mbl

It's the reverse netorare that the plot is centered around.

That alien one really turns me on

Ren'py is your best choice for making VNs, takes just a few minutes to learn how to write scripts for it and as far as I know royalty free. Unity is a good royalty-free engine for game development in general, so if you were wanting gameplay within the VN it would be a good choice.

Each has their own appeal. RF 1 set the standard but plays out far more similar to the standard harvest moon games as far as romance goes, you romance simply by giving gifts and occasionally having special events while later games allow you to do jobs for characters to build friendship/love. The story is good. Frontier is just a rehash of RF 1 with a different supporting cast. Rf 2 was more questing heavy and is special in that once you've romanced your partner and have a kid. You then begin playing as the kid, romancing partners in the next generation of townspeople. Rf 3 you were born a (cute) monster but are transformed into a human. Eventually you can change between monster and human form at will, romance both humans and monster-girls, and build relations between the monster and human settlements. Rf 4 didn't have any special mechanic, but has the solid storytelling that all the games have and has really solidified all the standard gameplay elements of the series.

I enjoyed the harvest moon games, and fell in love with Rune Factory 1 when it was released. It is the only game in the genre that I actually bothered to have multiple playthroughs to romance several girls in, pretty much ruined the simple harvest moon games for me. I've tried getting into the sequels, but never got anywhere close to finishing the story or romancing someone. Guess I don't have the patience for the genre anymore.

Guess my definition of moe is kinda skewed Game is dark as shit but many characters manage to be cute in their own right, not in the standard animu fashion.

^ This. Every game is gonna have cuteness, but here are some that are really heavy on it: Wanko to Kurasou - Nonstop train of comedy and anthro-loli moe until near the end where it sort of devolves into porn. Littlewitch Romanesque - Moe adventures Imouto Paradise! - siscon harem nukige Imouto Ijime - nukige with little character development if I remember right Cosplay Fetish Academy - Not as mindless nukige as you might think. It's been a very very long time, but I don't remember much drama. Harem Party/My girlfriend is the president - Comedy harems, no drama. Boob Wars/Bukkake Ranch - Nukige. I think there's some moe mixed in Cosplay Alien - I don't think there was drama in it Drama=Story so you requesting no drama really limits good choices. Here are some that have drama: Sekien no Inganock - story heavy containing moe heroines Kana Little Sister: The moe makes the sadness even worse ;-; Family Project: Sadness. Most characters have that wacky cuteness to them, plus characters with standard moe tropes. Kira*Kira- Lovable characters but some heavy drama in some of the endings DearDrops - Not as much drama as kira*kira, but I would suggest playing Kira*Kira first. Period - Moe heavy game with average VN drama Any harem game ever - There's gonna be cute character tropes and drama mixed in some endings I also think Saya no Uta has the most moe heroine ever, but that one is definitely not what you are looking for.

Compatibility. VN players are used to going through extra steps to play Japanese games, but they want the game to be accessible to new players and available on steam. They also talked about remastering it. The added work of porting a VN instead of just altering the scripts becomes a lot viable when you are actually making money off the project, and are getting crowdfunded for it in the first place.

Well to create a proper remake you would have to extract the assets from the game anyways, unless you are making it without any art/bgm/voice. If you're capable of extracting the assets then it's not much of a step up to alter the scripts, which is loads less trouble than remaking the entire game.

These people are claiming to give this guy half their profits, so that he may use them to purchase a foothold in Chunsoft. If he couldn't convince them to produce the game as one of their developers, how much do you think him gaining a small stockhold is going to change? I am not saying it is impossible, I am saying that it will be an uphill battle and the stocks won't change much. There are better ways for fans to go about saving a license than buying some random third-party's game on a sketchy promise that they'll somehow change another company's views if you give them your money.

So these 'fans' are making their own game that will sort of share the same feel as ZE, and are claiming they will somehow support the development of ZE3 by letting the developer buy stocks in the license holder with half of their release profits. Even if the sketchy claim of giving him money to buy stocks were true, how would it affect the chances of a ZE3 release? Unless this random project that is trying to ride coattail of a semi-popular game series somehow made a huge amount of money and the developers didn't get sued by the license holders for the stuff they are claiming, Uchikoshi buying stocks with whatever money they give him will do nothing. One stockholder buying a small portion of the company just to petition for a particular project isn't going to magically change the fact that everyone else involved has already decided that the project is a bad idea, and killed it because games weren't selling well. I wouldn't touch this with a ten-foot pole. If the namedroped staff members are proven to be a part of this, and you really want to see this particular game developed, then support it (As long as they don't come out with some ridiculous goal in crowdfunding). If you're just wanting to see another ZE release, then don't touch this crap. Maybe petition for a crowdfunding campaign from people who actually have a right to make such claims.

At first glance I would have highly doubted that porn was the focus of it, but the fact that it is by Mink leaves me unsure

Man, it has already been almost a year since TPP? Time be flying by

Pretty much everything suggested in the "Get The Hell Out of Here" thread are good follow ups to the VNs you've played. As far as mystery goes, here are a few: Higurashi, Umineko, Higanbana, Kara No Shoujo, Danganronpa I'll second these recommendations. If you're not a stickler about older VNs, there's these and also Critical Point, Policenauts, and Divi Dead, but I would still say that Higurashi/Umineko seem to be more like what you are looking for.

Family Project is the only VN to have ever actually made me cry, but I think that was more IRL stuff I had going on at the time. Here's some that have made me feel like it. Seriously sad/Beautiful: Kana Little Sister, Narcissu, Kira Kira, Family Project, Little Busters, Song of Saya, Swan Song Kinda sad: Cross+Channel, Edelweiss, 999, Ever17, Da Capo, Private Nurse, Katawa Shoujo

It presents the story in a very different way with the different medium and target audience. Another good novel inspired game series is the Witcher series. I only ever read 'The Last Wish' and 'Sword of Destiny', the two short story collections that defined Geralt which are both great. Got turned off by the first of the "Blood of Elves' novel series a few chapters in, as it felt pretty standard and I wasn't in the mood for it. Fully intend to make myself read through the series and play through the games again in prep for my Wild Hunt playthrough when it comes out.

Can't be moe without the tsun Welcome, Teh

Ok

It'd be easier to make a list of VNs for you to avoid... Any harem romance eroge is going to be filled with happy endings, usually there are sad bits thrown into certain endings because drama makes that non-main heroine's ending more interesting, but almost all of them end up happy.

nope

Translated: Soul Link: Trapped in SPACE Cross+Channel: Umineko no Naku Koro Ni/Chriu: Private Island murder mystery! Corpse Party: Trapped in hell Nocturnal Illusion: Trapped in retro eroge For untranslated all that comes to mind is Root Double which you already have. There's also a tag for it on VNDB. EDIT: Remembered Critical Point as well. Space station murder mystery! EDIT2: Spoiled Cross+Channel bit, if you haven't read it don't check

Never had any moments like that. My mom was the type to obviously stare at my PC monitor whenever she entered my room and often try and strike up a conversation about whatever she saw. Too many times of having to explain what video/movie I was watching, what game I was playing, or having to convince her that she was looking at a window of itunes when it was actually a chatroom just so that she wouldn't pry into the conversations I having. I started making sure my monitor was pointed out of view from the entrance to my room before she would have had a chance to see VN nonsense.

Kinda lacking in yandere on the translated VN front. Apart for what has already been suggested, all I can think of is how one of the main heroines in the Shuffle! series is rather psychotic and essentially yandere. She never has that full-on yandere breakdown though, and gets over it for you to have your happy harem-quest.

As far as SoL harem eroges go, I really don't think too many of the translated ones use that trope past the staple games of the genre. Here's a few I'd reccomend: Kirakira, Katawa Shoujo, Deardrops, Edelweiss(My memory of it is kinda fuzzy, but I don't think it uses that trope). If you exhausted those, here are some that are kinda meh quality or nukige: The Sagara Family, Suika A.S+, Cosplay Fetish Academy, True Love