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The only magazine I'd subscribe to......... If I can be bothered.

Right guys I think the point has already come across for everyone and things are happening so...

Guy: I-I-It's not like I like porn games or anything, b-baka! Tay: Guy-kun, irete...

Hola. Somebody from your team posted about OELVN backgrounds on 4chan, and it reminded me that Violet Hill existed. I know your project lead, Helvetica Standard, manifested interest in inviting me onto your team - and while I opted to undertake another project, I'm currently considering working on a second project, for a few reasons. (The main two being that development of the project I'm currently on might take a significant time seeing as we have a lot to figure out and little organization or team present yet, and that I don't think I can work solely on one project/artstyle/theme over the entire summer without wanting to kill myself.) Anyway, this post is mostly to say that I've figured the best way to have a better idea of what Violet Hill was about was to download the demo - which I did. I'm not through with it (I have no idea how long it is, actually), but I've been through the intro sequence - up to the point where you access the map - and I started taking notes, because, er... I guess I just can't help it, when looking at hobby or fan projects. I assume criticism is something that could be helpful, anyway. No? Anyway. Here. A few things I noticed. (And imma sound harsh. I actually love your project, so don't take me wrong.) The Bad The writing is very flowery and dramatic There's nothing wrong with that in itself, but while I do love extremely dramatic narrations, it's important to avoid cliches. The way the narrator describes or reacts to certain things/situations feels very artificial, essentially much more like someone who is "trying to write about something" than someone who is actually "experiencing" or "thinking" something. The fact that the main character often uses elaborate and flowery figures of speech in narration, but also acts and expresses himself like a regular teenager at times, both in narration and dialogue (and the fact that certain figures of speech rely too much on cliches), makes him sound pretentious, overdramatic and unlikable, not smart and savvy. (And it's not the "good" sort of unlikeable, sometimes he simply comes off as a tool.) As a whole, the narration switches too much and too quickly between "eloquent and flowery" and "casual, direct and sarcastic". Off the top of my head, a few examples of cliches I saw: -Describing rain as a "sublime natural melody that washes away the filth of the earth" -"A short but exquisitely beautiful poem indeed." -The MC describing himself to someone else as a "mean cynical bastard" -In general, the MC being (imo) excessively vague about the words describing his past trauma, while still presenting it as something very serious and dramatic Dialogues are devoid of internal narration This is something that you rarely if ever see in books, because it makes for poor pacing. Dialogue will almost always be cut up by little bits of narration, either describing the thoughts of a narrating character, or providing insight on the external action in a scene. Since there's nothing of the sort (especially describing your protagonist's thoughts), the narrator doesn't feel present during dialogue - and that breaks immersion. Simply getting to witness the main character spit out replies to whoever he's talking to without having any idea of what's going on in his head severely disconnects the reader from the link they would expect to have with him. Artistically, some of the character expressions feel too stiff For example, this: http://i.imgur.com/cNVAccM.jpg?1http://i.imgur.com/5o8bPXr.jpg?1 is good. This: http://i.imgur.com/DCZFhf5.jpg?1http://i.imgur.com/1pGi9E2.jpg?1 http://i.imgur.com/x0znRUJ.jpg?1 is not. (For the first image, people don't generally narrow their eyelids while shouting or displaying clear, outward aggression. For the second image, I believe there might simply be a proportions/style issue, but the smile feels like it's much too wide for the proportions of the face, especially given how small the character's mouth is at all other times. For the third, the specular highlights on the eyes are simply way too strong, and give the impression that the eyes are either bulging out, or have been squished vertically from regular-size ones.) Another thing to keep in mind is that expressions should closely match the mood of a scene, and tone/intent of whatever is being said. For example, this expression: http://i.imgur.com/SIkf3PA.jpg?1 was used when introducing Rin. The dead, uninterested stare and slightly agape mouth would indicate that the character is very unreceptive, and likely in their own headspace, yet they're going out of their way to engage socially with a person they've never met - it doesn't really match. Some of the characters seem to have very "cookie-cutter" spritesets and personalities Basically, they look the same. Two of the first characters you meet, Rin and Akane, both interact in the exact same way when you meet them. They're both shy, calm, somewhat awkward, and seem to be perpetually carrying the facial expression of an archetypal dandere - something that looks a bit like :/ (Rin does get upset at the MC, but the way her introduction is carried out, that really doesn't seem like her dominant trait.) They also have very similar poses: front facing, shoulders perfectly aligned, knees bent inwards, with arms either falling flat or being presented in front of their stomach - and both occasionally raise a hand at shoulder/face level in a sign that tends to be a display of either politeness, friendliness or shyness/embarrassment. Their speech patterns are also noticeably similar - the best way I could describe Rin at this point (outside of forthcoming plot differences) is as a less cheerful Akane with a shorter temper. http://i.imgur.com/hxwEo3P.jpg?1 Expressions are different, but body language is almost the same! http://i.imgur.com/TCThcLq.jpg?1 Again, different expressions, but exact same body language. http://i.imgur.com/V16r3s6.jpg?1 And now they're making the same faces, too! And these are "expressive" expressions as well, not "neutral" ones that wouldn't vary much from character to character. I am of the opinion that this is a situation that should never happen. I've never put much thought into writing characters, so I may be speaking without experience here (and feel totally free to discredit me if I'm wrong), but I get the impression this might simply be happening because although both your writers and artists have a general idea of what they want each character to be like, since the VN is brand new, they might have simply not thought yet about how to *differentiate* each character. I basically feel like whichever characters end up being outed as too bland or similar after reviews could benefit from an additional design pass - think about body language, speech patterns, quirks, basically every way each character could distinguish themselves strongly from the generic "template" that all characters emerge from. The Good A good sound design and high-quality assets provide excellent immersion There's a lot of small details that aren't necessary for a VN to simply exist, but add a lot to the immersion by simply being there. From the ambient sound of rain, to the main character's cellphone buzzing (or actually displaying a cellphone model complete with caller ID), or having a falling rain animation over a background, I found a lot of very high-quality assets that came as a complete surprise. Lots of VNs would omit them, for example by simply displaying a spriteless background (or a background of a phone) to represent a phone conversation. I really, really like the way you guys are going the extra mile for all these relatively minor details, and it makes the game feel very polished and thought-out in that aspect. The general atmosphere of the VN is a lot darker I can still sense a clear preoccupation to add some charm, elements of humor and basically anything to "round off" the narrative and make it more than a Hollywood drama. However, as a whole, the VN has a somewhat gritty and somber appearance, which is refreshing because it's *not* the most common stereotype (everything seems to be cheerful and bubbly these days). This is something that's present in everything, from the narrative, art, music, heck, even color grading (which I love btw). It's consistent, cohesive, and imo should be your main selling point, because it's quite simply realized /well/. I also appreciate the flowery writing, though it's not always consistent and rife with cliches. It's generally decent (and definitely of workable quality), and that helps the VN stand out a little more. The overall production quality of the VN feels high Both the writing and art will benefit greatly from some additional polishing, but overall, your project feels a lot closer to something good than something bad. I'm confident you guys will be able to put out something great once you release. _______________________________________________________________________________ That's pretty much it (and yes, the good section is only shorter than the bad one because I try to provide examples of the issues I have, while the good points I found were much more general things, or didn't need as much explaining.) Lemme know what you think of all of that, and if you could use any of this criticism, or if I'm speaking complete bull and have no idea what I'm doing again.

So I've watched plenty of anime and read plenty of manga in the past years and I've started to notice a trend that has been developing in the course of all those years. When I began watching anime, in terms of romance anime, I was always hyped to see the protagonist with the main love interest, maybe because I was naive and just liked thinking "aw they like each other they should be together". But after a few hundred anime watched, I often now start off despising main love interests and always end up turning to the love rivals, even the ones I know have 0 chance of getting with the main character. And it's begun to pain me in the sense that nowadays most of the heroines I like and find interesting are never the main romantic interest and I can never bring myself to like the actual main interest most of the time. I always feel like the main interest is now plagued with tropes that make them appealling to the general public but to me they just feel like carbon copies, like hollow shells that have little personality and character depth, and I've started to become tired of a lot of the heroines I now see as main interests in the genre which makes for watching a lot of anime with romantic plots quite the painful task sometimes. Of course this is not to say I can't like all main heroines, there's always exceptions, but the majority really follows the trend. I feel like, while I genuinely usually only try to look at a character's personality, I can't help but notice that a lot of times rivals, just because they are rivals, or are characters with less chances to get with the MC, genuinely become more interesting to me based on their position in the story. This is also a major reason I've turned to VNs, so all my love for non main heroines can be fulfilled (at least in most cases). Does anyone feel this way? Do you find yourself liking the main heroine or the side heroines more?

What are those 2 other scary looking creatures? 3D world is a weird place

The key is the jealousy factor. The problem I have with most netorare VNs is that netorare is treated as sexual fetish material and the jealousy factor isn't properly leveraged. Good netorare can't be avoided with obvious choices, or there has to be consequences for avoiding it. In other words, it has to be experienced against one's will. School Days is an example of properly executed netorare, even though it was a minor theme.

Oh, when I said it's stupid it's only stupid from the consumer's point of view. Seems to works swimmingly for the publishers - Ubisoft still makes quite a lot of money. Most people who buy their games don't know or care that all they're buying is the divine right to download the bits.

"You young whippersnappers, back in my day those who got a cease and desist order and responded by ceasing and desisting were called rebels!"

Well, they do say that men do their thinking with an organ that isn't their brain.

That study was actually pretty interesting and also pretty depressing. Especially the part about people who don't read not taking part in other cultural activities. I guess the gap between normal riffraff and cultural elites like us is growing wider. Also necessary self praise for being from the country whose youth have the best reading skills in the world. The decline in reading is most likely the result of other readily available entertainment mediums. Why read books when you can read comics, watch Tv or do something that doesn't really require that much attention? I actually haven't read that many books in a while, mostly because I have been reading visual novels, playing games and such. It's really hard to find interesting books to read nowadays, most of the western stuff doesn't seem that interesting anymore. The only actual books I looking forward to reading are the Witcher ones, though I still read some other books very rarely. Oh, back to Visual novels. I think there is plenty of audience out there, despite the general amount of readers diminishing, we haven't just reached them yet. VNs are also pretty new medium in west considering so it's no wonder it's pretty unknown. The recognition has been growing rapidly in recent years and the release of bigger officially translated titles in popular platforms is sure to bring even more attention and more fans. Especially the titles released in Steam are going to get attention no matter what and hopefully change the general attitude to more positive one. The reputation of being only porn games is hurting. But I believe that visual novels will grow steadily much like every other medium has. We will still probably be pretty niche but that's fine as well.

Don't know if I'm just an anomaly here, but I don't read VNs for their fapworthiness

Well, obviously that's why h-scenes exist .

OH MAN you should see the crap posted to greenlight as an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-p7mOl1xDE

It's also the date I got circumcised five years ago. Yay Goku!

The following list only contains threads made from May 02 to May 09, any older thread will be placed under the "Updated" banner if new relevant content is added to it. If you don't know how the list works, please check the project thread. Discussion VN Reading Club Revival (Link) Favorite Visual Novel publishers? (Link) Otome games and the difference in emotional involvement (Link) Do otomeges have a higher chance of success than galges in the Western market? (Link) Western Genres for VNs (Link) Am I dreaming? Sakura no Uta -Sakura no Mori no Ue wo Mau- to be released on 07.24.015 (Link) (Spoilers) Was Terra a good route? (Rewrite) (Link) How Can Visual Novel Players Expose Newcomers to the Genre? (Link) How do you read VNs (Stolen from reddit) (Link) Has a VN ever made you depressed? (Link) Complete This Conversation - Episode 02! (Link) How do you determine that you have read a good Visual novel ? http://forums.fuwanovel.net/uploads/emoticons/default_happy.png' alt='^_^'> (Link) Blog Post Sakura-Con 2015 (Link) Anti-Feminism in VNs (Link) Japanese Word Processor / JWPce - The dictionary (Link) A farewell and some messages (Link) Announcement Magnificent//Omniversal Love (OELVN Project - Development) (Link)

Ah, ChuSinGura, so awesome. I don't think I'm ready to play it again yet, but that pic reminds me of why that story is so good.

Everyone just needs to learn Japanese. Then they can play all the VNs. Then we'll have more VNs to talk about. Problem solved. Batta bing batta bang batta boom.

So today I was playing Sharin no kuni Yuukyuu no Shounenshoujo again, I normally don't play vns in front of any family member or I try to do it while nobody is in the house, well this time I didn't... I don't know why, maybe it was because i thought that this novel didn't have any sex scene or at least I didn't remember having any(I remember having a minor bath scene but no sex or anything)...huge mistake, just when the eroge scene started my dad entered in my room...my god what a shitty situation, I started hitting the damn control key but the damn scene didn't want to end, it went on and on with my father right beside me not knowing what to say or do, same with me, I was sweating like crazy. So after a few minutes that felt like hours he started talking to me like if nothing was going on and then he left... Have any of you had a similar situation?

Testing 1 2 3 legit normal typing via dark theme. Testing 1 2 3 legit normal typing via dark theme.(copya pasta version while still typing post in dark theme version) Testing 1 2 3 legit normal typing via dark theme.(copya pasta version from dark theme then switch to other theme and paste) ^Yeah it happens if you copy text from dark theme then paste it while using another theme Remove Format is your friend, folks. Also, no-format copy pasting [Ctrl]+[shift]+[v] or NB's suggestion above.

Then they go out of business, no? These dealers work for the consumer most of the time. By making outrageous terms and getting people to leave in mass they doom themselves. Unfortunately, getting people to leave in mass doesn't quite work. The damn mindless sheep couldn't care less.

Did someone say Supreme Candy?

He says about the yet to be released VN.

I read visual novels because I don't like and/or can't focus when reading an actual book.

Go to your local college, or the closest one to your residence. If you don't get an Eon Ticket streetpass there, then something is wrong and that college is terrible.

You aren't an anomaly, I don't think. But you have to admit, when you talk about teens not reading, H-Scenes is certainly a point to bring up, no?

most efficient way is for example, to visit mg´s or JAST´s forum & submitt your license suggestions http://forums.mangagamer.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11&start=750 https://connect.jastusa.com/support/discussions/topics/5000025205 & yeah of course every participant is important, cause when noone makes use of this practice, they obviously wont know what the majority wants & therefore will keep on choosing games themselves. edit: sekai is not included for reasons, as for now i dont see them beeing interested in such titles, as well as nukige in general

Shinpachi best girl, Kazumi second. Pure chance that they are the bloodiest pair of girls, too.

The worst thing for me was that i had to fix the laptop of my mother (not living at home anymore) so it was just full with random stuff so i installed windows new and thought " hey maybe i could install swan song and play it tonight in my bed so its more comfortable " because i dont have a laptop. so the next day my mother came to visit me she takes the laptop and i totally forgot that it was still installed so in the next week she ask's me since when im so into weird stuff like that she doesn't understand english that well but she still managed to open the cg gallery and that wasnt really a help because on the first page are already some h scenes. she still brings it up sometimes

I guess, but writing good male protagonists takes effort I mostly stopped paying attention to male MCs just because there's absolutely no point in it most of the time and unless they're mind blowingly annoying I no longer care, so I mostly just care about the heroines and how they feel and stuff, so situations like this are kind of painful. This is also why Yuri is superior to het romance, because instead of just dealing with shitty male characters, you just pair the two heroines together and solve all the problems in the world.

Hello there! We appreciate the feedback, It means a lot to us and it also helps us improve our VN more and more. We're glad you like our project and hope you had a good time reading our demo. That said, the current demo is no longer representative of the core release anymore, since we now have 2 scenario writers and the story will be differently written and go down another path. Don't worry though, the atmosphere, the mood and the art direction will remain intact as well as the premise and general plot. We apologise for any issues you've encountered and we'll take your suggestions to heart. please do remember that this is our first novel, and because of the scope of the project we have cut corners at some places. We are after all a group of hobbyists working on this project on our free time and with our own resources. (we're a non-profit organisation) As such we don't take donations and our staff volunteered to help us out realise this endeavour with this in mind. Many thanks for your feedback again, we hope you stay around for more updates, content and a future demo. Kind regards, Red Lattice Studio Staff.

ill just say that the amount of unsolved cases a year of homicide is staggering and not in just third world nations . even here in the usa we have a huge number of cases that are never solved and no one is ever arrested. http://anepigone.blogspot.com/2013/01/rates-of-unsolved-murder-by-state.html have some slightly out of date stats.

Here's one from Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC:

I have quite a few scars, and don't even remember how I got half of them. How I got one of the scars is actually the cause of one of my phobias. Confession: I have mild Cynophobia. That's right. I have a fear of dogs. This stems from when I visited my grandma's house when I was a kid and her dog attacked me. I still have the scar on my face. I have 2 scars on my feet, one of which is when I dropped a knife on my foot and cut it open. The other is when I stepped on a bait hook, causing it to go straight through my toe.

Deep inside, everyone loves Hestia

I could build Noah's Ark before I see a single development for gods sake.

Welcome to the forums! Hope you enjoy your stay! How did you find out about Katawa Shoujo? Also who is best girl? Have a moe:

Welcome to the forum Flux )

welcome please hang your social life by the hanger behind the door.

Welcome I hope everything goes well with your project

May I join this? I will give some of my favorite ost on visual novel and some of my opinion. So, here goes 1. Final Boss BGM of Soukoku no Arterial Mutual Justice. Epic for Final Boss at each route (Although it may repetitive if you heard it for 100% completion). 2. Sengoku Rance Drivin' to the Dead. Sound epic mostly because it's your time to kick Xavier ass in middle game and this song is heard when you battling vs. Byakko (Most of the first player of Sengoku Rance will probably hearing it first at battle vs. Byakko anyway). 3. Midori no Umi OP. Calming, but make me rage like "WHY THE HELL THIS VN IS NOT IN ENGLISH YET???????" Sorry, just like express my anger lol (But the calming statement is right, so much I like to heard it many times). 4. Kara no Shoujo 2 OP. Same style as Midori no Umi imo (And obviously same singer, Shimotsuki Haruka). Waiting for the English release at this year by Mangagamer. 5. euphoria op. The violin is definitely will be not out of place if someone add it in Yoko Shimamura collection imo. As the game, well I better not touch it since it's not my taste mostly. But once again the OP is awesome enough to hear it again. That's all for now. I will probably add more in future

*grumbleGrumblegrumblegrumble!* Get off my lawn! *shakes a stick*

somehow forgot that reading ChuSinGura 46+1 exhausts your mind quite a bit...either way i´m halfway through again

Well this was my first promo UR , I was super hyped when I got it and immediately fed it till lvl 40 then after a live show , I found out the harsh truths, its stats are like that of some rares (starts with 3000p in its attribute), cool increases slightly and her skills isn't even that unique. I feel betrayed.

Favorite. Get it? Favorite? ... ... Ok I'll stop now.

(Last time…) Guy: "Oookay. I still think they're porny." (< not a word) Me: "That probably says more about you than the art style." *Tay gets slugged* Me: "Owww!" Guy: "No, but really. Why not just read a book or comic instead?" (And now for the "epic" conclusion!) Me: “What do you mean?” Guy: “I dunno. Why read *that”—“ *he waves a finger lazily at the PC screen* “when you could just read a comic or a book, instead?” Me: “Um. Because variety is a good thing? For example, do you eat the same thing for lunch every day?” *Uncomfortable moment of silence.* Me: “You do, don’t you?” Guy: “Yeah, generally.” Me: “Dang. Way to pull a Ford on me. Okay, so, that was a bad example –“ Guy: “Ford?” Me: “Henry Ford. The guy who made the cars? He’s famous for the line, ‘You can have any color [of Model T] as long as it's black.’ Meaning: sameness is boring.” *Guy’s eyes are still glazed over* Me: “Okay, fine. Tell me a hobby that interests you.” Guy: “NASCAR.” Me: “Um. No. Try again. Give me another one. A better one.” *Tay gets slugged* Me: “Owww!” Guy: “Music, then.” Me: *Rubbing arm* “What kind of music?” Guy: “Oh, all kinds.” Me: “What’s your favorite song?” Guy: “’The Angry American’ by Toby Keith” *Uncomfortable moment of silence* Me: “I’m feeling increasingly justified, here. If that’s your favorite song, we’ve got bigger problems to deal with.” *Continuing rapidly to avoid more pain* “Okay, so, by comparison – don’t you like listening to more than just that one song? Or to just Toby Keith? Isn’t it good to get some variety?” Guy: “I guess so. But I do listen to him most of the time. I don’t like much else.” Me: “You’re making this very hard, [Guy]. Anyway, I’m sure that if you searched your soul you’d discover that variety is a good thing and keeps life interesting. I do read books, but I also read these things—“ *pointing to PC screen* “—because they’re fun. And different.” Guy: “And porny.” Me: “What is it with you and that word?” Guy: “It’s just what they are, [Tay].” Me: *mucho annoyed look* Guy: “I’d be too embarrassed to get caught reading one of those.” Me: “How mature of you.” Guy: “They can’t be that much different than a book, man.” Me: “You’d be surprised.” Guy: “Not likely.” Me: “How about we make this interesting?” Guy: “Fine by me.” Me: “I’m going to let you borrow [my tablet] for a few hours. You’re going to play one of these ‘porny’ games. If it doesn’t impress you, I’ll buy you lunch. If it does impress you, however, you buy me lunch. And if it makes you cry, you have to take my afternoon shift.” Guy: “Fine. But if I hate it, you have to take my shift tomorrow morning.” Me: “Great.” *tap* *tap* *tap* Guy: “So what am I reading?” Me: “It’s a sunny little thing called 'Planetarian'.” *hands over tablet* Guy: “Wish me luck.” Me: “Good luck. Oh, and I locked the other apps, so you can’t snoop. Sorry.” Guy: “D*@%.” The After-Story: [Guy] loved Planetarian and he definitely cried. Lunch was delicious, as was having the afternoon off. He’s interested in trying another “porny game”, though I do not know which one I’ll recommend to him. I have not yet actually told him that there is, in fact, porn in some of the games. Mostly because I really hate the word “porny.”

Never had one, but I had one with conventional porn. So what happens is there is this one porn video I apparently downloaded months ago and forgot all about it. Windows Media Player picked this up and now displays a big-ass thumbnail of porn in its menu. I had no idea about this, of course. So when I decided to watch Hangover 2 with my (male) cousin in the living room, I was fine and dandy with connecting my effing laptop to the living room TV via HDMI. My mom and lil sister were in the room, and I decided to try opening the movie from windows media player. Thankfully, my sister was busy on her laptop and my mom was checking something on her phone. My cousin and I spotted the thumbnail at the same moment, but for the several seconds it was up there, it was scary as HELL.

I'm normally very careful when playing VNs but there was this one time at bandcamp- oh. Nevermind. Anyway, back when I was a teen (like a couple of centuries ago) I left my PC on and went off elsewhere. After like 1 hour I returned only to find my sister playing "True Love" (The dating sim) which I left paused. I quickly removed her from the premises and told her she shouldn't play this stuff as it wasn't for girls. She would still sneak in and play whenever I wasn't around and even got to finish it. the H-scenes didn't faze her.

I've got two. Once, I got on a plane and foolishly only brought 2 forms of entertainment for the whole trip: G-senjou and Kiss x Sis. Not knowing, I started kiss x sis in the airport but quickly realized how lewd it was and put that down. Then I continued playing g-senjou. When I got on the plane, for the first time in my life I did not sit next to an oversized american. It was a cute girl a few years older than me. But I didn't feel like talking to her and making a single serving friend, so I played my porn game. I avoided instant death by sensing an impending H scene with a heroine and turning the game off, but then I had to endure the remaining 6 hours of nothing. Second, probably more embarrassing for the recipient. My friend called me on Skype while I was QCing an H-scene that I was almost done, and I didn't have headphones on. He had to bear with such lines as AH NN JMELKMGH EUMA IUKUUUUUUUU~~~~~~~uUUU~~UU`uUU`U for a few minutes before asking me for a link.