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  1. Past hour
  2.    yelsha57 reacted to a post in a topic: Summer Pockets official TL announced to be released this year on Steam
  3. yikes, blue reflection looks terrible
  4. Today
  5.    Plk_Lesiak reacted to a post in a topic: Up until the end [GxB] [Suspense, Romance, Friendship] Released in February 2020!
  6. According to some tweets by KEY, they're going to translate Reflection Blue if translation of original version sells well. Maybe they'll release it as DLC/patch then?

  7. What manga are you currently reading?

    littleshogun replied to Snowtsuku's topic in Anime/Manga Talk

    Machikado Mazoku, and currently like it. It also help that there's a Myth Arc, even though it's still so lighthearted seeing that it's 4-koma manga from Kirara. I just hope that the author will get better soon, seeing that currently she's on hiatus until January because of health issue.

  8. What are you playing?

    littleshogun replied to a topic in Visual Novel Talk

    Still strugling on finishing Hibiki's route of Maitetsu because I'm procastinated a lot here, so let's just hope that I can finish her route before 2020 (Should be possible seeing that I'm in Chapter 13 of her route).
  9. I’m finally really happy to say that my Visual novel “Up until the end” will be released in February 2020 on Itchio! After more than 3 years of work, discouragement, and finding motivation again! I’m really proud to share with you the final result! Thank you again for the support <3
  10. Let's just hope that the Steam review will be going well, if they really want to release it quickly that is. Too bad that they still didn't want to bring Reflection Blue here, do oh well. For the VN itself, I would say that it should be good if you looking for nostalgia with KEY elements. So the best approach here would be just treat it as usual KEY VN instead of expecting the new plot, and just habe fun on reading this. PS - Apparently Jun Maeda here only give the original concept and write the ending song lyric, and Nijima Yuu here take care of the rest (ie elaborate the original concept) from what I understand.
  11.    Akimoto Masato reacted to a post in a topic: Summer Pockets official TL announced to be released this year on Steam
  12. Akimoto Masato started following Summer Pockets official TL announced to be released this year on Steam
  13. thats kinda nice
  14. what an impractical language

  15. VNs suitable for...

    Mago Ivo replied to Mago Ivo's topic in Recommendations

    I'm really glad somebody remembered. I didn't give an update to that because I thought that nobody cares enough to question if I was telling the truth. Unfortunately, I am 100% honest about everything. It's just that I thought that the lawsuit would end sooner, but things were going slowly. The last process in court (I don't know how to call it in english) was just two days ago, and since 12.12.2019 the judges have a one month deadline to decide my sentence. My lawyer is brilliant and she increased my chances for suspended sentence to around 80%, but there is still a probability of me going to prison. Suspended sentence in my country means that if I don't do some big crime I won't go to prison. If they decide to put me in prison, I would have to be there for atleast two years by the law of my country.
  16.    Mago Ivo reacted to a post in a topic: VNs suitable for...
  17.    Mago Ivo reacted to a post in a topic: VNs suitable for...
  18. yugo joined the community
  19. I’ve reached a rough spot, since as I share more WIPs from my game, my posts get more and more spoilerish... I need to figure out a new approach. But here is something more casual that I’ve been working on this week! : )
  20. #screenshotsaturday #delusionalinc #AgentOfLove Version 11.2.0 uploaded on to #Testflight for Alpha testing! Took longer than expected due to the new sign in option BETA Version Coming Soon! #otome #indiedev #visualnovel
  21. It's been a little while, but public release day is upon us once again~ In terms of new writing, there's admittedly not much to offer this month, with an alternate ending for Sayori's route and a small extension of Nozomi's reversal path the main additions. However, there's been several rewritten scenes this time around. Mainly this concerns the opening parts of the game and is intended to characterize Kyou as more deluded and socially awkward while toning down the sociopathy when it comes to his thoughts and actions early on. It's still a bit of a work in progress but I hope it improves on the original script. On the art side of things, Hiroko's tennis friend on her route now has a sprite and a name change~ Risa (formerly Kasumi) has a bigger role in Hiroko's route than either of the other main girls, so I really wanted to give her a visual presence in the game. She looks great, and will probably make a few more appearances if I find the opportunity~ Nozomi's sprite now has a second pose, in line with the other girls. It's nice that she doesn't have to directly face the camera (and therefore Kyou :p) all the time now. As ever, you can find this month's release in PC, Linux, Mac and Android versions, on my Patreon or itch.io pages. And that about sums up this month's updates. Join us in the new year as I turn the art focus to filling out the CG library, along with adding what writing I can during the holiday period. What's New (December 14th 2019) Significant rewriting of the script concerning Kyou's motivation. Main areas this affected were: Opening scenes leading up to the first choice and aftermath, much of the Delusion route, the Nozomi route's café scene and the early scenes of the Villainous route You can now refuse Sayori's request at the end of her route, leading to a different ending Replaced one of the music tracks with a new tune: The triumphant theme that sometimes plays when Kyou feels he's majorly succeeded at something New pose added for Nozomi's sprite New sprite added for Risa (formerly Kasumi). She appears frequently during Hiroko's route Rewrote most of the back half of the Villainous Robot path's second ending (obtained by arranging to meet Sayori at Nozomi's house) Written functional dialogue for Nozomi's Reversal route, up to about halfway through the fourth day Made some more tweaks to a few of the conversations along Hiroko's route Fixed a bug on Nozomi's path where Kyou testing his theory on her to the full and taking responsibility led to the game jumping to Hiroko's ending and then crashing Word count is now over 127,500 Numerous general typo/grammatical corrections Known Issue Nozomi's sprite fails to appear for one line during Sayori's route, on the third day
  22. JoshB2084 started following Summer Pockets official TL announced to be released this year on Steam
  23. That would be a feels trip.
  24.    Ramaladni reacted to a post in a topic: Discord VN community named Aliceshoujo
  25.    Ramaladni reacted to a post in a topic: Summer Pockets official TL announced to be released this year on Steam
  26.    Ramaladni reacted to a post in a topic: Summer Pockets official TL announced to be released this year on Steam

  27. VNs suitable for...

    Ramaladni replied to Mago Ivo's topic in Recommendations

    Didn't you say you were going to jail soon in your previous thread? Now I can't really believe that you are a smoker. Please be honest.
  28.    Leonor reacted to a post in a topic: VNs suitable for...
  29. smhmyhead joined the community
  30. Yesterday
  31.    yelsha57 reacted to a post in a topic: Summer Pockets official TL announced to be released this year on Steam
  32. DR4 started following Data extraction thread

  33. Data extraction thread

    DR4 replied to maefdomn's topic in Fan Translation Discussion

    Hello, Need help, I been using ExtractData 1.20 to extract some vn. When extract vn file that containing image folder such as image.dat size over 1GB, I have no problem to extract it, but whenever I try to extract vn file that containing voice such as voice.dat size about 200MB, I got error saying that "error memory not enough". And when I try extract vn file containing background music such as bgm.dat size about 20MB, I have no problem. (FYI, I'm using windows 10 pro, I already try compatibility mode but no luck). Hope someone have solution for this.
  34. DR4 joined the community

  35. Yuri Game Jam 2019 Overview

    Plk_Lesiak posted a blog entry in EVN Chronicles

    The Yuri Game Jam is a yearly event celebrating my favourite romantic setup in visual novels in all configurations imaginable. Each edition attracts both newcomer and experienced developers flocking to share their work of various sizes and various states of completion, and while not a purely VN-oriented event, in practice it was always dominated by those. From the early days of my interest in VNs as a medium, it held a very special place in my heart, spawning both celebrated classics, such as The Sad Story of Emmeline Burns, and dozens of overlooked, but lovely games I’ve mentioned in my past coverage and retrospectives. At the same time, like most Itch.io events, Yuri Game Jam is fairly crowded and full of demos and prototypes that can be interesting only to the most dedicated yuri fanatics – for this reason, I once more took upon myself to search out complete VNs submitted to the event and assess them for all of you, making it easy to find out which games are truly worth your attention. As always, I’ll be skipping the in-development titles in my coverage, mostly because the unfinished projects can very easily stay that way forever in the world of indie VNs. And if a game I’m writing about catches your attention, you can go straight to its Itch.io page by clicking its title – all Yuri Game Jam entries are free to download. Yuri Game Jam 2019 was the smallest YGJ edition to date, with even fewer entries than the first event in 2015 and less than two-thirds of last year’s submissions, a drop from 60 games to just 39. It’s also pretty objectively the weakest one yet, with very few titles standing out and the overall production quality of the games being particularly low. Same applies to the length of the visual novel entries, as none of them was much longer than an hour. This is a sad thing to see, but also made my work a bit easier his year, with 9 complete projects to go through, all of them pretty short and straightforward. The highlights of the event were several sci-fic dramas, with Remeniscience Overwrite interestingly touching on topics of memory and communicational barriers, and Package Chat surprising with its fresh ideas and uncompromising narration. My pick for the best game of the event, however, have to unquestionably go to Crescendo’s Café Bouvardie, which combined lovely art direction with a unique setting and greatly-written characters, turning out to be the most feature-complete and satisfying experience this time around. I still encourage you to read through the whole list though, as depending on your preferences, there might be more games worth your attention – so, let’s get started! Spring Leaves No Flowers Npckc is an author of cute, small VNs about being different, and with the prejudice and discrimination that comes with standing out from the “normal” society. Spring Leaves No Flowers is the third game of a trilogy focused on Haru, a young transgender woman living in Japan and her two friends, Manani and Erika. The first two entries in the series, One Night, Hot Springs and The Last day of Spring, mostly explored the exclusion and misunderstanding transgender people experience in everyday situations, by the example of a visit to hot springs. The third one switches things a bit, focusing on Manami and her struggle to understand her own feelings, after she discovered that she might also be different in a way she experiences relationships and her attraction to other people... Those that are familiar with this author’s work, will know exactly what to expect – Spring Leaves No Flowers is minimalistic, to the point and offers a believable glimpse at experience connected to its subject matter, which this time is being asexual and/or aromantic. It avoids pandering or being overly moralistic, but simply shows typical situations members of sexual minorities find themselves in and different ways of coping with them – both negative and positive ones. If you’re looking to learn a bit about these issues, or they’re already part of your experience and you’re seeking a relatable story in a different cultural context, you should be satisfied in what you find here. Final Rating: Recommended A Matter of Dosage If I had to pinpoint a leading theme in this year’s Yuri Game Jam, it would be games with no soundtrack (which is always kind of baffling, considering the amount of quality, royalty-free music available online). A Matter of Dosage is the first among the disturbingly-silent entries, telling a story of Eliza, a young woman who, because of her boyfriend’s indiscretion, becomes trapped as a guinea pig of a powerful medical corporation. As part of experiments that give people superhuman abilities, she has to find a way to regain her freedom and bring down the company that essentially robbed her of her life. And to do that, she has to recruit the help of other test subjects, none of whom really seem that interested in cooperating… While this setup sounds pretty cool, everything else about this game… Just isn’t. I could probably look past the fact it’s short, or the not-very-appealing art, but the core writing is consistently weak and full of plotholes. While I was being bombarded with unusual romantic setups of the characters and the accompanying terminology, the intrigue stayed paper-thin and unconvincing all the way through. The twists were boring, character’s powers barely saw any real use and the conclusion, no matter what route I've chosen, always felt deeply anticlimactic. Some of the game’s core ideas, like the basic characteristics and backstories of the main characters, weren’t bad, but were put together in a way that never proved very enjoyable, or made me truly care about what’s happening (also because the protagonist is simply unlikeable). In the end, I simply have no reason to recommend reading this VN – everything is attempted to do it did so mediocrely that there are no high points that’d make it worth your time. Final Rating: Not Recommended And Nothing Was Wrong It’s definitely a bad habit to spoil a game’s story, and visual novel’s story in particular, as it’s usually the main point of the experience, but I think I’m justified in this specific case. And Nothing Was Wrong is a very short VN about isolating oneself and being crippled by self-doubt – one that starts intriguing, but ends with a strange and disturbing suicide sequence which ultimately felt out of place and pointlessly depressing. While I was confused in the past by this particular author’s strange, borderline-trolling games, this one tackles a topic of transgender person destroying the bonds they build in the past and being crushed by loneliness due to their own insecurity – something that definitely happens in real life and can lead to similarly tragic consequences. Exactly for this reason, it should be handled with the utmost care and careful consideration of its possible consequences, and this game, despite apparently being inspired by author’s own struggles, did a poor job at warning the readers of its content, or properly building up to the drastic turn of events. While its minimalistic presentation and core writing are pretty interesting and solid, approach it only if you’re prepared to read something deeply depressing and strange. Final Rating: Cautiously Recommended Reminiscience Overwrite Going back to silent VNs, Reminiscience Overwrite is maybe a particularly sad example of that problem, as everything else about it is very solid and the omission of proper background music hurts the consistently-positive impression I’ve got from it. The game features a blank-slate protagonist who is kidnapped by aliens and gets experimented on with some kind of memory-altering device. While trying to understand what’s going on and find her way out of captivity she develops a peculiar bond with one of the alien scientists participating in the tests, gradually finding shared emotions and experiences between them – a connection that might prove to be her only chance of salvation. While very brief, Reminiscience Overwrite’s story managed to present a few interesting themes and provide a satisfying payoff to its intrigue. Unlike in A Matter of Dosage, pretty much every scene and piece of information in it had meaning for the plot, while the story progression was tied to the slowly-removed language and cultural barrier between the protagonist and her captors. The art direction is also among the strongest ones in this years YGJ, with an aesthetic and consistent look, even though it's not in any way spectacular. With a bit more content and polish, it could’ve been quite a spectacular VN, but even now it’s fully worth experiencing, particularly if you enjoy the mix of sci-fi and light romance. Final Rating: Highly Recommended The Start of Something Amazing The Start of Something Amazing is the most by-the-numbers love story among the games on this list, featuring two childhood friends who finally recognize their feelings for each other during a sleepover. While it’s not the greatest VN of this type when it goes to art direction, it’s so full of wholesome warmth and chemistry between the heroines that it’s hard to truly dislike it. If I really had to seriously complain about something, it would be that it also fell victim to the no-soundtrack epidemy, openly asking the reader to run their own music in the background. It also, quite predictably, relies a lot on the typical “I can’t be in love with my best friend” clichés, with the protagonist being confused about things that seem absolutely obvious. In the end, however, it’s all done in a rather charming and enjoyable way. For those looking for traditional yuri wholesomeness, it’s worth giving a try. Final Rating: Recommended A Walk With a Cloud A Walk With a Cloud is a cute, short VN about Eddie, a birdgirl who can’t fly. While she’s stuck on the ground during the day of a sky festival, alone and sulking, she meets a strange figure – a cloudperson, visiting the world below for the first time. While they explore the local area together, they’ll discover an unlikely connection between them and pieces of history the cloudgirl’s family has with Eddie’s town. That is, only if Eddie decides to open up to the visitor and visit some places she’s not fully comfortable with... With a presentation stylized to look a bit like a child’s drawing, the game has a really cute and comforting atmosphere, tackling the fairly-typical Yuri Game Jam themes of being different and self-acceptance in a subtle manner. It’s not particularly groundbreaking in any of it, but just pleasant enough to justify giving an hour of your time to read through it. Final Rating: Recommended A Letter For You There’s a pretty popular dating sim template followed by many Yuri Game Jam VNs, one that involves a festival or event of sorts and a short amount of time to choose between a few heroines that could be invited to it, with selectable interactions along the way. A Latter For You basically took that framework and filled it only with the bare-minimum amount of content to create a comprehensible story. One portrayed in large part through rough sketches that are often genuinely hard to decipher and monster-girl theme the game pretty much does nothing with. While I don’t like to complain about such games, clearly made for fun and usually having its amusing moments, there’s simply not enough of either substance or eye candy in this one to make it worth picking up – while it’s ultimately inoffensive, I still strongly recommend skipping it. Final Rating: Not Recommended Package Chat One of the most interesting games of the jam, despite its technical simplicity and relative lack of polish, Package Chat is a sci-fi story about a girl stuck in a deeply-uncomfortable space journey from the dying Earth to a remote colony. Consciously trapped for months in a life-support pod, with only virtual reality to distract her from the misery of it and little motivation to interact with other people in the ship’s network, she can barely stand her situation. Breaking this depressing tedium, a crew member – one of the small team of people operating the ship and thus not stuck in the containers – starts talking to her… Opening with something that sounds like a very bad pickup line. The awkward interactions between the two women give the opportunity to present the background of the perilous journey on an unfinished spaceship, forced by the deteriorating situation on Earth. At the same time, we learn some elements of the girls’ personal backstories. All of this is conveyed in a very crude, naturalistic style that doesn’t shy away from gross details of travelling through space as living cargo, crude comment from the characters... And a lot of swearing. It provides worldbuilding through the protagonist’s obviously-biased and cynical perspective, but offers enough details and original ideas to engross you in the game’s world. As a piece of interactive fiction, with no sprites or elaborate CGs, but just simple backgrounds and music, it’s not the most visually impressive game in this year’s jam, to say the least. However, it turned out to be one of the most through-provoking and most satisfying reads among them, and I recommend both checking it out and keeping a closer look at its author – which a debut like this, they might create something really spectacular in the future. Final Rating: Highly Recommended Café Bouvardie My favourite game from this year’s Jam is an unusual one, with an imaginative story somewhere on the cross between fantasy and science fiction. It features an unnamed protagonist, a time-travelling agent living in the immortal dimension known as the End of Time. After finishing a mission and solving a time paradox she feels a “pull” – a warning sign indicating her next travel into past or future would likely kill her, which means the end of her career. Unexpectedly, she’s faced with an eternity of retirement in the End of Time, needing to find a new purpose and place for herself after completely devoting herself to her work. Looking for answers, she visits the titular Café Bouvardie, a place which is said to give respite to agents in her position. There, she meets the two owners of the café, Clementine and Lotus, who share their stories with her… Café Bouvardie has a clear theme of finding one’s place in the world, with time travel and the unusual setting being, more or less, devices to ask some very universal questions. This, however, doesn’t mean that background isn’t worth attention – it introduces a lot of interesting questions and ideas, ones which I have a suspicion will be used by the game's authors for other projects. And, honestly, it would be a waste not to do that, because the End of Time provides more or less unlimited possibilities, with its immortal characters from different ages, arcane machinery and the organisation fighting to keep the world’s history undisrupted. The game’s story is also quite enjoyable to follow, with Clementine and Lotus being instantly likeable and the conversation between them and the protagonist leaving a good impression. At times I had a feeling it tried a bit too hard to be profound, but it mostly works as a coming-of-age metaphor, with the quality of writing and presentation being enjoyable enough on their own that even if you don’t fully embrace its message, it shouldn’t spoil the experience for you. Also, the romantic angle is so light that the story is definitely not something directed only to yuri fans – I’m willing to recommend it to pretty much anyone and really, there’s no reason to not give it a chance. Final Rating: Highly Recommended And this ends my summary of the Yuri Game Jam 2019 – a little underwhelming considering the really great titles I was discovering in its past editions, but still offering some worthwhile VNs to read through. I’m really interested whether this slowdown is a sign of things to come, with generally fewer hobbyist/freeware projects the visual novel scene, or just a one-time anomaly. While we’ll have to wait a while to find out, I’ll be looking forward to the chance to cover future events: make sure to look out for my NaNoRen0 and Yuri game Jam summaries next year. And for now, thank you for reading this one. Have a great weekend everyone!

  36. What are you listening to right now?

    Plk_Lesiak replied to Snowtsuku's topic in The Coliseum of Chatter

    So, this is like the weirdest thing I've heard in a while. The solo piano performance is so antithetical to this fast, upbeat song, that my mind can't process it properly. Ai Otsuka is genuinely talented though and while I don't really feel much about most of her songs, I just can't get this one from my head. The normal version, that is... And as a bonus, a Daoko song that I also can't stop playing in my head:
  37. I just felt like saying, I hope everything is going okay, and I'm excited about the Full Patch Release. Oh yeah, before I forget, I hope everyone had a great day considering it was Friday the 13th. 
  38. Well, I definitely won't say no. But I hope you won't regret it later...
  39. Is it good? Because although it is by Key, it doesn't have the same staff from their most relevant projects, mainly Maeda Jun.
  40. This sounds pretty intriguing, actually. Added it to my wishlist. I've seen this VN on vndb, but the description there didn't really interest me that much. To be honest, that's the whole point of "trap" MCs.
  41. Yay! I hope it will actually get released this year
  42. Actually, I was (and still am) hoping that you could become an editor for this, once I finish current work (meaning re-TL and filling the gaps). That's okay. I also wasn't entirely satisfied with those smoothed images look, so it wasn't big problem to let them go, but if there's someone who likes them, I see no harm in including them as well as an option
  43. 400MB still sounds pretty reasonable. Well, it's still just a loose suggestion from someone who can't contribute anything meaningful to the project. I was just a little bugged out by the fact that the purist position of "changing anything is sacrilege" was the only present in the thread.
  44. Completely forgot that it's scheduled to be released so soon. Let's hope there are no problems with Steam!
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