Plk_Lesiak

Welcome to new, half-dead Fuwa, old-timer! I hope you'll stay for a while unlike everyone else who announced their returns in the past two years.

When I feel like shit the music I nearly always come back to lately is this generic anison-style pop... My brain somehow finds it really soothing, and this band is a prime example. :3

Indeed, Unfamiliar Work looks very different, which is something to appreciate, but I'm still not sure what that story was about. I'll be curious about your impressions of Eislyn's Apocalypse when you get to it. Zakamutt lately accused me of overhyping stuff in my game jam articles and I can't say he's totally wrong. Just the fact that you confront it with very amateurish entries can make a game that is just decent look like something really impressive or make you ignore some flaws... Which I don't think is a massive problem, as these posts are more about selecting noteworthy games from the sea of random weirdness, but if someone has really high standards they might expect a lot more than a game jam title can reasonably deliver. :>

Hello and welcome to the second part of my NaNoRenO 2020 coverage, where I’ll be going through the most noteworthy games submitted to the most recent edition of the biggest EVN game jam. While in the first part I focused on otome and other GxB romantic VNs, this time I’ll tackle the niche that, in my opinion, contained some of the best projects in the whole event – horror. Once more, I’ll be focusing on complete projects, rather than many demos and prototypes that get submitted to NaNoRenO – and thanks to the extended deadline devs worked with this year, that’s still a lot of interesting content. One game from the previous post, Dream Dilemma, also fits into this week’s theme besides featuring GxB romance – however, it was a rather unremarkable, simplistic game and most of those I’ll be writing about today are anything but that. So, please join me in this quick overview of NaNoRenO 2020 horror VNs – and as always, whenever one of them catches your attention, clicking its title in the list will get you straight to its Itch.io games. Of course, all the titles I’m covering are completely free to play. Let’s have some scary (and slightly messed up) fun! Divilethion Divilethion is far from your typical scary VN, tilting more to the side of grotesque horror-comedy, with visuals and writing style that contrast heavily with the grim essence of its story – and do so in a brilliant, at times hilarious way. The game follows Lynn, a young high priest in an isolated village “protected” by a monstrous god named Divilethion. While the entity is the only guarantee of survival for the community surrounded by monster-infested swamps and regularly plagues by disasters, the price for its “miracles” is steep – every time, a villager has to be sacrificed and his heart fed to Devilethion. Lynn, cynical and disturbingly diligent about his duties, is soon put to the greatest test yet by the apparently bored deity, asked to sacrifice one thing he might not be willing to give up… As serious as this story setup might sound, what sets its tone as primarily a dark comedy is Lynn’s warped perception of the reality around him and the grotesque enthusiasm Divilethion requires from his worshippers. This combined with an unrelenting writing style, never shying away from harsh language and disturbing story developments, creates a striking experience that will likely keep you engaged all the way through, to either a relatively-positive or deeply unsettling conclusion. While overall the game is relatively short, it’s just so full of personality and meaningful story developments it’s hard to not be satisfied with it. I deeply recommend checking it out – very few hour-long VNs left me with such a strong impression. Final Rating: Highly Recommended Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

Welcome to Fuwa, Endbringer. I'm afraid you might've come too late – this site is already in the process of ending itself and should do so without anyone's help. ... Seriously though, Welcome to the Forums, I hope you'll have fun around here.

No Clannad, Planetarian or Rewrite either, but Venus Blood -Frontier- somehow made the list, while sitting on 7,5 average and 7,2 bayesian on VNDB... Maybe they don't list games without 18+ content? That's the only way I can explain differences this deep. It would also influence the kind of people that used the site in the first play, attracting mostly seriously ero-oriented players... After all, there's not really a "VN fandom" in Japan the same way as there's one in the West, so probably it's more useful to see this ranking as one from eroge fans specifically?

Sure, but on this site the real question is... Do you like catgirls? Welcome to Fuwa! ^^

...other than DDLC.

I'm, strangely enough, in the process of slowly going through Katawa Shoujo for the first time... But I'm already pretty sure nothing's going to beat Hanako route for me, and Hanako as a heroine. While I think Lily's is plenty enjoyable, it just didn't have the same impact and strong theme. Seeing parts of Shizune's route now, I like its flow and the kind of ambivalent character Shizune herself is. I wonder if something is going to make me hate her like so many people do later on...

Welcome to Fuwanovel! You project looks quite stylish. I'll be definitely tracking any updates you might post around here.

NaNoRenO, the Ren’Py visual novel jam, is for many years now the biggest community event for EVNs, always bringing dozens of upstart developers, amateurs and veterans of the visual novel scene to share their work, ranging from demos and prototypes to complete (and often substantial) games. Since I’ve started the blog I’m always looking forwards to the opportunity to go through the projects submitted to the jam and present to you my personal highlights – games that are worth checking out not only from the perspective of a VN-obsessed weirdo such as myself, but also the average reader. What set this year’s NaNoRenO apart from the usual routine were, quite predictably, the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic. However, while one could expect them to interfere with the development cycles and result in fewer games, the organizers’ decision to extend the traditional one-month deadline by two weeks resulted in more projects than usual getting submitted (105 to last year’s 89 and 2018’s 73). This included dozens of complete games that I was interested in, clearly signalizing a need to change the formula in which I shared my impressions – listing them in one place, even when after relatively rigorous filtering, would be both unwieldy for the readers and tedious to work on. Thus, I’ve decided to split my coverage by genres, starting with the niche that proved very compelling this time around – otome and other GxB romance VNs. So, please join me while I go through six games in this formula that showed up in NaNoRenO 2020 – and if you find any of them interesting, clicking the titles will bring you straight to their Itch.io pages. As always, all NaNoRenO releases are fully free-to-play, so the only thing they’ll demand is a few hours of your time. Let’s get this started! Criminally Overdue Criminally Overdue is the newest project by Elowan, the author of Alloys over Flowers, one of my personal favourites from last year’s NaNoRenO. This time, instead of being a period drama, the game tells an unusual story in a modern setting: the protagonist is a librarian who after hours helps police in tracking down and arresting drug dealers – a part of a personal vendetta of sorts for the death of her mother, who passed away from an overdose after years of addiction. During one of her investigations, she targets a local university student, which leads her to listening in on the girl’s conversation with a teacher who accidentally learned about her involvement with drugs. Hearing the girl’s motivation for drug dealing and teacher’s attempt to steer her on a better path causes the protagonist to doubt her actions, something she didn’t feel for years and as the teacher in question becomes a frequent patron in her library, she has to reevaluate her choices and think about a path forward – either overcoming her obsession with drug dealers or doubling down on the crusade against them. Criminally Overdue stands out with its conflicted, bitter protagonist and moral quandaries connected to her fight with drug dealers, and although I can’t say I find it as compelling as Alloys over Flowers, particularly the path where the heroine steps away from her unhealthy “hobby” has a lot going for it. The game’s love interest, the young university teacher I’ve mentioned earlier, is a believable catalyst for the protagonist’s change and a pretty cool character in his own right – caring and eloquent, but also somewhat shy and occasionally awkward. The scenario where their romance blooms is genuinely cute and heartwarming. I just wished the alternative conclusion was at least a bit less of a bad end – Elowan’s previous game made a good job of making alternative endings interesting, while here I kind of wished for the whole experience to be kinetic and focus even more on the protagonist's transformation and her troubled path to romance. At least for the “right” path, though, this VN is definitely worth checking out, also because it looks and sounds very solid for a game jam project. Final Rating: Recommended Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

Welcome to Fuwa, the home of people loving cute stuff (and that one guro fanatic, but we don't talk about it)!

Definitely Heart of the Woods, it's made mostly by the same poeple and it's beyond excellent IMO. When it goes to other devs, Love Ribbon comes to mind, it's also very focused on the main two characters and their struggle... I could also recommend Starlight Vega, Mizuchi, Blackberry Honey, although each of them do some kind of spin on the usual romance formula...

Well, I challenge you to listen to my YouTube playlist of her songs and repeat that statement. I think she's pretty amazing, particularly where the more electronic/80s specific sounds kick in. Not even speaking of her voice. ^^ On the front of newer stuff, I've been charmed by a few Kanon Wakeshima's songs... There are few things that aren't made better by the chello, but the general vibe of these songs and her vocals also sum up to something very climatic... I still have to check out her earlier albums, but for the more mainstream J-pop, what I heard so far stands out in a very nice way. :3

The teacher in Euphoria is a literal alcoholic, although that doesn't really show up outside of the epilogue. Also, there's a "drinking" character trait on VNDB, you might find something there with enough of patience.

We can talk about technicalities of what is and is not a VN, but the much more important point is the perception of an average player. Persona is primarily a JRPG and most people will see it as such. I imagine most people also won't see the popular "technically VNs", such as Danganronpa or Ace Attorney, as something the same category as Clannad or Fruit of Grisaia. And there's a relatively slim chance those games, which are very accessible and heavy on gameplay, will get people hooked on "pure" visual novels and eroge. Elements of the storytelling formula of VN are widely spread in Japanese games, some of which are massively popular, but if we try to interpret that as VNs not being niche it's just wishful thinking.

Nah man, no drama was caused. None of us have any reason to be militant about MG, or be offended by the suggestion they're losing importance. It's just not the case when you look at the realities of the VN scene in the West, and don't focus on the occasional flamewar.

Yup, as @Mr Poltroon said, but I'd argue this undersells MGs importance. They're a company with a particularly diverse offering and one that is very consistent with their releases. They also tackle projects that no sane company should be willing to take, like translating Rance X (which is an absurdly large and complex game). While you have companies like NekoNyan focusing purely on moege, Sekai Project trips on its own legs every other month and JastUSA is lost in its own dimension where the timeflow doesn't follow the rules of our universe, MG gets stuff done. Right now, while there's generally more competition on the market and some developers, like Key and Frontwing, translate and publish their VNs in-house, it might not seem that important, but I think it still is. If MG suddenly disappeared, we would feeel it, particularly when it goes to more ambitious/niche VNs reaching the West. So, even though their image definitely suffered through all this drama, they're kind of indispensable and when they take on a project, you can be fairly sure it'll get done unless something really unusual happens.

Ok, so I think I can throw in a few observations connected to the EVN scene specifically: some lewd games gained pretty wide popularity with the Western otakus and that's pretty much the closest thing to VNs going "mainstream" so far – people fapping on mass or meme'ing to Nekopara and Winged Cloud's Sakura games. DDLC became a massive meme and brought many people into VNs, but generally, the aggressive gatekeeping drove many of them off and made them organize into a separate community that doesn't really know/understand much about VNs. Most VNs, as a see it, do not have the appeal to bring mainstream crowds, with the prevalence of porn and questionable themes pushing them even harder in this shady, obscure corner. In the West, outside of the particularly dedicated otakus, VNs thrive in basically two places: among women that enjoy romance stories/otome and within the queer crowd. For example, while in Japan yuri is very much created for the male audience, in the West you'll see lesbians/bisexual women being both devs and avid consumers of VNs, simply because it's one of the main forms of media touching on their experience and prefered romantic setups. On the BL side, you'll see more "bara" VNs created by openly gay developers and geared towards male readers. As a medium that is relatively easy to make and story-oriented, VNs in the West became a tool for minority groups to express themselves and create their own brands of entertainment, which is interestingly detached from what they (usually) represent in Japan. This approach, of course, is by default niche, aiming for very specific audiences. I'm kind of stuck thinking that without the specific trajectory and cultural context that made VNs important in Japan trying to push them into mainstream is kind of hopeless. The idea of porn with story has its appeal, but it's not something the Western audience wants in mass (one could argue that it's because they don't know they want it/aren't familiar with how VNs do stuff, but I'm not sure). The storytelling formula of VNs is also not automatically attractive – just observe the bewilderment of people that stumble upon VNs randomly on Steam. Literary buffs usually scoff at the anime aesthetic and cliches inherent with the otaku media. While VNs are growing in the West and people are more aware of their existence, but I just don't see them expanding out of those few, very specific niches they're confined to now.

Welcome to Fuwa! It'll be cool to see what you come up with your own projects and in the meantime, I hope you'll enjoy your time here.

In short, gemge.

Spotted at my local department store's parking lot. Looks like Initial D is very much alive in the hearts of people who are into old Japanese sports cars. This was a Toyota, although I have no idea about the actual model.

The search for the chillest Japanese music continues. I think we're getting close.