Darklord Rooke

It's always pleasing to see reviews of Western developed 'visual novels' and 'dating sims.' Keep up the good work.

My guess would be VNs are targeted more at guys in their late teens and early 20s. The high price point is regularly cited as one of the reasons for the VN industry's recent decline in Japan, because few young people can afford those prices. I don't see VNs being made for the 30 year old guy, but I don't live over there so this is a guesstimate based on other information.

EDIT: *Tsk* scrapped the initial post. That's exceptional work Mr.Meogii, but I think some of those threads don't fit Tay's requirements. Tay if you're reading this, maybe consider making a format requirement for the Ongoing Project forum to make things easier? For example, require the first post to have progress updates in the form of a percentage number for translation projects, and something else for OELVN development?

From the Ongoing Projects forum - "This forum is not the place to request translations or start a project. Please use the Fan Translation forum for those purposes. This forum is for projects which have already launched. These projects are free to recruit as necessary. There is no exclusivity clause to use our forums-- groups are encouraged to reach out to other sites and communities to build awareness/support." If the project has been launched on the forum, complete with updates regarding progress and so on and so forth, then that would be a candidate for being moved. The teams can recruit as necessary in the thread as long as there's been actual progress. If it hasn't been launched on the forum and people are just recruiting, then that isn't a candidate for being transferred.

The recommendations forum is both ‘hip’ and ‘rad’. Big thumbs up. However, would moving the Recommendations forum into the VN forum hide it from newcomers? And therefore would it result in more recommendation topics being made in VN by people who weren’t aware a recommendations forum exists?

A lot of the time when people talk about 'translating' vs 'localising' they only talk about keeping the meaning of words and content. People forget that a straight up translation means not helping to make things easier to read in english at all. This means keeping the original structure of the sentence, keeping things almost unreadable. There was one Russian fellow who took this to extremes and stated any changes to the script at all during the translation process was unacceptable and the translators should be put in stocks. Needless to say that his translated russian poetry was basically unreadable. Localising content means changing the sentence structure to make things easier to read in english. Let's take it one step further, when you translate using American spelling over British, you are localising content to the American audience. When you use American concepts over British (sneakers instead of joggers etc) you are localising content to the American audience. Every anime fan-sub translator will localise to some extent. People usually get annoyed when things are over-localised, but that threshold differs from person to person. Localisation gets a bad name, but it's a process which MUST be undergone when translating. To what extent depends on your personal philosophy. But style can't. When you're reading translated releases you are reading the translators style of writing. Sure, there are pieces of literature which tries to keep the authors original style, but if they want to keep ALL of the original author's style it means it will be a tough read in english. So this technique of translating is usually kept to literature circles. This is why when you read a translated story it is sometimes said that you are reading a work produced by 2 authors, the original author and the translator. And when the translator writes at a high-school level, that is something which is a)unappealing and b)can't be fixed.

All translations localise to some degree, if you think otherwise then you're in error. And no, most fansubs do it worse than official companies. This gets disguised a bit because multiple fansubbers do the same project. And yes I do know that a few official localisations butcher the content, just like I know some fansubs are borderline unreadable, while still providing errors. And Doki's pretty bad ( http://www.crymore.net/2014/07/19/fansub-review-doki-akame-ga-kill-episode-02/ )

Rule of thumb - the age of the main protagonist (in animes and VNs) roughly matches the age of the show's target audience in Japan. You get your exceptions, but on the whole it seems about right. It's not about being realistic but getting the target audience to relate to the protagonist, I assume.

Not pissing everybody off could be a starting point *shrugs*

Currently playing Trails in the Sky. This game is just too awesome for words and has become one of my favourite JRPGs. Totally beats the pants off any of the hundred Ateliers currently out there... *heh*

A crappy occurance, but not a crippling one. The good people of the forums have offered some excellent solutions. Looking forward to seeing you back on your feet Ren. You're too talented a person to be kept down by something like this.

I've too many things on my plate to pick up Japanese. I fear I've left it too late. C'est la vie

While I'm a fan of anime and that could have been how I was introduced to VNs, I'm also a huge fan of interactive fiction and old-fashioned isometric RPGs. Both of these genres aren't known for their fantastic art. I'm also a lover of books and love to write myself, so the written word is much more important to me. That being said I enjoy good art as much as the next man, it's not necessary for me though. What I DO find strange is option 2 still having ZERO votes. I think some people are fibbing...

Raidy provides decent dungeon crawling gameplay to go with the erotic CGs, a little similar to Rance in this regard. MGQ2 is all about the sex scenes (although people swear the story picks up in number 3.) Not something you can get by looking at a number, though. Twas torturous. I played through the first 2 games because it was so highly rated... ugh

I don't believe in scored reviews, and I believe VNDB's especially is prone to weirdness. Lightning Raidy 2, for example, provides a decent dungeon crawling experience whereas Monster Girl Quest 2 was rated highly despite being deficient in both story and RPG gameplay experience. However, most of the consumers of eroge are young men, so you can guess why MGQ2 was so very well received. And therein lies the problem, rating scores are influenced by a player's preferences and biases, and when you have a community so heavily dominated by a certain demographic then obviously the ratings will be skewed to certain titles. This doesn't help you if you're looking for, for example, otome. Regarding JAST in particular, they're releasing most of Nitroplus stuff, which is a company definitely worth supporting. Regarding tossing money at localising companies for the sake of supporting, you should only buy those titles you are interested in, I'm not a believer of buying stuff which doesn't interest you. That being said, you SHOULD buy the stuff you like if you're in a position to.

The OELVN, Quantum Conscience, has just been released. You can play the demo for free but the full game will cost 5 dolleroos. Whilst I haven't yet played the game, my initial impression is it smells decent and has an interesting premise. The writing looks competent, there's nothing wrong with the art, the premise presents the opportunity to incorporate a robust 'choice and consequence' mechanic - definitely a promising title. Depending on whether it's good I might write a proper review of it later. Within a galaxy of terraformed planets, a secret war rages between two intergalactic agencies. One of them—ARCHON—is developing the technology to invade people’s minds. They have already tyrannized a planet called Teballai, and hope to use their mind-reading technology to spread their power across the galaxy. A second organization—FOE (Freedom Organization of Elites)—wants to destroy ARCHON’s technology in the name of freedom. When a young FOE soldier (you choose the gender) named Blaire obtains the ability to read minds from an ARCHON experiment, she finds her loyalty torn between both sides. Whether Blaire helps the enemy or defeats them depends upon your use of her power. http://woodsy-studio.com/QC/

The alveolar process on that skull is mucked up. The lady needs to get a real skull .....

I haven't played the prologue so I don't have detailed knowledge of the mechanisms of the game. That being said, I don't see anything to disqualify it. Especially considering some of the other games which are considered VNs. You can even argue it's presented in ADV style, for those who love to stick to VNDB's definition of things.

Jesus Christ, this looks AMAZING.

There are lots of things to way up in terms of pricing. Let’s label these the arguments “for and against the idea of a higher price”: For – It’s a huge title in the visual novel industry Against – But is 10 years old For – It has 1.3 million English words approximately Against – Baldur’s Gate 2 had a million words also, and came with a complete exploration and combat system For – Indie Visual Novels sell okay when sold at $15-$20 Against - $60 is approaching the price of brand new, triple AAA releases. Even the Walking Dead only sold for $25. It's a delicate balance, any higher than $30 will be dangerous imo.

There is quite a bit going on in the visual novel industry, however a lot of it is happening in Japan. A lot of it is in the OELVN industry. Some of it concerns those games which may or may not be visual novels. And then there is the localisation news. The news site could also be used to paste any interviews Fuwanovel chooses to conduct in the future (unique content) or any articles the staff write offering analysis on parts of the industry (unique content.) But those are ideas for the future I'm going to wait and see what Tay ends up doing with the blog before I put my hand up for it. His tentative plans were kinds of overhauly. I also think it needs to take up more of the front page in expense of... oh, say those massive links trying to entice consumers away from the site, or the massive 'featured' VN links, which really belong on the database page and not the main one. You're the man SB :3

Ah, Baka-tsuki. That explains the tl-quality.

Which is why it's so important that people support this. If sales are disappointing this will prove to be a step backwards rather than a step forwards. That being said it's being released on Steam where Indie games sell a bundle and there's plenty of people out there who like the anime, so theoretically it should sell okay.

I'm pretty sure Tokimeki outsold Clannad quite handsomely, although it's technically a dating sim...