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The results of our Halloween poll are up! The top 10 voted spooky VNs are up here along with our VN recommendations that range from the comedic to the existential-angst inducing~ Thank you to everyone who took part in the poll, and thank you for all your suggestions! We didn't manage to squeeze in all of them, but we tried to include at least one suggestion from everyone who recommended some.

@Fred the Barber

I think a large part of the success is due to the fact that 2 people pledged at the $10k USD tier. Kinda crazy, but it helped secure the goal, and it means two extra episodes for the rest of us. Those guys are goddamn heroes in my eyes.

Finished Hapymaher and it was a bit of a so-so experience. Not exactly unexpected though, considering Chrono Clock had its fair share of problems too. But the first half of Hapymaher was actually pretty good. The dream world scenes had a sense of mystery and danger, while the real world scenes were more light and slice of life oriented. The iteration between both worlds was decently paced and kept things interesting without neglecting the lighter moe parts. And the heroines were not only very likable, but also contributing to the plot, with Maia being the highlight as the mischievous loli-villain of the dream world. Until that point the VN was scratching on an 8 rating in my book. Unfortunately, the second half couldn't keep up wih that quality. The VN teases Alice in Wonderland in the first half, and just when you're about to tumble down the rabbit hole and experience a world of wonder and mysteries... you get stuck in the entrance and can't move forth or back anymore. This was just about the time when the endless dream starts with the party, christmas and gender-change events. Instead of giving you an interesting sub-plot in a fascinating meta world, the VN just throws the whole plot overboard and tortures you with slice-of-life and bogus events of almost unparalleled boredom. I had to heavily abuse the skip button to make it through that mess with a healthy mind. And the routes weren't much better. Yayoi's didn't fit at all to her personality, Maia's did barely exist and Alice had so many personality changes in her route that I hardly knew who she was at the end. Saki's was probably the 'less worst' since it at least followed the main plot around Maia, but the revelations were still very minor. And the so called true-route was just the continuation of Alice's apruptly ending half-route. Still enough to ridicule all other routes, including the actual main plot around Maia and let you end up with a girl you hardly know or care about. So yeah, the plot was certainly not developing the way I wanted. The VN has still some rather good points. The heroines are all very likable, especially Yayoi, Maia and Alice. Saki was the only one that didn't really click with me. She was a bit of a bitch and I didn't like her voice that much. In contrast to her Maia was just fantastic. Hapymaher was good when she was on the screen and unfortunately she didn't have much screen time in the second half. Her seiyuu also did a marvelous job in making her mischievous, dramatic and mysterious. And Yayoi was just gorgeous. The art is certainly one of the strongest points of the VN - it's certainly one of the most pretty VN's I know. The music is also pretty decent, offering good tracks for both slice of life and dramatic scenes, even if the tracks get a bit repetitive after a while. Heroine rating: Yayoi = Maia > Alice > Keiko >> Saki Overall rating: 7/10 (The plot certainly wouldn't justify that rating, but it gets lots of bonus points for art, music and heroines) Some personal observations: I played Hapymaher at the same time like Fatal Twelve and it gave me some comparison material why HapyMaher's plot failed and the one of Fatal Twelve succeeded. Fatal Twelve has about 15 character sprites, 60 event CG's and lots of background locations just for the plot and it's a medium length VN. HapyMaher has just about 10 character sprites, and despite its 75 event CG's only 20 - 30 are relevant to the plot - the rest are H-scenes. There's also a severe lack of background locations with almost the whole dream world consisting of 'plantified' real world locations. Add to that a long length VN and it's getting clear why it's difficult to make a good story out of that. Although the H-scenes in Hapymaher are certainly gorgeous, they sacrificed too much for it.

We are developing now an adult visual novel with choices that affect the personality of the characters. Chapter 1-3 are free to play here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/indecent-desires-21874021 Enjoy!

So Moe Day (10/10) was a few days ago, and to celebrate both MangaGamer and JAST have VN sales on this week. Banzai! ~MangaGamer and JAST~

Sayaka, I'm currently playing evenicle, it's pretty good, I highly recommend it. YomiPlays, I watched Utawarerumono anime so entire surprise would be gone and the legend of heroes is more jrpg than visual novel.

Sooo, a few weeks ago, during my university's Science Festival, I've given a public lecture about the rise and "fall" of VN fan translations to an impressive crowd of 4 people (+ my girlfriend and event moderator - the time of the day and awful weather made us no favours that morning). At least, the audience was pretty attentive and my GF took a few photos with her "vintage" phone - while you can barely see anything on them, I quite like the moments they captured so I've decided to share regardless. :3

What about Utawarerumono. Actually im playing TLoH:TIS. (But i'm not sure if we count that as visual novel )

No mention of Evenicle (also Alicesoft) yet? I haven't played any games of this type yet but I'm looking forward to trying it out.

Walking to the neighboring city when I was limited in time instead of using public transport probably wasn't the smartest idea I ever made in my life. Especially considering that my phone showed me the way that turned out to impossible, so in the end I still had to ride one station on a train. It was fun though.

I recommended Sachi because I thought that it manages its romance in the best way... but on second thought, yeah, maybe you're right. On the other hand, I still think that playing Michiru or Yumiko would be even more counterproductive. You know, I kind of agree with this part of your statement. This part definitely stood out above all others and, if it was released on its own, it could actually make a pretty great short VN. The other parts imo are just a nice way to waste your time. To be honest, I never really understood what exactly makes Grisaia as popular as it is, but I personally enjoyed it, and to me, well, it's pretty much all that matters. Well, I hope I don't spoil anything that you aren't supposed to know yet, but I'll try to comment on some of your ideas. Also, never use Ctrl-Z when typing forum posts. I had to rewrite almost half of this post because of that.

I caught a nasty cold this last weekend and all I wanted to do was sit on the couch, so I binge-watched Princess Principal over two days. Man, was that ever a good decision. First of all, the setting and themes were right up my alley: steampunk, sci-fi, turn-of-the-century, alternate history version of England, spies... Good shit! It was a relief to find that there was hardly any boring school stuff (apparently "principal" meant something else...), and instead the episodes were generally filled with action, plot, and character development. The characters were uniformly excellent, and the plot was super compelling! I thought I saw the twist coming, but how wrong I was. The dash of sci-fi helped a lot of the action scenes feel unique and fun, but even when it wasn't using that angle, the action scenes delivered, over, and over. The show even had good subs (official, by Sentai)! I only have one small complaint, which was that the ending wasn't much of a resolution. I'm glad there's a second season of sorts coming up (five movies, I think?), both because I loved the show and want more of it, and because I'm hoping for a more complete resolution. Here's hoping! For my next show, I just started on Made in Abyss, yet another thing I promised a friend I'd watch several months ago. It's pretty cool! The setting is really engaging, and the setup is interesting. I'm only one episode in, so I've just scratched the surface, but I like what I've seen so far and am looking forward to more. That said, I'm already unimpressed with the (again, official, from Sentai) subs. They're not bad per se, but the tone of the subs often really clashes with the tone of the spoken line (frightened one- or two-word exclamations turn into long complete sentences, for example), and there's no clear attempt at characterization in the subs; all the people kinda sound the same, despite large age gaps.

Aww, thanks heh Thank you for your service to the EVN community as well <3

Huh, looks like it will hit the goal after all, color me slightly shocked. I may have underestimated the long arms of the gameplay eroge.

agree i'm also reading ChronoClock and finished 2 routes , for me ChronoClock is good one but HaperMaher is better . my ChronoClock rating is 7 , Hapyermaher is 9 but as i said i finish only 2 route if i finish all route my Chronoclock rating should be changed. about my HapyMaher Heroine rating Yayoi remind me for someone (it's personal experiance so don't need any reason lol) so i choose her at the top of my list , but it's hard to decide others because iike them all in difference ways if the question is changed from rating to "Who you want to match with Touru ?" my clearly answer is Saki .

The Shadows That Run Alongside Our Car official free/PWYW download Description Character Routes The Shadows That Run Alongside Our Car follows a slightly unusual format. Rather than choosing a love interest, you pick a protagonist to see the story through. Both protagonists are nameable, but for simplicity's sake, I'll use the default names here. Each protagonist has 3 possible endings, for 6 total endings. These aren't the only ways to obtain these endings, but following this guide will allow you to see all the content in the game. Shelby Ending #1 Ending #2 Ending #3 Dustin Ending #1 Ending #2 Ending #3

answer unclear, try again

Hmm I think I'm starting to understand. Yeah, definitely, Grisaia doesn't have the most wholesome romance out there. Yuuji is fucked up and the girls are fucked up, so their relationship is not healthy by any stretch if you stop to analyze it. For me it somehow works because it was interesting, and honestly I thought that Yuuji being an asshole could unironically be what those girls needed the most. Yeah, seriously. When you hate yourself for who and how you are like the last thing you need is an awkward smile and kindness out of pity. I for one don't think it's that unbeliavable that someone as blunt as Yuuji could be the only person those girls would open up to. Anyway, if you end up giving it another opportunity, I would still suggest Amane's route. With Sachi you'll come across pretty much every single issue you've had with Grisaia so far (aside from the FBI knocking on your door), so I think it'd be counter-productive. Amane's route is pretty much all backstory, and it's a really good story in and of itself. The romance? Messed up, but at least due to Amane's personality the "dominance" you talked about is less noticeable, so there's that. Ok, so I finished Umineko episode 3. What an episode Let's break it down a little.

Try to reinstall it maybe that will solve the problem. If not im sorry it didin't worked out.

@alpacaman To be honest, Makina route is the only one that should probably be read in the all-ages version. The romance between her and Yuuji is the least believable one in the whole VN, and it honestly only works if you just stop caring about this point. Yuuji is quite broken himself, you know. You can probably get the full extent of how broken he is only after you read his full backstory in the second VN, but, in the end, it's him who is the most broken person in that school. I'm not even sure if you can call any of his relationships with the girls "romantic" considering how far he goes sometimes. I think, that's exactly why these relationships do work, and I kind of feel like you came to these conclusion exactly because you watched the anime first, but, well, I won't argue with you. Well, if you didn't like the common and Makina route, I honestly don't see much point for you to continue reading. And making yourself to read something that you don't like is the best way to burn out (I'm looking at you, Himawari). Sachi, Michiru and Yumiko routes all have some major problems in my opinion, though all of them have fans, so, I'm not sure if you should read them. And Amane route is written by the same author as Makina, so it might be better to avoid it too. I guess, you can try Sachi at some point to see if you like it more, and drop the game after that. Also, avoid Rakuen. I can almost guarantee from the thing you write in your post that you won't like it (and, imo, it's the worst part in Grisaia anyway). Well, if you connect how the original sprites look to their personalities, then pretty much all of them look... as if they took part in a genocide or something. And the sprites Mangagamer used didn't really click with me either, so whenever I decide to replay it, I'll probably just go with the Umineko Project version (if they finish porting Chiru at that point). Also, I still wonder if Ange supposed to look fat in the original...

@Jun Inoue I have a cold right now. You should hear the unholy laughter that just bubbled up from my belly.

Well i also liked Hapymaher a lot. I know it sounds a little odd but i read it twice Right now im reading Chrono Clock Overall rating so far for Chrono Clock : 8/10 In Chrono Clock my Heroine rating : Ill update it when im finishd In Hapymaher my Heroine rating : Keiko = Alice > Maia > Yayoi > Saki Overall rating for Hapymaher : 9/10

The only truly horrifying thing about Killer Queen is that it had a death game setup and decided to still dedicate half of its story to the protagonist having sex with a 10 year old

Huuuuuuuuh... I see many things that are absolutely wrong with your statement. First, really there's no translation quality/choice drama in other otaku niches? I've seen people going apeshit over minor details in anime translations and inconsistencies between the fan and official versions. On the one hand, there'll always be purists that are demanding top quality every time and on the other, there will be botched or poor-quality translation on both the fan and official side of things. The more choice and comparison people have, the more likely they are to criticize underperforming projects - when fan translators were your only hope for playing pretty much any VNs, you were less likely to complain about their work than now, when they compete with a fairly rich selection of professional releases. I things it's even somewhat legit to argue that nowadays there's little sense in translating a VN unless you can do it well. The second, do you know about many EVNs being translated to Japanese? People actually caring about those? It's a non-topic, but I would be surprised if Japanese VN fans didn't have a problem with poor translations - they aren't used to awful localizations and don't treat them as "facts of life" like Western otakus were forced to by turd-quality products offered to them on a regular basis. Demanding quality seems like a pretty reasonable standard, especially for commercial products. And the VN fandom today is not reliant on fan translations anymore and people's attitudes towards those are not any kind of "crucial barrier" for its growth. Also, there are many other reasons why fan translations are pretty much dying out - people that once done them professionalizing or moving on with their lives is the main one and there's no going back from this. What's left is the official publishers, and if you suggest we shouldn't take those up to highest scrutiny as their clients, that's pretty much saying you want them to screw you over with subpar services. Well, you're allowed to act against your own self-interest of course, but that doesn't look like a healthy narrative.

Happy birthday to @wei123 and @Radi the Synergia dev! :3

I'll do my all to stop the FD from getting localized