories back, Mariko is presented with the option to pair up with someone for the experiment. Who will you trust? Nayru - Story / Script / Programming / Character Sprites / GUI MstMori - Interior BG / CG Marcianek - Exterior BG / Item Icons Progress: 2015/11/22 - Official SoulSet Demo ver 1.1 release 2015/12/15 - SoulSet gets greenlit on Steam Greenlight 2016/01/29 - Indiegogo campaign successfully founded at 105% 2016/03/15 - development progress for March (see below) 2016/04/15 - development progress for April (see below) 2016/05/15 - development progress for May (see below) 2016/06/15 - development progress for June (see below) 2016/07/15 - development progress for July (see below) 2016/09/04 - SoulSet Prologue Demo 2.1 release; development progress for September (see below) 2016/10/15 - development progress for October (see below) 2016/11/22 - development progress for November (see below) 2016/12/11 - development progress for December (see below) 2016/12/17 - SoulSet Full Version release on Itch.io 2016/02/07 - SoulSet Full Version release on Steam

Am I doing this right?

I have to join Nosebleed on the fact that a lot of yuri is produced by females, and for females. In fact, yuri produced by men for men is, as far as I know, a fairly recent thing. While yuri 4koma like Sakura Trick and """yuri subtext""" series are def yuri by men for men, historically yuri is a women thing. Yuri started out in shoujo magazines and were written by women (and still exist there, think about stuff like Aoi Hana). In the 70s and 80s it was part of the exploration of forbidden romantic relationships (along with BL, incest etc) by mostly female mangaka, which was part of a larger movement of feminism and sexual emancipation in Japan. It is one of the most interesting periods in the history of manga, and a lot of renowned mangaka were part of that culture. Manga at that period in time was a place allowing for expression for those women mangaka. Yuri is not a very huge sub-category of the culture of that historical period but that's pretty much its origin still. Later in the 90s, it was a josei magazine, Misuto, that started publishing pornographic yuri (contrary to BL, yuri in the 70s/80s wasn't very explicit). And one of the (many) reasons why Utena is one of the best anime that has ever been made is that it directly draws influences from all that 70s/80s shoujo manga culture and interrogates it, its social role, etc. The reason why yuri manga emerged that way is that if you go back further in history, you find its foundation in S-kei literature. And that answers @Fred the Barber's interrogations about MariMite: MariMite is a pure homage to S-kei literature and depicts what kind of novels those were. Much the same way, S-kei literature was done by women for women, and had ties with feminist and sexual emancipation movements: the most famous S-kei author, Nobuko Yoshiya, was a lesbian and a feminist. I don't know where yurirei belongs in all of this, because 'modern' (post-2000 I guess) manga tends to blur influences and historical considerations while dividing audiences into niches of niches of niches that make things much more complicated to understand - in a typical post-modern fashion, if I am to believe what little I know of post-modernism.

Testing 1 2 3 works, good job Nay-in-Disguise.

Another part of Discord is how they cloak the IP Address Portions of the gaming community trolls tend to like to find people's IP Addresses (ESPECIALLY through Skype) and then DoS/DDoS them. (The same trolls I suppose also like doxing people) ... Skype in particular is the worst offender of it That's another part of Discord that professional gamers/streamers/etc like/prefer it over the alternatives. EDIT: (also heh, it looks like slack... but targeted towards gamers)

First, VN of the Month 2016 basically comes down to a competition between two titles, World Election and Tsumi no Hikari Rendezvous. The other stuff from February was mostly... disappointing. Shugotate 2 is great... but one of my rules is that direct sequels and continuances of previous games can't compete if they require knowledge of the original to enjoy (and in this case that is true). Both games in the posts above are solid VN of the Month candidates... and if they were in separate months, it is likely they'd both end up being the rulers of their individual months. However, looking at it objectively, Tsumi no Hikari Rendezvous edges World Election by a hair (actually, either one could be named VN of the Month, but I had to give Tsumi extra points for my bias). That aside, lets move on to talking about what titles I'll be playing from this month. March Releases Might or might not play the VN below. https://vndb.org/v18237 Giving Lose the benefit of the doubt, despite the ridiculous look of the VN below. https://vndb.org/v18131 I avoided the anime so I could read the VN below without bias, so I'll be playing it. https://vndb.org/v14303 I wouldn't be Clephas if I didn't play the VN below. However, since it is a side-story, it isn't eligible for VN of the Month. https://vndb.org/v18685 I'll definitely play the VN below... but if it is as bad as its related VN (Koi no Aria) I'll probably drop it. https://vndb.org/v18635 Almost certainly won't play the one below, unless I get extremely bored. Astronauts sometimes does really good work with fantasy rpgs, but most of them are straight rape-tentacle things. https://vndb.org/v18761 Edit: Almost forgot these two, even though they were on my list of to-play VNs at the beginning of the year... March has a few too many releases though, lol. https://vndb.org/v18651 https://vndb.org/v18495

I'm really impressed to be honest, it's looking very good! I'll try to list all the stuff that came to mind when playing the demo teaser : The good: - The menu UI is very cool, gives the reader a good idea what they are going to get into even if they don't know what the premise of the game is. - The art is splendid, the style is refreshing as well. Nun's animations are very well done and creates some nice dynamism on screen. - Some good effort was put on the directing, whether it concerns SFX or VFX, I especially like the smoke effect in the background. Also the fact that the characters who are not talking have their sprites darkened is a good idea, makes it easier for the reader to associate a sprite with a voice and a name at the very beginning. - The music fits perfectly the mood of the scene and really enhances the experience, and they are looping quite neatly. - The voice acting is really enjoyable. Nun's voice especially is really well portrayed. - Dialog was nicely written, pace of the narration was good. - Definitely works as a very good hook that makes the reader want to know more about the universe The nitpicking : - The constant scribbling sound effect during narration could become annoying to some people. You might want to add an option to disable that, just in case. - Rah's voice lacked a bit of dynamism from time to time? Or maybe he's not the type to express himself strongly when talking? It probably depends on his personality I guess. - I spotted a few instance where you cut a take for Nun and separated it in two sentences, I could hear the breathing being cut in the audio. - I'm not sure if that was intentional or not, but quite a lot of lore specific terms are introduced and very few are actually explained during the demo. Maybe the goal was to have the reader guess based on context, or maybe it will just be explained later on, but it could feel slightly overwhelming (at least if you're going in blind, there's a high chance it will). Just a suggestion, but something like a lexicon could definitely be a very nice addition (for example lore specific words being highlighted, and clicking on them sends you to the lexicon page where you get some elements of explanation, those explanations can actually complete themselves the more you progress in the story). It also helps preventing an "info dump" effect during the story that could break the flow of the narration. Needs improvement : - No backlog or even script rewind is a bit annoying, especially in a demo where you need to pay careful attention to the text: I can't check back a few lines prior to see if I missed any information, which happens to me often when I'm thrown in a new universe I know nothing about, and especially since you leave things unexplained, I'm often tempted to say "There's some unfamiliar word or concept here, maybe I missed an explanation before?". - The last voiced narration from Rah doesn't have any text appearing in it, probably a bug? - Lastly, and probably the one and only flaw I felt when reading, there is a bit of a "Show, don't tell" issue in the narration. It contrasts a lot with the dialog style of speech. For example : "The room lights up." ; "He follows Nun."; "Nun walks away from Rah" ; "Unprepared, Rah loses his balance". It feels like you're summarizing too much. It doesn't prevent the reader from enjoying the scene, but I feel you're missing a bit on the potential of immersion of the scene by just telling instead of showing, I can't feel the epicness of the dialog/art/music in the narration. Overall it's a very solid demo I feel, and it show that the final game has a lot of potential, and that you know what you're doing. There's a lot of attention given to the details, and that's the mark of a very promising game imo!

Main menu: When hovering over a menu item, the hieroglyphics' aligment jumps - looks pretty odd, should fix the offsets on the images. Help item does nothing (WIP I guess, so nothing really wrong here). General menu navigation: I'm used to being able to right-click to return to the previous menu rather than always having to click on return/etc., would be nice to have. Load screen: Doesn't seem like enough slots for saves at all, but I couldn't find an option to save in the first place, so I guess it's still being worked on. Navigation at the bottom is weird, as it's different from all the other screens and isn't super practical either. Options menu (Settings): The labels on the left aren't sticking out enough, didn't notice them at first - maybe cast the entire background in shadow except for the labels to highlight them more. I'd like to be able to click on the bars with sliders and have the slider jump to the position I clicked on, rather than only being able to drag the slider. "Skip Settings ON/OFF" isn't very intuitive, maye have Skip all / Skip read only or something similar Fullscreen radio button inactive/active alignment is slightly off. The radio buttons aren't aligned properly >.> - looks very off-putting. I'd like a lot more features in the options menu, like individual audio sliders for every character, Stopping/not stopping voice on click, wait for voice in auto mode, changing text window transparancy, maybe even color, option to keep game running when the window is inactive, font config, rebindable keys, ... Optional, nice to have, but not really necessary: Only a few items actually indicate visually that they're being hovered over, would be nice to have that indication for all items (just putting a glow on them would be enough) Transitions radio buttons don't actually work. New game: This takes way too long to load, considering the power of my system - you've gotta be able to optimize that, and even if you're not able to, at least give me some sort of moving loading screen, so that I know that the game's still alive and just loading rather than having no indication whether the game's just died on me. Ingame: Lots of features are missing here: Hide text box, Backlog, Replay voice, Start skipping, Skip to next/previous choice, Quicksave/load, Pinning/unpinning menu bar, save bar, ... I'd like rebindable hotkeys for things like loading, starting automode, skip, quicksave, load, etc. Also want to be able to return to title from ingame whenever I want

Make sure that you have Japanese locale. Also check that you don't have the file attribute set to "read-only".

A shame, that's the best part about okabe imo, were you expecting scientist version of Grisaia's Yuuji or something

https://theblacksands.itch.io/black-sands-legends-of-the-rift Demo is live. Feel free to play it. Larger demo coming in 2 months with full features.

As a huge yuri fan, I definitely appreciate this more realistic approach to lesbian romance. Like @Decay said, mot yuri is indeed crafted for a male audience, focusing on all the cutesy stuff and not really going very deep into what an actual relationship is like. But then again, don't most moege/charage do the same exact thing with hetero relationships? It's just one whole idealistic world either way, at least from my experience. It's not so true that most yuri is done BY men, though ( in the visual novel world it might be I guess, but the amount of yuri here is already tiny). There's a lot of female authors that do all of the things you pointed out as stereotypical of male targeted yuri, so the key factor really is the audience it's aimed at. You can clearly see this line when you read yuri manga magazines that cater to different audiences. There is not a whole lot of non-male targeted yuri by the way. In visual novels, yurirei is probably the only one you'll find. The most luck you'll have is probably within manga, where female writers that write for other audiences are much more common and, frankly, way more interesting. Yurirei sems like a really great experience anyone can enjoy and I'm very happy to see it getting such positive reactions. I still love all the cutesy yuri stuff, but it's refreshing to know there's alternatives being created as well. There is one upcoming game that plans to be th first yuri game specifically targeted at women. I'm really looking forward to trying that out. (Need to find a link, will update the post when I do)

These voice actors are really good Looking forward to this

Yeah, you must be right. Otomaid Cafe's shitty, tho. But not because of the traps.

That 3D cell-shaded graphics is ugly as hell. Spike Chunsoft exceeded all expectations of ugliness.

Clover is shit now Give me my Snake!

I hope that character will have some significant role, but I have a feeling it will be just be a quick cameo if anything ;-; Based on the ending of VLR though, with the whole they'll find a way to get back there, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Grisaia: tormenting tsunderes since 2011 Lonely Yuri- winning the most accurate name award Yume Miru Kusuri- guilt limiting you to one route

Yuri is generally written by men for men, yes. I believe Kindred Spirits to have some degree of cross-gender appeal, though. So much of yuri is either a) "LOOK AT HOW CUTE THESE GIRLS ARE, AREN'T THEY SO GOSH DARNED ADORABLE??" as they blush heavily and act sheepish around each other followed by gratuitous sex or kissing (sakura trick, sonohana), b) "Oh no, onee-sama, we mustn't!" *blush* followed by them "growing out of it" and getting men after graduation (a lot of yuri side-stories in standard bishoujo titles), or c) "Implications" without actual romance (Aoishiro, madoka magica). Meanwhile, Kindred Spirits is just about love, never really delivering on any of the above. I am really inexperienced with yuri as a whole, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if there's plenty of stuff like Kindred Spirits I don't yet know about. edit: There's a bit of a fujoshi character in Kindred Spirits, and there's a sudden bizarre bout of dissonance in one scene when she describes what yuri really is supposed to be about and what makes it great, and you realize that almost nothing she's describing applies to the VN you're reading.

Guyz the trailer is up ! http://www.polygon.com/2016/3/16/11250602/zero-time-dilemma-releases-date-steam-port Looks like it will be on Steam as well. I will most likely pick it up on that platform so I can have the achievement. Yeah judge away .

Depends on the language, on the country you're searching for the job in, and on the industry you're looking for the job in. For Japanese there is always going to be an open market for translators and interpreters in America because people who can actually do native-level Japanese and English are not as common as you are implying. You also have to take into account things like region (coastal cities with large Asian populations will obviously have more competition than mid-west cities where not many Asians live but where car and industry companies are all set up). Honestly it's just like any other college skillset; you have to look and work at it to make sure you can get into a career, but there's definitely careers there if you put in the work to find them.

Started learning Japanese a few days ago, it helps knowing there might be a job in it if keep doing it! Thanks for the info!

Still awaiting for the Skype groups approval but I vote we switch to discord. In either case I already made it, come say hi: https://discord.gg/0tLKIxTCMKzrbIqd Thanks @solidbatman for making me realize discord is kinda cool.

Hello, fellow interpreter, I work at a car company too and I can relate to most of what you have said. It is absolutely true, that the main stress on the job is when people argue and try to force their opinion during meetings. The rest of the day is at most busy, but as I work on a project contract basis, I don't sit at the office, but rather support Japanese team on site (I work for press shop die maintenance mostly). And it is very interesting and there is a lot of spare time that you can use for Japanese studies or even book reading (mobile phones use is not allowed at genba, but nobody pays attention when and how I use it, since I am just an interpreter). I've been working like this for approx. 2 years, but it is not easy to find a job when you just graduated. It took me 5 months to get my first contract, and it was for a logistics company.

I owe you nothing of the sort.

"If what you want out of yuri is endless CGs of cute girls blushing, making out, and scissoring, you won’t find that here." Dealbreaker "In fact, it may be over ten hours before you witness the first kiss, and several more hours before the second, with a little hugging and hand-holding in between."" DEALBREAKER "What Kindred Spirits does offer is a heartfelt story of personal growth and unlikely romance, more earnest and pure than almost any other yuri VN" DEALBREAKER "While there is practically no ecchi or fanservice, there are sex scenes." SOLD!!!1@#

Praise the sun!

I'm just in here to say that YU-NO is fucking god tier

For me, the perfect waifu is a being which helps me improve myself. A waifu will comfort me when I'm sad, will motivate me when I'm lazy and will support me in achieving my goals. When I wake up in the morning and I don't know why I should even get out of the bed, I look at my dakimakura beside me and it makes me smile and let's me think that life isn't so bad after all. And when I was a bad boy during the day I don't even dare to enter the bedroom at the end of the day because she's there and I know she's disappointed of me and that breaks my heart and I swear to myself that I will be a better person in the future. That's what having a waifu is all about in my opinion. Speaking of waifus, I haven't seen any waifu material in the last 5 years to be honest. Nowadays, all characters are only wish-fulfilling otaku-pandering with no mind of their own. Only fetishized moe-tropes. I think the worst thing with otaku media in the last few years (and the reason why I think it's objectively bad) is that it doesn't even try to improve the reader/watcher anymore. Back in the day, waifu games had a protagonist who needed to go trough some character development before the heroine would fall in love with him. He needed to try to be worthy of her. The message was "Even you can be awesome and be loved, if you're really trying." Today, everyone loves the protagonist from the beginning for no reasons and every part of the heroine's personality is designed to cater to some superficial fetish like hair color or the amount of tsun and dere. The message here is "We love you even though you're a disgusting hetare." In my opinion that's the most harmful message you can give to the modern otaku audience.

Oh, nice to meet you. And welcome to the forum (Nice Chimame capture by the way). Although I'd already commented in your thread about VN recommendation anyway, I figured that I should said hello too, even if it's a little late. Don't hesitate to browse or ask if you had problem on VN, okay.

Since I finished getting the acidic, poisonous, and unreasoning emotions out of my system - see this post: I was able to get through this VN without a lot of pain and twisted emotion such as I experienced with Soreyori no Prologue. First, this is a VN that people who prefer moege/charage will not like. I say this because, despite the high-quality visuals, this is - like most of Minori's more recent VNs - just a few steps too far in the direction of 'down in the mud romance drama' for the tastes of those who like the sappy, mindless romance that defines most VNs of the type. Also, I will say that the best heroine in this VN is Fuuka (for reasons involving my personal tastes that I won't spoil). Tsubura is just too... weak-willed for my tastes. Ai is the central heroine, but she is typical of some of my least-favorite Minori heroines in being a bit too... attached to her own metaphors. Having said that, this VN starts out in a way that I really didn't like (sparking the previous rave post that I used to lance that particular boil of toxic emotion), so I honestly can say that while the events in the common route were ones I didn't enjoy reading, they don't detract from the overall quality of the game. In fact, for people who like this kind of 'afternoon drama romance story', this will be a perfect treat. The simple fact that I don't enjoy that type of thing outside of a few specific scenarios is irrelevant to this fact, so remember that my personal distaste is pure bias, not a statement on the technical quality of the scenario. I honestly can't find a way to describe this story in any way without spoiling it. This VN is so dependent on its specific methodology of revelation in order for the reader to enjoy it that any spoilers here - even minor ones - would be criminal on my part, so I'm going to decline to do an in-detail analysis of what I read, outside of a few generalized statements. Tsubura, for better or worse, is a personality that will seriously split those who read this. Her path has some seriously good points emotionally, but as a character, she will drive some people insane, because she can be seriously pathetic as a person sometimes. Ai's path... is dependent on the common route, and the revelation of certain personality traits (and hiding others) is integral to telling her story, so I'll refrain from any further comment except to say that it feels like a 'typical Minori star-crossed, twisted into a pretzel romance, for better or worse'. Fuuka... is Tsubura's opposite. She is strong-willed, bad-mouthed, and pretty capable overall. She is my favorite of the three heroines (as I mentioned above) and her path stimulates one of my tertiary fetishes. However, her path will also split those who read it, though for different reasons from the other two paths. I have to mention this issue, despite it being one that most Minori readers are already familiar with... the unbelievably long h-scenes. For some reason, Minori seems to adore making h-scenes that last forever, have a ridiculous number of CGs, and are so intrusive into the story at some points that they actually make it hard to keep up interest in the story in general (there are some that aren't intrusive - and are even necessary to the story flow - but some are seriously...). Visually and audio-wise, this VN is of average Minori quality (which is higher quality than the average VN ), but there are definitely issues with the graphic system, such as stuttering in the animations and occasional random freezes (usually lasting only a few seconds). The random freezes stop if you turn off the animation, and I actually enjoyed the story more once they were gone... so I can honestly say the animation doesn't add anything to the experience one way or the other. In terms of raw scenario design and writing quality... the scenario design is pretty high quality, but the writing is somewhat spotty at times (daily life scenes are somewhat shoddier at times, whereas the quality jumps suddenly in the most vital scenes... not really noticeable unless writing is really an issue for you like it is for me). Overall, this VN wasn't a bad experience once I got past my own issues... but I think that VN readers in the community will be split based on personal tastes when it comes to the game in general. It isn't a kamige by any standard, and it is an unabashed soap opera type story (though without endless seasons of meaningless twists). However, whether that is a good or bad thing is entirely up to you. As I said before, some people will actually have more trouble than I did, particularly people who like the relatively simple romance that is the common fare of charage, nakige, and others of the type. There are some seriously strong emotional moments in this VN... but it is not really a VN that will stimulate the intellect, as it is basically an adolescent romance story.

As promised in the blog post, here are the first two voiced trailers!

how dare you sir or madam. im a huge fan of both 2d and 3d traps. i am insulted you would think otherwise. btw, nonomy is freaking adorable.

Your love is not pure enough. If u really like trap tht mean u need to love both 2d n 3d traps. Our goal is to find a perfect trap both 2d n 3d. https://worldcosplay.net/en/member/Nonomy

Brother....someday you will be enlightened that cuteness is boundless, no matter what gender,race,age and height(Yes Loli are cute too). i am....especially long haired traps, i`m not too fond of short haired traps.