sanahtlig

When's a good time to do the optional content to collect medals? (Try to specify without any spoilers please)

JAST is really bending over backwards for its customers. I appreciate that. We need to support games like this so they keep censoring games with objectionable content instead of not licensing them at all. I'm a huge fan of the Days series so I really want the title to succeed. Who knows, maybe if Shiny Days does well in the West Overflow will get back into game development.

You're supposed to preorder and eagerly anticipate its release. It's too early to feel trolled. I bet you haven't even checked my signature yet.

As specified on the J-List product page for Shiny Days, it's a preorder. The game is slated for release in June or July.

You should get Shiny Days. It even has loli.

Tay has been hard at work behind the scenes. If things pan out, Fuwanovel is in for some nice surprises.

There needs to be less sexism and more mature topics decrying the ravages of loli censorship and the evils of institutionalized ero-censorship (e.g., Steam releases) around here.

There are females on the Internet? Females who play VNs? Females who hang out... around here? I must withdraw and meditate on this revelation. Also, I expected a video featuring OrignalRen apologizing. I'm very disappointed at this false advertising. Furthermore, I would have preferred this to have been omitted from the Recent Topics bar.

That sounds suspiciously similar to something I wrote yesterday before the thread was heartlessly closed, blocking my submission. Down replied:

Oh yes, now I remember why I wrote this. The "functioning" of the VN translation community struck me as absurdity of the highest level. I wrote this piece to convey the utter dysfunction I saw. I could easily write a sequel based on the following concepts / events: The NNL / minori debacle Aroduc's Littlewitch Romanesque Kickstarter Flame War I: Paradise lost in the chaste gardens of Grisaia Flame War II: The Days are no longer Shiny, A tale of Kokoro lost The Steam Revolution: Now with 20% less content! Sekai Project: Now renewably powered by the tears of the VN fanbase. Go go Project Sakura! JAST USA: Support JAST's censorship of crazy games from Japan! Mangagamer: Visual novels - the other animu porn

Delete the game profile from VNR, close VNR, launch the game, reopen VNR. See if that works.

I have bad news; that nightmare has arrived. Isn't there an invisible mode on Steam for those concerned about privacy?

What's your bar for "heavily story-focused"? I'd say many of the gameplay VNs I've played are "heavily story-focused": the Ikusa Megami series (Eushully), the Venus Blood series (Ninetail / Dualtail), Aselia the Eternal (Xuse)... should I keep going? Most of the gameplay VNs worth playing have good stories, IMO.

(Looking back, I'm amazed I actually wrote this. I must've been really bored. A sequel is unlikely, since if anything I'd be spending that effort updating Memory's Wounds.)

For me, the primary priority is always getting the heroine I want. Everything else is secondary. Otherwise, I use a mix of roleplaying and my own discretion to make choices. School Days is an example of a choice system I really liked. They're "grey" choices in a lot of respects that don't really fit any of your categories. Any given choice could have moral, character connection, and strategic elements to it. On one hand, you want to favor the girl you have your heart set on. On the other hand, doing so might be morally problematic (it seems like a jerk move). On top of that, one of the choices might appear to lead to a better outcome. And on top of THAT, Makoto's fancy seems to seesaw back and forth from girl to girl in a very human way as events transpire and he becomes closer to or estranged from one girl or the other, and as a roleplayer I allowed that to influence my decisions. It's a really beautiful system.

An article once a month or 6 is about as active as I want to get right now. These articles take hours and hours to write, and then many more hours to curate / market to the audience I want to reach. My general stance is that I write an article when there's a compelling need for a subject to be addressed (and it won't get done if I don't do it). By limiting the number of articles I write, I'm able to devote more effort to the ones I do write. The sort of brand I'd like to have is that when readers see I've written something new, they'll think "An article by sahnthilg? This is a must-read," and "Wow, I really liked this article. I'm going to read the 5 other articles he's written too." Quality over quantity. This is why I'm particularly concerned about proper indexing and discoverability. My concerns are selfishly motivated. When I spend a lot of time writing an article on a topic I consider very important, I'd rather it not disappear from public notice soon after it's written--especially when it's just getting covered up by redundant translation updates. But right now, the only way to achieve visibility is to have a spot on the front page or to be in the "You May Also Like..." recommendations. And guess which posts are currently holding most of those spots...

He and I have a history of butting heads dating back to the Family Project censorship episode. It's sort of a rivalry thing. Believe it or not, we actually respect each others' opinions when they don't involve censorship.

A fantasy setting is very common in VNs with gameplay, which happen to be somewhat rare in English. Actually, NTR games tend to have self-insert characters. As for wish fulfillment...well...

That's a feature in the (admittedly arbitrary) scoring system, not a bug. Nonetheless I have encountered VNDB profiles which list hundreds of English-only games. These people do exist. It's kind of hard to say you're an authority on a foreign literary medium when you're restricted to the 5% of works that get translated. That's even more dubious than claiming to be an authority on Japanese history and not being able to read the primary source material. I'd propose that if you can't browse untranslated titles in your area of focus and comment with authority on which titles are worthy of being licensed, you're not an "authority" in any meaningful sense of the term.

My score card would look something like this: Novice: 1-4 VNs Apprentice: 5-14 Initiate: 15-49 Journeyman: 50-149 Adept: 150-499 Master: 500+ That's a simplification, as it would also be weighted by the length of the games, as well as the breadth of genres they cover. By the time you've graduated from Journeyman, you'll likely have developed an area of focus that you're more or less an authority on. In my case, that's eroge with gameplay. Rumors abound of a legendary "Deity" status that awaits those who complete more than 1500 VNs. Many have strived for this status, but typically end up succumbing to real-life obligations, waning interest in the hobby, or the most dreaded of them all: erectile dysfunction.

I think Eushully made some changes to Madou Koukaku addressing movement issues and archers charging into melee range. That may have very well been in response to complaints about the trial though.

According to Tay, the VN translation updates drive a lot of traffic. That should be leveraged... within reason. Apparently there's an audience that wants weekly updates of translation progress. God knows why, but the demand appears to be there. And actually, if people want that sort of content we can expand on it--intelligently, without crowding out all the other content on the blog. Fuwanovel should consider a partnership with Hau Omachikaeri. Their blog has a monthly feature that gives synopses and impressions of professional eroge being released in Japan each month. An English resource for Japanese releases can guide fans to make more educated requests for titles that interest them, both to fan translators and official licensing companies. That's highly relevant to making visual novels popular in the West. This could be paired with a section featuring reviews of Japanese titles by Fuwanovel users like Clephas and others from FuwaReviews. I think it's very important however that we clearly distinguish reviews of Japanese-language and translated titles, which FuwaReviews currently does not. In any case, we should consider reblogging Hau Omachikaeri's monthly Japanese release feature on Fuwazette and see how it's received.

You should seriously update your VNDB profile.