Zalor

Not sure if this is the best place to ask it, but since you brought up the dev boards, I've been having a question about it for a while. The Dev Board Blog Updates page says "A group blog by Dev Boards Project Leaders" as well as "Come hear what's new with our awesome devs!" To me this at least implies that anyone that is part of this community and is a developer has a right to post about their projects there. In the coming weeks there is a project I would like to add and promote there, but there is no clear way for me to add my own post there. Is this a bug, or am I suppose to request permission in another way? And if the latter it would be helpful if it was made more clear that you had to request permission or fill out an application or something to post there. Because currently it appears to be open for anyone to post in, but there is no actual method for those who don't already have "Contributors to this blog" status to post there. Edit: I think the problem I noted is also part of the reason why it seems to be a currently dead part of the forums. Since the last post there was nearly a year ago

It's nice to see you back Tay! I hope that despite all the headaches that at least now you are doing well

Haha, I just know you're also a die hard Naricssu fan. ;p Also you helped me get some of Stage Nana's earlier stuff before. Yeah, I'll let him know to reconsider getting the Steam version. But if not it's nice to have an easy alternative to send him.

The real question is which abuses them more, Suba Hibi or Umineko

Thank you! I actually kind of had a feeling if anyone would have the answer it would be you

The art style you have going for this game is really nice

I recommended a friend who wants to improve his Japanese to read Narcissu 1, since it's free and short. He runs Windows, but I have been unable to find a download copy of just Narcissu 1 from any official website that is not Steam. My friend doesn't like Steam and would prefer a more direct way to get the VN. On Insani's official download page they have Windows, Linux, and Mac versions available for English. But only Linux and Mac versions for the Japanese version. Stage Nana's official website provides a download version for Narcissu 2, but not of Narcissu 1 Am I missing something in one of these links? If not does anyone know where I can link my friend a download copy of Narcissu 1 in Japanese for Windows? EDIT: I know that Narcissu 2's download includes Narcissu 1. But I was wondering if there was an easy way I could just link my friend to a copy of Narcissu 1 without being attached to Narcissu 2.

Yeah, clever manipulation of sprites is a strength VNs have in showing details. And when done well, I think its more effective then just telling it through text. Also, Dacapo 2 takes me back, I read it around 10 years ago when I was new to VNs. Anzu was my favorite girl back then. Which girl were you talking about?

Good question, and I would say the difference is in a subtle but significant effect. A comma is a pause represented by a single punctuation point. And it represents a complete, temporary pause. An ellipse on the other hand, at least to me, illicits a feeling of hesitation or tapering off. This is because instead of stopping suddenly, an elipse extends itself, its composed of multiple periods. For instance a comma is like turning a switch off, then on again. And an ellipse is like stopping a car, and then starting it again. It doesn't stop instantly but takes a couple of seconds to fight the momentum. And then you have to start it up again. Therefore there is something certain and almost forceful about a comma, but indecisive or vague about an ellipse. So if you want to convey an ambiguous pause, I feel like an ellipse is better suited. I suppose a specific example would be like this. If I wrote "hmm...", at least in my head I would continue pronouncing the lingering "mm" sound. To the point that if I wanted to technically convey how I pronounce "hmm..." without the ellipse, I would have to spell it it as "hmmmmmm". The ellipse is like hitting the break button, I don't pause immediately. But if I read "hmm," I literally stop my pronunciation after the second "m". Like a binary system of on and off, once I see that comma I fully stop, pause, and then continue. This is how I distinguish the two, but I could just be weird lol

VNs sometimes get criticized for their overuse of the ellipse (…). And I suppose I'll start my defense of the use of ellipses in VNs, by extending an olive branch. VNs do misuse the ellipse to an astounding degree, and I have an interesting little anecdote demonstrating this point. In college, me and some friends decided to spend a Friday night getting drunk and reading the worst VNs we could find. We stumbled upon Gender Bender DNA Twister Extreme. There is a LOT wrong with this VN, but a glaringly consistent detail of bad writing we all noticed was the excessive use of ellipses. After we all collectively noticed and pointed out how often ellipses were being used, we decided to start counting every instance of an ellipse we spotted. Keep in mind, they had already been used plenty before we even started to count. Before we even reached a total playtime of 1 hour, we counted over 100 uses of ellipses, and gave up counting after that. I share this anecdote for two reasons. Firstly, as a petty example that Gender Bender DNA Twister Extreme is horrible and I almost want to say it has no right to exist. And secondly that overall I am in agreement that ellipses do get misused often in VNs. So I am not entirely attacking this point of criticism, but I do think that many who do champion this specific criticism of VN writing miss one very important function that the ellipses achieves in VN writing, that it can't achieve in traditional print. The written word as it is presented in VNs is transient. With each click you typically receive one line at a time. And after a certain point all the lines disappear and you are greeted with fresh words from the top of the screen if NVL, or the top of the dialogue box if ADV. Furthermore often (though not always), sentences aren't displayed whole at once. But rather they get displayed in a sort of typewriter effect. This means that regardless of whether the narrative is in past tense or present tense, the occurrence of the text and the story to the reader will always be in the present. Character dialogue, internal monologues, narrative descriptions, it is all being presented to us in real time. A book on the other hand has everything written out and open to display. You can scan the whole page as well as the next page, and you have equal access to every page of the book at any given time. Want to skip to the ending? Well the medium can't stop you. This is not true of VNs. You can fast-forward, but you can't just skip to the end. The only way you can typically access specific parts of a VN is by creating a save point and therefore being able to load it up whenever you want. But you only have that option for everything you already read, you can't just pick and load sections you haven't experienced yet. Because for all intense and purposes, that's in the future. It hasn't happened yet. In other words, there is a sense of time in how the narrative of a VN gets expressed. Well in VNs, the ellipse can be used to demarcate time and expression. In this way, VNs can literally show the passage of time, without having to tell it. And I always thought the golden rule of writing was “show don't tell”, in this function the ellipse is being used optimally to show and not tell. Here is an example of how I would write a certain passage if I were writing it for a book/short-story, and then I will proceed to rewrite it for a VN. Novel/Short-story: “I don't know about that,” she briefly paused while biting her lip, “you sure it will be okay?” Visual Novel coded in Renpy: “I don't know about that...{w=1.5} you sure it will be okay?” The {w=1.5} is a wait command in Renpy that pauses the text for 1.5 seconds before resuming the rest of the line. Without having to tell the reader “she briefly paused”, we literally showed the pause by manipulating the speed in which the text gets displayed. The ellipse helps signal to the reader that the character is hesitating to express her thoughts, while the {w=1.5} command is running in the background. Now if the detail of “biting her lip” is also important to you. You would have to script things slightly differently, but you could make it that after the ellipse her sprite changes and bites her lip and you hold on that image for 1.5 seconds, before transitioning back to her previous expression and continue the text. So now you not only showed her hesitation and the gap in time it took for her to finish her thought, but you also showed her expression change. This is a way you can “show and not tell” with VNs that you could never achieve when writing for traditional print media.

From my observation, Gatcha games are nothing but a thinly veiled form of gambling. In that sense, they are exploitative by nature. Particularly of people who are prone to gambling addiction. But for me the real crime is that the content that comes from Gatcha games tends to be pretty low.

Agreed, I though 07 Expansion was above this

That makes a lot of sense actually, part of the reason I was able to work through Sayooshi early on was because it didn't matter whether I was reading a moege or something hard, I was going to be looking up all the words anyway. What frustrated me with Aiyoku is at that point I was already pretty comfortable with conversational Japanese, so I was expecting it to be easier then it was for me. But that's kind of my fault for having misplaced expectations. And yeah, personally aside from helping me commit stroke order to muscle memory I didn't get a lot out of the Heisig method. But I know for some people they find it quite helpful. I also hated the memorization aspect of it, and like you I don't like Anki much either.

Maybe I'm just kind of slow, but I found Aiyoku quite tedious as a beginner. It uses a lot of words that aren't common day to day words. Its fine with a text-hooker, but I remember having to look up words quite frequently. On the contrary I found Suba Hibi easier to read. Because aside from the short segments where they talk about philosophy, most of the language is regular conversational Japanese.

Exactly this. Silvz is probably right that you should read Higurashi first. You can completely understand Umineko without reading Higurashi. But Umineko does build upon certain concepts that got started in Higurashi. They are both really good, though I think Umineko is a bit better.

Zaka pretty much nailed it as far as self-study goes. I'm just here to say that if you have the opportunity, consider taking actual Japanese classes. While I know some people have gained complete literacy purely through self-study. There is a reason why classes are the most standard way to learn a language, because they are the most effective method for most people. And if you take classes and supplement them with serious self-study, then you get the best of both worlds. The two methods combined really will do wonders for you. In particular classes are an excellent place to practice speaking. A lot of people I know who only practiced reading via self-study often struggle with speaking it. Which may not seem of much interest to you now, particularly if you just want to read VNs. But at least I've found being able to speak the language quite rewarding; and if you ever visit Japan it will make your visit that much better.

I was open to criticism of Sayooshi as I am in agreement that it isn't perfect. But I couldn't find myself agreeing with any of your criticisms. It seems more that you dislike it because its popular in the small, but vocal crowd of English speakers who read retro Japanese VNs. And I can relate to that sentiment, if Doki Doki and Fate Stay Night for example weren't so popular I wouldn't mind them as much either. There is something particularly frustrating about disliking something that everyone else seems to adore, so I sympathize with you in that regard. What I will say, is that I think the reason Sayooshi gets adored so much (by me included) is because genuine denpa isn't a very popular genre. Sure you have VNs like Suba Hibi and others that have denpa segments, but its rare to get a VN where the denpa is the primary focus. And for those who love that genre, Sayooshi scratches in all the right places (for most of us at least).

Certainly I agree that good visual novels take time to make. Good luck on your own project btw

That's a very weird claim because while its technically not incorrect, its not exactly correct either. Wonderful Everyday (Suba Hibi) didn't take 10 years of continued consistent development. What happened is that its creator Sca-ji created a VN called Tsui no Sora in 1999 but it was clear that it was an unpolished mess with a lot of good ideas and potential. He worked on multiple VNs in between in that time and focused much of his effort on those. However, at some point he did decide to rewrite Tsui no Sora into a new polished up VN which became Suba Hibi. So yes, technically speaking you could say the first draft of Suba Hibi came out in 1999 and its final draft came out in 2010. But its not like he was focusing on it as his priority for 10 years. Rather it just seems like a project he took up because he was disappointed with Tsui no Sora and he wanted to rework it into something better. Specifically what I'm saying is that Suba Hibi didn't take 10 years of dedicated development, but rather it was project that Sca-ji based off of a previous work he already made that he wanted to improve upon.

This is my favorite instance of "Ferachio" being a choice:

I know its really immature of me, but I always chuckle at the fact that the abbreviation of that VN is KKK.

What bothers me is when people dismiss VNs because of H-scenes, but then they will turn around and talk about how Game of Thrones and many other TV shows which frequently show sex scenes are their favorite shows. Especially when it comes to 18+ ploge, the amount of sex scenes they typically have is fairly comparable to the amount of sex scenes in many western dramas. So not that much. Therefore I see it as no reason to dismiss them for that alone.

That's why we read VNs

Anyone here watch regular TV shows? I don't watch many myself, but recently a friend of mine convinced me to watch The Sopranos. I liked it quite a bit. It doesn't come close to any of my favorite anime or VNs, but nonetheless thought it was quite good. Also it has a lot of good memes.

That sound quite interesting. I maybe wrong since I am completely ignorant about Yuri VNs, but I always felt like yuri JVNs were pretty much just fetishization. It seems that EVNs have a stronger tendency to show the more realistic nuances of homosexual relationships. Also, and this is just a side note. Eldritch University is a really good title name.