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can we please have a good discussion about trap vns without people needing to affirm their fragile masculinity? kthxbai

Okay, I'm a mom-basement dwelling piece of shit weeaboo, and I take offense to that, because I clearly don't like NTR hentai. I clearly like rape hentai.

So let's get this straight, I dislike the fact that popular/great VNs are slowly entering the steam market. To me, it's not the platform itself, but it's cancerous community with those AAA games elites, price complainers, "and ples where is the hentai?" groups of people. And what's more, I don't want to see high quality VNs in the same store as OELVN, they ain't comparable. What prompted me was last time when I was browsing through Meikyuu steam community, I have seen some many posts complaining and nagging about the prices. "novel games are over priced" "not paying 20$ for cut H game" "kajitsu is longer why dis same price" Stuff like this really triggers me, do you secondary weeb (oh no here we go) know how much I am paying for every original hard copy VN? To the point where I am starting to think these people don't deserve to even be able to view VN, tho it might be going against Fuwa ideals. And I ma moving towards the learn JP or don't read it, path. What do you guys think? Fuck you Sakura series, little shitty misrepresentation of a VN to the West.

In my opinion, this is just one massive circlejerk among the self-entitled and the privileged. On one hand, you have the Steam community who complains about the overpriced VNs even though they fork out thousands of dollars every year for pre-order exclusives and pointless DLC skins, getting ripped off by companies like Blizzard and Activision. On the other hand, I could understand where some of the more sensible complaints might be coming from. Considering Steam is famous for giving special discounts for old AAA games like Witcher 2 and whatnot, I can see why some people might just be a tad surprised at the prices of VNs when they have no prior knowledge how much a visual novel costs in Japan. I mean, let's be fair - this isn't f***ing Japan. This is Steam, comprised of mostly Americans and non-Japanese. So if you want to support your favorite VN companies for the goal of 'securing the future of visual novels', then go right ahead and fork out all your money. More power to your privileged ass. But people on Steam are going to complain about the pricing regardless because that's what they've been doing throughout their time spent on Steam due to what Steam represents - massive discounts, getting games at a cheap price for the underprivileged. Is it a problem for localized VNs when people aren't willing to pay for the prices of said localization? Probably yes. But IMO, if you chose Steam (choked full of Steam sales every month) for the sake of earning a profit, you probably chose the wrong client there, pal.

My God, I didn't know that exists! So, thank you Why nobody cares to bring this game to Steam? Instead we get Wing Cloud's neverending lineup. And it sales on par with Stein's Gate.

Oh, okay, thanks for the recommendation, it actually has good reviews so I will definitively check it out I see it has both an anime and an all-ages VN with that name ... I bookmarked the show Thank you for all the recommendations

I have yet to come across a translated visual novel I'd regard as a 'kamige', even with the budgets Japanese studios have behind them. The games don't translate well because Western and Japanese value different things in their stories, and there's always problems with storytelling or whatnot. Even disregarding F/SN obviously questionable translation, you have storytelling issues like massive bloat which detracts from the plot and causes pacing issues. The most talked about cases being the horribly inserted sex scenes. In fact I wish people would drop the term, it just creates unrealistic expectations in the community that can never be met.

Yes, exactly. It's part of the great entertaiment industry after all. Anime, manga, ranobe, visual novels are all connected. Did you watch Shirobako? It's not about games but you can actually see, how passionate they are about this stuff. In the West creating vn's is still considered as a hobby. You're right, it's an niche un-profitable industry. But that's what makes it good. Do you believe we could have f.e. NTR, lolies in mainstream games or movies? We don't need media attention. I remember those SJW campains against Mass Effect sex scenes. We don't need famous writers, just competent enough to make a good story. Like Rin's route in KS. It's one of the best in OELVNS and it feels wonderfull even for western standards.

Looking down on supposed elitism while being an elitist himself makes OP look like a dumbass.

And if your house burns down or gets burgled, you'll lose your hardcopies forever. Is it a dumb argument? Yes, but so is yours. The truth is, Steam is NOT a DRM service. It doesn't force developers and publishers to use any sort of DRM, that's up to creators to decide. Lots of Steam games are playable not only without connection to Steam servers, but without the client altogether. So if a game uses Steam as DRM, that's because the developer or the publisher decided that.

We at 7 Keys Studios have finally launched the crowdfunding campaign for Angels - our vision of a next generation SciFi VR Visual Novel. This comes in parallel to making Chapter 1 available for free on Steam. Find the media kit here. The goal of the campaign is to raise enough money to finance the production of the rest of the story, which is fully voiced and works on a variety of platforms. The production began when Milan Kazarka the creator of the Invisible Apartment visual novel series met with Stan Kuhn who’s been creating virtual and augmented reality products for an assortment of clients. Angels & Demigods was a story which Milan had in store for years, waiting for the right platform to release it on. Stan had the software platform ready to create a new visual novel engine that would bring the genre into VR. The plan was not to reinvent the genre in 3D, but rather to use the best of the principles from making traditional visual novel games, keep the art number one priority and work around the fact that high resolution illustrations are better than 3D textures. We managed to create an immersive experience by carefully working with high-resolution illustrations rather than 3D models. This focus on art-style, the atmosphere makes the experience so authentic and the game so unique and fit for VR. Unlike many current VR games we designed Angels & Demigods around the idea of storytelling in VR, so it’s not just straight up port of existing game mechanics. It’s a unique experience. We work with some great artists and musicians - Henrique “Kite” Xavier who has worked on the Invisible Apartment series, Roly Porter who’s been recognized by Rolling Stone as a musician you should know, Sebastian Bach combining classical and electronic music and voice actors like Sally Feng and JB Coleman. Angels & Demigods is a tribute to both SciFi and anime. It’s a manifestation of ideas collected over the course of many years. - “Angels & Demigods is a story and a set of ideas I had on my mind and on paper in my drawer for a long time waiting for the right moment. I’ve been writing down ideas for stories for fifteen years now. I’m a huge fan of sci-fi, anime. My huge inspiration are movies like The Dune, The Fifth Elementand manga like Battle Angel Alita and works by Tsutomu Nihei. I like to imagine worlds far in the future, beings with superpowers and a the environment a cultural mix. I never really wanted to release any of my stories on paper, since I found the book form of publishing quite limiting. I’m a huge fan of comics, though I never embraced the medium myself for my own work. Still, I like to express my ideas visually. Discovering the visual novel medium was a blessing. I realized that I was able to publish a story in an interactive format and that opened new possibilities. My first visual novel was Invisible Apartment, which transformed to a series of four parts over the course of the last years. With Angels & Demigods we’re taking things further. I was blown away by the first prototypes in which we just experimented with putting a few characters and music into a 360° space. As someone who writes interactive fiction I couldn’t imagine a better platform.” - Milan Kazarka - - in the media: https://versions.killscreen.com/new-game-studio-making-visual-novel-vr/ - pre release article on Killscreen http://www.mobilevrdaily.com/coming-soon/angels-and-demigods-preview/ - pre release article on MobileVRDaily Gameplay videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPmyrZ50a4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo-NoYjJB1U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHSk7DVvq8Y

To be fair, I do agree about the pacing somewhat, particularly in regards to the pacing of the final chapter, or rather, the epilogue. It took me a long time to complete G-Senjou because I kept putting it on hold in between each chapter (it's a habit of mine to read several VNs at a time in between each route), but by the time the end-game rolled around, it kept me engaged quite effectively, and I pretty much just wanted to find out if there's some major epic twist awaiting me, what with all the things it had thrown at me so far. And for what it's worth, I was honestly pleasantly surprised at that final twist at the end,

Good luck. I agree. Although it was my first finished VN and I loved it. Probably way too much. But all those 'unrealistic' stuff was covered by great pacin, which was 'making' this VN for me. All the actions scenes were so fast I had no time to stop and think about their stupidity. (Un)fortunatelly I lost that ability and I'm nitpicking every little thing in VN right now

Steam wasn't designed to be a platform for books, or any of that sort in the first place, so the normal gamers -- which Steam audience is mostly comprised of -- will, of course, complain about the prices of VNs: how they can cost up to the same amount as some AAA-titles, how they're "just books with pretty pictures and occasional animay tiddies", and how 'weeb' it is to the majority. This much is a given. As for VNs getting into Steam, that's wonderful, in my opinion. That means that more Japanese devs get interested in the Western market, which in return, means more games get localized and more regular, English-only speaking VN audience gets to read more, and sometimes, better VNs. If you think this is "bad", it is extremely counter-productive, and you come off as a total and utter dickbag. In the first place, Western VNs are starting to find their own direction instead of copying regular VNs, so the "muh eltist VNs are SO much better"-argument really doesn't hold the same weight to it anymore, sounds really ignorant, or just plain stupid in the first place. They aren't copying off regular VNs, they're co-existing with them, as a separate thing entirely. And to top it all off, that kind of mindset is extremely close-minded and old-fashioned. You cherry-pick information, like with the Western VNs having the ONLY bad games in the first place, but we both know that's far from the truth, and that double-standardising is quite hard to look at. Hard-copies are a subjective matter, so for someone, like myself, who doesn't care about physical copies, that argument is completely worthless, and VNs are akin to games in that matter that they're intellectual property made to be sold; if someone doesn't want to pay the amount it costs due to personal reasons -- like no H-scenes, it costs too much, or that it's just too short -- they can, and it won't make them any less deserving of "playing VNs". The frame of mind that Japanese VNs are superior in every shape and form, and that Western VNs can't adapt and evolve, always staying as the scum of the earth, is the kind of conservative, elitist mindset that is extremely cancerous and doesn't help anyone; change is ever-present, you can't hide from it, and completely shutting it off comes off as extremely asinine. If you really want to stay as that ignorant Japanese-only elitist, go to 4chan, they might welcome you.

Welcome to the forums! Hope you enjoy your stay! Do you have a favourite VN? Have a moe:

Steam is a big reason that we are seeing more and more VN's get translated, and seeing more Japanese companies think of the west as a viable market, I really don't see the problem, like at all. If you don't like the comments from people on there, then ignore them. As far as the "muh good VN's are on the same platform as those plebian OELVN's) argument goes, it's not as if the two being on the same platform is tainting either of them. And if you want to get technical, you could make the same argument for non-Steam VN's as well, there are plenty of shitty ones out there, and plenty of good ones, neither really effects the quality of the other. Anyways, to say that you don't like popular VN's making their way onto Steam is basically the same as you saying you don't want the western VN market to grow. Also this

ef is reaaaaally atmospheric, I'm also taking JP classes atm so it's nice to listen to Hiro meeting and chatting it up with these grills on a snowy Christmas Eve along with the generous amount CGs ...But I'm not in the mood for nostalgic romance. So I'm reading I/O. Don't ask how my whims end up the way they do

It's kinda ironic you complain about elitists, yet went on the elitist path by placing yourself on a pedestal when talking about the money people had to fork out. Just something I feel I should point out. Also, you called them weebs when you said something as weebish as "learn JP or don't read it"? lol Oh man, the irony. Anyway, on-topic: I agree that the Steam community can be cancerous... but honestly, saying a community is "cancerous" at this point means absolutely nothing. You might as well call them a bunch of "faggots". The terminology means nothing. It's a stupid insult. I do agree that they can act like a bunch of alpha male a-holes who think that these story-centric VNs have no place among the gaming community, and while I could see where they're coming from, the way they expressed said opinion was honestly just embarrassing. 8 year old Minecraft Let's Play gamers are more literate than they acted. It's pretty much a cesspool comparable to YouTube comments. I don't really care, to be honest, since I don't get my VNs from Steam.

I'd talk about the H. Not because I have any preference for it myself, as I tend to find the combination kinda annoying and would rather my story-focused VNs have only story and my H games to have overwhelming quantities of H, but because of the stigma kinda attached to sex scenes. The reasoning behind it is that if you talk about your game's great story and say that it also has H, presumably the story-focused crowd won't want to have that much to do with it, since they probably just have better options. Selling story is tough. The H might actually be a minus for a lot of people, and even if it's not, it doesn't actually grant you any edge here. If you sell the H first, then I think people will get interested if they think your heroines are cute no matter what, and I think that's probably safer and will be better for you. Still, this is all speculation and I could be way off the mark and all that stuff.

Make sure you read it right

I found a cute and easily spammable signature-waifu for future exploits on the forums. Examples like... "This post is great" "Your a retard" "..." Isn't that something?

Nasu isn't exactly a brilliant genius himself. Neither is Masada. They are talented individuals for sure, but they're backed by teams that are able to flesh out their visions. EVN developers can't afford to construct 50+ hour epics with loads of art like F/SN. They don't have the budget Light has. Not to mention, the difference in the size of the two regional industries makes it so there's just less talent overall in the western scene, and therefore it's harder to find true talent within it. Regardless, the difference between the best EVN writers and the best JVN writers are likely just the people and money behind them.

So I've finally completed G-senjou no Maou at long last. Now, this VN isn't technically that long compared to the likes of Grisaia no Kajitsu, but for some reason, it felt like it's a longer reading experience than Grisaia, probably because Grisaia was more engaging with its jokes and banter for me, making me forget about time itself as it slips by. Due to this reason, I realized just how long it has been since I last completed a lengthy VN. The last lengthy VN I completed was Grisaia, and that was about 1-2 years ago, so there is a sense of fulfillment from this completion. I still have Umineko Chiru (just about to start chapter 6) and euphoria (finished two routes, including Nemu's first route) to go, so I'm probably not gonna complete another VN for a while. Now, about G-senjou... Since it's one of those 'highly acclaimed' VNs which many people wowed over the epilogue, talking about how amazing it was, it begs the question whenever I finish reading one of these, "Just how perfect was it? Were there any flaws that prevent me from giving it a full 10/10?" It's an inevitable conclusion I would always come to, and I hate to be that one guy who always has to nitpick something everybody else loves, but here it is: I don't think G-senjou is a masterpiece, period. I feel that it's definitely one of the most well-written VNs of all time (or at least, of the handful of VNs I've read), and if adapted into an anime, it might be able to compete against the likes of Fate/Zero and similar series. Its characters can be realistic, its drama fairly relatable, and it isn't exactly like your typical story of a hero defeating the evil demon, treading towards more interesting and unpredictable territories. That being said... (here comes the 'but')... The epilogue itself felt just a little picturesque. I'm quite a cynic myself, and I don't believe any person on this planet can be perfect or a saint, even Mahatma Gandhi himself. I believe every man is flawed, and the way fiction likes to paint the hero as this self-sacrificing individual who saves the damsel in distress by giving up his own well-being, I just don't buy that. It's stupid, and I'd be incredibly turned off by that. It reminds me of a recent video made by the YouTube sensation, LeafyIsHere, where he mocks a Korean music video featuring KISS. The song was "Because I'm a Girl", and it features this guy who gave his own eyes to this girl he loves whom he indirectly blinded in an accident. Leafy's remarks were mostly satirical, claiming that if this is real life, he would never trade off his ability to see for a girl, and on some level, I agree with the sentiment. Now, here's a disclaimer, I've never fell in love before aside from silly crushes at school, so maybe love could indeed drive a person to do such stupid things in real life, I don't know. But from a realist's point of view, it's stupid, and rather unrelatable. "Very storybook-like" is a good description for the epilogue. Speaking of the 'gritty twists' in the story, there's the other problem: too many f***ing twists. A while back, there was a post criticizing Umineko for this problem, on how Umineko keeps on surprising the audience with, "But wait, there's more!" Well, there you have it, G-senjou suffers from the same problem. Just when you think an arc is over, the element of shock factor bounces the story back into unrealistic tension because of a Gary-Stu villain whose plan goes perfectly. Like, what is this guy, The Joker? Nobody's plan goes this perfectly, period. So yes, the story still suffers from deus ex machina and certain unrealistic moments that just boggle the mind, finished off with your sunset-sprinkled storybook ending. Like, there is literally a freaking sunset at the ending! What the actual f***. But in all honesty, I don't hate the story, even if I might sound like it. I stand by what I said earlier when I said that this was one of the most well-written VNs I've read so far, but I feel that I just had to bring up the little peeves and gripes I have to be satisfied with myself. Oh yes, something I forgot to mention - the other non-main heroines. They never did get a finality to their character arcs in the true end, which is kinda realistic and that's good, but it also makes it a bit lackluster in hindsight. I know I complained about the storybook ending of Haru, but I was kinda hoping for some closure if this is indeed the true end of the story, that's all. In hindsight, I probably should've posted this to "Unpopular VN Opinions" instead. Oh well. *braces myself for the hate-camp*

Neows it's going? (I totally didn't just put meow and now to gather to make a crappy pun)

I thought some more about what I like about NTR: I like the rivalry. And like any good rivalry, you should be able to both win or lose, and the rival character should be well-characterized. Winning should either be challenging or require sacrifices (i.e., betraying a friend or having another love interest NTR'd). Ideally, the process should involve the heroine being hit on or slowly seduced by the rival, which fosters a sense of jealousy. In a sense, NTR is as much an element of gameplay as a theme to me.

It's not that English developers upped their game, it's that English developers stopped developing primarily for the PC. Take Bethesda as an example, the best selling RPG on consoles but they used to develop solely for the PC. Interestingly enough, what really evened the playing field was the changing of console hardware. Console hardware these days are almost glorified PCs, and Western developers, having a very PC oriented background, are very advantaged by this. Their entire production cycle was optimised for PC hardware. Japanese developers ... not so much. That and the increasing expense for developing on consoles means most JRPGs will probably head to handheld.

You know what they say, why go across the street when you can go...right up the stairs to Miyako's room for a 120% chance of getting a new H scene! You thought I was going to say something else, didn't you?

if she has a penis then im good to go

http://minatosoft.com/10th_anniversary/spark.html <-- if you want to download a special game (226 MB) ＾is about a girl named Urla (ウルラ) in which Jun Inoue is the MC ...... Kazuko, Miyako, and Yamato does not appear whatsoever in the story. 1st option: Start 2nd option: Continue 3rd option: Settings 4th option: 10th Anniversary info? 5th option: Exit

So now we need the best one done, Monshiro's After

i can't disclose yet how i am winning, but i am winning big fucking time right now.