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Hi there, fellow VN fans, I always had a thought: why do we have so many proprietary and semi-proprietary VN engines? There are *many* defiencies in having a closed source engine (and kinda inaccessible VN content): there are problems with running it on many platforms (like 95% of modern VNs are released for Windows, good luck trying to read them on your Android / iOS device), there are these infamous problems with "Japanese locale required", sooner or later platforms become inaccessible (good luck trying to run some less popular games of Windows 95-98 era - they won't run on modern Windows 7/8/10 in any of the compatibility modes). If one wants to grab text for translation, one has to resort to really ugly API hooking hacks. Etc, etc. So, why not just convert VNs to some easier, more universal, accessible format? I've followed the pattern of ScummVM project (a universal engine that runs adventure games) and thought - why not? There are 2 projects close to what I thought: that is VNDS, which is, unfortunately, dead, and Asenheim, which is, unfortunately, not free/open source and I can't participate in it. Today I'd like to share some of my progress, proof-of-concepts and ideas. I've studied several VN engines, namely: Kirikiri2 (AKA TVP) NScripter BGI (Buriko General Interpreter) Whale Caramelbox SysAdv Ren'Py Tyrano Yuka VNDS Asenheim What do I have now: An understanding of some common baseline capabilities that all these engines have A project of JSON-based format (basically, some metainformation plus an array of simple instructions like "show text", "show graphics", "play sound", etc) A proof-of-concept engine written in HTML5+JavaScript (well, actually CoffeeScript) Most important: some working converters for several games that can be used on original games' data to make a "port" that my engine will be able to run A list of VNs I currently support and working on: Koisuru Shimai no Sextet - https://vndb.org/v13353 (Yuka) Zutto Tsukushite Ageru no! - https://vndb.org/v8439 (Yuka) Moshimo Ashita ga Harenaraba - https://vndb.org/v100 (SysAdv) Sakura Swim Club - https://vndb.org/v18261 (Ren'Py) Edelweiss Eiden Fantasia - https://vndb.org/v2093 (BGI) Koneko Doumei - https://vndb.org/v153 (BGI) Nora to Oujo to Noraneko Heart - https://vndb.org/v18148 (Whale) Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru - https://vndb.org/v195 (Caramelbox) Here's how it looks like: A few nice things that I already have is full customizability (like using any skin for every VN for UI), support for multiple simultaneous languages (like showing original Japanese + English translation for the sake of learning Japanese from it), support for annotated Japanese (i.e. adding furigana and/or hovering tooltips with word translations), etc. It's very easy to run HTML5 engine on Android and iOS (tried both), thus enabling one to enjoy reading VNs on the go. I want to ask if anyone would be interested to take a look and possibly join me in developing / using such a concept? I'm almost ready to publish it all as open source software - actually, I just need a good name for the engine Any ideas? If anyone wants to try translating any of mentioned games using my engine - please contact me too. Anyone who wants to participate in any way (i.e. checking out demos, porting more games, playtesting, etc) - also feel free to contact. UPDATE: The engine is released in public and available to download at https://github.com/mnakamura1337/mikan_engine

Just to add fuel to the fire, I will add that "" can be problematic. It's a quote in English and in the dawn of time (computer time, that is), programmers figured it would be a good sign to quote strings. This mean "This is a line" will leave out the "" in the string itself. Writing ""This is a line"" will end the string at the second " and cause an error. The way to write the line in a way the computer would understand would be "\"This is a line\"". However it could also be written "「This is a line」". However this only goes for " and this would also be accepted by the computer "“This is a line”". For easier comparison: "\"This is a line\"" "「This is a line」" "“This is a line”" Next problem is that most VNs use Japanese locale and as such use the shift-jis encoding (or rather Microsoft's codepage 932, which is virtually identical). This mean that not all characters are available. More specifically whatever is used should be available here Microsoft's cp932 page for 0x81 leading byte. Being aimed at Japanese text, they didn't include “”, but row 60, column 05 to 08 looks useful, or at least as close as one can get to what you asked for. Leaving technical reasons aside, I do actually like the 「」signs. I think they look decent. I just wish they were available with a character width, which didn't provide so much whitespace around them. However they seem to be made to match a default kanji width to make kanji line up vertical. There is nothing we can do about the width, other than making a custom font.

Translation: 18120/32977 Just a heads up! Still alive Halfway there!

Nekopara is already a long running series, though. It started as a doujin series back in 2009 and only recently did it transition into visual novel format. Sayori has been well off all this time and I doubt she intends to stop now. So yeah it's not going to die anytime soon, it's the ultimate comiket bait.

One question I always had for fans of Fan-service manga/anime. Why don't you just read/watch hentai instead? I don't understand the appeal of exciting yourself, but not getting the whole thing. I feel like fan-service manga is just watered down hentai. If you want story, non fanservice titles tend to have better quality writing. And if you want to get aroused, well porn and hentai is made for that. Regardless, DearS has a lot of fan service. So that might be up your ally.

Last time, we discussed how the casual ellipsis should almost always be considered punctuation non grata in VN translations. Today, we set our sights on a new target: Japanese-style quotation marks. Handling these couldn’t be simpler: If you see any in your text, replace them with English-style quotation marks immediately. No exceptions. No special cases. No mercy. A quick primer on Japanese quotation marks If you’ve spent any time looking at Japanese texts, you’ve likely seen 「 and its friend 」. These little guys are known as kagikakko (“hook brackets”) and function almost exactly like opening (“) and closing (”) quotations marks would in English. No surprise there; kagikakko were invented during the 19th Century to aid in translating Western texts into Japanese. Why use these instead the genuine article? Because a Western quote (“) looks an awful lot like a dakuten (゛), a common Japanese diacritical mark; it turns “ta” (た) into “da” (だ), for instance. The potential for confusion was enormous, so new punctuation was introduced. Less frequently seen are 『 and 』, known as nijūkagikakko (“double hook brackets”). These operate much like opening (‘) and closing (’) single quotation marks would in English — which is to say, for quoting things within quotes. (“You can’t just scream ‘FIRE!’ in a crowded theater,” he scolded.) In Japanese, they also moonlight as italics for things like book titles. Times are tough and they need the extra cash. The rules (You can quote me on these.) But all my friends are doing it! So here’s the rub: I see Japanese quotation marks everywhere. Fan translations, professional translations — everywhere. Why? Buggered if I know. I can only imagine it’s affectation that, over time, has become habit. Maybe TL teams think it’s more authentic? Maybe they’re convinced it makes the English text look more Japanese-y? Maybe it’s chemtrails? I just don’t know. Regardless of the reason, this is one seriously annoying trend that needs to be pushed off a seriously tall cliff. Starting now. UPDATE #1: As pointed out in the comments, I'm assuming the rules of U.S. punctuation here. I also eat my soft-boiled eggs little end up, just as The Lord God Almighty intended. If you live in the U.K. or one of its offshoots, however, feel free to reverse the order I've given — i.e., single quotes as your primary tool, double quotes for nested quotes and italics. And to be honest, if you look at how Japanese quotation marks are constructed, it seems pretty clear they're based off the British style. Point for the Queen. But ultimately, your editing decisions should be based on whether you're using U.S. or U.K. English for your translation in general.

I liked it better in the old days, when there wasn’t a lewd meaning for every verb under the sun

I see the inclusion of 「」 Japanese quotation marks as simply an extension of fan translation weabooism that thinks including as much Japanese in the translation as possible makes it somehow more authentic.

Well, we've already been waiting for 8 years, what's another few months I suppose On the positive side, Persona 5 is looking good :3

oh he did, is that so =_= always doing thing's without telling me =_=

I am a sort of musician, and i can say it s not really hard to do it. Just end the song with exactly the same part as the start, and while u think it s still ending, it actually starts again, just need to set some non-stop replay, and it s done. Lenght of the song doesn t matter very much

Entirely valid point. And handling annoying text transformations like these is why God invented Perl. And Perl hackers. Those characters would seem to be exactly what the doctor ordered, in fact. And since it looks like one of my teams has found my blog — hi! — it's probably a good time to add the standard disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on this blog are solely those of Darbury Laine. They do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of any projects he may be involved in, nor of good and decent people in general. Furthermore, Antwerp is not a sexual position.

So, to be clear, you're suggesting that no quotation marks should be used in ADV format, right? I had been considering how to broach exactly that suggestion, inside actual dialogue text, for my current project which is an ADV, so a little explicit support in advance for that wouldn't go unappreciated.

I'd like to point out something also. Only Americans use the double quotation marks for speech. All my physical books (well, I'm not going to check all of them) use single quotation marks for dialogue because they were printed outside of the US. Americans use the double quotes (") for quotations and single quotes (') for quotations inside a quotation, but British punctuation guidelines suggest the opposite - single quotes for quotations and double quotes for quotations inside a quotation. I know what you're all thinking and I agree, the British format is obviously superior and I really don't know why the Americans like to be contrary Just checked my Kindle and the punctuation between books is a total mish-mash *wrinkles nose*. Observe: “The marquis has arrived, sir.” (The Theft of Swords) ‘Initiating VKT ranging, cross-match RL acquisition data,’ (Pandora's Star)

I think it's important to maintain the 「」, because sometimes depending on the situation, they change how the quotation marks look. For example, in flashbacks, I've seen some VNs change to 『』 And I agree that it looks prettier than " ". EDIT: I just noticed he talked about 『』 above, awkward...

And we celebrate for it!

How dare you not include Metao.

If I remember correctly it was the third button on the top of the screen and then the lowest one from there. Finished the demo btw. It was great.

I'm I the only one who thinks the TL is not that great?

First off, I second Highschool of the Dead, (it's pretty good, and is pretty much what you are asking for.) Anyways, I'd say Strike Witches is pretty entertaining, especially if you also watch the anime. The manga isn't one long run, but several small sized arcs. The translated and licensed books in "order": - Maidens in the Sky 1-2 - The sky that connects us - 1937 Fuso Incident 1-2 - One winged Witches 1-2 The witches of Africa is not licensed the last time I checked. If you want something extremely cute, Girl Friends is a great shoujo ai manga. It does have a few fanservice scenes, though not as much as Strike Witches.

Standard shounen action. It's why I'm not a fan of most shounen action. I'm of the belief that action scenes are paced quickly, but most shounen action scenes slow down to a crawl. It's a matter of preference, I suppose. One could argue that adds to the amusement … heh

Speaking about link, just go to Steam Store here and you could freely download it. Here's the link below, and I'll write my impression about the demo later. http://store.steampowered.com/app/487430/ PS - Well to be honest I just learned how to copy and paste on tab, so my earlier post didn't had the link.

Well if you want a romantic comedy with a good bit of fanservice Ai Yori Aoshi is one I'd recommend.

Hei guys My name is Piero Mazza, Project Manager of Elisa the Innkeeper. I was told this forum was perfect for someone who is looking for some valuable feedback from visual novel experts. I'm actually glad to see that someone already created a post for our game! Starting from the Fuwa Senior's question i kinda agree that the word "emergent" is quite strange, i don't think that it reflects what we want to achieve but i will try anyway to explain our point of view. We know that there are a huge number of visual novels out there, we did our best trying to create something different. Maybe with our story, or our choices, or the unlockable items feature... i don't know. At lease it felt different enough for us, that's why we decided to publish our prequel on steam and submit our first part of the game to the players. I personally think that creating a full game without letting anyone know is a mistake. I really hope my team made the right choice with our Prequel, even if it is technically and in terms of features unfinished. We did our best with the time and budget we had, the Prequel is just the beginning. Our game is starting to get some reviews on steam (positive and negative), we are reading and reviewing all of them. If you have questions or suggestions i will be happy to hear it. Have a great day PS. can someone move this discussion in the visual novel section please? Thank you!

frc is absolutely right. She's saying that women(/girls if you prefer) just want to see that you know you made a mistake. 顔しる just means "to make a face." The のって here just means "things like," so "a face like you made a mistake." More literally it says like "don't apologise, doing a 'my mistake' face is ok, for girls," with the more fluent meaning above.

I'd say it means "Don't apologize - for a girl it's enough if you show that you know you made a mistake with your face" (= make a cringy facial expression at your own clumsiness, but don't say anything)

Hell I'm probably watching some right now Next person has payed more than $150 on IN game items, excluding the game itself.

Finished Kaichou Maid. It was okay and it ended very well so I moved it to my satisfying endings list. It looked rather old school considering it wasn't that old. I never found it particularly funny but the characters were a little bit intriguing, though frustrating at times; but that's normal for romances. It went on a bit too long and had too many diversions for my liking but despite all the complaints I didn't mind watching it, 6/10. I'm off travelling soon so I won't be picking up any of these shows again for another few weeks, but then I'm mostly talking to myself here anyway. I just feel obliged to respond with comments about shows others have recommended.

Here's mine

Moetron for Fuwa mascot!

Not a single capital letter xD Just started リズベルルの魔, a doujin game I learned about from the Doujin Game of the Year, otherwise known as #どげさ Pretty hyped. The graphics and music are way better than the last thing I played. It's all very little-girlish, but I secretly like that stuff a little since apparently it's a plot-ge with a crazy setting I appreciate that the creators chose to create their own particular mood.

still far away pretending to be helping out in a clients kitchen, but managed to finish my read of モミジは紅く其の身を染めて whilst hiding in a nearby toilette. first thing first, contrary to some fags wrongful perception of ao-titles being aimed at a kindergarden-ish crowd only this one is clearly not and except for some minor elements of kitsch almost everything about it is more or less rather mature. what starts out with a certain pastrelated incisive incident is followed shortly after by seemingly peaceable moments of deluding oneself under the assumption of finally having moved on and ultimately ends up in a nightmare when sins of the olden days start shredding that protective little husk of yours to pieces. though the authors attempts of creating something with literay value by adding some philosophical aspects are a little clumsy at times and not that well executed, the overall atmosphere of angst and guilt is what momiji exells at, not to mention the desperate struggle for absolution/salvation as its core-theme. in short, while certain passages appear a little out of place, btw. strange (you know what i mean when you get there :P), the read as awhole does not and feels very much human. negative emotions and the consequent amplification of theirs as the story progresses is what stands out the most, making it a gloomy experience from start to finish with even the main ending itself having a grave aura of unaccomplishment to it, similar to fraternites one, a fact which might come to annoy few, but which plays a pivotal role in what it tries to accomplish. 救いがあっても、結局代償を払っているので、本当のハッピーエンドとは言えない……。that one sums it up. the game offers quite alot of bad outcomes (partly real bad ones) which can be a little tricky to reach, but with ones brains intact this should be a doable read in about 30-35h. as for the specs, no voices, music pleasantly befitting the atmosphere/plot and a resolution which transmutes your eyeballs into bleeding lumps of flesh, literally. but since this title is basically available for less than a cheap meals worth there´s no real point in try complaining/nitpicking. to me it´s a solid 8,5, forwhy it managed to accomplish what it tried to & gave my mind a much needed fuckup.

Hello, everyone! We would like to return to updating this topic regularly and keep folks here and Fuwanovel up-to-date with the situation with LMRnR. In the time since our last post here, we have released a bunch of stuff, including an early alpha promo video, new art, and other news. You can find more information about how we've been doing by reading through our blog. In the most recent of our updates thus far, we have talked about the situation with the alpha builds and the upcoming demo (it should be ready fairly soon!) and a thing very important for any game – the GUI. We are also glad to show everyone a sample of our in-game menu: And we would be extremely grateful for any kind of feedback. Please, tell us what you think! More news, GUI, and other interesting stuff coming soon™!

The h scenes in Kara No Shoujo are complete shit and don't add to the story. That's always a problem I've had with this series. It's still an awesome series though. People play KnS for the H-scenes? I play it for the blood bath.