Narcosis

It's mostly because of how entertainment business works nowadays, not really because the producers are racist. Suits only care about money and all the biggest names in Hollywood belong to white actors, fair or not. We can cry as much as we want, but it won't mean a damn, nor change a thing; world is a horribly unfair place. As much as I'd love more movies starring Morgan Freeman or Will Smith, chances are we'd see another white actor insead of them. Still, it's not as bad as it used to be, or was it really? If you'd count every single more famous actor, you'd see how little variety there is. Within the list of top 100 actors in history, there's only a handful of non-white people; maybe if more would want to become actors in the first place, we'd see them starring in films more often?

Hey, been a while I guess. Not sure when exactly did you feel out of the loop, but try this. You might like it.

This game has a translated trial. The full game TL was dropped at some point.

Nice character art and sadly, that's about it. I can't really imagine this kind of story to be outstanding - if professionals aren't able to write good stories in similiar setting, there's no possibility starting amateurs can produce a good one, either. I can't say I'd be fond of a main character, who's incapable of keeping his own place clean (FDA, seriously? FDA won't close a restaurant because of a couple of overdue clams, he'd be fined instead; professional chefs usually check every new supply by themselves - I'd love to know what caused him to forget about it). Stories like these are a dime and dozen; if you want to bring something fresh, or competitive, you'll have to be more original or provide something more unique. Unless this game was meant to be either a small, low-cost budget-type vn or something you'll release for free, photomanipulated backgrounds are unacceptable; they don't even mold well with character art. The same can be said about GUI - the bottom is full of clutter and number of lines available is too big for it's proportions. Do you really need that many lines in the textbox for your script? Can't say much bout' the minigame, but from it's glimpse in the promo vid, I can tell it's propably the most polished part of the game. No idea about the ingame soundtrack music (post some samples, perhaps), but I don't like the OP song(?), neither the lyrics, nor singing. If I'd want to enjoy the sand and water, I'd go to a real beach, preferably with friends. "Make new friends" itself sounds awkward for a stranger as well, "meet new people" would be more fitting, especially for an adult. I hope you won't take these as an insult, but constructive criticism - I'm trying to be helpful through my experience. Your game has a chance. It simply requires a lot more polishing, if you want to achieve any sort of a success. People on Steam nowadays buy anything you shove at them; doesn't mean you shouldn't try harder. Being better than the rest is what typically distinguishes your games from games of other developers. Would I play this? No, unless for the gal in the green bikini Not my type of story in overall, but there's a lot more people who'd propably be interested to play a vn with a laidback, charming atmosphere. Good luck.

It's quite amazing you're able to burn through so many titles a single month. I can't really imagine myself to read so many titles in such a short timeframe. Considering most of those games aren't really the types you'd enjoy normally, this makes the whole task feel more like reviewing games, rather than reading them out of your own personal enjoyment. I'd consider dropping the VN of the month in that case, continuing it might even cause further unwiligness to discover new games and that can develop into a serious burnout with time. Give yourself some time, read the stuff you'd truly enjoy and provide less, but with more quality. I'm sure most of us come here to read your musings on the very best and most unique of vn's.

This game was more or less meant to be an experiment and it's a pretty interesting one. Is this the potential future of vn's? Quite possible. Storywise, it's still too early to judge. I'll wait and see how this develops.

By "download", you hopefully meant "buy", right?

The pubic hair does not have to be censored, it's the genitals. It does not change the fact a lot of japanese people consider pubic hair in art indecent; it's mostly a thing from the past. In the end it's up to artists themselves - whatever they chose to do, as long as genitals are either covered or censored, they have nothing to worry about.

Have you even read what I wrote? Japanese artists can preety much draw pubic hair as any other artists; the only reason why they aren't doing it is because it's tied with censorship and obscenity laws, which punish them for doing so, unless they self-censor it in accordance with appropriate guidelines. Japanese laws are outdated and full of silly contraditions and that goes especially for pornography and everything associated with it. Guess what, though - they don't really care. Sometimes the additional effort is not worth the risk of being fined and it's not like they earn a lot.

A lot of vn's allow you to change it in the options, by turning on a function where character voices won't be clipped if the next line is left unvoiced; otherwise, it's not really possible when the next line is also voiced.

Not really, lol. The pubic hair is simply considered obscene and that goes back to Meiji period, especially the Pacific War, where goverment seeked to ban and persecute everything western, including porn. Not much had changed since then, with exception that obscene materials in general are considered illegal (yes, you heard it) and people selling or distributing these can be punished by hefty fines or even imprisonment. Modern pornography in general is subject to censorship, which typically involves placing pixelization on the genitals; this partially alleviates the problem, hence there's no real reason to remove the pubic hair in adult videos, but it is still deemed as inappropriate in works of art, including manga, anime and games. This is the reason why artists typically avoid drawing pubic hair or do it in a barely visible way. They simply want to avoid controversies and keep a low profile from organisations, such as Nihon Ethics of Video Association and the Ethics Organization of Computer Software. It's not really the censorship, that's the issue though. Much like with many things, it's simply something they got used to and don't feel the need to change.

Why am I not surprised it's @Nier again posting this Sadly, I expected Karakara 2 to be at least a little bit more ambitious, but we'll be getting this mess of a game instead.

Jesus Christ, Sekai Purojecto.

It's not a slump. You're simply changing like we all do. Despite my wilingness to learn japanese and general fondness for vn's, I found myself incapable to play them on a regular basis and I can't really force myself to do so either. I'm kind of still slowly plowing through my backlog (currently on 魔物娘の館　彗星館異形録 ～人魚の章～ ), but it's not really enjoyable when you force yourself to do things, that used to bring joy in the past. Just... I don't know - it's not like my interest in vn's vained or anything, I'd say the opposite, but I simply don't feel like playing all the games I wanted to. Maybe it's because I'm more focused on creating something of my own nowadays. Maybe because I have a decent job that finally allowed me to afford things I could only dream of a couple years ago; that aside, there's life and various obligations to consider as well. Sadly, reading and playing vn's remains time consuming. I'm not the kind of person to waste a couple days worth of time on a silly moege, I might not even enjoy that much. At times... we just need a longer break.

On a sidenote, if you're concerned about devs, bankrupcy of a game studio nowadays does not necessarily mean the end for it's people. From my experience, they will propably either disband and look for new work elsewhere, start freelancing or even form a new company or brand/subsidiary alongside new publisher, which is the most propable case scenario. That is, as long as they want to continue working together in the games industry.

As they say, You gotta keep goin'. This passion is the only thing that keeps us running. *Cough*

Another one bites the dust. Sadly, they didn't really achieve anything particular to be missed as a company. It's actually pretty amazing how much money they own to various intermediaries. I'm not really surprised they went bankrupt with that kind of company management. 180m yen to a Ramen Shop? Weren't they able to cut costs by preparing food for themselves or supply on their own? Mindboogling.

I prefer stories, that are written in a more down to earth manner at first glance, but tend to be gritty, hiding mysteries that slowly unveil as the story progresses. My favourite genres are typically fantasy-oriented, psychological chuuniges and utsuges, hard sci-fi and hardboiled tales, especially action criminals/detective works, but I do like to read good horror from time to time as well. I really enjoy denpa stories or anything, that's well capable of mixing real with unreal and surreal - events, when "different" worlds or realities collide, causing interesting turns of events. As for personal preferences - I used to enjoy classic fantasy a lot, but drifted away from it nowadays; I prefer sci-fi/futurism, especially when it discusses human nature and impact our current technology has on our own lives; tales about artificial intelligence, androids and virtual realities.That aside, I'm a huge fan of steampunk/dieselpunk genre and anything that tends to drift from our modern day and age towards older times, especially those that base their settings on the european interwar period. Myl wish is to see more works like that, especially in regards to EVN's.

Seems like a decent game, but I seriously think we're getting way to many vn's, that look-alike, both in terms of overall design and stories. But the new Zelda well deserves a 7/10, lol. >high schooler >lived her life much like any other person her age >Runs a cafe in place of her grandmother Are they actually contradicting themselves in the very first sentence of the synopsis?

Dear Yamiko-san, Whoever you are, I sincirely hope this isn't any troll of sorts regarding the late yesterday discussion. Otherwise I'd call this an incredible stroke of coincidence. Regardless, I wish you best of luck in your road towards enlightenment.

I had a good laugh.

I presume it's mostly because the writing WILL differ between vn's and standard books. VN's have often more common with screen plays, rather than typical prose writing. There's a lot of dialogue, especially within ADV-centered games and descriptive writing often falls onto second plan. On the other hand, this is reversed with NVL games, which focus mainly on descriptive writing and prose, rather than character interactions; they are still there, but look and work in a way, which is a lot more "accessible" to someone, who's used to reading books. I'd say, the OP should give a try a few more mature titles, which often make use of NVL-styled writing, instead of adventure game-esque presentation. Games like Hanachirasu, Saya no Uta, Cartagra, Narcissu, Planetarian, True Remembrance. There's a lot more, of course; one of the fun things about vn's is that you are 100% sure to stumble upon something that will suit your fancy. You only need to keep diggin'.

You chose awful titles for your first experience. You'd really be better off by reading Katawa Shoujo as your first sample of "capable" vn's and that would still be the lowest available level, because there truly are well written vn's. They are simply rare and japanese market is oversaturated with bland, poorly written games that don't really take the advantage of this particular medium. I presume a lot of people take such interest in vn's, because of it being a story-telling medium capable of mixing art, words, music and sound into a single work. This allows for a lot more flexibility and creativity, rather than books, comics or plays (does anyone even listen to these nowadays outside of Japan's fandom?). There's not much aside that, except for the fact vn's are a part of the so-called anime industry.

You forgot about dickwad.