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Showing content with the highest reputation on 09/06/19 in all areas

  1. ill tell you why! every single character in that vn is haunted by something. whether its aoi feeling empty after seemingly life taking his meaning of waking up in the morning, or kotoris freedom when she lost her legs, or agehas regret for not pursuing the one she loves, or amane trying to fulfill a promise to her first best friend! all the characters are at their lowest but they come together, not to save humanity or to even save their school, but to fight for a new dream! something they can fight for and say looking back "I tried my hardest and dammit, we did it! our dreams came true!" you all who read it, this image alone should be enough to convey the deep emotional feelings this vn brings upon you like a rock!
    3 points
  2. Hey guys, and thank you all for supporting Cerulean Days' Kickstarter thus far! This a short update to let you know that there's now only roughly 48 hours left of the Kickstarter campaign – now's the time to strike if you're interested in any of our Kickstarter-exclusive rewards. After the campaign has been finished, the majority of rewards will not be available again. The 18+ stretch goal is not yet reached, so please check out the campaign if you think you'd be interested in helping out towards that! Leaf
    2 points
  3. I know it’s a bit overrated, but when I played Katawa Shoujo, I got emotionally attached to it for several reasons. First, because I have a developmental disability which forced me to take medication every day. At first I was sad that this will destroy my already scarce interactions with people, but after I saw the protagonist managing to bond with the girls, I realized that this is by no means the worst thing that could happen to me, and I begun to have faith in humanity. Second, I wasn’t interested into mainstream media, and this gave me an escape to the norms I was supposed to follow. And I know this will sound weird, but even though this is an American VN, I was sick of most mainstream movies, since I found most of them are extremely violent (when I started the game), so KS showed that there is an alternative to the “American way of life” of becoming happy. As my mother said when we where in a cultural festival, “you see most American movies filled with death and violence, whereas you enjoy something that is more peaceful”. Sorry for not bringing anything else, university and a severe block stopped me from actualy enjoying another VN, let alone try an untranslated one.
    2 points
  4. Plk_Lesiak

    Nintendo Switch VN

    I think it'll mostly come to publisher policy. Sekai is very interested in reaching out to consoles with their Sekai Games branch and I think we'll see a steady stream of digital Switch releases from them. I hope other companies will follow – while I don't have a Switch and probably won't ever bother to get one, it's a huge market and VNs are very cool choice for a portable system. Unless the porting process is particularily tricky (and it doesn't seem to be considering the number of indie VNs already there), it'd be just stupid for JAST or MangaGamer to not explore it, especially now when Nintendo proves less problematic to work with than Sony or Steam. And having some quality all-ages titles like Flowers there could even do some good for the medium as a whole.
    2 points
  5. Hello! Created a new free character sprite that's available for download at the following link: https://liah0227.itch.io/saki other free character sprites I have: https://liah0227.itch.io/female-student-1 https://liah0227.itch.io/female-student-2 Feel free to download and use in your visual novel games. I might add some updates on it in the future like additional outfit or expressions. Happy Developing!
    2 points
  6. Cool looking male uniforms are nearly impossible to find...I'll just stick with females. I really like the color palette of the Sono Hanabira uniforms, and the flowing designs in the Sakura no Uta and Subarashiki Hibi uniforms are also really appealing to me.
    1 point
  7. Cosplay Fetish Academy. For serious answer, I guess there's both of Nine and Saku Saku uniform, Hoshiori, and Fureraba. By the way most of the male uniform here is usually quite similar in term of design, which is understandable seeing that the staffs would likely design the uniform for the heroines first and then male students.
    1 point
  8. Check out my interview with Georgina Bensley, the founder of Hanako Games, published recently on Fuwanovel Welcome back to another one of my seasonal (yup, I get enough things sent my way for that to be a thing now) summary of games given to me for review through the EVN Chronicles Steam Curator page. Once more, I’ll be focusing on the shorter titles, that would most likely be hard to write a full-length review about or had to give up their spots for games I really wanted to cover in detail. This, of course, doesn’t mean there are no really interesting VNs among them. In today's list, the title standing out the most is undoubtedly Jack-In-A-Castle, a whimsical tale about a world populated by living toys and a marionette investigating the disappearance of its king. This extended version of a free NaNoRenO 2019 VN proved to be an unusual and twisted experience that caught me completely by surprise. While the other three games I’ll cover this time didn’t offer similar levels of quality, all of them proved interesting in their own ways – even if they didn’t subvert my expectation quite like they wanted to... Jack-In-A-Castle Every once in awhile, I stumble upon small VNs so unusual and creative that they’re hard to categorize. Jack-In-A-Castle is, by its own admission, a rather cute, cartoonish boy’s love story happening in a fantastic world populated by animated toys. However, there are a few caveats to it: the BL label feels somewhat irrelevant considering the androgynous designs of the main characters (particularly the protagonist, Marion) and the relatively tame relationships they develop. Between all those cute living toys and minimalistic love stories they’re involved in, gender barely seems to hold any meaning. At the same time, the cartoonish art can be misleading in its own way – the game features some mature themes and the characters, Marion in particular, can be quite devious and even violent (although such things are mostly presented off-screen). The three hero routes all develop in pretty unpredictable directions, leading Marion to resolve the mystery of the missing king and the tenuous regency of his right-hand-man, Jack, in vastly different ways (or not at all). This makes for a surprisingly engaging and fun experience – varied, cleverly written and executed with a lot of attention to detail. The game’s environments change to reflect the plot progression (mainly through the constant spread of mysterious vines infecting the titular castle). What seems like throwaway choices can lead to some drastic consequences, completely subverting your expectations. Everything is presented in a distinctly stylish manner, with the simplicity of character and background designs being outweighed by their expressiveness and the quirky atmosphere they create. The overall impression I’ve got from Jack-In-A-Castle was extremely positive and I highly recommend checking it out – unless you’re hoping for traditional VN romance, it definitely won’t disappoint you. Final Rating: Highly Recommended Elf Enchanter: Arousing Anima Belgerum is a developer of small hentai games that combine VN-style storytelling and simple, RPG-like battle mechanics. After his surprise hit from 2018 NaNoRen0 contest, Demon King Domination, he capitalised on it with an extended, commercial version that reached decent popularity on Steam. Later he also created a follow-up game, Magebuster, once more featuring a supernatural, villainous protagonist and an antagonistic heroine he has to dominate. His third title, Elf Enchanter, was meant to partially break away from this formula, being a “pure” visual novel and not focusing so much on dark themes. Featuring a support mage that accidentally casts a taming spell on his dark elf companion, making her incapable of opposing his commands, it sounded quite intriguing in theory: I usually find games where you’re given complete power over other people, and can use it for either good or bad, very compelling. Elf Enchanter, however, does very little with this setup: featuring only a few choices and three possible endings, it’s too short and basic to really engage you in its narrative, while the 5 h-scenes (two unavoidable one and one extra per each ending) are average in quality and only one of them stands out with some unusual elements. It’s quite adequate as a $1 nukige (that’s how much it costs on Steam), but ultimately very forgettable – and that’s a shame, as with just a bit more content and complexity, it could’ve been a really cool experience worthy of a much more serious price tag. Maybe another time… Final Rating: Cautiously Recommended Kingdom of Lies The fact that Visual Novels are somewhat easy to put-together, even without any programming prowess or high-quality assets involved, makes it quite common for extremely low-effort ones, or straight-up troll games in VN form, to reach Steam. Kingdom of Lies looks like one of the latter, a cynical attempt at trolling and getting attention with edgy content, but is actually something a bit different – a confusing, broken and ultimately unplayable mess, that still quite a lot of work and thought went into. It features a really strange story about a maniacal-murderer protagonist, guided by a demon (represented by gradually-decaying rat corpse) into a killing spree in a modern-fantasy setting. It then combines it with some literally-impossible Hotline Miami-style gameplay sections and minigames that will make your head hurt (although the combination of shogi, go and chess on a three-dimensional board and with a possibility to modify rules was pretty hilarious). All of that coupled with MS Paint-grade visuals, tons of anti-SJW memes and high levels of randomness. It’s quite possible that I haven’t seen this much effort going into something so overwhelmingly bad since Sonic Boom and if the game was just a battle bit less broken, I could’ve even suggested checking it out for its hypnotizing trainwreck-like qualities. It also involves a few genuinely cool ideas: for example, the rat corpse/demon you communicate with before every mission is quite disturbing, with the constant decay and disease it seems to spread all around it being well-portrayed despite the simplistic graphics. In reality, though, the experience of playing Kingdom of Lies is just too confusing and frustrating to be worth it. Final Rating: Not Recommended Caladria Chronicles Caladria Chronicles is a debut VN by a small studio called Starlight Visual, one which was meant to launch a whole saga set in the titular modern-fantasy world of Caladria. It’s also, by most measures, a rather spectacular trainwreck: overly ambitious, unfocused and grossly unpolished in its execution. The full voice acting is a mixed bag at best, with some characters being hard to listen to and whole lines misplaced or missing. The narrative lacks clear protagonists, and introduces way too many character and subplots within its 3-hours reading time. The humour is very much hit-and-miss, with two rather unbearable chuuni characters at the center of most of the gags. The anime clichés are everywhere and their presence, along with many explicit references to Japan, are utterly confusing unless you took your time and read the game’s encyclopaedia, explaining many crucial lore details that are never properly communicated in the story. An encyclopaedia which, BTW, is also full of errors and clunky writing. Why do I leave this game with a positive recommendation then? Not because I necessarily advice reading it, but because of a huge potential I see in its setting and some of its characters. Caladria is a copycat world – a planet whose people used the help of mystical being known as angels to gain knowledge of Earth’s history, technology and culture. They then proceeded to copy and expand on all of it, boosting their own development in incredible ways. In the process, Caladria lost most of its own identity, with whole nations mimicking Earth’s civilizations and identifying with these artificially-imported, second-hand cultures. With a few forms of magic and a tumulous political situation added to the mix, the setting itself offers great promise, even if the first game only briefly touches on its most interesting aspects. While for now, Caladria Chronicles can be only worth experiencing as an unfortunate curiosity, if its authors manage to learn from their mistakes, they have a good basis to create something really memorable and compelling. Skip on this VN, but keep Starlight Visual on your radar – personally, I’m extremely curious where the Caladria project goes next. Final Rating: Cautiously Recommended And this would be it for this season’s Steam Curator summary! I hoped to include at least one more game in it, but the real-life responsibilities forced me to move it to the fall update – that one will hopefully be more substantial, including some more notable games and ones that were waiting particularly long to get covered. Still, I hope you all enjoyed this small update and as always, my huge thanks go to the developers that decided to share their work with me. I hope this feedback, even if not always positive, will be of use to them and maybe even inspire (even) better VNs in the future. Until the next time!
    1 point
  9. Ageha https://imgur.com/a/nRtsl8v Azumi https://imgur.com/a/EgMIIb7 Benkei https://imgur.com/a/fRi3oYI Chris https://imgur.com/a/JxRqEXw Kokoro https://imgur.com/a/QIM7Aan Koyuki https://imgur.com/a/8RLnz0m Lee https://imgur.com/a/pSz3uve Lin Chong https://imgur.com/a/VEJiChC Margit https://imgur.com/a/eupJIeP Miyako https://imgur.com/a/akLZKjZ Momoyo https://imgur.com/a/95IgR4X Monshiro https://imgur.com/a/WK64irL Seiso https://imgur.com/a/Mb5qFbS Stacy https://imgur.com/a/7Bx5LQs Tatsuko https://imgur.com/a/NW47dJe Tsubame https://imgur.com/a/YLjBj6d Wanko https://imgur.com/a/k0OTFq9 Yoshitsune https://imgur.com/a/Em8bhph Yukie https://imgur.com/a/GRE023s Minor Female Characters (Sayaka, Mayo, Iyo, Torako, Cookie 4, Cookie 4IS, Homura, Youshi, Takae) https://imgur.com/a/kmb70iP Male Characters (Cap and Cross Dress Moro) https://imgur.com/a/AvLzTAW Since this game closed before Majikoi A-5 released, sadly there are no original characters from A-5.
    1 point
  10. Inorin

    What are you playing?

    @Black99 It's a good thing you haven't been spoiled for MLA; many of the events that occur there have more shock value if you went in blind (just like I did). It is a very long read though, so it may take a while before you get to the good bits.
    1 point
  11. As always - make sure to get retranslation patch.
    1 point
  12. Black99

    What are you playing?

    This my first time posting in this thread but I just want a place where comment my thoughts... Just finished Muv Luv; Extra wasn't that bored like I read before in some places, it was so entertaining, I enjoyed the comedy and the slice of life, I really liked the relationship between the MC and Sumika, Meiya has the stereotype of ojou-sama without common sense and somewhat disliked her for that but I started to get more respect for her after reading the routes of the other heroines. I finished all routes, all what I'll say that are bored lol I skipped some text just to finish it. About Unlimited, I was surprised to learn that Muv Luv is an... isekai? what? I never read the sinopsis, just all blind, I know that Muv Luv is about mechas and aliens, I assumed that something happen in Extra to derive a war against aliens but I never thought it was an isekai, was hard to swallowing that, I expected more than that, a little disappointed but I let it go and kept reading, until I liked Unlimited's story. I just finished Meiya's ending and Yuuko-sensei ending. No motivation to finish other endings because people said it's all similar, I don't have motivation to spent more time on it and the H-scenes are meh. My motivation to read Muv Luv was ML Alternative, I've read very positives commentaries, is in the top VNs on VNDB and everyone says it's one of the best visual novels, I read Muv Luv with that in mind, otherwise I could never have finished or spent much time to Muv Luv Extra, I don't spent so much time reading a VN, unless it's good. All right, then, Muv Luv Extra and Unlimited was just the tip of the iceberg, probably I'll spent more time reading Alternative because the beginning is very interesting, and the only spoilers I've read are that very horrible things happen, don't know details but I'll find it myself. Sorry for the long post and sorry for my English grammar. lol
    1 point
  13. Kojima

    Free Character Sprites

    You have gained a follower.... praise the almighty liah
    1 point
  14. Jun Inoue

    Birthday thread

    I'M STILL IN TIME HAPPY BAIRTHUDEIYU @Kenshin_sama
    1 point
  15. Kenshin_sama

    Birthday thread

    Thank you very much, everybody.
    1 point
  16. Well ...... I cried 30 times while reading Clannad (and I'm a guy that never cries normally). Though it was mostly the happy or bittersweet tears. Clannad is a VN about friends and family. This song....... THIS SONG ......... every time it came up! ..... Roaring Tides had some emotional impact too. Little Busters is another KEY VN, that also has that real "band of best friends" theme. It also has an amazing soundtrack. Kira*Kira is another VN I had some emotional attachment too. One of the heroines was almost like a daughter. .......... and then, a scene happened, and I got completely devastated for more than 24 hours.... Totally agreed! I teared up on her route too (when that fast paced vocal track hit during that scene). I was like YEAH!
    1 point
  17. Because Kotori is the best girl, obviously
    1 point
  18. Btw, just to make a small update while we are here. We got some attention on OAG today, and the progress that was mentioned there was when I originally posted this thread. Right now, at this very moment, we are at 6% for the TL of the H-scenes, courtesy of @Zephyrast
    1 point
  19. Please play Fashioning Little Miss Lonesome. Sorry for the thread derailment, but those posts pretty much make you the perfect person for recommending this.
    1 point
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