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This is something I've posted on Reddit earlier, but I thought I might as well spread the awareness of Valve's BS here too. After a month of keeping the release build in review (SSS was made by Sunrider's developers, Love in Space and is published by Sekai), Valve said that it will not let the game on the platform (even though it seems to have a proper all-ages version and an adult patch, just like Maitetsu, released at the same time by the same publisher) until their new filtering tool, basically the way to make the waifu games invisible for those that are scared of them, are implemented. The problem is, they don't give even an approximate of when that might be. The tools might arrive next week, or next year and devs that put the work and marketing towards their releases this summer might get stuck in limbo for who-knows-how-long. I guess long, because the tools will most likely go live as beta feature and stay like that for a while before they're fully implemented. It seems that SolPress' Newrin is in the same situation, although that company didn't invest their last two year into this one project and can probably live with an indefinite delay. All in all, Valve is a f***** shitty company as always, I at least hope they won't wait another year to implement those filtering tools and that they'll actually make them useful. Then they can go back to not caring what people what people upload on their storefront - that way they'll at least not actively screw over decent developers.

You're not limited to Steam as a release platform. VN devs finally need to stop abusing Steam. If they need porn that badly, maybe they should change their market. There's both Fakku and Nutaku available as well. Steam doesn't allow porn, simple as that. The non-steam patches are only a half-assed grey zone band aid to circumvent the inconvenience, Steam never really approved. At the same time, Steam is ready to actually allow sexual content in vns, providing it has either artistic or intellectual merit. Guess what - vast majority of 18+ vns don't have that - it's either porn or fan service for the heck of it, despite what community thinks. Adult visual novels could easily have more value to them, but so far most devs constantly prove otherwise through their own actions. It's plain hypocrisy and I'm honestly fed up with it. I'm not surprised at all they refused to publish Starnova as it stands now - it's meant to be an edgy, weeb-pandering porn game involving idols, lol. Complaining about this in general - especially as a developer - is just silly. Most devs got what was coming at them. Steam is not a platform to release porn games and 18+ visual novels. Period.

I know. I was simply stating my opinion. This is one case where there shouldn't be an h-patch, regardless of what the fanboys and the anti-censorship people want. The thing that most people who are new to the community don't understand, not having lived through that period of time, is that periodically, some Japanese eroge catches the attention of someone in the mass media for extreme objectionable content. When that happens, you suddenly see entire otaku sites go down, DDOS attacks on anything related to VNs, etc. The Rapelay incident was one of them, but Maitetsu has the possibility of being an even worse threat to the community, because lolicon is the one non-violent Japanese fetish that could cause the authorities to move against VN localization companies.

I'm kind of surprised Steam allowed Maitetsu at all... that game is one I don't think should have been localized in the first place, for the sake of the community. I'd feel the same way if someone tried to localize Monobeno, for the same reason... the games are tailor-made to cause a major lolicon debate in public here in the US. I have to wonder if people realize just how thin a line the Western eroge (localization and making both) industry is walking...

I'm quite late to say this. Anyway yesterday Hapymaher was released, so feel free to discuss about this here. I hope that you'll have fun playing this, especially if you've been looking forward into it since the announcement back at Otakon 2016.

Being one of the voices that pushes this VN the most loudly as Purple Soft's single best work (by several degrees), I was immensely glad to see that this was getting a localization from Mangagamer. This was my VN of the Year for 2013 and it has by far the best soundtrack I've ever seen in a VN, period. Not only that, but I've never come across a VN that utilized its soundtrack so effectively to stimulate emotion in-sync with the story before, so it was in some ways my awakening to the fact that there were still music directors who could 'do the work' around outside of the makers of the Drakengard and Nier jrpg series. This VN focuses on the reality-blurring experiences of Tohru, a young man who sees nothing but lucid dreams (dreams where you are aware that you are in a dream) and suffers from physical and mental health issues as a result, and his group of female friends/acquaintances. The VN itself is something of a mindfuck experience, mostly because the line between dreams and reality is so vague to the protagonist himself. If you want my translation of the first scene, go here (the narrated videos are dead, but meh): I also did introductions for the protagonist and Maia, two of the major characters.

Yuri as a fully-fledged main theme came a bit late to the Sakura Gaming Universe (they’re all connected, I tell you!), but for the last year, it absolutely dominated Winged Cloud’s production, with their last het hentai game, Sakura Magical Girls, released in early 2017. That transition, however, was a long and inconsistent process, which produced both the absolute best among Sakura games (especially Sakura Dungeon with its never-ending stream of good-quality f/f porn and fanservice CGs) and some… Less fortunate projects. Today and two weeks from now I’ll take a closer look at WC’s iterations of Girls’ Love, without ever hiding my intense bias for the genre – one which makes me that more excited when the formula is applied well and that more furious when it’s desecrated by really crappy, uninspired VNs. Sakura Fantasy, chapter 1 Fantasy, one of WC’s most ambitious, but never-finalized projects, proved above anything else the biggest advantage of yuri-themed ecchi VNs – having a protagonist who is more than just a faceless self-insert, given the minimal amount of character development and as few significant traits as possible, to not disturb the player filling this hollow husk with his own fantasies. Realin is not only an actual character, with a sprite and proper personality (and a convenient, voyeuristic gift of “farsight”, mostly used to peek at people in baths), but even gives out traces of interesting backstory and compelling relationships with the other heroines. The game also, as one of the very few entries in the Sakura series, does some effort to build a setting and a linear story of sorts, predictably based on fairly common fantasy tropes, but nonetheless semi-serious and interesting. The biggest problem is, however, that we’re unlikely to ever know what happened with the crumbling Empire, besieged by magical monsters and the quest to retrieve the Fallen Star – as much as anyone can tell, after the first chapter (which is still rather worth reading by itself, but obviously doesn’t conclude the plot in any way), WC buried this series forever. Final rating: Golden Poo! Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

Well, that would be the ideal state of affairs IMO. Steam that respects its own rules and brings the all-ages VN experience to weirdos like myself, that prefers those versions in the vast majority of cases and would be happy about originally all-ages titles being in a less sketchy environment. The problem is, it was Valve's desition to be consistently lenient towards the 18+ patches and porn sneaking its way on the platform, make some explicit rules on how it should be done (keeping the patches off-steam, not discussing/directing to the porn in the community spaces etc.) and then asks devs who operated under a rather stable set of rules for a long time to wait for possibly months after months, with no timetable (which means no possibility for proper planning/reacting to this setback) and apparently no workarounds that could mitigate the costs of such a delay. Devs are actually pretty quiet about it, as they know they're in "sticks vs nukes" situation against Valve. I just find how shitty the Steam administrations acts pretty inexcusable - no matter what ideal scenario we might come up with, I'm pretty sure Valve won't do much about it, as it would require them actually making some desitions and then curate stuff to a minimal extent. Now they're just stalling, making other people's lives miserable in the process until they make some filters that they hope will make the problem sort itself out. I'm not channelling devs' outrage here - I'm channelling my own, because all sides deserve a storefront with some kind of consistency and responsibility behind it. The only thing Valve does is making sure they're not responsible for anything.

Yeah, I think this will further push VN devs for diversifications... Hopefully, GOG will gradually accept more high profile VNs too. I've heard there's also a huge Chinese distributor entering the Western market? I would still like for Valve to get their shit together though. Nothing can and nothing will be able to give the kind of sales Steam does in near future, devs have no choice but to rely on it as their main platform, even if not the only one. And I don't even know why Valve bothers to do this, I can't imagine them losing any of their mainstream userbase over allowing a few more anime games in, considering there's already a zillion of them on the platform.

By the title alone, we can see you also posted this on reddit Well, Valve's being Valve again. This time they created quite a sneaky but working way to ban "waifu games" without actually banning then. Say that you'll develop a filtering tool, and release it together with Half Life 3. In the meantime, VNs will be forever hidden for everyone. And then there's Maitetsu, it's a surprise it's still there considering what happened with Key to Home. So guess it's a good time to everyone here to learn how to use Mangagamer's store, Denpasoft, Fakku, itch.io and any other alternative and jump ship. I remember seeing some people celebrating that we won the "waifu holocaust" but, as imagined, we lost it.

ROBOTICS;NOTES ELITE PETITION HERE: change.org Operation HiddenHand is a fan movement with the goal of encouraging the localization of the various untranslated Science Adventure games, such as Chaos;Head Noah and Robotics;Notes Elite. What is the Science Adventure series? What does it have to do with Steins;Gate? The Science Adventure series is a series of visual novels developed by 5pb./MAGES., and currently consists of five main entries. The titles, in order of release, are: Chaos;Head Noah, Steins;Gate, Robotics;Notes Elite, Chaos;Child, and Steins;Gate 0. Steins;Gate and Steins;Gate 0 are just two of these entries, and while Steins;Gate and Steins;Gate 0 are both incredibly popular, the other entries remain in relative obscurity in the West. This is primarily due to the fact that Steins;Gate and its successor received incredibly well-made anime adaptations, while the anime adaptations of the other titles do not stack up to the original visual novels they are based on. The two titles that are underlined (above) have no official translation. This is something that we intend to change, and we plan to start with Robotics;Notes Elite. What is Robotics;Notes Elite? What is its relation to Steins;Gate? Robotics;Notes Elite is the 2014 upgraded re-release of 2012’s Robotics;Notes, a visual novel set 9 years after the events of Steins;Gate on the island of Tanegashima. Created by Chiyomaru Shikura and written by Naotaka Hayashi, this story has all the talent of Steins;Gate behind it, with a different setting and tone. However, it still shares the core concepts of the series—Sci-fi, and conspiracy. What can I do to help? Similar projects such as Operation Bluebird and Operation Rainfall have proven that large and vocal fanbases uniting behind a common goal is the key to success. There are multiple different ways to show your support for this campaign—further details on each can be found in our FAQ. Tweet out your support with #OpHiddenHand. (Spread the word and make yourself heard!) Follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook! (For updates, fan content, giveaways, and more!) Sign our Robotics;Notes Elite petition! (You can find that here: change.org) Get creative. (From fanart, to articles, to videos, and more, do whatever you have the skills for!) More coming soon! (We’ve got big plans for the future! Stay updated with our Facebook and Twitter page, which can be found below.) Twitter: https://twitter.com/ophiddenhand Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OpHiddenHand/ In addition to providing updates on the cause, we’ll also keep you posted on the latest SciADV news, fan content, and even giveaways! You can also find us on Discord at this link: https://discord.gg/Fsbc2vp

Just Keep maia route for Last and Alice 2nd last. and take this advice seriously unless you want to spoil yourself heavily I would recommend following this route order.

All of Draculius' heroines except Belche are essentially amaenbou types (at some point). Adelheid from Floral Flowlove is an ultimate amaenbou. Both doll heroines from Koisuru Doll to Omoi no Kiseki are amaenbou characters (though the blonde is a bit yandere-ish). Akira from Komorebi no Nostalgica is definitely an amaenbou (so is her mother, the protagonist's step-mother). Riko from Yomegami is an amaenbou (with an extreme scent fetish). Suenaga Haruka from Houkago no Futekikakusha is a yamato nadeshiko type, but the game is a hard utsuge, meaning lots of despair. Kujou Otome from Izayoi no Fortuna is a yamato nadeshiko. Soshite Hatsukoi ga Imouto ni Naru has two amaenbou heroines... Tsubasa and Shinobu. It needs to be mentioned that Shinobu is borderline yandere and has a tendency to 'amaeru' in a really... forceful way. Kumari Kotobuki from Koko Kara Natsu no Innocence is a yamato nadeshiko. Sengoku Koihime's Yuina is a yamato nadeshiko, as is the shogun's imouto... and there are a ton of amaenbou types (Mari being the most obvious). Mira from Curio Dealer is half of each. Touko from Ayakashibito, except for the massive katana, is a yamato nadeshiko. Just to be clear, all Clochette game imoutos are amaenbou heroines. So, if you run out of that type, just go to Clochette (though the oppai are endless there).

Yeah, this - if characters and setting are Japanese, let's not pretend that they are not.

They shouldn't, it's pretty simple if it's a VN that takes place in Japan about japanese people, honorifics have no reason to be removed, honorifics is part of japanese communication paterns, it doesn't make any sense to remove them. On the other hand if it's a VN that doesn't take place in Japan about non-japanese people such as Sharnoth or Ghakthun, then yeah honorifics should definitly be removed.

Quoting out of context makes it easier to make good joke replies. Besides while they aren't state of the art in visual technology, I expected much worse when people referred to those titles as looking old. They are perfectly fine by my standards for story driven VNs. Vanilla nukige not so much, but then again that's not a genre I'm particularly interested in in the first place.

It's been four months since I updated this last? Huh. That's no good. Editing is now at 71.0%

You make me interested.

I'm still going through Clannad. For now, I have one thing to say - Fuuu-chaaaan That feels train hit me really hard...