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Stealing Tay's thunder. I'm fully expecting there to be problems with some PHP7 features, so let me know if stuff isn't working.

All parts of the site are back up and the old server has officially retired after 14 months. A moment of silence, for it has served us well during that time.

I sure hope nobody's studying the female anatomy with VNs.

New image on the Minatosoft Website. A perfectly SFW picture of Margit.

With the new server set up there's only one more step to getting the first batch of banners onto the beta site, which will also allow me to push updates more often. Please look forward to seeing some of them coming with the planned update tomorrow.

Confession: Two days ago, I met a group of players in DotA and one of the players is a girl who decided to add me on her own. So far we play daily and she always insists that I lane with her (me as carry and she as support). We have a pretty good chemistry

I was pondering about starting this threat for quite some time, but final 'nail' was from "Philosophical/psychological VN" thread in recommendations. " VN you can actually learn something from ". But do you really? I have a big problem here myself. But first things first: I'm reading lots of books, watching tv series, watching movies. I have a fair amount of knowledge about movies, much higher than 'regular watcher'. So I can easily distinct when somehting is 'valuable', or just plain shit. And I believe in them. When charatcers in books/series/movies ['b/s/m' for future refference] are doing 'interesting' thngs I believe them. I believe that science b/s/m selling me is somehow right (of course I'm not going to believe in science in movies like Transformes or Lucy, but when highly acclaimed one is dealing with f.e biology, psychology, or 'down to earth' science I immidiatelly believe it). I also believe in human interactions. When guy is approaching girl in interesting way, I believe that this could work. When characters are responding to 'normal live' events, like fe death of somebody close, I read or watch it and I believe that this behaviour could actually happen in real life. I'm obtaining a knowledge about human behaviour, about patterns, about how they think, how they act, what could tickle them, what could irk them. And there goes VNs. I spend more than last 6 month almost solely focusing on reading them. And I don't believe them. Like, at all. Situations, even when they're down to earth, ignites sometimes so bizarre reactions from heroines, that sometimes it's just interesting to read how ridiculous this could be (I'm looking at you Grisaia, Sharin, Hoshimemo), but I never absorb this as any 'pattern' of how people actualy might act. When girls suffers from PTSD after some trauma in her childhood I believe in what movie is showing to me, but when VN is doing this I found it cancerous. Same with science. Steins;Gate had a fair amount of actuall science, many aspects of that I was familiar with, so I could naturally believe that rest of it made sense too. But I couldn't. Other VNs killed that ability in me. I'm reading VNs but other that pure 'fun' or 'cancerous fun', I don't find any valuable things, like I do in other creations of culture. So when VN is 'making me think', like Sharin no Kuni was trying with theme of 'society', I think for myself about it, but when VN is proposing some answers I immidiatelly rejects them, believing that they're taken out of ass, scientifically innacurate. How is it with you? Do you believe in VNs? Do you absorb what they're showing as something which mirrors RL to some point, or rejects it all? And how it looks for you with b/s/m?

Saw it too, but you guys probably know the answer to that one, right? Right...?

kotori is life kotori is love

Because Japan fucking loves their re-releases. And otaku eat it up.

Eh, voice acting of any sort increases cost (sometimes obscenely,) potentially limits content, and encourages developers into creating safer stories. I’d rather VNs not include voice acting of any sort, Japanese or English, it’s not essential and is a pretty easy way to keep costs down. I know literally nobody else agrees with me, and I'm comfortable with that thought

Eeeeeeew, English.

We would like to announce our partnership with MangaGamer! In addition to the help of MikandiJapan, the three of us are going to work together and bring more Japanese visual novels to the West! Banzai! Lastly, here's an interview that we recently conducted with them about our game. Enjoy some more news about the future of Bloody Chronicles!" You mention the main character Kazuki can form relationships with NPCs. Can you elaborate on this? Does this mean the player can form love relationships? Can relationships be made regardless of gender? – Correct, Kazuki can have relationships with other Igrasil members like Suzumi, Aki, Kaoru and even Akito. Many users asking us for adult content (H content). Like we said before, we are always listening to our users and we will start our work on Adult Version of Bloody Chronicles. You mention the game will be made in 3 installments; are all these going to be funded this time or will there be three different funding opportunities – The current campaign will fund the first release, "New Cycle of Death." We are hopeful that through this initial funding drive we can create the first act and receive future funding through sales of the game. You mention the first part will be released in March 2017, but how much of the game is left to make? Will the other parts take as long to be released? -Our estimated release for Act 1 is next March. You can view our progress here:http://bloodychronicles.com/project-statusIf all goes according to plan, we're hoping to release Act 2 (Revenge) December 2017 and act 3 (Last Order) by October 2018. It's going to be a wild ride! With a Japanese style visual novel game it seems odd to have English voice actors. Can you explain how you came to use English voice actors? -To be honest, what we're doing is a bit unorthodox; while most of our team is located in Japan, we're focusing our efforts in the western market. Likewise, we wanted to reach out to English voice actors to fit our localization; they were very kind and offered their services wholeheartedly. We also wanted to try something else with the voice acting, to gauge how western audiences would see a visual novel that was catered towards them rather than Japanese audiences. How many different paths are possible in the game and how much do they actually affect the player’s progress or change the story? –There will be five unique "paths", one for each of the cast excluding the main character, plus one "dark" ending. We made the paths unique, so that you won't know the true story just playing through once, much like visual novels with branches. We've spent a year researching serial killers, how they work, and why it takes a while for police to catch them, if at all (such as the case of the zodiac killer.) The story in the demo is a little confusing. For instance, as detectives do they work for, with, or independently from the police? – Well, the demo was meant to establish the game engine as well as the UI, so we apologize if there was any confusion. There were a lot of things cut, such dialogue trees, since we're still working on those. In this universe, the organization is independent from the police, and they have funding through the Moriyama family. This means they don't have to be cooperative if the situation calls for it. However, there are a couple of characters who have ties to the police, so it's in their best interests to work together. 80 hours seems like a lot of time to fill with just the Phantom case, what else will happen in Bloody Chronicles? 80 hours is an estimate, so just take it with a grain of salt. The overarching narrative involves the Phantom as well as his effect on the other characters; almost everyone has a different motivation for capturing the killer. We're hoping that the series will captivate players by going through the multiple endings (which will be vastly different from each other.) These different branches will explain why Kazuki was spared in that accident that killed his parents, as well as the different murders that are happening while the case is underway.

Well, I pretty much knew what I was going to post in this thread before even seeing it. Most of it still stands, starting with: At least do Front Wing the service of waiting until they announce their plans, rather than crucifying them now on the basis of what you hypothesize their plans to be. Most of you are jumping to conclusions that are, frankly, still unwarranted. There'll be a Kickstarter soon enough - you'll have plenty of time to belittle them without evidence as to translation quality at that time. At least then we'll know what their plans are WRT translation and editing. Now, as far as the bizarre partnership, I have a pretty reasonable explanation for this. Here's the sequence of relevant events: Grisaia gets a Sekai Project release. The Steam release alone sells like gangbusters. 16k owners, at > $30 per copy? In the English VN market, we can comfortably call this yooj. That's not to count Denpasoft money and Kickstarter money (though let's be frank, despite the ability to contribute a lot more, Kickstarter money on average probably isn't any better than a full-price Steam sale; shipping, merch production, and logistics to orchestrate it all ain't cheap, nor is the cut Kickstarter itself takes). But the end result is clear: Frontwing is happy, SP is happy, and shockingly enough, even us salty fans are pretty happy. Next up, G-Senjou gets a Sekai Project release. I think it's fair to say that G-Senjou's reputation is, if anything, stronger than Grisaia's. Like Grisaia, the release uses an existing fan TL, which in both cases people have had ample opportunity to pirate. Pretty good comparable, really. It tanks. 3k owners? It even has the option of a substantially lower price point without voice acting, for anybody crazy enough to think that's a good idea *cough*Rooke*cough*, and the same price as Grisaia if you do want voice acting. AkabeiSoft2 is justifiably left wondering what the hell happened. They got 20% the sales of Grisaia, for the same amount of work (or more? probably more; don't forget they HD-ified all their assets, to the community's consternation). Arguably what should have been their most profitable IP is burned, and they have nothing to show for it. Sekai Project probably straight-up took a loss on this project. Clearly the magic wasn't Sekai Project. Sekai Project might not even be interested in Sharin at this point; I wouldn't be surprised if they would have turned down the option, with as many balls as they have in the air and with what a flop G-Senjou was. So AkabeiSoft2 starts talking to Front Wing: why is Grisaia so successful? What's the secret sauce? Front Wing thinks they know, and uses their answer to leverage this partnership. And I think I know, too. The conclusion almost seems obvious, at this point. You're gonna hate it. Kickstarter is the premier advertising platform for large, high-profile VNs.

Blick Winkel

This came across my twitter feed today, and I cringed hard. As pretty much the only person around here who will admit to enjoying watching anime with English dubs (recent dubs, that is, not the crap they churned out 15 years ago), I've sometimes wondered whether we'd ever see a VN with an English dub. On these boards, Huniepop gets a fair bit of both hate and love for its voice acting - I personally think both are deserved (the hate, for Nikki; the love, for the rest of the cast; seriously, Kyu, marry me). But Huniepop is of course originally an English-language game and is a far cry from a VN, even though we talk about it a lot around here. But the day has finally come. Our historical first (as far as I know) English-dubbed honest-to-God Japanese VN is on its way, and I'm sure @Rooke will be delighted more than anyone by this double-whammy of good news: I get it, I really do. Growth has stagnated. They want to branch out, grow their market in new directions. If this is it, more power to them. But this isn't it. This isn't going to work. Somebody, save us before it's too late.

https://twitter.com/sfgp0408 Yeah, this is some of the weirder VN news of late. Front Wing is getting into the third party localization game, it seems. Sharin no Kuni getting an official release was a bit of an open secret, pretty much everyone knew about it to some extent. But everyone expected the one to bring it to us to be Sekai Project. Frontwing is planning a kickstarter, it seems. Much to some people's befuddlement. Maybe they'll actually bother retranslating it? Moogy, the old translation's editor, was saying that it needed one before getting officially released, so who knows, maybe that's why they need kickstarter money.

If I want my preconceptions challenged or to see other perspectives, I'll go argue with actual people on Internet forums. Like so. Fiction might give me ideas, and indeed I prefer works that have a self-consistent setting because I find that interesting. But does that translate into knowledge? Probably not.

Yes, I do beleive that VNs as a medium can tap into realistic modes of human thought. Very few of them do, but there are some out there, and the medium definitely has the potential to have more of such works. I emphasize the ability of VNs to communicate human thought, because even in VNs where some unrealistic events are happening, the emotions and that characters feel could still be portrayed realistically. A few VNs that I feel succeed in capturing realistic emotional (and sometimes intellectual) responses are: Narcissu, Symphonic Rain, Yume Miru Kusuri, and Swan Song. Then there is Sayooshi, which while it portrayed the perspective of an insane person, did a really good job in portraying his insanity. There is no reason why VNs can't have intellectual merit. There exists a scarcity of such works because 1) it is an entirely new medium that has only really been around since the 90's. 2) The medium isn't profitable enough, and when money is tight, content creators are more scared of the risk of doing creating something unique.

i hope you dont expect a honest answer from an almost 30y old dude who ended up a shut-in, communicates in rl through line only & occassionally scares his surroundings due to him crossdressing as saint seiyas shaina.... :/

This is not about being gay or not, it's about deifying the god that is Sakamoto.

Lucia's route is crap tier. Made me stop playing for months.

I thought it was pretty good. Some parts were ridiculous but it was fun overall.

Hoodlum B best gril

I think you'll miss most of the important plot elements in Miu's route. Here's what gets solved in every route Azusa Nikola Nothing gets revealed, and the route can be finished in about an hour Rio Elina Miu

No.

just be prepared it can be a snorefest at times. Even Fal's route, which only gets 'interesting' during the last 30 minutes ~~ Conflicted b/w continuing Babel, starting Haruka with Zenophil-chan, or blitzing Neko vol 2. Haven't really been in the mood for moes since KnS, but I'm also craving some H since I haven't read anything with them this year Screw it, we're going with blitz Nekos Panda 2 -> continue Tohks Bible

This is all spot-on, but even as bad as it sounds, this is only half the problem - I think I could've gotten along ok with the censorship and rewrite and not been that upset by it, but the Engrish is way worse than it was even in Kotori's route. I had to work hard to puzzle out a lot of the text, and at times I simply gave up on understanding what the horrible translator intended to say in a whole given line.

There's a emoticon Fuwanovel is over. We can all go home now.

Blah... Now that I'm done Tokyo Babel, I'm feeling wistful and not sure what to do with myself, lol. Maybe I'll try out Dracu-Riot, since it appears to be legit~

They're all cheap $1 children's books right? I can't imagine you spending $800+ on... books Actually, I can.

Fisted to death by Kiri What trickery is this?! \ /

Kanako does have a route in the Flight Diary fandisc, (and its great ) Sadly its untranslated. The student council president is also getting a route, though I think its psvita exclusive, which sucks.

Still trying to find out what's going wrong there.

Other routes are just a stupid mumbling along with sex scenes, really. Ririko route is a 3 hours or infinite mockery of protag and stupidity. Other girls are not much better, infinite cooking works vs infinite painting works. Anyway, translation did not look like a machine (having in mind tons of typos there), but very literal, that's for sure. But for that "story" which happen there - no translation would make it shine, as it is triumph of repetiveness and VN tropes, you will be bored to hell no matter what. So, as they will release all-age version, I believe it would be version everyone saw on Xbox360/PS3, and it already have Houzuki route as integral part of the game. No point in FD at all.

Huh. Well if Sonico is the only voiced character, and this cosplayer really is that famous, then this sounds like a great publicity move. I just hope JAST prices the game in accordance with the actual content. I get the sinking feeling that they're going to charge a pretty sizeable sum for not much content.

I've never played it nor do I care to look into this, but the VNDB lists Sonico as the only character in the game. From what I've heard it's also just a game where you act as Sonico's manager or some shit, so maybe she's the only voiced character in it? Also, I'm not sure how much you know about the voice actor, but she's really, really famous among cosplay and convention-going people. Her twitter has 517k followers, so just imagine someone with that big of a following being on your game. They're not aiming for a steam audience, they're aiming for the casual anime fans who might not know anything about visual novels, but see Jessica Nigri on it and pick up interest in it.

English dub is always welcome. Except when the voice acting is bad, like the majority of English dubbed anime, with the exception of a few. I won't judge until the product comes out then we'll see how bad it is. Or maybe they'll end up making one good dub for every 50 they dubbed, like anime dubs. Blasphemy! How would the fanservice sex scenes work without voice acting!? All the ones who bought it for their.... free time.... can no longer enjoy their free time!!

Finished it last night, was a pretty enjoyable ride. Still need to organize my final thoughts though. Last route offered some emotional investment, and tears were shed. Not quite as good as Ayakashibito in some respects, but still a damn good VN worth my money. Samael best girl

1v1 me noobs

08/04/2016 Patch notes:

Welcome to the Forums I'd recommend Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate, Koi ga Saku Koro Sakura doki, Kono Oozora, no Tsubasa o Hirogete(If My Heart Had Wings), My Girlfriend is the President, Noble Noodle Works and Dracu-Riot! Hope to see you soon

Amane is best girl for sure how does one even combine the airhead and genius tags

Alright, took it. Chiitrans is my go to program. (Thanks Deep Blue )

I never noticed how toxic /r/vns can be. Holy shit. I'm probably no better though.

Which, in retrospect, this probably played a part in FW dropping SP, because SP openly supported koestl's team in their desire to release an alternative translation.

Just finished Trails in the Sky SC. Such a great game, its gonna be tough waiting for the 3rd + Trails of Cold Steel 2.