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Mhmmm Fiddle ain't no fluke, though. He earned his Likes Context:

1. Only post in Coliseum of Chatter, where posts do not add to your post count 2. Due to the memey nature of CoC, farm Likes with awesome potassium posts 3. Profit jk, the dudes great indeed

Here's some examples of them removing guns from YuGiOh!: Aaaand then there's shit like what they did to One Piece 4Kids is fucking terrible. I don't know why they couldn't just license anime that didn't already need to be censored in order to make it onto western TV channels for kids.

Now, Ruitomo is one of 'those legendary VNs', the first kamige written by the Akatsuki Works team. It is well-known and often discussed amongst vets of playing untranslated VNs, and you can see how this was the formative stage for a team that would go on to make numerous great games in the future, most of them chuunige. First off, Ruitomo isn't a chuunige, at least in the classic sense. The protagonist is a trap who is bound by an inherited curse not to reveal his true gender, and the story begins with him encountering several others that also possess similar curses, as well as powers that he doesn't possess. Ruitomo is one of those games that doesn't easily fall into a genre or sub-genre, as it has elements of action, mystery, mindfuck, fantasy, and romance all wrapped into one big bundle. So, I just have to shrug and call it a 'story-focused VN', lol (as vague a term as moege or charage, haha). One thing that you should know about all Hino Wataru-written Akatsuki Works VNs... in every one of them a version of Akaneko (the final heroine of this one) appears, with the same personality, similar habits, and the same voice actor (Akaneko, Eru from Hello, Lady, Yuki from Comyu). Similarly, there is always at least one 'straight-man' heroine who tends to prefer correctness over everything else (Iyo in Ruitomo, Saku in Hello, Lady, Benio in Comyu, etc) I once read a crappy review that said this was a VN about friendship *spews laughter*. Sorry, but that was one reviewer who mistook one element of the story for the whole point of it. The real central theme of this VN is isolation, social ostracism, and moral relativity. Technically, all Akatsuki Works VNs indulge in moral relativity, so you can just ignore that one, since it is Hino Wataru's favorite dog to beat. The isolation and social ostracism elements are fairly obvious from the beginning. All the heroines and the protagonist are social outcasts by means of their curses. The protagonist is the most obvious example as it forces him to lie and distance others from himself, but others have their own issues. For instance, Rui's curse, the inability to make promises of any kind, is crippling in a modern world, where you have to be able to sign a contract just to find a place to live or 'promise' to be at work on time. To one extent or another, the others' curses hold them isolated and ostracized from society as well. Tomo is driven by a strong desire to escape his curse, intensified as time goes on by his growing fondness for his fellow curse-bearers and the guilt for deceiving them. I honestly can't help but like Tomo... he is selfish enough to be human but selfless enough when it comes to his friends to give his all for them. A lot of people who hate Akihito from Comyu will probably find Tomo to be far more pleasant, as that other's less pleasant qualities are diluted and his more pleasant ones enhanced in Tomo. He lacks Akihito's female-directed philanthropic spirit, but he does have a strong generosity of spirit to him... without the somewhat indiscriminate sexual mores of Akihito. One thing I think a lot of people who try to read this VN have trouble with, besides the somewhat complex turns of phrase that are endemic to all Hino Wataru works, is the way so much of the dialogue between the characters, even in the slice-of-life scenes, is... oblique, requiring reading between the lines to grasp the full content. A lot of this comes from the curses, both referencing them, avoiding referencing them, and avoiding activating them. However, at least some of it is simply an extension of how relatively easy with one another the group is in normal situations, despite their often conflicting personalities. These conversations are easier to follow if you get the characters' personalities and roles in the group, but if you have trouble with that kind of thing, you'll probably be left behind at times. Ruitomo has a definite playing order, with you being forced to play Rui's path before reading Atori's, Koyori's, and Iyo's (preferably in that order, or at least with Iyo as the last of the second three) and completing those four opening up Akaneko's path (the true path). I'll be blunt when I say that grasping the whole of the story without reading the first four paths is virtually impossible, so 'cheaters' who use 100% save files to get the true end first will just be screwing themselves over, lol. This VN's story starts out in the middle... one of Hino Wataru's questionable habits. For better or worse, he likes to thrust you into the middle of the prologue before dragging you back to the beginning of it, and Ruitomo is the VN that suffers the most for it, in my experience. To be blunt, it is really hard to figure out what is going on during the first scene, so about one-third of the people I've talked to that tried to read this VN dropped it or stalled within the first quarter of the prologue. However, as the VN goes on, its characters, their personalities, their troubles, and their experiences grow on you rapidly, until you can't help but be entranced. One thing that I was seriously impressed about, coming back to play this through a second time, was the meticulous way Hino Wataru designed the common route and the paths... he made sure everything was perfectly consistent as a whole, even if it didn't seem like it at first, and every single scene had at least some meaning in the greater context of the game as a whole, even if it might have seemed irrelevant or secondary in the path in which it existed. This shows off the rather impressive capacity for 'management of the details' that a very few writers in the VN world manage to display. There is a good reason why creating a large-scale story-focused VN (whether chuunige or not) tends to be rare. Most writers simply can't manage to maintain the internal consistency that you see in a VN like this one. Overall, I was actually more impressed this time around than I was the first time I played this. It is called a kamige for a reason... brilliance of design, emotional stimulation, intellectual stimulation, etc. The fact is that VNs on this level are exceedingly rare and always worth the price I pay to buy them. PS: I'll play the fandisc soon, though I might or might not manage to replay it before I begin playing this month's releases.

Nazi symbols are fine in art, sadly video games are still not recognized as art in Germany. However, Nazi symbols are not illegal per se, you're just not allowed to sell products with swastikas in public. That means for example: A German shop isn't allowed to sell Dies Irae in public. But I'm allowed to buy it. The shop is also allowed to sell me the product as long as the game itself is not showcased in the shop. Violence is historically the only thing that is censored in Germany. You guys might have heard of the Criminal Girls 2 and Valkyrie Drive debacle that happened recently and even we Germans are dumbfounded by it because it's so out of the ordinary. Most fanservice games got a 12+ rating in recent years even though they usually get a PEGI16 or M rating in EU and USA. Time will tell what happened there, I speculate some personal or political agenda is at work here. It's important to notice though, that "Germany" does not censor games. Publisher censor games so they can sell them to teens in Germany. Because Germany takes youth protection very seriously, which is not a bad thing. It goes like this: - Rating boards would rate a violent game with an 18+ label - Publisher wants more copies sold so he targets the 12+/16+ audience - Publisher censors the game to get the desired lower rating There are essentially no video games in Germany that are illegal. If you hear about a game being "banned" it essentially means it's 18+. Every adult in Germany can buy every game he wants. Even uncensored versions from other countries. It's just that some games aren't allowed to be publicly sold, like I mentioned above. But that doesn't mean they are illegal. No work of art is illegal in Germany as long as it's fiction. Censored games are the result of greedy publishers, not of German laws. No, I think it's important that someone tells the truth so that other people don't believe half-truths. We were speaking of importing stuff. "Distributing" is something entirely else. The term "wirklichkeitsnah" (realistic looking) is something which often spawns arguments between Germans who discuss this topic. There is always someone who argues "If a Manga looks too realistic, it's child porn". This however is NOT true. The meaning of "wirklichkeitsnah" is not a matter of interpretation. It's used for cases where a real abuse is filtered through a form of art. For example, an artist who uses a real child as a model. And it's safe for the customer to assume, that everything that is legally sold in Japan was produced without abusing a child. The BKA (German law enforcement agency) explicitly stated in an interview in regards to hentai, lolicon and such that these forms of entertainment never satisfy the condition of "wirklichkeitsnah". To use another example, even the most disgusting toddlercon eroguro doujinshi is legal in Germany. Because it's fiction. Being on the index doesn't mean that it's illegal. It only means it's liable to corrupt the young. Like I said many times in this post, not being allowed to be distributed does not mean that the product is illegal or that it's illegal to buy or own it. If you are/know German, try to look at this: Liste verbotener Medien in der BRD You will see that only a very small percentage of this list is actually illegal, and always for a good reason. Good reasons are for example (child/animal) abuse, glorification of violence (which is not justified as an element of art) or simple legal issues like not being authorized. There are no illegal video games and only three illegal movies (two of them show real animal abuse, the third is actually due to a mistake in evaluating the content and wouldn't even stand a chance in court... @XReaper knows what I'm talking about, but that is another matter altogether)

Go to VNDB and click on show 'Random visual novel' on the left side! Sorry, I couldn't resist...

Have an alternate account called Eclipsed who likes all my damn posts.

The idea the government has to be involved before it is actual censorship is nonsense. The Merriam-Webster definition of censor is as follows: Nowhere is that does it say anything about the government. An official could be anyone in position of power at a company or organization.

Hey guys whats going on in h....

It's more of a matter regarding standards and everchanging, modern ethics. Question remains - do you want to remain original, or will you sacrifice said originality to appeal to a wider, international market? It's inevitable a clash will occur. Eitherway, it's a lost cause, no matter how you look at it; if a creator feels the need to self-censorship their own work, you could as well ask, what was the point of making it the way it was originally meant to be. Censorship nowadays became an ingenious way to impact and influence others' works, all of which wouldn't be possible in any other way. It's bad, but it cannot be helped.

I blame Fiddle's lamp.

IMO if any changes are done to a game to make it less objectionable by whatever audience it's being adapted for, it's censorship. However, not all changes done to an adaption are for the purpose of making it less objectionable; some are done just to fit the audience better - and that may or may not include censoring. It's hard to determine without directly asking the persons involved in the making of an adaption whether a change was made for censorship reasons or to fit the audience better. For example, some fighter girl's armor might have looked pretty revealing in the original game but was replaced with armor that covers the body better in an adaption for the Western market. This could be due to censorship, or it could be simply because the people making the adaption thought Westerners would prefer the characters to have more practical armor that actually looks like it protects them, instead of leaving them exposed. I'd say it depends, sometimes the changes can obvious enough to determine that they were made due to censorship reasons. If an adaptation removes or totally changes many morally-questionable scenes it can be reasonably ascertained that this was done for censorship reasons. But if they do a few tweaks here and there like changing some characters' armor to be less revealing to better fit the audience, I'm not gonna hang them for it. Personally, though, I generally prefer adaptations to be as close to the original as possible. Thus, whether it's censorship or changing the game to fit the market better, I would likely still favor a more faithful adaptation.

Like I said in my previous blog post, I have been wanting to keep my blog more active for a while, and this time I'll be talking about yatagarasu's yurige, Seisai no Resonance. Before we get into it, I have to admit, I skipped a few routes in this one in order to get the true ending. (Nagi's true end.) It's not that the other girls in the game are bad, but more that Nagi was such an interesting character, her normal ending was not enough to satisfy me, so I HAD to skip to the true ending. (For a very annoying reason, you HAVE to complete at least another route, (possibly all of them?) after Nagi's before you can get Nagi's true ending, as Nagi's true end serves as the whole game's true route.) I ended up grabbing a 100% save file, so I could jump into her true route. Because of that, this post will primarily be talking about the common route, Nagi's route and the true ending. To quickly sum up the setting and start of the story. Kanae, our main character, travels to Otofuse Island to look for her mother, who vanished seven years ago. Otofuse is a small island closed off from the main land, where a strange ritual takes place every year. The reason for this ritual is, long ago, a big fireball fell down on the island, and a pair of shrine maidens were the ones who calmed down and sealed away the flames. Ever since that that, a yearly ritual is held, where two shrine maidens are picked to preform a similar sealing ritual like back then. The shrine maidens on the island now wield strange "gems" that grants them special powers. (More on this later.) Kanae takes a ferry to the island, but before she reaches Otofuse, a strange girl from a "shady" organization running the island, the shourai-kai, attacks her and she falls into the sea. Washed up ashore, Kanae is rescued by the beautiful and mysterious Mirai, who tells Kanae she has to become a shrine maiden in order to see her mother again. After a bit of a struggle, Kanae enrolls at Sakihana all-girls school, and aims to become a shrine maiden in order to see her mother. Gameplay This game has a rather interesting battle system, which is used for boss battles, training matches and so on in the game. (So, often when Kanae gets in a fight, you end up battling.) I personally found the gameplay very fun, but totally out of place. Because of how rarely you actually end up fighting, and how little the result of the battle matters, it almost just served as an obstacle between the story segments, which I did not enjoy. Like I said at first, the gameplay itself was actually pretty fun and well made, but it just... felt totally uncesessary. (At the end, I honestly just found myself annoyed at the fact that these battles were interrupting the story.) The combat is quite similar to fighting games like the Naruto PS3 games etc. You can move in a 360 angle, use different powers to fight your opponent, drain your "spirit(?)" as you preform special attacks and so on. Overall, although the gameplay started off as fun and was well made, I really didn't feel like it had a place in the game at all. Story As Kanae tries to become a powerful shrine maiden, so that she can be selected for the yearly ritual and see her mother, you learn more and more about what is actually going on in Otofuse. Why is the shourai-kai trying to kill Kanae? Why must Kanae become a shrine maiden in order to see her mother, and what happened to her mother seven years ago? What are the strange beings living in the forest outside the school grounds? I found the story very good, which was really cool for a yuri title, which often focuses primarily on the romance, not the story segments. Towards the end, I was glued to the screen, wondering what would happen next, and the way the game was paced was quite nice in my opinion. Some people have complained about the writing of the story, but I found it absolutely fine. It was entertaining from start to finish. Now, moving on from the common route, I will only be able to talk about the Nagi route and the true ending, but honestly, you should play this game just for that. (Short version, it was great.) Nagi and Kanae This is without a doubt one of my favorite yuri romances, ever. Kanae is goofy and funny, sociable and a little bit overly friendly with most people she meets. Nagi on the other hand, is a retracted, cold and cunning girl. (She is very intelligent when it comes to most things, but she isn't very good at social situations, unlike Kanae, and she is a bit of a tsundere under her closed off shell. Strange, but great mix.) At first, she uses Kanae for her own benefit, which is searching for an answer to a question she has had for a while. (Basically, what is actually going on? Nagi doesn't believe that the ritual and the shourai-kai is what it seems to be, and wants to dig deeper in order to find the truth.) Kanae wants to find her mother, and the two start working together. From there on out, one of the greatest yuri romances I have read unfolds. (And plot too, but pffft, who cares about that. ) The two of them are literal opposites, Kanae with her warmth and her flames, and Nagi with her cold attitude and her ice. (Going back to the powers I mentioned earlier, the true image of their soul is reflected in the shrine maiden's powers, which is summoned from a special stone they all have. (Kanae recieved hers as a gift from her mother years ago.) So, for the closed off Nagi, we have ice. And for the warm and loving Kanae, it's fire. As Kanae learns more about Nagi, she decides that she wants to be the one to "melt Nagi's ice," which is honestly one of my favorite quotes ever, and the two of them just fit so perfectly together in the game, as they are literal opposites. The pacing in Nagi's route is absolutely perfect, and the romance is slowly but surely introduced, so not rushed at all. There is also a fairly small amount of H-scenes, 2 for Nagi if I remember correctly, both of which happen at just the right time, which made the relationship between the two seem all the more real to me. (It's not like Koiken Otome, where you are showered in H-scenes fairly early on.) The fact that Nagi is the true heroine in the game is so, so right. She is a really great character, and her paired up with Kanae makes for a fantastic couple. One thing that did dissapoint me a little with the game was Nagi's normal ending, which in all honesty, is a "bad" ending, not a "normal"/"good" one. (It's very bittersweet.) The fact that you HAVE to play through the rest in order to unlock the true ending makes the time between the real Nagi ending and the "bad" one too great, and if you are going to play the game, I honestly recommend getting a 100% save file, so you can do the true ending in all it's glory right after Nagi's normal end. The rest of the cast and a conclusion The rest of the cast in Seisai no Resonance is great, with a few rather standard template characters like Yuu and Mako, but even they are quite interesting, and although I didn't play their routes, I very much enjoyed what I saw of them in the common route and Nagi's route+ the true end. My favorite character besides Nagi and Kanae has to be Yayako, Nagi's only friend before Kanae. She is such a hilarious character, and I will definitely be playing her route at some point. (And yes, that is a cat on her head.) Overall, Seisai no Resonance is a really great yurige with an interesting plot, well written romance and an interesting cast. The gameplay, although well made, serves more as a distraction from the story, and could in all honesty have been removed. But, despite that, I really enjoyed the game, and would strongly recommend it to all yuri fans. (The game's opening, for those interested)

Welcome back! Fellow programmers! Hello and welcome back to my 5 part guide "How to code a VN with Ren'py" Today we will cover options customisation and we'll try coding a sample scene as I'm sure you're itching to begin programming your very own visual novels. Fear not as you are on the right track and if you've checked out part 1 then you'll have no problem figuring this second part out (Hopefully, since my explaining is terrible. XD) That said please bear in mind once more that this is not an infalible guide to program with python or ren'py and it will not make you an expert after you've read it. However I'll do my best to try and explain how to code a VN with Ren'py to the best of my ability and I will be with you for the entirety of this guide. So let's go fellow programmers! the sky is not the limit as your creativity is...boundless. Let's start, shall we? Ok, let's go ahead and configure our options before anything else. We need to have a clear idea of how we want our VN to look before delving into programing and scripting so let's do that right now. First go to your Hub and click on "Options.rpy" to edit it. The Editra window will appear shortly: Let's see.... config.developer = This function will allow you to use Ren'py console, the image picker and the dev tools. Set it to "True" while developing your VN and only set it to "False" when you're about to publish content. config.screen width/height = The default resolution of your VN. For now let's work with the new resolution norm which is 1280x720. IMPORTANT: If you're on a netbook, 720 is too large a resolution for most netbooks. In this case set the resolution to 853x480. Now continue scrolling down to configure more stuff. theme. = Here you can check what default theme you're currently using. If you're planning on creating your own custom theme, then it doesn't really matter what theme you picked. You can also change it anytime. For now leave this value as is since you already picked a theme. widget = Color of widgets/text and other theme menus. You can change the colour with the corresponding HTML code. As shown on part 1 of this guide, you can see the code with the help of image editing software or an HTML color picker (several of them online.) This is only for default theme, if you're planning on creating your own custom theme you can leave this values as is for now. mm_root = stands for Main Menu. This is a simple hook for an image. This image is going to be your Title screen background. Since we're not yet fiddling with custom themes let's use this hook for now. Prepare a picture that you wish to use, preferably with 1280x720 resoution for the sake of consistency with this test VN and place it inside the game folder. Let's assume the name of the picture is: "menu screen.png" Put it inside "game" folder. Done? Ok now come back to the options script and set mm_root = "menu screen.png", (Don't forget the comma at the end.) gm_root = stands for Game Menu. This is a simple hook for an image. This image is going to be your sub screens background. Since we're not yet fiddling with custom themes let's use this hook for now. Prepare a picture that you wish to use, preferably with 1280x720 resoution for the sake of consistency with this test VN and place it inside the game folder. Let's assume the name of the picture is: "sub menu screen.png" Put it inside "game" folder. Done? Ok now come back options script and set mm_root = "sub menu screen.png", (Don't forget the comma at the end.) Once that's done, let's keep scrolling down for yet more configuration. style.window.background = Frame: The hook for your text box image. There are many ways to set up this image but the easiest one is to create a text box with predefined width and height. Since we're using 1280x720, go create a rectangular text box of 1183x138 pixels in your favorite image editing software (like Photoshop). Once you're done save as "text frame.png" and put it inside the "game" folder. Then come back and set style.window.background = Frame ("text frame.png", 0, 0) like in the picture. style.window_margin: The values for textbox clipping. Like the picture says, these are for cropping your textbox and centering so it doesn't look stretched and fits the 16:9 format comfortably. Now that you know that, go set the first 2 values to "100" Done? ok, let's proceed. style.window_padding: The values for text padding. This will center the text which will otherwise will be aligned to the left by default. Since we're not using the 4:3 format we need to change it so it is aligned to the widescreen text box. First REMEMBER TO REMOVE THE # SYMBOLS and edit the first 2 values to: "200" don't touch the third value and edit the last value to: "50." Ready? let's carry on then. style.window.yminimum: The minimum height of the text box. Is best to leave as is for now but also good to know that it's for adjusting the height of your text box. style.default: Text styling. This is custom code and won't appear on your scripts. As the picture says it helps your text look less plain by adding shadows and outlines. You can freely customize these later. For now copy them up exactly as shown in the picture. Once you're done, scroll down for more configuring. style.default.font: The font that will be used for your in-game text. This spans ALL scripted/vmenu text without exception so be sure to pick a sober and readable font. Picking a cool font is a good idea too, but you need to make sure that players will be able to read it without problems. That said go to your favorite font webpage and download a font of your liking. You don't need to install it, just put it inside the "game" folder. Once you've done it, return here and type the name of the font: style.defautl.font = "your font's name.ttf" (don't forget the .ttf at the end.) Once that's done, let's continue. style.default.size: The default size of your font. If the font you picked is too small or too big for your textbox you can edit the size here to correct any text size issues. style.button/imagemap.activate_sound, config.enter/exit_sound: To make your VN play sounds when you pick a choice or enter/exit a menu simply get an audio file in mp3 and place it inside the game folder, then come back to the script and type the name of the audio file as shown in the picture. Once that's done let's go on. config.main_menu_music = the music of the main menu. This simple hook summons an audio track to play it every time you are in the title screen. Go get an audio file (preferably in mp3) and put it inside the game folder. (It's best if you rename it to "main menu.mp3") Now come back to the script and type the name of the audio file as shown in the picture. Done? ok, that's that and now we proceed to check your assets! This section is relatively simple. All you need to do is to check that all your assets are in place inside the "game" folder before proceeding to edit the script. You will constantly have to be checking your assets and managing them for insertion so that when you define them vpia the script, you don't have any trouble by a missing asset or a filename issue. That said, go to your hub and click on "game" to open the game folder which should look more or less like this: As you can see here are the backgrounds, sprites, the font you will use for text, your text frame and audio files. The only things we haven't covered so far are the backgrounds and sprites. These are not 100% essential for this test script but you are welcome to add them if you want. If you want to try a test VN without Backgrounds and sprites then scroll down to the next section, otherwise keep reading. About sprites: Plainly speaking, sprites are the visual representation of your characters and most if not all of your favorite VN's have their own sprites for each relevant character. Sprites come as a set of several expressions which denote emotion and body poses. They add to the immersion and give more personality to each character. We will talk more about this later but for now you can open your favorite image editing software and draw 3 sprites. You can use the ones I have in this folder as reference which are a caricature of yours truly One of the sprites features no emotion, the second one is happy and the third one is up to you. It can be angry, ecstasic, playful or whatever. We just need 3 sprites with some emotion variation. Anything goes, hell it can be a circle with eyes and mouth, just as long as it depicts expressions it's a sound approach. Once you're done with your sprites, save them in png format and name them as you like. Put it inside the game folder. You'll be defining them once we get to edit the main script. About backgrounds: Backgrounds also called BGI are visual representations of the environment your characters will interact at. Backgrounds are one of the most aesthetic driven assets, as they set the mood and give life to the world you're creating. While the gorgeous anime style of the BGI present in your favorite VNs is by no means an easy feat, there are solid alternatives that still look good, you can for example take pictures of certain places and use those pictures as backgrounds for your VN. It is a popular method and one that is used by professional studios. Alternatively you can draw a background by yourself, even if it's simple, and if you have the talent then by all means draw a nice one. Once you're done with your background image, save it in png format with a resolution of 1280x720, since it will cover the entire game window. Name it as you like and don't forget to put it inside your game folder. You'll define it once we get to edit the main script. Here it comes! All those painful minutes bearing with my ugly explaining and my ghastly orthography have finally paid off! We are ready for the belated creation step: "The coding and scripting process" Bear in mind that this is just a very short test script which covers the basics of what a VN is made of (code wise) so this means that there's still a lot more to learn about Ren'py before jumping headlong into a project. Don't worry though, I promise I will help you in any way I can and I'll be with you till the end of this guide and beyond! Let's dive right in; click on script.rpy and Editra should open shortly. Let's take a look at the test script which we will work with. As you remember from part 1 our script had a couple of lines and nothing more, well now the script I prepared for you is ripe with a bunch of useful stuff for you to use as a reference. I strongly encourage you to make use of this script in order to digest the coding more easily. 1. Image definitions: You have to define your images in order to use them. Renpy uses these definitions to summon the image and display it in-game. For now, define the sprites you created earlier. don't forget to use the EXACT same filename you used for naming them, including the extension (.png, jpg, etc.) If you decided NOT to use sprites you can skip this step. 2.Image definitions cont.: You can separare the sprite definitions from the bgi ones. It's a nice trick to keep track of what is what. Follow the example and define your background image for use in the test. If you decided NOT to use background images, you may skip this step. 3.Character definitions: Here you define the characters that will star in your VN. Just follow the code and recycle if necessary. If you want a different color for the text simply use the corresponding HTML color code. (There are plenty color pickers online.) The small letter after "define" is the hook you're going to use for calling your character so EVERY line that you start with that letter will summon that character. (example: a "Blah blah." = Your chara: Blah blah ) 4.Labels: As we discussed earlier in part 1, labels are "markers" of sorts that signal the beginning of a scene, arc, chapter, event, whatever. They are handy for keeping track of your scenes and can also be used as "warp points" between other labels by means of the "jump" command. 5."Scene" command: Always start a label with a "scene" this clears caches and layers giving you a clean slate start for summoning your images, backgrounds, sprites, music, etc. Do remember that using this command while there are assets displayed on the screen will hide them, so only use this when you plan to move into a new location/scene/time skip, etc. 6. "Music" command: The example on the picture is how you make Ren'py play a song to ambient your VN. Use the code as reference for your test script. Just make sure that the song you have prepared for this is inside your "game" folder in mp3 format. The "fade in" instruction is to ensure that the song doesn't start playing too abruptly. you can also use the "stop music" command to end the playback. Otherwise the music will loop indefinitely. 7. "Show" and "With" : The bread and butter of your coding. Both these simple instructions are used to summon most of your graphical assets and annex a fancy transition effect to them. Remember to define every image before using the "show" command. Attempting to use an image that you have yet not defined will crash Ren'py or throw you an error. The command "with" is used to add transitions, in this case we added "dissolve" but there are many other types you can use. 8. "Character voice": As we described it earlier, using the hook to call a character's voice is the way to represent a character's speech. in this case we used "h" as a hook but you can use any other letter you like as long as your character definition has that letter assigned. If you don't use any hook the line will be rendered as narration. 9. A jump label: We will use this jump label to go back to it if we need to from any point in the script by using "jump (name of the label here)." 10. FLAGS (SUPER IMPORTANT): Unless you plan on making a kinetic novel (novel without choices) Flags are a key ingredient for any script. If you've played plenty of VNs already you know what flags are. If not, its pretty simple: Tripping flags scores you points with certain heroine or save certain data for the game to remember later (example. using a flag so the game remembers when you visited certain place or picked certain option.) In this example the flag we have is set to "False" YOU NEED TO SET A FLAG TO FALSE BEFORE SUMMONING IT LATER, OTHERWISE REN'PY WILL CRASH WITH AN ERROR READING: "xxxxx not defined" In a few minutes we will summon this flag for triggering. 11. Sound command: This is the code for summoning an audio file for a short sound effect. Bear in mind that unlike music, sounds DO NOT loop, they only play once. 12. Menu: Yet another important instruction for VNs with choices. the menu command is used to prompt a choice for the player. The choice menu can have any number of options available, provided there's enough space on the game window and enough branched script for Ren'py to follow. This is one of the most challenging aspects of VN coding but once you grasp the theory behind it, the rest is plenty easy. For now just copy the script. You will understand more as we explore the other points. 13. The Choice menu: This is the code for a typical two option choice menu. With this the player is prompted with the question of which path to take. Just as your protagonist knows there are consequences for each decision, so should you. That's why you have to write what happens depending on the choice picked. Notice the "$ pantsu_1 = True" ? this is the flag that we were talking about earlier. If the player picks the top choice, THIS FLAG IS TRIPPED, and the game will remember this choice. 14. If and else: Once a flag is tripped the game stores that flag as true and it can be used to summon a specific script which is otherwise inaccessible. In this bit of code we have the "if" and "else" conditionals, and ("if") the player picked the top choice, then the first line will be summoned. The opposite is true for the second line which is summoned if the player didn't pick the top choice ("else") 15. Advanced if and else: Once you get the hang of how the conditionals work you'll be able to play around with them and create interesting branched plots with various developments. In this example the script remembers the choice you picked and comments on that choice. 16. Jumping to another label: Exactly as discussed before, this is a jump point that allows you to instantly go back to a certain scene/event/script. In this example you can jump back to the choice menu should you like to pick a different option. 17. Return: This is a rather simple command that returns the player to the title screen. Don't forget this, otherwise you'll run to a crash. If for some reason you forget to include it, you can manually quit the VN vía the sub menu. Now that you've read all these points it's time for you to test the script we just created. Save the changes you made to the "script.rpy" file and close it. Then on the Hub window, click on "LAUNCH PROJECT" Let's take a peek at how the test VN looks! The main menu screen. The sub menu/ preferences screen. The script comes to life! The choice menu. Picked the right choice of course. :3 Success! The test script works! And that's it for the second part of this guide, kind sirs and madams. I thank you deeply for reading this far and bearing with my ugly orthography and sorry attempts at explaining. You are now one step ahead into programming your visual novel and we'll work together for the remainder of this process. Don't forget your passion for VNs and don't lose motivation, programming a VN is hard but your efforts will certainly pay off. Do join me next time, when I'll be covering: Detailed explanations on coding instructions and some interesting programming tricks. Many thanks for your time and until then. See ya Kind regards. Helvetica Standard.

Well, the Oreimo and Toradora game weren't that bad...

What are you even trying to say? Generic protagonists are the standard in VNs, most of which ultimately are escapist waifu fantasies (the reason why most VNs have multiple routes that focus on one of several love interests). The protagonist is simply a vessel for the player to interact with the world, and thus too strong a personality could rebuff players who can't easily get behind a character with a fundamentally different personality than their own. Thus we end up with generic "blank slate" protagonists who are mostly defined by their interactions with other characters and by the events that transpire.

8000* if you wanna use a meme, use it well.

You may be the very first comment about Re;Zero i actually enjoy... Nah, the second actually. But you said it, subaru is not bland, he has a pretty fixed persona, and for a VN, it's not the best thing, unless you make a kinetic novel, but then, i really don't find any use for this VN, unless those butthurt that subaru took the very illogical decision to try to sodomize the elf girl.

In theory you are correct, however in practice it falls apart. There is a reason that VN adaptations are blander than a bowel of grits. The author never intended for certain heroines to end up with the protagonist, so once one of these plops out they have to torture the poor source material to fit into the mold. The original structured plot, with all the twists and turns that made the source material interesting, gets torn out and replaced with something easily malleable to fit the possibilities of the protagonist ending up with the other heroines. Which usually ends up being pretty boring, because why come up with new interesting plots when people are going to buy it for the waifus anyways? I would personally just wait for the doujins to come out, it's cheaper, you don't get bored out of your skull, and there will be actual boneing at the end of it. Although this entire discussion is probably mute as I bet this will be a vita exclusive, which has zero chance of being localized in the west.

This entire sentence is quite the spicy meme. Good one mate. Honestly, I was gonna write this off as your typical shitty visual novel spin off (I have yet to play a visual novel based off an anime that's actually memorable and not a simple cash in), but due to 5pb being involved, I am actually sorta hopeful they do something interesting with the license. Only time will tell I guess.

I don't have faith in those adapions, it looks like a cheap cash grab.

Infinite Neurons Terrorize Raptors Angrily Virginia Apparently Strikes Connecticut Utah Loves Alabama Righteously Iowa Tiredly Yawns

Fiddle is da man No strategy involved in his post/like ratio, he's just that good.

Somebody has to ask the important questions:

That Satan -> Prince of Darkness cencorship accusation makes me think that obviously English eroge localisations are cencoring eroge by removing mosaics! Yeah... That is obviously ridiculous claim. Still I don't think it is exactly wrong that people complain loudly about cencorship (even if it really isn't cencorship). I mean that is way to get attention and some companies can cater to them as a result, that could benefit both the people complaining and the companies.

I have decided to reread Cartagra ~Tsuki kurui no Yamai~ , Kara no Shoujo , Kara no Shoujo 2 and then i am going to read Flowers -Le Volume sur Printemps-.

The joke "removed" from pillars of eternity, the changes made to the baldur's gate expansion, yes I'm giving you an example of both sides that lead to censorship or "coerced" them into changing their own game for political sensibilities as a trend of how society is today. I wont give you examples of main characters being females because you wont hear a guy from BioWare for example, stating something like that in public but yes there are several cases out there, then again you don't believe is because of that which I think is naive.

Not at all. You haven't established that every time a developer swaps a male character for a female one, it's done for political reasons. And if you want to take that example as being done solely for political reasons, that's what you'll have to establish. Not that 'it's sometimes done for political reasons', but 'it's always done for political reasons'. If the game targets the female audience for than a male audience, than it would (for financial reasons) make more sense to have a female protagonist. Important semantics. People like to give topics more worth than they have by labelling it with a word that has powerful emotions attached to it. 'Censorship' is much more powerful than 'forced change', and so if someone wants to hype up an issue they'll attach such a word. Taking back that word and reserving it for situations for which it solely applies will keep the gaming community (like Deep Blue) from devaluing it and also stop them from hyping up issues which aren't as important. The overhyping of petty issues is irritating, and misusing words is partly how it's done.

I'm done with Fuwa for a while, place is getting toxic - at least the threads I happen to read Some people are just antagonistic by nature, and I'm really close to snapping at them, if I'm not already on their ignore list. If you need me, or just wanna shoot the breeze, catch me on Twitter~

Censorship doesn't encompass all types of changes, or even coerced changes. You can disapprove of coercion without calling it censorship, which encompasses suppression of speech considered "objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient". Censorship is not a catch-all word for undesirable changes, and indeed some types of censorship could be desirable in some contexts (e.g., censorship of hate speech or child pornography). I myself use the word broadly, perhaps over-broadly, but I temper this by clearly explaining terms, inclusion criteria, and what was specifically changed in each game. I try not to make value judgements in my censored eroge list: I simply collect data, categorize it using objective criteria, and let readers sort through it themselves and make their own value judgements.

I do remember how for a good year it was the best selling VN ever in the west until Steins;Gate toppled it (pre-steam), and it's still a strong contender on Steam. How many bundles has Agarest 1 been in compared to the sequels? Also, this is purely personal opinion, but I thought Agarest was boring, poorly designed trash and skipped the sequels after playing the first and coming to hate it.

....wait you serious? HOLY SHIT!!

The problem with this is that obviously all forms of self censorship are censorship. Even I agree with this. The poll is worthless.

Okay, Sanah asked me to compile what I wrote in a private message (which aren't at all long, they're all just the right size) into a forum post. But to be honest I tried and I just don't have the strength to do it right now, so I'll just post my messages. Have fun everybody, it's a mess. I write a lot more loosely in PMs than I do on forum posts. Applying it back to the topic: Q1 - Is self-censorship actually censorship? A - Yes Q2 - Should self-censorship in gaming be opposed? A - No. It depends on context. Additional question - Is everything the community think is censorship always censorship? A - No. Care is needed here.

#TeamRem.

Thanks, there could be no greater compliment for an Aussie.

Now it's all a matter of waiting for the complaints regarding sex scenes being removed and the translation sucking so much it disrespects every author in the world. Can't wait!

Shin Hayarigami 1 + 2 Clock Zero Black Wolves Saga

I just use the first things that come to mind that work together. Glad you liked it. Pulling out the big words already are we? People Everywhere Realize Possible Levitation Exudes Xanthic Irritation Troubling Youths Goddamn X's. That's two words, but I'll work with it. Parents Really Eat Terrible Treats Yearly Caustic URL's Ravish Everybody Not On Gdi Saki. Here goes nothing. Sometimes Hentai Isn't Kinky Orally Masturbation Is Zestful Usually Everytime ...

This is a long comprehesive guide It has now been moved to the mainsite. to read it click the chapter images for the individual parts: note: part 4-5 not made yet. but hopefully will be added in future

As some fat guy once said...