Darklord Rooke

OELVN companies 'Black Chicken Studios', 'Hanako Games', 'Winterwolves' and 'Moacube' are offering a 50% off sale which lasts until the New Years, if anyone is interested. Black Chicken Studios are, imo, the creators of the greatest OEL visual novel/sim released so far (Scheherazade). Their games are focused on gameplay depth and incredible writing (Academagia would probably bore most people, though.) Discount code is available on their twitter page (ugh, who uses twitter ) Winterwolves no longer develop straight visual novels, and are focused on sims and RPGs. Loren is a fairly mainstream RPG (emphasis on story, lighter RPG mechanics) which is heavily influenced by Dragon Age, whereas Planet Stronghold is a hardcore RPG (heavy emphasis on stats, less influence on story) influenced by mass effect. Planet Stronghold was quite well-received by the RPG Codex, which only happens if the RPG has solid mechanics. Nicole is an otome dating sim with a bubbly atmosphere. Hanako Games create otome games, and while their visual novels look quite decent, their sim games are a little light for my tastes. Moacube released Cinders. Cinders is a feminist Cinderella with incredible art. If you haven't heard about it, you should check it out.

Demon Master Chris is serious fun. The combat system is better than Raidy, and the RPG itself is incredibly well balanced (something that is quite difficult to do.) Considering it was done by 1 person, it's seriously impressive stuff. Also re-reading Shira Oka. An OEL dating sim which oscillates between 'serious fun' and 'a little tedious'. But dating sims are rare, the plot is fun, writing is okay and art is acceptible. It's a long game as well so it's worth the $20 to buy (Like my review? I'm going for a minimalist vibe because I'm hot and Fat-ty-Gyood.)

I'm a little busy, so only if you're short of people. The unnecessary adjectives you should have no problems clearing up (bottomless perdition?), but that screenshot where it says 'Let's see, where's her number, here it is.' There's description following this sentence right? You just haven't left it there, have you? You know that this doesn't work as a sentence on its own? Because it's the sort of stuff which makes me put books/VNs down. You're going to have to completely rewrite that, and add a paragraph or two of text, depending.

I meant the text in the screenshots.

Is the text just placeholder too? Because if it isn't, it needs a few rounds of revision. It's quite rough, and I cringed a couple of times.

Mine isn't technically a pic, but a video instead (which is just lots of pics stuffed together ) Anyone here not like Piers Morgan? Then you'll enjoy watching this *insert evil laugh here* http://www.givemesport.com/413876-piers-morgan-takes-sixball-battering-from-brett-lee

It wouldn't have, because they didn't specify which developers. So tiny doujin developers who struggle in an industry which is declining (like big-time) in Japan, will obviously jump at an opportunity to sell more games. Even if that number is only a few. And if Mangagamer can double their sales and user base, then it doesn't take a giant leap of faith to deduce that they will attract more of these developers. Take Demon Hunter Chris, for example. It was a game made by a single person. Do you honestly believe Mangagamer would need to quadruple their sales to get more developers like him on board? It depends on the developer. Getting Key games licensed, for example, is impossible. We are not far off? First you're assuming it will be easy for Mangagamer to double their sales, which it won't be. Second, you're assuming that doubling of sales is necessary for a flood of new developers to jump on board, which it isn't. Mangagamer recently announced a host of new titles from new developers which jumped on board. Unfortunately some were shitty developers. Which brings us to the third point, which is you have no idea which developers they're talking about. For all you know they could have meant 'if we double our sales, I think we can get some more developers of short, grotesque nukige to come on board. Everybody rejoice!' Going completely off-topic for a moment, I wish you a splendid Christmas, and a relaxing and stress-free holidays (although we all know that a stress-free holiday season never happens.)

EDIT: My post is in response to Intrinsic. I can't figure out these infernal quote tags and I really don't feel like fiddling too much. Because it's hot and I'm lazy. More the latter tbh. As far as I'm aware, Shuffle and Koihime Musou are still the best-selling titles from Mangagamer and they sold about 2000 copies. These are a) both old(ish) titles and thus I doubt sales per title have been increasing much (if at all) and b ) really pitiful sale figures. When they say that the number of users have been increasing, it only takes an increase of 1 to make the above statement true. They never said sales were always on the rise. Also, sales or sales per title? Furthermore, you should take into consideration that Kara no Shoujo, a quality story-based VN, has received disappointing sales overall. Also note that Mangagamer have been releasing a flood of crappy nukige lately, so maybe you'll want to reassess exactly which future they're rocketing towards. It's merely common sense. If Mangagamer doubles their sale figures then of course more developers would hop on board (even if they are crappy doujin developers.) It's probably the most useless statement from a company spokesman I've read all week. Your post is full of assumptions like these. From the figures Mangagamer has been releasing, they haven't seen a noticeable increase in sales per title, and yet they're releasing more VNs. They've signed up Morningstar and EDIT: Softhouse Seal. The statement they made didn't say that sales needs to double BEFORE more developers hop on board, merely that more developers would hop on board if sales double. Pretty pointless to be perfectly frank. I doubt it. It put KnS on the 'top 5 sellers', a place they were rarely on, which I suppose is a good thing.

It is a PR non-statement. A piece of writing designed to engineer excitement while saying absolutely nothing. 'If we double our sales then maybe a couple more developers may join in.' [sarcastica]Really? Gee, thanks for that extra special glimps into Business 101. It's a piece of insight I'll treasure forever[/sarcastica] Secondly: what kind of developers are we talking about? Because some of the latest developers to 'join in' were doujin nukige crap (Morningstar)

It's an excellent idea, but it also smells a little of desperation. It'll be interesting to see the amount of money they can raise.

If Moenovel is to have any success in the West, they'll need to ignore the wishes of the eroge community. The eroge community is not large enough to support localisation, and they won't be able to widen the audience while pandering to the eroge crowd. So if you like eroge you'll be better off ignoring Moenovel, because they've made it quite clear they're ignoring you. Which is the smart thing to do imo. There'll always be fan made patches which restore censored content if that's what you're looking for. Patching games should be nothing new for those into PC gaming. As for the translation quality, the translations will improve. Translation quality is far better than some of the early JRPGs which came to Europe and America, so I'm not worried about that. It's also better than some translations of classic literature. Like some (or most) of the Constance Garnett translations, for example. EDIT: @Kaguya about choice of VNs: Moenovel is a sister company of Pulltop, so they'll be localising Pulltop's stuff.

Good to hear. I'm hoping Moenovel succeeds in their goal of courting the Western audience. Despite what the naysayers say, success for Moenovel can only mean good things for the medium.

I, for one, consider this excellent news.

Fortune Arterial White Album 2 Helter Skelter How did that get on the list? I don't remember typing that *innocent look* Outlaw Django Shin Koihime Musou

If you go into 'monster girl quest' expecting decent RPG mechanics (like shops that have a purpose, or an okay battle system,) you'll be disappointed. The RPG elements feel like they were tacked on so they could add 'RPG' to the back cover.

Thought I'd see what happened if I put Tay's post through gizoogle........ ....... Sorry Tay. But I think the new version has more character, though

And the tinkering involved when it (inevitably) doesn't work

Considering Steam is a form of DRM, and people agree that using Steam increases sales for developers, I think you'll be hard pressed to find examples.

Planescape Torment contains one of the greatest stories ever seen in video games (a fact universally acknowledged by everyone who has played the game)* and this was released over a decade ago. So it's definitely incorrect to say that 'The Last of us' was one of the first Western games to contain a meaningful story. *This is a completely unbiased and factual statement made by Rooke, who is definitely not a Planescape fanboy.

Just discovered Black Chicken Studios and I have to say that Scheherazade and Academagia are epic. Seriously, seriously epic. These two games will keep me busy for the next month

Oh wow, that's actually pretty clever. How do you expand the audience for your kick-ass otome game? Attract the lads by offering a kick-ass yuri version

Apparently sales are really good, which makes me happy. Winterwolves makes some excellent games http://www.winterwolves.net/blog/

Winterwolves' new game is called 'Nicole' and is an otome dating sim. All fans of dating sims should check it out because there aren't that many available in english. A free demo is available on the site. http://www.winterwolves.com/nicole.htm

Companies who make well-received VNs usually demand massive licensing fees, or so I've heard. Wasn't Key, for example, demanding an outrageous sum?