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Some veterans of reading untranslated VNs refer to the period between 2004 and 2010 as 'The Golden Age of Visual Novels'. However, you shouldn't really take that statement at face value, as the meaning is a bit more complex than you'd think. There are some significant differences between VNs today and VNs during that period that both made it the peak of the medium's sales in Japan and produced the greatest ratio of quality VNs to crap VNs. One of the primary differences was that, other than moege, there were no strict genre boundaries and genre conventions had yet to slide into place in the minds of fans and writers both. Companies were mostly experimenters during that time, sometimes basing their projects on previous works (Tsukihime and the Key games got a lot of knock-offs during this time, of varying levels of quality) and sometimes forging out on their own. Since there were few genre boundaries, companies were more likely to give the creative staff free reign as to what kind of story they could write, and - ironically - this actually helped define the various genres in the years to come, as people explored the boundaries of how they could stretch a concept or theme in a story. Some of these attempts were abortive (ie- thematic moege where all the heroines are of the same type, such as tsundere or yandere, generally didn't catch on) but others were immensely successful (ie- the definition of the chuunige genre and its gradual escape from gakuen battle mania). However, the point is that the writers, directors, and producers of the time were allowed to fiddle with the formula a lot more than they are now. Most major companies nowadays have a 'signature style', that was formed during that period, even if their greatest successes weren't during that period. This period also killed the 'pure moege' as a genre, ending the majority genre of the previous half-decade (moege having dominated during that period due to the Da Capo series and Key's games). The rise of the charage, a demi-moege genre that was much wider in scope and more adaptable, occurred during this period, mostly unrecognized until after the fact. At the same time, nakige, which had previously been enslaved to the moege genre through Key and others like them, came to define itself as a new, standalone genre that wasn't necessarily dependent on moe stylization. Even Key itself moved beyond pure moe, though it didn't entirely abandon some elements of it (as the existence of Kud testifies). However, this age was already ending in 2009, as clearly-delineated genre norms began to form, and charage became the driver for the industry, taking us back, in spirit, to the age before that. By 2011, the ratio of truly creative works to derivative works was overwhelmingly in favor of the latter, in comparison to the previous decade. That isn't to say that the years since haven't produced some great works. That is patently untrue in my experience... but the fact remains that fewer and fewer writers are able or willing to look outside the 'genre boxes' for answers as to what to write. I sometimes refer to our current age as the Age of Stagnation, where there is an overwhelming industry pressure to stick to genre norms and those that break the mold are so exceptional they stand out more than they should. It is possible to create a charage kamige... but it is much easier to make a kamige out of a game that breaks genre boundaries, lol.

Guess they heard that Sakura titles are selling well in the west, and now they have dollar signs in their eyes because they've even two Sakura's in their name...

It seems like they're going into this empty handed and are hoping to make what they need off the Kickstarter. Which is what that site is for, sure, but I highly doubt that, using a 9-year-old no-name game like Sakura Sakura, they'll be able to generate enough capital to start the business proper, obtain a license, and pay for localization costs, even if they ran the KS campaign perfectly. And to make matters worse, it looks like they're planning on launching the campaign in less than two weeks without a proper website, and probably with no work done on their actual Kickstarter page yet. This has the makings of a total disaster. I hope these guys manage to do well and make an impact, but it's hard to be optimistic considering the circumstances.

don't lose hope yet!! updates are frequent and the progress is going well.

http://www.tmz.com/2017/07/20/linkin-park-singer-chester-bennington-dead-commits-suicide/ Such a sad day and huge loss for the music industry. Linkin Park has been my favorite band since HT first came out back in elementary school, so this is truly crushing. You will be missed Chester. Plan on solemnly listening to LP for a while. Really in total shock.

This episode we went without a guest since Kickstarter can be a touchy subject. We talked about the concept of kickstarters, how Kickstarters are executed and how Kickstarted should be executed. You can listen to/download episode 6 here: http://thebroadcast.club/2017/07/20/episode-6-the-rise-of-kickstarter/ You can support us by following us on Twitter! https://twitter.com/VNBroadcastClub

That sort of thing might have worked back in 2014/2015 when Visual Novels in the West were still a still a rare sight on Kickstarter, but in 2017 there is just too much competition now that lower tier VN just barely makes it anymore.

There aren't masterpieces this month, so it's high time to nominate the pretty league series episode Doki Doki Pretty League Dai 3 Wa - Minami no Umi no Kai no Maki as VN of February 1995. It's quite a simple and fun episode on top of that! 1. Themm - Harukanaru Meikyuu ゼム ～はるかなる迷宮～ [950204] Harvest 1 2 3 4 Long time ago, human beings believed in gods. But time has passed, and the humans stopped worshipping them. The gods got angry. The world plunged into chaos. Demons who looked like pretty girls have appeared, driving people insane. Five kings have sent brave heroes to find a magical stone that alone could restore peace to the world. One of these heroes is Lucido. Aided by a simple village girl, he bravely descends into a dungeon full of seductive monsters - but he should beware of the competition... There are English reviews. 2. V Zone ＶＺＯＮＥ [950210] Dollhouse By buying top price adult VHRs hero is able to transfer to a different world to become the main actor himself. Even though the aim of the game is simple, hero needs to set flags for each heroine in all the five worlds making it very complex taking into account a big city to explore manually area by area. But the heroines are very cute able to inspire to clear those flags. 3. Poison ~6 Nin no Majo~ ぽわぞん ～６人の魔女～ [950214] Trush Princess ate a gifted candy and fell into slumber. No one answered the king's call to lift the curse until protagonist showed up. He set on a journey to defeat six witches in undressing card game to get the cure. It's mostly a card game which I did not get through. 4. Doki Doki Pretty League Dai 3 Wa - Minami no Umi no Kai no Maki DokiDokiぷりてぃリーグ 第3話 南の海の怪の巻 [950218] Great The Pink Angels, who won the JPL-ONE league and entered the JPL league, now take a vacation to Okinawa. Game focuses on local ghost story and proceeds to Black Shadows match. Exact system as the prequels with fun adventure getting the bigger chunk of the not so long playthrough. 5. Trouble Chaser Dai 2 Wa - Futarime no Chaser トラぶるＣＨＡＳＥＲ 第２話 ２人目のチェイサー [950218] Nihon Create Daiskuke gets accustomed to living with Rena when his house gets demolished again by another space ship landing on it. Rudy comes out of the ship claiming that she's a friend of Rena. There's also a new strong enemy awaiting. Good pace fun mini-adventure. 6. DR2 Night Janki DR2ナイト雀鬼 [950224] Leaf 1 2 DR² Night Janki is a mahjong game with adult scenes. The game has two modes: "Story" and "Regular". The story mode is set in a medieval castle, which is said to be ancient grounds for sorcery, but is currently controlled by the mysterious Rumira, who runs a mahjong club. The hero, a man named Ryuuji, decides to investigate the castle, and therefore has to defeat its inhabitants (all pretty young girls) in mahjong matches. Game's ordinary undressing mahjong. What makes it special is that there is at least some loose story to tie it together and that it's the first game of the Leaf company. 7. Nozokiya Kagyou のぞき屋稼業 [950224] T2 Co., Ltd. Hero has a car full of peeping equipment and a whole town as his playground. An originator of peeping genre "Odori". This game is close to simulators since there is a freedom of movement and lots of game icons to choose from, especially in the car as well as time of the day. It's quite a boring game able to avert even ardent peeping enthusiasts. 8. Sex [950224] AyPio 1 2 The game with such a simple, yet expressive title is also rather simple and to-the-point in its concept: it is about having sex and nothing else. There is no real story in the game: in the beginning, a crazy-looking character named Mr. Funk, who speaks in Japanese with a heavy dose of stereotypical hip-hop lingo, announces that the player is now declared King of Sex and can therefore directly have sex with any of the three "available" young and pretty girls: Nana, the cute school girl, Makoto, the "mature" woman (probably in her early twenties), and the obligatory underage girl with pink hair, Ai. There's a small talk with each girl discussing intimate life, but apart of that it's just sex. 9. Virtua Call バーチャコール [950224] Fairytale 1 While trying to pick up girls, you are given a card for a video phone service. When you go home you try the number and then a woman tells you how the game works. Nampa game with videophones not yet invented. Many conversation variants are present. But game feels too monotonous, something that's going to be fixed only in sequels. 10. Ce'st la vie Ce'st la vie [950228] May-Be Soft 1 2 The game puts the player in a role of an aspiring young painter, who is more interested in pretty, young, naked models than in the art itself. It starts slowly, but soon the hero finds himself sexually involved with different young women, and the net of relationships grows more and more complex... Don't expect a story here, because there is little of it. It consists mostly of accidental meetings followed by H. 11. Valkyrie ヴァルキリー [950228] Discovery 1 2 An ordinary Japanese high-school student named Hatsumi Tarou was having a normal life - preparing for examinations, like all his classmates - when one day everything changed: it was on the day when he saw a talking cat. The cat promptly explained that it was not a cat, but a creature from the Magic World. Once in a thousand or so years, a fighting competition is being held between the best female fighters of the Magic World. The winner becomes the next queen. The referee however should be a human being; and this time, the honor belongs to our friend Tarou! Well, this is not BlazBlue, the story here is almost non-existant, nothing much to discuss in a fighting game.

Sakura Sakura is getting a Kickstarter. Sakura Sakura VNDB

I first played this VN in 2011, having read Accany's review of it (it was on his rather long list of recommended VNs), and at first, I had trouble getting into it. To be blunt, my distaste for mysteries is pretty much the biggest reason why I had trouble with this... but the protagonist is, in some ways, your typical 'stick his nose in everything and anything' detective, meaning that he frequently takes actions that make me want to face-palm. In addition, his unwillingness to put the puzzle pieces together (some parts of the setting come together indirectly really early on, and it always bothered me didn't figure it out then and there) bothered me as well. Nonetheless, I set that feeling aside and decided to replay this, since it is technically a classic VN, lol. Kurenai no Tsuki is one of those rare VNs (rare even then) where all the characters are full adults with their own occupations and lives. It is also a combination murder mystery, fantasy, and horror story. The game's setting is an isolated village in the mountains, where the protagonist, Kouya accidentally stumbled onto the bathing scene of the two main heroines, Sunao and Hiori. Being old-fashioned Japanese women, they of course demand that he follow the rules and pick one of them (or both of them) to marry. If this VN were to have been made this year, then it would have turned into a series of moe antics, with good-hearted villagers blessing the potential marriage and the mystery being cleared up as something relatively innocent. However, Kurenai no Tsuki was made in 2009, when it was still normal to have this kind of beginning take a different track. This story has a ridiculous number of choices, most of them you are required to pick eventually and the only thing you can pick is the order, which makes them useless choices in my mind. Objectively, this is perhaps the most negative point of the VN, lol. There are two arcs to this VN, based on a choice made mid-way through the second chapter, which requires you to pick between Hiori and Sunao. Depending on which you choose, you get to look at a different side of the events and mystery of the story. There are four heroines, two of which are in each arc. The first one follows the villagers' side and contains Sunao's and Akari's paths. The second one follows a second faction and leads you to Hiori's and Kokoa's paths. While I enjoyed this VN and liked its characters, the fact is that it doesn't really meet my tastes, even now. I love Sunao and Hiori, and so I always felt that this VN could have done without the mystery elements, since the protagonist is so paranoid he is willing to doubt those pure-hearted girls at the drop of a hat. That's probably my problem, since I was already thinking of those two as my waifu inside the first ten minutes of the VN each time I played it, hahaha... Anyway, this VN's atmosphere is frequently gloomy and the villagers are insanely xenophobic (violently so at times), and the deaths that keep occurring only make things worse. Nonetheless, as a story it is very well-made and has a really interesting setting. Kokoa's scientific approach to the mystery of the village is also helpful, since it provides some perspective when you find yourself falling into baseless superstitious paranoia, haha. I recommend this to fantasy mystery lovers, though don't expect that the mysteries will all be solved in a single path. Edit: Oh, and the true path is the harem path, lol.

I'm not gonna lie signing a tier list (whether one I made or someone else made) would be pretty hilarious weird and amazing at the same time.

Hi everyone ! I started Persona 5 quite a few weeks ago, and before I even installed the game, I picked up Futaba’s wallpaper from the PSN Store to put myself in that mode. The Persona Mode, I guess. When both players and creators are in on the hype, that is when we have a great time. For instance, I can’t wait for Umaru season two, so I want to retweet messages from the official account, I want to support them with a bluray purchase, that sort of thing. I hope to support The Last Birdling in any way I can, so today, I have put together some wallpapers and avatars for gamers to use: If anyone decides to support me by using these assets, I am the one who is thankful, not the other way around. You are doing me a massive favor, and in the process, I hope it will help build excitement for that September 1st release. Gamers want flexibility these days. Maybe you want the logo in a different position, or perhaps gone altogether. Depending on where your icons are positioned, you may also prefer the character(s) to shift left or right. To cater for this, I have included separate elements in each wallpaper for you to adjust as needed: These wallpapers are available in the highest available res. Even if you extracted those assets from the game, they will not be available at this size. Hopefully at least one of them will suit your tastes. All right, here is the pack: http://birdling.invertmouse.com/birdlings-media-pack.zip As usual, I hope you may consider wishlisting and/or joining our Steam community: http://store.steampowered.com/app/629430/The_Last_Birdling/ Thank you!

Nice website http://solpress.co/ Jokes aside, I hope they will succeed. Still better than OELVN kusoge, and when they got funded - every time something dying in me.

As said in the topic title, We need future Guests for the Following Topics. If you feel comfortable talking on a podcast and talking about a topic feel free to PM me! Topics we plan to discuss in the future. 18+ vs. All Ages Art Buying vs. Pirating Visual Novels Length of visual novels (Short vs. Long, in between) Music Romance Quality Settings Tropes/Cliches Untranslated VNs/Learning Japanese Visual Novels aimed for Females (Otomes/BL/other?) Why Popular Visual Novels are Popular We would also like any topics you'd like to hear about besides any of the above and ones we've done already (EVNs, Kinetic vs Choices, Gameplay, TL Quality, Genres, Kickstarter)!

This is probably a little harsh, but it really does sound like you've convinced yourself you're incapable of anything and want to find excuses to not improve.. I don't know what you really expect to be told here. If you want to learn to draw, you gotta practice a lot. You're not gonna learn it in one single day, or even a week or even a month. It takes lots of time. At the moment it doesn't look like you've done a lot of practice, but thats just an assumption on my end. If you want to learn to draw, you gotta be patient and really focus on it. It's fine if you can't draw though, that's why you work with artists who know how to do it, or you comission people for assetts you need. If you have trouble programming, there's an incredible amount of books and guides out there to help you learn. If thats not enough, try looking for a class you can take on it. On top of that, you can also hire or get help from programmers in this community or elsewhere. There's also VN engines that require almost no programming. As for your fears of writing, all of that is really a bunch of excuses to not write and to not show your work to others. That stuff is scary and i understand the fear of you wasting your time, but the thing is every writer usually gets good at what they do by making mistakes and learning. The fastest way you're gonna learn and the fastest way you'll improve is to just work at it. You'd only be a laughing stock on the internet if you handled people's reactions poorly. Theres plenty of successful writers and game developers who have made rough games before but have gotten better over time. None of the stuff you've mentioned is enough to absolutely prevent you from ever making a visual novel. If its something you genuinely want to do, there's lots of ways to get it to happen. It won't neccesarily be fast, but it will happen if you work hard enough at it.

let's hope he's right!

IT'S COMING aaaand I managed to gather 200 loveca, JUST IN TIME. Now if I could only get that Cyber Nico... Eclipsed was better off being retired Ye gods, that song.

I recommend Steins;Gate's Steam version, you'll get the full enjoyment from the game and won't miss anything. As far as I could tell from the Japanese audio, the game is decently translated. Plus it doesn't have that many tricky Japanese references, to holidays or customs for example. But it has a lot of scientific, specialised and meme terms, so it has a term appendix too.

same as me when i finish anime with satisfied ending...

Don't you dare besmirch "Please Bang My Wife," Ningen.

"Funbag Fantasy" is proof that translating the title of a VN can be a fine thing.

It's a point nigh impossible to prove in this case so I don't really get why you even started. Even with my extremely mediocre third language English, I had no problems with Dies whatsoever while my friend is constantly complaining about Fata Morgana because they use "weird" words like "simultaneously", "why can't they just say at the same time". The same way we can see from forum posts that shogun's english is likely even worse than mine and he would have trouble even with a literally ideal localization because this is just how Dies is. And then you are overcomplicating the situation simply because you want to believe that your nitpicking has a practical meaning.