rannar99

Late, but I find it interesting how this article hyperfocuses on the fact BL(aka the actual name of the genre, "yaoi" is an outdated term that no longer gets used in Japan by any BLVN comapny I know of) is made by and aimed at women. Nitro+Chiral's titles had men as directors and/or producers. Gen Urobuchi directed Togainu no Chi. Nishii directed Lamento.Touchuu Kasou(sweet pool) and Chiyoko Reito(DMMD) genders are unknown, but they're most likely men too. The first ever female director was Fuchii Kabura who was a scenario writer ever since TnC. And you can look up info about producers yourself. There's a game company called Parade and they usually produce titles aimed at (queer) men. You can tell by the way romance takes the backstage and sexual content is far more prominent. The character designs are more muscular, even the more traditionally pretty dudes are bulky. And outside of Lkyt, plots usually revolve around torture with variety of kinks. With that said, they still market their games as BL and there are plenty of female and non-binary fans who love those games. There's also a male game dev Togo Mito. His most (in)famous title is Hadaka Shitsuji. It became a hot topic on the internet back in the day because it had every kink under the sin: from MMF threesomes to bestiality.His newest creation, Kanja S no Kyuusai, is similar in tone but smaller in scope. Togo Mito is a master of dark comedy and his games need to be played to be believed. And yes, he promotes his games the same way Parade does, The genre is far more diverse in terms of both creators and audiences than you give it credit for. So I hope more men on this site will actually try it instead of avoiding it like a plague.

Great article! I'm honestly sad to see some devs undervaluing their common routes compared to the individual routes/later parts of the VN. But every so often when I encounter a common route with great pacing/story/character moments(depending on VN's genre) I end up remembering them for years.

Personally, I've never seen anybody asking for off-screen content. People usually want either or all-ages or 18+ stuff. There are age 15+ or 17+ rating in-between, but there's far less of those. VNDB has a "Off Screen Sex Only" you can check out: vndb.org/g3247 Off-screen sex tend to happen in censored console ports or Steam versions of many popular 18+ titles too.

And I love rereading things, especially JVNs I read a long time ago, just to see how my JP improved over the years. One of my favorite VNs of all time is notorious for its language difficulty, can't wait to read and fully understand it one day!

I played Agarest War on my phone back in the day and found it underwhelming. On the other hand, I'm very interested in Death Mark II(prevous one and NG had their issues, but they were fun).

Is that why he keeps delaying Ciconia Phase 2? On topic, I don't expect much from modern Konami or modern Ryukishi. But I'm curious how this project will turn out.

(official site took its sweet Another day, another mobage ported to Switch! OG release costed 4$, but new version costs 15$. Official site says it has updated graphics and full voice acting. Doesn't seem worth it al all. Synopsis makes it sound like run-of-the-mill moege with incest and time travel. Since it was originally a mobile title, it's going to be very short. To me it looks completely unremarkable.

Thankfully I never backed any of them. Just look at the comment sections under updates and main KS pages: they're filled with bitterness. Can you imagine how does it feel to back not just one but several of Frontwing's offerings? Oof

Usually I play for 1-3 hours every day. In the past I played far less(wasn't much to choose from back in the day).

That sucks. Good thing fan tls are a thing.

It's a shame they decided to translate Switch version over PC indeed. Sex scenes were a very important part of this game, especially in Yoshiaki's route aka one of the most (in)famous routes of the game. But it's better than mobile version for sure. I just hope people will read the warnings before buying this.

Honestly, not the best location. I can only imagine the shipping costs for some countries. Not much hope for a proper customer support either. I hope it won't turn into an Otome version of Atlus International lmao

As a teenager, I was looking into games with female MCs. One of them was P3P, where I enjoyed VN segments far more than gameplay. So I looked into VNs to see if I actually enjoy games without gameplay focus. And the rest is history

Nice podcast series! My favorite episode so far was #6

I sure do hope FrontWing isn't planning to make KS campaign to localize this work

1) If Act 1 is meant to be a demo, I'll play it. Probably won't play Act 2 until the end of Act 3 development. 2) I don't mind kinetic VNs, but I'd rather have a few choices(impactful over "cosmetic" preferably). As for romance, I'd like to have an option to opt out of it tbh.