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In the last few years I've linked a list of the known Visual Novel related discords I knew about. I wanted to make a new post for the new year so comments can be opened up again. Most of these discords should be welcome to all readers. Whether you want to read the series for the first time, or have already and just want to discuss the VNs. Just make sure to respect spoilers and any other rules the discord has. Only a few have been added since the 2021 list, but if I'm missing any, feel free to comment. If there are any notable Visual Novel related discords you want me to add to this list that I forgot or you feel should be put on here, or one of the links doesn't work, let me know. -------- **List of Discords for official licensing companies** ALICE IN DISSONANCE (Fault Milestone developers) - http://discord.gg/faultseries Cherry Kiss Games - https://discord.gg/3hTEeBC Fruitbat Factory- https://discord.gg/fruitbatfactory JAST BLUE (yaoi aka Guy x Guy Visual Novels) - https://discordapp.com/invite/pzbxfuV JAST USA - https://discord.gg/rMGjzQE Love Lab - https://discord.com/invite/uCnefpbFZ7 Love in Space (Shining Song Starnova developers)- https://discord.gg/lis MangaGamer- https://discord.gg/Xb28rjc Nekonyan - https://discord.com/invite/eG92BwN Nexton (Japanese parent company for VNs like Amakano and Koihime Musou) - https://discord.gg/E6jKq6jv86 Ninetail (Venus Blood series) - https://discordapp.com/invite/6WBsQdd Sekai Project - https://discordapp.com/invite/sekai-project Shiravune - https://discord.gg/qBmrqDy Sol Press - http://discord.gg/hrcAzxq ----- **List of Discords for fantranslation groups** 07th Mod (Adding Higurashi Console only stories to PC) - https://discord.gg/pf5VhF9 Alka Translations (Angel Beats, Reflection Blue, Miazora Fine Days) https://discord.gg/AQYzJnu Committee of Zero (Chaos Head Noah FanTL + SciADV patch improvements) - https://discord.gg/53cj5xs Daybreak Translations (AkaGoei)- https://discord.gg/6NHzBmqzvG Hanabi Works (Hoshi Ori Perfect Edition TL group) - https://discord.gg/fTWeWbAaPV Kakugo Translations (Sukimazakura to Uso no Machi fanTL)- https://discord.gg/4TF4PzxNqe Katawa Shoujo Unofficial HD Patch Project - https://discord.gg/usBxeUEyj4 Koichoo (Koichoco High Resolution patch) - https://discord.gg/ZTBa9taUdj MajiTL (MajiKoi A Fan TL group) - Currently no Invite Link Oneline's Workship (Nagomibako fanTL) - https://discord.gg/qUExbPbdCm Operation Bellflower (Senmono fanTL group) - https://discord.gg/GyPVkqGEhr Todokanai (White Album 2 Fan TL group) - https://discord.gg/5rrxEUN Tsurezure Scans (Hatsukoi/Tsujidou/Hoshiori/Gin'iro Haruka FanTL group)- https://discord.gg/yc2BeDXsC6 pantsudev (Manakashi/Lily Dyes Red) - https://discord.gg/YUBK6Nn trjr (Yosuga no Sora fanTL group) - https://discord.gg/zTnGA5p ----- **List of Discords for general VN fanbases** /r/visualnovels WAYRStats - https://discord.gg/wrEJmkW Aliceshoujo (VN general community)- https://discord.gg/tz5nht2 cublikefoot (Visual Novel Reviewer) - https://discord.gg/QKZFmRD DevTalk+ (Visual Novel Development Community)- https://discord.gg/VzM6DeQ Fuwanovel - https://discord.gg/F79q4dp Game2Text OCR, Text Hooking, and JP Learning - https://discord.gg/wDePbmHxE2 General Visual Novels - https://discord.gg/y9zYwds Lemma Soft Forums/Ren'py Development - https://discord.gg/6ckxWYm TheMoeWay (VN Reading Club, Texthooking, Learning Japanese)- https://discord.gg/jp VAFLand, Spanish Community #2 - https://discord.com/invite/kaDnTpS VNStat (vndb user stats) - https://discord.gg/ZS7NvwR Visual Fromage (French Community)- https://discord.gg/eGEYNumnnn Visual Novel Book Club [started by Meru of Love Lab] - https://discord.gg/mJCyRMWN Visual Novel Enthusiasts (Facebook group) - https://discord.gg/8h22pgt Visual Novel MTL - https://discord.com/invite/6BWTzytd4s Visual Novel OCR Program - https://discord.gg/XFbWSjMHJh Visual Novel Spanish Community #1 - https://discord.gg/F64DuHg Visual-novel.info (English, German, and Japanese fans) - https://discord.gg/2eCeD48 ----- **List of fanmade discords for specific VN series** Air - https://discord.gg/N8wTXEK Angel Beats 1st Beat (SSS) - https://discord.gg/z5KTJaD Aoishiro - https://discord.gg/VhKcN7G Aokana / Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm - https://discord.gg/GQDRgFGWfH Ar Tonelico Surge Concerto series - https://discord.gg/2xMZbZs August VNs (Eustia, Daitoshokan, Arterial, etc) - https://discord.gg/3eshHw3 Chaos;Head/Child playthrough and discussion server: https://discord.gg/SEznDEV Clannad - https://discord.gg/aG9Q7T4PWs Dies Irae - https://discordapp.com/invite/fVgRb7T Doki Doki Literature Club - https://discord.gg/6cKj8cq CLOCKUP (euphoria, Maggotbaits, Fraternite, Kenzen!, Ero!, etc.) - https://discord.gg/SCazwUR2Y3 Fata Morgana - https://discord.gg/3vVkkH2 Flowers - https://discord.gg/bwdCm88 Furry Visual Novel fans- https://discord.gg/xj3BZhmTyD Gnosia - https://disboard.org/server/join/791411929494716446 Grisaia - https://discord.gg/0vIZSb9oQQcDDPTX Hinamizawa (Higurashi/Umineko/Ciconia) - https://discord.gg/2T3wKgR /r/Higurashinonakakoroni - https://discord.gg/X4eZWyt (yes it's misspelled on purpose) If My Heart Had Wings/Kono Oozora + Sky Full of Stars/Miazora - https://discord.gg/pjWQw57 Iwaihime- https://disboard.org/server/join/800114691757309952 Island/Himawari - https://discord.gg/nx6whn3 Kanon - https://discord.gg/dEEbycx KEYverse (KEY/Visual Arts) - https://discord.gg/mFbZD7rwRb KEY/VisualArts Server 2 - https://discord.gg/Wd4DrgN Katawa Shoujo- https://discord.gg/S2EHXbA Little Busters - https://discord.gg/PPz6xRa Madosoft (Wagamama High Spec, Hamidashi Creative) - https://discord.gg/hEenJ58y8T Maitetsu - https://discord.gg/ZqGRGGx MajiKoi/Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai + Minatosoft/Carnival - https://discord.gg/wqAcmHp Marmalade (Study Steady, Primal x Hearts, Marshmallow) - https://discord.gg/PzJksHSbKn minori (ef, eden, Trinoline) - https://discord.gg/eBbKTMXDYp Muv-Luv - https://discord.gg/0wXwnqY9lQcO0u0E Mystic Messenger - https://discord.com/invite/hACeS5m Narcissu and other stage-nana VNs - https://discord.gg/8s9VmS9 NekoPara - https://discord.gg/xGY7Hec Nitro+ (Totono, Carnevale, Muramasa, etc) - https://discord.gg/B5ENaKaxb3 Otome Games - https://discord.gg/gYFY5yF Otome World - https://disboard.org/server/join/734441047341662289 Overdrive (KiraKira, Deardrops, Bokuten, Musicus, etc) - https://discord.gg/m8sGK4u Raging Loop - https://discord.gg/fTJ3kWC6Aa Rewrite - https://discord.gg/HUGyK4r5a9 Robotics Notes series- https://discord.gg/H8UrdCj Root Double, Infinity Series (Never7, Ever17, Remember11), I/O - https://discord.gg/GCBJdeyPEg Sankaku Ren'ai - https://discord.gg/5DKzvuQ Saya no Uta - https://discord.gg/UMWvCMW Steins Gate series- https://discord.gg/F8VnHcSAZF Subahibi/Subarashiki Hibi/Wonderful Everyday - https://discord.gg/jcsJsca Subahibi / KeroMakura - https://discord.com/invite/nfpRKyhQSw Summer Pockets - https://discord.gg/XHtsCs7 Symphonic Rain - https://discord.gg/DtmxqSY Tactics (One and Moon) - https://discord.gg/XUfvN2p Tonework's (Hatsukoi, Hoshi Ori, Gin'Iro) - https://discord.gg/MPExbVqazK Type Moon - https://discord.gg/fate Umineko (/r/umineko) - https://discord.gg/mV9jM9G Utawarerumono - https://discord.com/invite/qejpjpJ VA11-HallA - https://discord.gg/B4cBVaC Winged Cloud (Sakura series) - https://discord.gg/x8uDc4Z Yumina the Ethereal - Currently no Invite Link YU-NO - https://discord.gg/7ZNK8TT Yuri (Girl x Girl) Visual Novels - https://discord.gg/MykW77j Yuzusoft (Sanoba Witch, Senren Banka, Riddle Joker, etc) - https://discord.gg/jJRNgzh

Yeah we have Nekonyan announce the exact release date for this. As for me while granted I know that some reviewers didn't exactly have favorable opinion on this, I still look forward to the release of this. Also I'm quite surprised that Nekonyan decided to release this first seeing that I did guess they'll release Hello Lady, but more VN is always good so I have no problem with that. I'll add the heroines along with their VA info later, and of course the poll as well. Forget to say that the title is the pun of 'aishiteru' (TL Note: Aishiteru mean I love you). The tweet from Nekonyan below for the proof, and yes we also already have Steam store available for this as well (The link to the Steam store). Edited - As promised I'll add the VA info for the heroines below. 1. Hanamori Shiori The MC (Hajime) childhood friend in that she's quite devoted to him, in that she'll do anything for the sake of Hajime including helping him to abolished the romance ban rule. That said, she's quite anxious so much that she prefer to show her intend through action instead of words. Her VA is Nakajima Saki in that she's voiced Kouzaki Umi from Koiresort, Saotome Miharu from Miagete, Shigure Kanako from Konosora, Alexander from Eiyuu Senki, Sasamori Karin from To Heart 2, and Mochizuki Maho from Daitoshokan. 2. Koshimizu Kasumi She somehow know Hajime from the past, and she decided to transferred into his school in order to know him more. That said rather than she take the initiative, after she confess her feeling to Hajime she prefer if Hajime himself is the one who take an action to her. Her VA is Ozaki Mami in that her roles are Okihara Misa from Hoshiori, Aritagawa Nio from Loca Love, Amabane Madoka from Love Cube, Bors from Eiyuu Senki, Ginjou Haruko from Tsukiyori 2, and Okita Shino from Ouka Sabaki. 3. Yuuki Ayaka The winner of school beauty pageant for two years straight. Because of her personality in that she's quite bright and bombastic people did think of her as a playgirl, when in fact shes more or less quite innocent when it come to the romance in that she's hoping that the romance is like fairy tale. Her VA is Ui aka Oohashi Ayuru in that she also voiced Enomoto Kaho from Your Diary, Narutaki Maho from Sukiren, Sairenji Murasaki from Seven Days, Hotaru Rinne from Astral Air, Sakurakouji Luna from Tsukiyori, and Eurasia of End from Noraneko duology. 4. Kozuka Yui The youngest heroine in IxShe Tell who is also the student council president for the sister school. Despite being the youngest heroine, Yu also tried her best to act as an adult so much that she looks older than her age is, and she also didn't like that people judge her character based on the her appearance alone. Her VA is Suzuya Maya (I prefer her alias this time) who also voiced Nashiro Momiji from Ginharu, Liese von Archlond from Venus Blood Hypno/Hollow, Forunisgein from Kami no Rhapsody, Nanase Shizuku from Imopara 2, Seguchi Saya from Onikiss, and Spartan Clarke from Evenicle 2. 5. Yamabuki Yoshino The vice president of student council president (Forgot to mention that Hajime is the student council president) in that she's against Hajime revoke the romance ban rule. That said even with her political stand is against Hajime, slowly but surely she find herself to fall in love with Hajime. Out of all other heroines VA, Yoshino's VA here (Gotou Mai) here is have quite a number of well-known roles such as Narumi Toa from Wagahigh, Wakakusa Nanoha from Baldr Sky, Hayama Mizuki from ef, Angelica Rocca from Katahane, Takekawa Benio from Comyu, and Mukou Aoi from Kimikoi. That's all for the heroines along with VA info, and I guess what I can suggest in regard of this VN would be just treat this as a moege (In the most normal sense, not in a sense like 'all VNs are moege' or 'hot blooded VN are moege').

Stellaren, released exclusively to mobile devices in 2017 was an important game in my engagement with VNs. A dark sci-fi adventure with a captivating setting and a tense, at times brutal story stood out significantly from most other visual novels available for smartphones and I think to this day is one of the best dedicated Android/iOS games of its kind [you can find my detailed review of it here]. It also cemented my love for VNs as a storytelling formula and while some of that infatuation was definitely connected to me being a fairly inexperienced reader, many elements of Stellaren’s worldbuilding and character development are genuinely bold and interesting – and to the point where I wasn't even bothered by its rough edges and clunky gameplay elements. Because of all this, it is an understatement to say I was excited to hear about the release of Stellaren II July this year, coming out not only for mobile devices but also on Steam. Promising heavily updated visuals, a set of better-polished gameplay elements and a substantial, conclusive story (its predecessors had a tendency to end on cliffhangers), it seemed like a massive treat for someone like myself, already in love with this universe. What I found was both different and more complex than I expected – but did it capture the charm and stomach-gripping qualities of the original? Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

KICKSTARTER LINK: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thehiddenlevels/cosplay-convention-crisis-0 From the links below you can download a demo and a patch for demo (18+ only!) for it: STEAM / itch.io / Mirror / Mirror (mac) | 18+: Patch / Mirror (win) | Patch / Mirror (mac) Cosplay Convention Crisis is a Visual Novel that puts you in the shoes of Jacob Kirby: middling athlete, student, and casual nerd. Guide Kirby over a handful of days across the paths of three strange and powerful women. Think the convention scene is easy? Try to survive magical girls, aliens, robots, femme fatales armed with eldritch artifacts, and convention cafeterias. You might be proven wrong! Manage your schedule, collect trivia, and try not to die as circumstances spin wildly out of control. Attend panels, acquire merchandise, trade barbs with super-fans, ponder the meaning of life, watch the latest super hit’s trailer, and attempt to romance strange and powerful girls. Assemble a quirky ensemble costume for a contest and try to get back home! CCC: It's a great time in the making! Genre: Sci-Fi, Parody, Comedy, Romance Sim. Platforms: PC and Consoles. (Xbox One & Series X, PlayStation 4 & 5, Nintendo Switch). Language: English & Русский. Launch Price: $19.99 Release date: around September 7, 2021 About 100,000 words of text. 4 or more endings. 3 beautiful girls. More than 5 backgrounds and 20 CG are in the demo and more are planned! MAIN MENU THEME: https://soundcloud.com/user-763184136/cosplay-convention-crisis-main-menu KICKSTARTER LINK: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thehiddenlevels/cosplay-convention-crisis-0

VNs sometimes get criticized for their overuse of the ellipse (…). And I suppose I'll start my defense of the use of ellipses in VNs, by extending an olive branch. VNs do misuse the ellipse to an astounding degree, and I have an interesting little anecdote demonstrating this point. In college, me and some friends decided to spend a Friday night getting drunk and reading the worst VNs we could find. We stumbled upon Gender Bender DNA Twister Extreme. There is a LOT wrong with this VN, but a glaringly consistent detail of bad writing we all noticed was the excessive use of ellipses. After we all collectively noticed and pointed out how often ellipses were being used, we decided to start counting every instance of an ellipse we spotted. Keep in mind, they had already been used plenty before we even started to count. Before we even reached a total playtime of 1 hour, we counted over 100 uses of ellipses, and gave up counting after that. I share this anecdote for two reasons. Firstly, as a petty example that Gender Bender DNA Twister Extreme is horrible and I almost want to say it has no right to exist. And secondly that overall I am in agreement that ellipses do get misused often in VNs. So I am not entirely attacking this point of criticism, but I do think that many who do champion this specific criticism of VN writing miss one very important function that the ellipses achieves in VN writing, that it can't achieve in traditional print. The written word as it is presented in VNs is transient. With each click you typically receive one line at a time. And after a certain point all the lines disappear and you are greeted with fresh words from the top of the screen if NVL, or the top of the dialogue box if ADV. Furthermore often (though not always), sentences aren't displayed whole at once. But rather they get displayed in a sort of typewriter effect. This means that regardless of whether the narrative is in past tense or present tense, the occurrence of the text and the story to the reader will always be in the present. Character dialogue, internal monologues, narrative descriptions, it is all being presented to us in real time. A book on the other hand has everything written out and open to display. You can scan the whole page as well as the next page, and you have equal access to every page of the book at any given time. Want to skip to the ending? Well the medium can't stop you. This is not true of VNs. You can fast-forward, but you can't just skip to the end. The only way you can typically access specific parts of a VN is by creating a save point and therefore being able to load it up whenever you want. But you only have that option for everything you already read, you can't just pick and load sections you haven't experienced yet. Because for all intense and purposes, that's in the future. It hasn't happened yet. In other words, there is a sense of time in how the narrative of a VN gets expressed. Well in VNs, the ellipse can be used to demarcate time and expression. In this way, VNs can literally show the passage of time, without having to tell it. And I always thought the golden rule of writing was “show don't tell”, in this function the ellipse is being used optimally to show and not tell. Here is an example of how I would write a certain passage if I were writing it for a book/short-story, and then I will proceed to rewrite it for a VN. Novel/Short-story: “I don't know about that,” she briefly paused while biting her lip, “you sure it will be okay?” Visual Novel coded in Renpy: “I don't know about that...{w=1.5} you sure it will be okay?” The {w=1.5} is a wait command in Renpy that pauses the text for 1.5 seconds before resuming the rest of the line. Without having to tell the reader “she briefly paused”, we literally showed the pause by manipulating the speed in which the text gets displayed. The ellipse helps signal to the reader that the character is hesitating to express her thoughts, while the {w=1.5} command is running in the background. Now if the detail of “biting her lip” is also important to you. You would have to script things slightly differently, but you could make it that after the ellipse her sprite changes and bites her lip and you hold on that image for 1.5 seconds, before transitioning back to her previous expression and continue the text. So now you not only showed her hesitation and the gap in time it took for her to finish her thought, but you also showed her expression change. This is a way you can “show and not tell” with VNs that you could never achieve when writing for traditional print media.

I recommended a friend who wants to improve his Japanese to read Narcissu 1, since it's free and short. He runs Windows, but I have been unable to find a download copy of just Narcissu 1 from any official website that is not Steam. My friend doesn't like Steam and would prefer a more direct way to get the VN. On Insani's official download page they have Windows, Linux, and Mac versions available for English. But only Linux and Mac versions for the Japanese version. Stage Nana's official website provides a download version for Narcissu 2, but not of Narcissu 1 Am I missing something in one of these links? If not does anyone know where I can link my friend a download copy of Narcissu 1 in Japanese for Windows? EDIT: I know that Narcissu 2's download includes Narcissu 1. But I was wondering if there was an easy way I could just link my friend to a copy of Narcissu 1 without being attached to Narcissu 2.

Elipsis shows a pregnant pause, it can show long hesitation, skeptism, disbelief, a flatlined joke. If used with an third party in a conversation, "..." in combination with a character sprite emphasizes the fact that they are silently observing. Often this means they saw an important but unpleasant detail. "...!" shows surprise, positive or negative. I really liked the use of non-dialogue in the work Mahou Shoujo. The text is almost completely dialogue, and so elipsis do a lot of heavy lifting. Also particular to that work is that the conversation beats are very pronounced. Anyways, elipsis are concise, expressive, and can open new avenues to express dialogue beats. They do work a lot better with a character sprite though.

And this point you made really shows the distinction between directing and writing. A way that was done that really stuck for me was that when i was playing Da Capo 2, the love interest got embarassed and instead of telling this through text, the VN only showed her changing sprites in quick sucession.

Humans try to mark their presence in the world, but their memories and tales dwindle, their bodies wither away, their homes and statues turn into dust. The wilderness prevails, indifferent like time.

Greetings to all, i'm a 3DCG artist and want to share my work with everyone, i own a website where i post all my work if any of you are interested you can go to http://free3dcg.com and download anything you need, some of them are decent some are awful but i'm sure you'll find something I mainly make background CG props for daz 3D renders, do not recommend importing them into game engines, so if anyone is making 3DCG visual novel using daz 3D and needs some free stuff feel free to download anything you need, also feel free to share my site with your friends you are not obligated to do so but would help me a lot so more people cand use them. There are not many at the moment but updating every day with new content so be sure to check it out. If you have any questions feel free to ask in this post. Thank you and have an awesome day.

You rode through a great journey. The emotional high stays with you throughout the day, and maybe the next, slowly phasing out. Sometimes you think back to just how good it was and reminisce in fond memories. You start another visual novel. You hope it'll be as good as the last. . You read an unpolished gem. You found some interesting parts, narrative patterns, or thoughts in the novel that you enjoyed. While parts of it may have dragged or been unpolished, there's a certain charm to it all. You want to shill it to all your friends so they can enjoy it too, and start to think about whom it would be good to recommend it to. You look up other works by the author... . You read something you ultimately didn't find amazing, but think will be interesting to discuss with people. You don't feel like you wasted your time, exactly; maybe you used it suboptimally, but how could you know? You know more about the medium and can draw more parallels with other works when talking to other people deeply into the medium. . You read something pretty garbage. You find solidarity with other people in talking about just what makes it such trash. It lets you see how storycraft can go wrong, and improves your pattern recognition to help you avoid something so disappointing again. You know the medium better, have better picking skills, and have something new to meme about. . You read a Fuwanovel forum post by a fifteen year old trying but failing to sound profound, and cringe. You contemplate suicide, but eventually decide that it is not worth it, even though something tells you you have just contracted a painful form of malignant cancer. You write a forum post in reply