Zodai

Kara No Shoujo seems to be kind of close, though I haven't read it myself yet.

I should probably be following this thread.

These are closer to Narrative-heavy western games than OELVNs. While the argument of what counts as a VN is too over-done for the moment for now we'll discard the ones on the fringe. More likely than not it could be a comfort thing - since most VN writers have usually obtained some form of influence from the VN market in Japan, thus there instincts will head in that direction, regardless of general writer ability (except, perhaps, if the writer is a very strong setting-person or if the plot involves some form of a political hook more easily done in, say, the US.) Aside from that, there's also the otaku/anime demographic - an anime art style set in Japan says different things than an anime art style set in America, and if thought through as an intentional aspect can signal the type of story coming across in advance. I'd say it's generally a 'default choice' at this point, and perhaps we don't have any OELVN writers with setting as their strong point yet. I'm a character-focus person myself, at least.

Confession: When the hell is SubaHibi coming out? Q_Q

Be sure not to forget about the females!

HAIL LEWDNESS <3

There's a cockatrice thread somewhere on the forums if you want to. It's been the tits since 1986. Goodluck, You Can Do.

I haven't played it yet either. LINO WHEN IS THE TRANSLATION COMING OUT!?

Confession: I am writing. I should have been doing this earlier.

I...don't think that's happened in a while for me ><;; That said, good luck with writing stuff! Hopefully Cursed Sight is doing well

On the contrary figuring out whether the tests results match or not is the point of the test in the first place. You're not supposed to have accurate theories before the test because you haven't tested it yet. Deducting points for an inaccurate theory seems kind of redundant, actually.

What happened in Fuwachat?

Life would be easier if everyone were female, but sadly it is not so. Alright, I need a few Japanese last names to fit onto a character of mine. Any ideas?

This is most absolutely a production thing rather than a money-grabbing thing. Smaller dev teams don't have the resources to go off and create something F/SN or Clannad in scale, so they release them in pieces out of necessity - there isn't enough available in the tank to release it after it's 'completely' finished because they'll run dry before everything has been resolved. It's a far different beast than simply that they want to sell the same game repeatedly.

Most sequel-type stuff is either fandiscs, such as F/HA or Harvest Festa, or continuations along the lines of Umineko's separate episodes. Aside from the unfortunately all too common 'sequels for money' route, a story can be considered 'complete' when all of the conflicts contained within have been resolved. Therefore, sequels are used, at their best, to resolve conflicts not done so in the first, otherwise the story is incomplete. Fandisc-wise F/HA would be a great example, giving us the fandisc-important stuff such as more time with the characters while similarly filling in holes in character backgrounds and giving us a reasonable plot. As for the route problem, this is something that I don't think has a set solution, but going from that a good idea would be to note that each route has its own promises, and then the promises of the story as a whole. Maybe pick one route as 'canon' and make promises elaborating on it (Clannad After Story) or pick a generic starting point where things haven't been concluded route-wise (Grisaia, at least I think so.) Then you think about what story-wide promises haven't been fulfilled yet, and focus there.

Did somebody say PYAAA!?~ Anyway, in terms of the VNs themselves, Hapymaher is the only one on that list I recognize, and while I haven't read it myself (Don't know Japanese) Apparently it's well-liked. You've already gone through most of the immediately available ideas I would have had, but out of what you might have not read Inganock and Sharnoth could work as well. Aside from that, my super-duper recommendation instinct seems to have jumped right to Fallout 3. It's not a VN in any way, shape or form but I feel it could perhaps be in the right direction tone-wise. It's entirely possible I'm off the mark with this but there's something fitting in there at the very least. A change of pace might not be too bad every once in a while.

Oh, right. The waifu wars. Almost forgot about those. Anyway, welcome!

Ah, hello there! o/

I actually put a lot of weight onto your recommendations, which is why I'm considering hopping on despite the confusion, and I was already considering poking around in translation-land as a learning experience after I finished writing Broken Divide. That said, OELVN stuff takes priority on my front of course ^^;;

Just to be clear, this isn't a nukige is it?

Charlotte knows how to bring on the feels personally. That said I feel like it suffers from what Angel Beats! had in terms of length. They're building around twelve episodes as opposed to something longer but this leaves important aspects underdeveloped and underused, such as the foreshadowing for the yandere bit in Episode 6 and how Episode seven's conflict was resolved so easily despite his breakdown being portrayed well.

I might be busy with OELVN stuff on my end, but since this seems to at least be a not-terrible one I'll consider stuff. But yeah, would be nice to tell people first xD. Suppose I'll take it as a learning experience in my spare time or something.

It spoils Persona 3 and a bit of Persona 4. I haven't been writing as much as I should be lately. Q_Q

Umineko, Fate/Stay Night, Little Busters! and Rewrite (Wait for Clannad's localization/re-translation on that end) and we have SubaHibi's translation coming out this month too.