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Apologies for a delayed reply, I forgot that Fuwanovel won't notify you of comments made on blogs. Jun Maeda (and KEY in general) is an interesting example to bring up because on the one hand his VNs continually seem to sell very well, on the other hand I think he's exhausted his inspiration. Personally I think it was somewhere around Little Busters! where inspiration was lost (and Solidbatman's review of it basically confirmed my opinion). Using Little Busters! as an example, it isn't so much that it's bad, so much as it feels mediocre coming off of it's older sisters like Clannad, Planatarian, Air, Kanon, etc. Or maybe after reading 3+ KEY VNs you begin to tire of their formula, at least I did. Yet Regardless, KEY looks like the only major VN company that is still profitable, and able to release big budget VNs with a crowd of fans waiting in anticipation. An enviable situation to be in, although on the other hand they have built their own prison in the sense that many of KEY's fans expect the KEY formula, which imo has stagnated them creatively. Most other companies however, are pretty much forced to follow trends and/or release Ero-centric VNs to stay above water. For me what really baffles me, is why have VNs declined in popularity? There is so much power to the medium, being able to tell stories and have visuals and audio season the writing. It's a medium that magically touched me years ago, and I anticipated that as the medium got more well known, more people would fall in love with that magic. Indeed VNs are more known about than they were 10 years ago when I first got into them, yet they are still pretty niche. I thought that the popularity of DDLC and social games like FGO might draw more people into the broader VN circle, but they didn't get as many people into the medium as I hoped. Regarding everything else you said, I think we see eye to eye and I'm in agreement with your views. And thanks, this exchange has been a pleasure on my part as well.

stylized Japanese Miko (Shrine Maiden) costume, generally inspired by;

Thanks! It's cool to hear that you found my posts interesting. Your views make sense, and I'm broadly aligned with them, except maybe in what I choose to emphasize. I respect your cynicism toward social games, and even toward these two social games. TBF, we don't have any clear info about them yet. And my views are that VNs could improve social games, rather than the other way around, so this subject isn't immediately relevant to pure VN fans. Even then, I only put the chance of "revolution" at like... 20%? I'd say it's 60% that people look back at these games a couple years from now and say "oh yeah, that was a weird and cool design decision! too bad nobody played these games and they were shut down months later" and 20% that the producers just cut out what make these 2 games unique in beta tests to try to salvage the low-attention-span player base. So the prospect of an "intensely integrated experience" I mentioned is just a far-off possibility with that first 20% chance as a precondition. When it comes to labors of love versus profit-oriented works, I find it hard to draw the line between them sometimes, but agree that uninspired writers produce poor works. Tribe Nine is a bit of an unknown, with the way Kodaka described their writers as having the freedom to create stories in any genre they want, yet they still take place in a very specific "extreme baseball" setting that Too Kyo came up with, so Kodaka's supervision counts for a lot... and HBR in particular feels less inspired that I'd like, but Maeda has been mostly out of inspiration for a while now anyway, and at least his humor and eloquence of prose is extremely consistent. I agree that the medium of VNs (particularly eroge and doujinshi, but I don't want to slight CERO-regulated works) will always be suitable for works that are idiosyncratic and push the boundaries of creative expression. Especially DLsite VNs which aren't directly subject to Sofurin's behind-the-scenes regulation. Web novels (some of the Chinese and Korean ones are excellent too) and doujin RPGs are also powerful avenues for unrestrained creative expression. But due to the way VN engines fuse audiovisual elements and literature in a scaleable way, I still consider VNs the most ideally expressive medium. I'm like you in that I'd also not want to see VNs become lucrative again, if it meant that the already shrunken market for niche/inspired works disappeared completely. (I have no words for people who unironically say they think ero "holds back" VNs; with current economic forces in the industry, it's the opposite if anything. In the first place, the VN industry has enough room for both kinds; it's not a zero-sum game.) Honestly though, I don't expect that social games having better stories will directly impact the market for that, or drain much talent from the VN industry that hasn't already been drained. I know that Kodaka is someone who always seeks new challenges for himself, and Tribe Nine is just another one of them. In the end, I'm just guessing though. It's not so much about bigger being better for script size, as the bigger the script size, the less likely they've constrained themselves by social game standards. Even early FGO's story, before Nasu reformed it, consisted mostly of 30-second ADV segments separated by dialogue-less battles. Later on, FGO (and other story-oriented social games) ditched this "constant battles" requirement, and had more consecutive ADV segments. That's what made early arcs of FGO expand from around 2K lines for the entire arc, to several times that. Even then, something like Babylonia is still just 7K lines for a plot that deserves much more than that and feels awkward when adapted into a 2-cour anime, so there is still a gap before it in any way resembles a VN story-wise. So yeah, when I heard that Tribe Nine's script size would be so huge before it's even launched, and in the absence of indications that they'll have multiple monthly events, I just hope that this means each event or main story arc within the game is slowed down to a literary pace that's at least comparable to Danganronpa. But the proof is in the pudding, so I'll be playing these games myself to find out. Again, it's fantastic to have such thoughtful feedback on this post; I absolutely appreciate it. Oh, and you didn't particularly come off as a curmudgeon to me.

Hi all. I had a lot going on, and before I knew it, a year had gone by. I knew there would be stretches where I couldn't get much translating done, but I never meant to leave the project without updates for so long. I'm setting a short-term goal of reaching the halfway point of Maiya's route by the end of September. Some people asked about a partial patch download. Here are three files you can copy to your already existing Saimin Yuugi install if you want to test it: https://mega.nz/file/pIpSjL7K#ygSQKnwnNVdE_FQ0s_Rr4sR7e9Wjcl-VT_DjLpQI7gA (催眠遊戯.exe - UI translation) https://mega.nz/file/UdgGiRCA#DM6mm3h42KfbVZMUN_pRt8c1ys8r99AbnnbMj1JpmGQ (data8.pack - UI translation) https://mega.nz/file/9A5AyC6a#vaBuR4FcGcReYkf2jmPyIHVuTcHaKghp442kVktf_YQ (data6.pack - Scenario translation -- common route + maiya only for now) The first file replaces the game executable. The second two go in the 'GameData' subdirectory, replacing the existing data6.pack file. I recommend backing up the files before overwriting. Full credit to fallingdown for the UI translation. A patch installer isn't on the todo list until at least one route has been translated.