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Well, one time I made a Christmas card out of a euphoria CG and emailed it to a bunch of my friends, and it's either the best thing I've ever created or the worst. Minor (?) spoilers, if you've gotten past the part where they escape the facility then you've seen this CG. Also, I'm sorry. edit: This isn't mine, but it instantly came to mind when you mentioned dank photoshops.

lol

I forgot you need to be a real "Kant" to fully appreciate sca-Ji's deep philosophy

If some of you failed to notice, I've been going back over my list of ancient favorites amongst the moege/charage/slice-of-life genres. Why am I doing this? I actually have some good reasons, other than whims. First, I keep recommending these things to people, but when you start talking about a VN you last played five years ago, people tend to let it in one ear and out the other. I mean, my long-term memory for games and books is pretty good, but my brain is fairly compartmentalized, so I don't remember them actively unless I go through the effort to refresh that memory. Can I continue to say that I honestly recommend something without playing it in the recent enough past that I can compare it to other, more recent VN experiences, through more jaded eyes? Second, I want to know just how much nostalgia is coloring my viewpoint. To be blunt, the longer you are away from your favorite games or VNs, the more the memory gets beautified by distance in time. When I recently did a speed replay of G-senjou, I reaffirmed why I disliked the story structure while at the same time realizing that I didn't always do it justice due to my biases (no, I didn't blog on it, but I was mostly doing it for my own edification, anyway). Third, I like to think that I try to be as objective as possible, so I wanted to reexplore my VN roots when it came to my attitude toward charage/moege. One thing I've noticed as I replayed certain charage from the past is that the best of the older generation wasted the least time on 'everyday' slice-of-life, ironically. The gradual shift to put an excessive emphasis on the everyday life aspects of charage and moege is a relatively recent phenomenon, from what I've re-experienced. A part of this is that, as the audience in Japan has aged, so has their nostalgia for an 'ideal youth' become much stronger. The fact is, a lot of the 'devoted' moe-gamers in Japan aren't young people (at least not the ones who are also erogamers). They are older people who want to experience an idealized version of youth through a non-person protagonist's viewpoint. Ironically, this seems to be the reason why the market is shrinking, since younger generations don't find that kind of stuff as accessible as the older generation does, so you can tell to some extent what generation a company is appealing to by how weak the protagonist is and/or archetypical the characters are, lol.

Sakura was actually before Subahibi, not the other way around, if I remember correctly. Don't read any of those, find something better

Bethly After many...many...many hours of reading I finally finished one route which I think is enough since one route in this VN feels like finishing a long VN on itself, also picking a different girl feels incorrect at this point, like I'm cheating someone... (forgive me Bethly ) Giniro is a pure love story, slice of life with some very mild drama(almost non existent), most of it consist on developing the bonds between the main character and his group of friends(only females) and later on the girl you chose from that group. This VN shows you that each one of the girls has a great potential inside of them but they wont be able to use it on their own, they are like rough diamonds, with the help of the main character will "unleash" they full potential(it sounds like an action vn xD), is not like they will turn out to be unhappy or anything like that but each one of them wont fully accomplish their respective dreams or reach their full potential on their own. This might be a little spoilerish but Yuzuki wont become a great chef, Mizuka wont reach the first place in the figure skating thing she does, Bethly wont become a famous illustrator, Hinata wont even be able to realize what her true dream is in the first place, finally Momiji won't become a great actress. Another thing to point out is that while all the girls hang around the main character they actually dont love him in secret or anything, in fact it's a long process for each one of them, the only exception to this is your non blood related sister, which is kind of sad since she starts tearing up every time she realizes that she wont be able to be with the person she loves. The first part, which is the common route is really long and from there you go into the heroine route which is again really long. It's so freaking long that the vn itself thinks that you are an idiot without memory and re-introduces you the characters like 3 times at some different points... There are 5 heroines to chose from: *Yuzuki, your non-blood related sister, she is really shy and probably the "loli" of the group but she works very hard and even though I admit I hate the imouto heroine type this one didn't feel that bad. *Mizuha, your childhood friend, again the VN surprisingly didn't go for the cliche thing of the "childhood promise" or anything like that (well, it did but it was pretty subtle and it was also resolved very early in the game without forcing you to pick her just out of pity) she is some kind of figure skating star, to be fair I found her to be the most boring character, specially because I have 0 interest in what she does, so meh. *Hinata, the best friend of your sister, she is amazing and really charming, has this quirk way of speaking and expressing herself, most of the users on the internet hate her and her voice acting for some reason, she loves everything about girl stuff (like clothing, hair, how a girl should act etc etc) very sharp and lively, a true energetic type of character. *Momiji, she goes to the same class as the MC and thus they become friends, she loves acting and has a very normal character overall, still I found her to be one of the most interesting character... I almost do her route but at the last moment I went for... *Bethly, she is probably the character that most of us will chose because she is the foreign girl, she is from Canada and at first she doesn't speak any Japanese so it's kinda of funny to see how she struggles in every situation (the vn doesn't really do a good job portraying this...just a decent job.) She likes to draw, has a really calm personally and a great sense of morality, she is also very stubborn, finally she is the girl I picked. *Finally the MC (Yukito or whatever name you used for him, I recommend to leave his default name), he is for my taste.... a bit too perfect, he is a perfect student, friend, son, boyfriend, husband, father..you name something and he is perfect in that, not because he does everything in a perfect way but because he doesn't have a glimpse of malice or egoism in him, which is hard to believe. He has a very strong sense of duty and morality and wants to help anyone that needs it, very proactive, he is not naive and doesn't behave like a retard in front of the opposite sex... he is... yep perfect, which was a bit of a let down for me.. because him being that way takes away many opportunities from the novel thus the drama in the VN it's almost non existent or very predictable.There is a reason why he is like that but still I didn't like it. The pace in this vn is slow, really slow, for example you won't kiss the heroine until much much later on into the story(let's not even talk about having sex xD), if you don't enjoy slice of life then you will hate this vn because that's pretty much what it is. It's hard to compare anything with this or find some equivalents but the closest thing that I can think of is nagisa's route in Clannad (if you take out the funny parts with sunohara and pretty much everything else) and all the heavy drama. It does have some funny parts here and there (most of them are generated either from Hinata or an school teacher that you find later on and occasionally from the MC's biological mother.) I chose Bethly and later on I regret it, I really wanted to pick momiji or hinata but at that point it was too late... Bethly's route was ok, but her inability to speak Japanese was what it kinda ruined it for me, I came to hate the words うれ fucking しい and おいしいい, you will hear those words probably more than 500 times in the novel (or more and no I'm not joking), yes, it's tasty and yes you are happy "I got it" I really do but just stooooooooooooooooooooooooop, this again is something that makes sense in the context of what it's going on but it just pissed me off really bad. On the other side, it's really interesting to see how the characters grow(mentally and physically too) and how your relation with the main heroine gets stronger by the passage of time, it reminded me a lot of my own experience with my ex lol so in that sense it's pretty realistic and also maybe boring for some readers. Now I will force myself to finish momiji's route even though I'm not very sure if I will be able to do so What I liked it: The music. Very rich characters development. Amazing art. Some really good and interesting characters that I won't be able to enjoy xD at least not right now. Amazing voice acting. What I didn't like: A bit slow. Too long for its own good. The main character. What I hated: Repetition, specially of some words. Not enough strong drama. One awkward and very unfitting scene in the story. How difficult is it to read? Really easy, you can read this as as your first vn without any doubt, I wouldn't recommend Hinata's route for someone new because of the way she talks (not hard at all but still be careful) I rate this vn: Snowman out of 納得. EDIT: a little spoiler part to actually point out what was really boring, unfitting and what was actually pretty good. Hinata Since I don't want to create another topic about hinata's route I will keep adding info here, So Hinata's route has a really different dynamic and it has a lot more of comedy than bethly's, the combination between hina and yuzuki is amazing. I won't say that bethly's route was bad but so far hinata's is overall way more enjoyable.

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

I couldnt be happier to say im over this bad stage FINALLY and back on track. Spent the day almost finishing second route of Saya no Uta and starting Hanakos route after finishing Emis of KS. Hopefully able to start another VN during the weekend! Yay

they are being sarcastic... I think

I don't feel like everyone just saying IT'S SHIT with no explanation is very helpful. Can we get some opinions from someone who doesn't think subahibi is pretentious kusoge? Surely, It's vndb rating should mean there are some?

OH MY FUCKING GOD!!! The bosses in Seinarukana are punishing as hell! I'm really getting sick and tired of all vn/game hybrids that are not made by alicesoft. In alicesoft games the gameplay compliments the vn aspect, the decisions you make in the game influence the vn story. In all the other vn-game hybrids the gameplay just feels like a road block that has very little to do with the vn itself.

I'm just complaining, we're technically going onto week 4 now and have been learning these things as we were learning our Hiraganas Wtf are you saying?! Are those Kanji in the beginning I see something something small tsu = double consonant so it's '___tte kudasai!' Ganbatte kudasai?! Uhh, ええと, はい, 頑張ります!

One week after learning the hiragana? Wtf? Vocabulary and writing basics, ok. Counting from 1-10, okay. (Once you have those down, you can count to 99 as well, fair enough.) But all the other crap crammed into one test, a simple week after learning hiragana? That is absurd. Not to mention verbs in the second week?! Dafuq?! What book are these people following? (Sweet lord don't say Genki, because if that is the case, they are literally doing it wrong.) I mean, I already know Japanese, and I find myself rather swamped right now, because of all the stuff I have to turn in. I don't have to learn it beforehand, I just have to write it down and hand it in. You must be in hell, lol. Well, best of luck Eclipsed, and may God have mercy on your soul. 頑張ってください！

I still have no idea what attracts me so much about this vn, but I know this will bore me to tears if I eventually decide to read it lol

Hi, welcome to Fuwa See ya around

You literally deleted/moved your game save folder. Don't be surprised why the progress got lost.

If only the art was better

Welcome to Fuwo!

Heh, at least that would indicate some level of intelligence on their part. My bank routinely locks me out of my account whenever I back something off of kickstarter, blocks my payments for my housing fees, and I'm convinced they are somehow responsible for why I can never buy anything from Mangagamer. They even tried to give me all of my sister's money when she made her account independent from our parents.

Persona 4's strength is definitely the characters, not the story, so I'm pretty much with you on the "I like it, but..." assessment. Persona 3 has a much more interesting story.

^ Very tempting. But, I must persevere for now to not prioritize my life on getting a PS4 ASAP for the sake of P5. That being said... Just finished Persona 4 Golden on the "Good End", not "True End". I made a mistake clicking on the wrong option near the end, but honestly, by the time I found out that I had accidentally missed out on the bonus dungeon because I didn't rescue a certain character, I kinda just got fed up with this walkthrough I'm following on Gamefaq and just picked whatever, leaving the 'True End' for the NG+ I'm immediately doing right now, just minutes after I had completed the game. I still picked the "Easy" difficulty (as opposed to "Very Easy" previously) with the extra money option turned on in the difficulty because I really don't want to grind through those dungeons while having to at the same time grind through a story I already know about already. I left the "damage dealt" and "damage received" as "Normal" though, same with the "exp earned", so this shouldn't be too easy. Not gonna bother with Hardcore Risette Fan trophy because that just looks like a pain in the ass. As for my verdict of the game... eh, it's still a little too soon to say, especially when I haven't got the "True Ending Experience". Some threads are still hanging loose, so I'd have to reserve my judgment for now. I'd say that it's quite a solid story, but visual novels still got it beat in terms of the writing (specifically G-senjou, Umineko, and even euphoria - yes, even euphoria has a better story, IMO). I think the main factor weighing it down for me lies in its triteness. A lot of people praised the game for not being as dark as the previous games, and thus being more 'realistic', but I felt like it's the same ol', same ol', a story riddled with familiar anime tropes of friendship and determination, thrown in with a sprinkle of eldritch abomination. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do like the story. The emotional plot-twist leading to the Bad End did tug on my heartstrings, and the antagonist mastermind was indeed quite a character (albeit being a somewhat predictable copy of a certain famous DC Comics villain, among other 'trolls' like him), but I just felt like the story lacked that push, particularly with the villain. It felt... meh, like I've seen it before. When the antagonist revealed his true motives, it felt rather lackluster because it's such an overused villain archetype today. That being said, this game was released on the PS2 back then, so it's not exactly fair to judge it compared to today's stories. But even on its own without comparing to other stories, the villain's motives just feel like they weren't really explored that much. I was expecting something more epic, like a battle of wits, as if it came out of something like Death Note between L and Kira. Instead, what we got was a single dungeon and two disappointing boss battles that never really did much for the story other than wrap the 'mystery' up. There's not a lot of reflection on what the villain said about their foolish ideals (it's briefly mentioned again, very briefly, but that's it). He's just an end-boss to conclude the mystery. I understand that the charm of the game is the slice of life portion, the whole "hanging out with your friends and develop a bond with them" and stuff, but that kind of story never did much for me (maybe because I don't actually have friends ). Still, to throw in someone as twisted as the antagonist, you're practically baiting me with unrealistic expectations of something greater than it really was, and it just didn't live up to those expectations. He felt like an unnecessary villain, in fact, that conflicted with the light-hearted tone of the story without adding any meaningful insight into said light-hearted tone. The Accomplice Ending actually felt more interesting to me than the actual ending of the story, since it felt like a more engaging psychological story I would like to see. But like I said, I don't hate the story. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother doing it all over again in a NG+ just to get another waifu (I picked Chie for my first playthrough, of course). I could have just reloaded to my last save and pick the correct option to see the True End (and watch the Extended Ending on YouTube). So yes, I did enjoy most portions of the game, with emphasis on "most". The non-party social links are actually pretty well-written and encompass the 'realism' people praised this game for more than the main story itself (which is pretty much a generic whodunnit). You got people like a black widow of Death, a nurse facing adultery, etc. All pretty interesting side stories that kept me engaged for the most part. I'm gonna play NG+ as I watch the anime adaptation of the game, just to spice things up a little. I don't think Marie appears in that anime though, so I might have to also watch Persona Golden The Animation too if I want to synchronize my experience of the game with the anime. I did something similar with visual novels that had an anime adaptation like Clannad and Umineko; it's a weird habit of mine, just to keep myself from getting bored. With that said, however, it looks like Cold Steel will have to be put off for a little longer till I truly beat this game.

Straightforward introduction here, so I would just said hi and welcome to Fuwanovel. Oh, and don't worry too much about your English. I said this because to be honest I had bad English here, and yet I still posting so much here. For last words hope you enjoy yourself here and looking forward to your contributions.

Gamers=autism Gamergate-autism^2 Case closed

suba is crap 80% of the novel, i didnt even bother with sakura and giniro is really a different novel from the first two(I assume since like I said didn't read sakura). It all depends on what you want to read, something pretty slow and heartwarming or something really fucked up and pretentious all of them are pretty long so if you don't have time to read you shouldn't pick any of those.

>Not realizing the glasses are what make the picture. Your avatar has grown on me, but your taste is a solid 0/10. (Uh, feel free to rate Arc's avatar. I'm just here to shitpost this time.)

Gosh I cannot wait to play this. I havent played any of them uet but have them on my 3ds Heared so much about it..

https://github.com/marcussacana/SiglusSceneManager Tutorial:

It's simple: this ver of umineko hasn't been uploaded yet. You can delete the videos I posted here, I don't care.

I love this BGM so much.

Confession: For some reason a purchase I made that showed up on my bank statement is no longer there and I'm wondering if I should be worried about that or not. On one hand I might be able to get away with $500 of free money, but on the other hand I might end up with fraud charges. I probably should call my bank... Edit: Alright, I decided to call them. Turns out sometimes a purchase can fall off the statement, but it should come back up sometime within a week, and maybe a month. I'll have to make sure I keep that amount in my bank when it does come back up, lol. Edit 2: You know, I'm kinda glad I decided to call them. A short time after I called, I realized that this might be one of their tricks to get me to overdraft. I keep forgetting I'm not allowed to trust my bank.

i regret nothing.

Regardless of what you think about Gamergate, it's undeniable that people have done fucked up shit under that name.

I don't really want to bump that other thread, so I'll just post it here: our Indiegogo for Corona Blossom Vol.2 has launched, check it out if you're interested!

Oh, I didn't know that. I never tryed a female Shepard so I've no clue how she is. I guess if I ever find the time for a second playthrough I'll pick her. * Goes and checks all lesbian romance options *

FemShep is better. FemShep was awarded for the whole 3 games.

So real quick let me make a fool of myself. The story begins in my Kindergarten class, which had like 24 kids in it, it was a Monday (I know this because my Grandmother always took me to school on Monday) Anyway it was a Monday, but it was a special Monday! The teacher, or should I say "teachers" (since we actually had two) had made and brought cupcakes (for those who could have them) and muffins (for those that couldn't) Anyway so I, being the socially weird child that I was, came up with this childish reasoning for cupcakes and muffins. So little me sitting there in his little chair thinking he had just solved every mystery ever, jumps up and hushes the other students. For some reason I got really into it and I spoke in a hushed voice, "I understand these snacks now," Little me whispered, "Muffins are bigger and tougher and they tend to suck, kind of like boys?" Kids laughed but I continued, "And cupcakes are generally smaller, sweeter, and they can be cute, sort of like girls?" By now everyone was rolling on the floor and little me stood there looking smug and all that. Anyway after all that time my friends always remembered what had happened that day and the nickname McMuffin came into play, eventually it evolved into StuffiMcMuffinz and it stuck. Anyway sorry for the story it just felt right you know? To wrap it up quickly before I drone on like the old man I am, Hi I'm McMuffin, StuffiMcMuffinz, Muffin, or just whatever you decide to call me, Nice to become a part of a community built on something that brings me joy.

Did not expect Wanko to be winning.

Aight bois, my fking Cold Steel II is finally here, omg hype , and just showing the LE contents of the first game cuz why not P.S. l0l

Salut all, Dark Forest: Reborn developers here again. Article about modern text adventures development. If you are developing a game that is based on text (including visual novels), ideas of this article will be useful for you. I have some questions to visual novels fans and developers there so it would be interesting to know your opinion. Also, these ideas are in the heart of Dark Forest: Reborn now so you may think it as a prequel to our devlog. http://www.indiedb.com/games/dark-forest-reborn/tutorials/modern-text-based-adventure-games-development

How the fuck do you even get sued for 115 MILLION DOLLARS for a personal case like that? What the holy fuck is wrong with this legal system? Anyway... I only know Kotaku through their immensely bad anime articles but I'd rather not see them disappear, it would be way too pleasing for Gamergatards.

Plus additional damages pending appeal. Disgusting piece of journalism and journalists do need to know there's a line that shouldn't be crossed. But the number of quality journalists in existence have been in decline. That being said, Kotaku gets a bad rap for some fairly tame reasons. There's usually not much wrong with the articles, people hate on them because of internet reasons, which tend to lack reasoning and logic. Game journalism has been shit for a decade now, but Kotaku gets a bad rap for 'bad journalism'? Yeah, good job people.