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Hello everyone, It's been a while, but I'm back with another update, and probably the last one for KnR. As this is the last update, you've probably guessed what this means... All the images have been edited and the full patch has been released! (Yay) Here's the link to the full patch: https://mega.nz/folder/MstRHI6S#bQVaRTSLnwQPNjYuCJKfpw This is the same link as the one in the op. You can use either one to get the patch. Since this is the full patch, all of the Japanese texts have been translated... or so I'd like to say. But unfortunately, there are still some minor texts that I couldn't find, so they're still untranslated. With that said, they're just some minor texts and won't impact your experience with the game. I hope that our patch will be useful for you as you enjoy this game ^^. Now, with the release of this patch, we won't be focusing on KnR anymore. The patch also won't get update unless there are some game-breaking bugs. Instead, we'll now focus on our other projects. As for those projects... The next game we've decided to work on is Fuukan no Grasesta. Alongside that, we've also decided to work on our own interface patch for Tenmei no Conquista. I'll go into details in the projects' threads (once I create them XD). That's it for now. Thank you very much for supporting and sticking with us in this journey. We really appreciate it. See you in our next project's thread ^^!

It is done. The translation is officially 100% done Progress will now move on to post-translation, where there's TLC and QC to be done. I'm hoping to finish everything else and release the patch by end 2020 (unlikely, but hey, you never know). If not, then at least get the TLC done by end 2020. So do refer to the TLC tab of the sheet for progress on the TLC. I will save my translation remarks for after the patch is fully released. For now though, rejoice that the translation is done! Yay!

Hello everyone, And sorry for not posting any update in a really long time. We've been a bit busy recently, and I couldn't access fuwa for some reason zzz. Other members can access normally, but my internet refused to cooperate with me... Now, as for the update, most of the images are edited, so I think we'll be able to release the full patch sometimes soon, hopefully during summer. With that said, the text edit may not be finished in time. I'm very sorry about this. We'll at least try to fix as much typos and mistakes as possible before the full patch. If we can find the time and make enough progress, we'll update the full patch with the edited text. Next is an announcement regarding us. Our group now has a name! (Finally lol) We've decided to name our group 'Rhapsody Translation' as a tribute to this game, the game that brought all of us together. We'll mostly be focusing on Eushully's games, though we may do VNs from other companies as well in the future. Another news is that we've decided on our next project. This is still KnR thread, so I won't go too deep into it for now. We'll make a proper announcement regarding that another time. Please look forward to it ^^. That's about it for now. Thank you very much for reading, and see you next time ^^!

Good morning everybody, Tonight I'm planning on finishing the update process for the forums (including all themes) as well as finalizing some back-end sharing necessary for Emi to take over my admin duties. I'm still alive and around, paying for the site (etc.), but enough is enough and this is what needs to happen. I'll post later today with more definite hours/timezones for the update, and will hop on Discord closer to the appointed FuwApocalypse hour. Much < 3, Tay

Hi everybody. My name is Tay. I’m the site admin, and I’m writing this post to share a few thoughts and to apologize for what has been a very difficult period for the site (and many of us in the real world, myself included). Please note that I am actively working on the site today (01:26 update: currently waiting on Nayleen’s help on a mysql issue that I don’t know how to solve) and will be available in this thread and on Discord throughout the day. Why did you disappear? I was overwhelmed by real-world responsibilities and the real-world issues affecting the site. I feel deeply that it’s my responsibility to keep an appropriate baseline amount of support (server, forums fees, forums UI theme subscriptions, front site plugin subscriptions), and have mostly done so, but not being here in a full, active manner means that I was unaware of even large issues, such as Invision losing my auto-pay details. I feel really bad, guys. I'm sorry. Why didn’t you more proactively pass along the keys to other community members instead of just ghosting us? Dropping torrents caused hundreds of real-world issues that made a site hand-off – even partially – unconscionable until resolved. It makes me happy that they feel like an ancient memory to most of you, but they have been my lived reality for a long time. Only this summer did that chapter fully come to a close. Fuwa is in the clear, for what it’s worth, and for the first time I feel like I have options. What the &$% is going on with site/forums updates? I’m working to fix some issues in how I access the various databases on the server. Once that’s fixed everything will be updated and troubleshooted. It’s going to be another Fuwapocalypse. But it’s gotta be done. I give you my word that, so long as I can get @Nayleen’s help, this will be done by week’s end. As regards the forms, specifically, Invision, the software company who made our forums software, deleted the auto-pay credentials I’d given them and the software license lapsed for several months. It’s been renewed and everything will be updated as soon as I get Nay’s assistance and make a bunch of meticulous backups. What is your plan for Fuwanovel going forward? It may not be appropriate for that to be my call. I need to touch base with all the core users still active and sort out what’s best. I love Fuwanovel. It’s been a work of love spanning more than ten thousand hours (and much more than that in dollars). But my focus and passion -- help bring visual novels into the wider gaming community – has been realized. I’ve been fortunate enough to facilitate or be part of some major, tectonic shifts in the industry. It’s a different world and I am likely not the best equipped to pick a direction. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think so. What I’m confident about, however, is that the way I went about building Fuwa, while successful, is unsustainable. Palas put it incredibly well last month: “It’s like running a business, but without, well, the business.” Perfectly said. For better or worse, I’m wholly or largely responsible for the projects he highlights: enormous and technical VNTS posts which took two people 5 or so hours to do every Friday night, an ambitious reviews hub scouring VN reviews from across the net, a VN reviews team, forums projects, etc. A lot of what I did on Fuwa amounted to spending ungodly amounts of time watching trends in both the industry and site traffic and building ideas around what I thought would bring interest to the community and the VN player base. It worked well: we had huge traffic and played an important role in bringing VNs out of obscurity. But the lived reality was often me researching, designing and proposing these projects, and asking others to step up and either run or contribute to them without compensation. We’d have people putting in 20 hours a week, some weeks, on top of core admin staff working 30-40 hours weekly, and it STILL wasn’t enough. Most pitched in because we liked the cause, and liked hanging out with each other, and liked the dopamine rush of user engagement. Some did it because I asked them. And some did it because they felt like they had to. I’m still working on pulling apart my feelings on this issue. I don’t know how to fix this part of being a fan site. I do know that it is wrong to ask so much of members without paying them. Fuwa has never made money and I was never able to pay for help. This isn’t going to change anytime soon, so any new site reality is going to have to take into account the need for a lessened human cost. Anything else you want to say? Tons. But that’s good for now. I’m spamming Nayleen on all the usual channels and mostly just want to get the site fully updated. We can chew on the site’s existential questions in the meantime.

I personally think that VNs right now are in a sense stuck in a cursed loop. VNs as a medium just really lack variety and as a result appeal to a small number of people. Even most all-ages titles follow the same story structure: even in non-adult titles a male protagonist always has to be surrounded by a lot of female love interests; it almost always has to take place in high-school; even in plot-focused stories there are a lot of slice-of-life scenes, which aren't even well written, and mostly just serve as a way to stall the story for some time rather than developing the characters; finally, the personalities of the protagonist, the heroines and even the side characters typically just follow certain well-known archetypes. So, if you just happen not to enjoy some of these titles and just want to find something more unique, you're much better off watching some anime or reading a manga. Otome games are a bit different, but, from my limited experience with them, they seem to have a bag of different, though slightly similar, problems. There are indeed some unique and experimental VNs that do things differently, but most of these are doujin titles and don't get that much exposure. Most of them aren't even that good, since good authors are likely to join some company at some point and start making a lot more standard VNs, or leave the medium altogether. Also, we, the current VN fans, enjoy these tropes to at lest to some extend, and a lot of us actually prefer them. As a result, in a short run it's not a very good strategy for companies to experiment with story structures, since they don't know if the fans would like these changes, and they just stick to the strategy that worked thus far. And VNs are also expensive to make, so they don't allow for much flexibility. Nowadays, manga and light novel authors don't even have to make any initial investment at all, since they just can start posting their stories online and see how people react to them, or even completely stick to episodic online distribution. In case of VNs, even a single financially unsuccessful product can make a whole company go bankrupt. I personally think that if VNs somehow let this loop, there's a good chance that they would start appeal to a bigger number of people. They probably wouldn't be the same people as the current VN fans. Will they ever do that? I doubt it, but I don't know. EVNs might actually lead to something interesting at some point, who knows?

sure thing buddy sure thing 1. AMASSING CAPITAL - As with the vast majority of businesses, you're going to need some startup capital. Because the general profitability of English language visual novel translations is approximately 0, you will likely have a difficult time finding investors unless they have two or more health conditions that inhibit their brain function. You will most likely have to self-fund. Flip those cushions, ransack your old man's attic for some forgotten stock certificates, you know the deal. The bare minimum, I'd say, is somewhere around $50,000. NOTE that you can increase your (probably non-existent because VN) profit margins by performing a work role in the company, translating, editing, etc; instead of just being the translation sweatshop overseer. OK and PLEASE don't go into debt over such a pants-on-head business idea. Please don't. 2. ESTABLISH THE COMPANY - Search for how to establish a company in your jurisdiction, it should be the same for a localization business as most other businesses. Come up with some sick name and branding, get a fancy graphic artist to do some of it, maybe get an anime girl mascot since zoomers seem to love that shit these days. OK you have money to burn and company branding that hopefully doesn't look like a kindergarten art project, not bad let's get started down that slope that ends in 'we are, regrettably, going to be phasing out of visual novel publishing'. 3. ACQUIRE LICENSES - This is where my man Kokoro, my 4th favourite person on Fuwanovel, 's advice comes in. Haul ass over to Japan — you DO speak Japanese, right? Perhaps consider enlisting the services of a business consultant with experience in Japan so as to not make a fool of yourself and make use of their connections so you are not cold calling. Otherwise, cold call, flash your sick branding, and attempt to get a meeting with a representative one of the last vestiges of a dying industry. In a pinch, you could try virtual meetings, but in general it is better to have boots on the ground when performing international business. BONUS STEP - Wait for COVID-19 to settle down. BONUS BONUS STEP - Consider working with Chinese companies as well so you perhaps stand a chance at financial success. Practise drinking baijiu and sake before you leave in order to sharpen your abilities in shitfaced negotiation. 4. ACQUIRE STAFF - Assuming you made it this far by the grace of God, you will need staff members to work on the license you have acquired. A translator, an editor, and a QA (preferably a GOOD one they're important) is probably the bare minimum, along with the unfortunate bastard that will have to handle the technical side of things with the engine. Probably attempt to pay them around the sweet spot between 'this would be a decent wage in 1820' and 'this would be a decent wage in 2020'. You have to keep those expenses down but if the sweatshop workers take up arms then the game is all over, commissar. 5. WORK ON THE THING - Do the translating and the editing and the QA-ing. Try to stick to the deadlines you impose and share, that alone would probably set you apart. 6. ADVERTISE THE THING AND DO SOCIAL MEDIA THINGS - Again use that sick branding to form an online presence. Do it yourself if you are personable and responsible, otherwise find somebody else to do it. 7. SELL THE THING - Contact storefronts, the classics, Steam, JAST USA, all that great stuff we know and love, get it listed places where people can buy it, maybe start your own web store if your web design person lives in an economically depressed region. 8. GO BANKRUPT - Ok nah just kidding but probably. Then you just repeat from 3, possibly skipping 4 if you are a benevolent overlord. Best of luck to you!

Latest Update (June 24) Common Route translation: 100% Common Route editing: 1/6 scenario files Maiya Route translation: 5/23 Maiya Route editing: pending Keika Route translation: 6/21 Keika Route editing: pending Rui Route translation: pending Rui Route editing: pending Current Staff: Me (Translating, Hacking) SpookySaint (Editing) Senpai Ken (Translating) Spirited Away (Editing) Currently seeking additional translators, and a more competent hacker for UI translation. Original Post ↓ Hello. I've decided to translate Saimin Yuugi, my favorite eroge. Well written hypnosis with Sayori's art? Holy shit, yes please. Really, nothing else compares. Now, I'm a solo, amateur translator, and I acknowledge we're an inherently unreliable lot. With that being said, I wouldn't be making this thread unless I was committed to finishing. Why make this thread? 1) On the off chance someone else is interested in translating, I'd love to have your help. No long-term commitment necessary. 2) If anyone is interested in editing my translated scripts (checking my grammar and watching for awkward descriptions or stilted dialogue), I'd love to have you. Also no long-term commitment necessary. 3) On the off off chance someone else was partway through translating this eight year old eroge, I may as well find out about it now before sinking too much more time into this. In short, I love this game and am asking for help to make the translation the best it can be. What have I already done? - Unpacking and repacking the game files is confirmed working with a partial patch tested both on my machine and others. - Maiya's route is 17% translated, which includes an introduction common to all routes. Not a lot, but it's only a week's worth of effort. I'm confident that this pace will let me finish without burning out. On that note however, my main goal for this project is the translation of Maiya's route. I think the completionist in me will make sure I see the project through to the end, but I expect significantly slower progress on the other routes. Especially Keika's. If you have questions feel free to ask.

Marionette Presents: Maidens' Kaleidoscope -Forget-me-nots and the Everlasting Rosebud- https://vndb.org/v11071 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- General Information Original Title: 美少女万華鏡 -忘れな草と永遠の少女- (Bishoujo Mangekyou -Wasurenagusa to Eien no Shoujo-) Developer & Publisher: ωstar Official Page: http://www.omega-star.jp/biman2html/ Artist: 八宝備 仁 (Happoubi Jin) Scenarist: 吉祥寺 ドロレス (Kichijouji Dolores) Director: 六道 輪廻 (Rokudou Rinne) Release Date: 27th July, 2012 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Description Our protagonist, Kanzaki Akihito, was once a cheerful, vigorous young boy. Having grown up carrying a heart disease, childhood friends were no more and being absent from school became the norm. Among those childhood friends, Sawatari Shizuku —Akihito's first love—, broke all form of communication with him, which cast a shadow over his already fragile heart. He felt as if she had betrayed him. As the gloomy days pass by, Shizuku reappears in front of Akihito... The story gradually progresses, in ways they could've never imagined... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Staff Translator: Eschasintra Editor: heartattacks 18+ Editor: anonymous Proofreader: Hata (VNI) QA: Funnerific Programmer: AtomCrafty Image Editor: Hubb2001 Marionette's first translation project. Special thanks to @Arcadeotic. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Links & Progress Progress Tracker & Contact (Last Update : available on the site): https://forget-me-not-marionette.carrd.co/ Blog: Coming Soon -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Status update Overall progress: Translation: 18473/43896 Editing: 9475/43896 Will start translating Arisa route

Hey all, I just wanted to drop by to let you know that a VN I translated has just been released~ You can buy it at the following sites: JAST USA Mangagamer DLsite Enjoy! And let me know if you have any questions :3

I took my first steps onto the road of the otaku in 1992, when I watched the poorly dubbed (all dubs were godawful back then) Record of Lodoss War Volume 1 OVA VCR tape. Now, I was already a heavy fantasy addict, having been introduced to the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance in 1990, and my obsession was at its peak at the time. When I watched Record of Lodoss War, I saw the typical 'elven maiden with human hero' romance in a new way (incidentally, this is a pretty typical romantic theme in those days, less so nowadays). I also saw oddities that stood out as odd to me precisely because of the oddly black and white point of view enforced on one by the various D&D universes. Of course, I was a chuunibyou brat by that time, already, so it should surprise no one that I got obsessed. It got ten times worse, however, when I encountered Chrono Trigger as it was played on my cousin's SNES. Chrono Trigger is still, to this day, one of the single best rpgs ever made. Looking back, considering all that has been done since then, it is almost TERRIFYING that someone was able to do what was done with Chrono Trigger with the limitations placed by using the SNES system. The story, the world, and the various layers of time were put together into such a subtly complex experience that, to this day, I've yet to see any other rpg manage it. Chrono Cross would manage to imitate some elements of this with its parallel world jumping, but Chrono Trigger's jumping around in time gave you impetus to explore how every aspect of the world could change based on how and when you did certain things. Rumors constantly abounded that there were secret endings (such as the infamous 'vampire Chrono' or 'Save Schala' fake rumors, which some believe led to the way the Chrono Cross storyline was handled), and people - such as me - would play the game repeatedly, using all the meager saves allowed by the cartridge limitations of the time, in hopes that they might trigger those endings or find a way to discover something new. In all honesty, Chrono Trigger being the game that got me into jrpgs probably ruined me for life. It set my standards to a ridiculously high level on a subconscious plane, resulting in me comparing every single jrpg experience since then to it. Aesthetically, musically, and structurally, it was a true jrpg kamige. It was also the game that turned jrpgs into my second otaku obsession. During the SNES-PS2 eras, I literally bought and played EVERY jrpg that came out. I still own them, in fact. I played most of the PS1 and SNES era games multiple times. However, it was also in the PS2 era (often called the 'dawn of the mainstream jrpg') that jrpg quality began to fall off drastically. The kind of genius and artistic flair using minimal resources you saw in previous eras was lost entirely within a few years of the release of FFX (FFX being a good game that also turned VO from a curiosity to a mainstream 'thing'). Musical direction, a role differing from composition, where someone was assigned to decide the timing of using a musical score and which ones fit which dungeons, which story scenes, disappeared in the middle of the PS2 era, as VO was used to fill the gaps of emotionality. However, this also meant that the subtlety of previous eras was lost with a swiftness that left me bewildered at the time. By the time the PS3 era came around, jrpgs were slowing down, due to what I now call 'flashy kusoge fatigue'. Oh, a few sub-genres, such as the Atelier series' alchemy obsessed SOL titles and the more action-based titles continued to be prolific, but what were called 'console-style rpgs' started to vanish. MMO elements were introduced into normal jrpgs, making progression and gameplay less interesting as a result (mostly because it seemed to have been done primarily to draw the WoW crowds into solo rpgs). Storytelling was dying a surprisingly swift death, as tedious gameplay elements (for loot and level-obsessed completionists) began to devour higher and higher proportions of each game's overall playtime. There is a very good reason why people go back and play so-called 'retro' jrpgs so much. There simply aren't that many more recent jrpgs that have that kind of flair and subtle genius. I know for a fact that one of the best ways to get people addicted to jrpgs is still just to let them play Chrono Trigger. Ironically, it was VNs that saved my soul. This was back in 2008, four years before I joined Fuwa. I was introduced to Tsukihime by a fellow anime fansubber, and, for the first time in over three years, I had something interesting enough (story-wise) that I was given a perspective on the nature of my growing irritation and fatigue with jrpgs in general. At the time, the JVN industry was still as vital and full of genius as the jrpg industry was in the PS1 era. Tsukihime and a few other major classics put out near the turn of the century had created the potential for a market of story-focused VNs that had allowed more and more creative people to get into the medium. Masada was releasing his latest version of Dies Irae, and there were literally hundreds of potentially interesting VNs for me to try. Needless to say, I lost my mind almost as badly as when I first played Chrono Trigger. I must have blown four grand of my meager savings on VNs within the first year, and I didn't regret a penny of it. Yes, roughly two-thirds of what I bought was pure crap. However, the gems I discovered gave me a taste of the potential of the medium in a way that was horribly addictive. Moreover, after a few years of being starved of any decent new stories, even the worst VNs had something that I could find I liked about them. In retrospect, I have an addictive personality. I get addicted to things easily, especially when they scratch my story bug. People have said to me, when it came to my jrpg obsession 'if you want a good story, why don't you read a book?', to which I usually gave them a blank stare and said 'I'm already reading good books. I just want stories in my games too.' Interestingly enough, there were a few bursts of true creativity in jrpgs in the years since, like Tales of Berseria and Nier: Automata, but they partially stand out due to the sheer bleakness of the genre landscape. People praise Octopath Traveler and Dragon Quest XI with intensity, and they practically worship Bravely Default. However, I have been shocked at how low-quality the presentation of these stories has been. It's like an entire generation has gotten used to ineptness in presentation to the point where they can be charmed by backhanded efforts at retro-nostalgia. Octopath has all the grind of the old SaGa Frontier games with none of the charm, the best part of each of the paths being at the beginning. Dragon Quest XI retains the horribly grindy nature of Dragon Quest games without improving on the formula in any real way. Moreover, locking so much content into the post-game annoys the hell out of me (I prefer new game +, obviously). JVNs have suffered their own decline, which is ironically due to the same demographics that inflated the medium in the first place (the dominance of the moe/charage lovers). VNs were always destined to be a niche medium, but the over-specialization of the industry has led to an inability to adapt to changing spending habits and demographics. Even if they wanted to regear for a new generation of consumers, most companies no longer have the access to the necessary talent to do so. I'm fairly sure that jrpgs suffer from a similar lack. Yes, there are some excellent composers and graphic designers in the jrpg industry, as well as access to the solid voice-acting industry of Japan and the growing one here in the US. However, there is a severe lack of writers capable of bringing a story to life, and there is no point in a top-tier OST that has no one to properly coordinate its use. The very fact that something like Undertale could bury so much of the commercial rpg industry, in the eyes of rpg fans, says everything about how far the industry has fallen. So what am I getting at? Not really anything, in truth. I just needed to blow off some steam. Thank you for reading.

Menu image editor here, this project was a lot of fun to work on, and thanks for flamepaladin for allowing me to help out! I hope you all enjoy the fruits of our labor, now if you excuse me, I have some Rhapsodys to kami...

Man, Madosoft is one big joke (haha same as the title of the thread). Honestly, I never realised I would be invested in one singular company that pumps out visual novels, and it bugs me that I still occasionally check their website for any updates on their projects. But let's start from the beginning. There's a lot to cover here, so be prepared for a wall of text. Madosoft (jap. まどそふと Madosofuto) is a Japanese company that specialises in developing adult games, mainly eroge/galge/visual novels. Not a lot is known about them in grave detail other than the info I provided. So far, they only developed 5 games (one being a fandisc), which are as follows: Namaiki Delation (2013), Yakimochi Stream (2014), the very well-known cult classic Wagamama High Spec (2016), Wagamama High Spec OC (2017, the fandisc I mentioned earlier) and Raspberry Cube (2018). Everything sounds pretty good so far, and as far as plots for each games go, they're mediocre at best, but some are pretty intriguing. I, for one, am the most familiar with WagaHigh, a game that'll forever be in my heart and inspired me to write more, and much better than these guys. Not saying they were necessarily bad writers, but from the English version which we got in 2017 by Sekai Project and Denpasoft, a lot of the dialogue is kinda, unironically, cringe. The real kicker will come soon. Though, keep in mind this colour palette: black, gold, red, white. You will need it to understand this a lot better. Let's talk about Namaiki Delation first. Its plot is as follows: Shinjuurou managed to avoid supplementary lessons by passing the make-up test. However, his joy was fleeting, as he was tricked by his teacher to be a member of the cultural festival committee. Since there was no one else there, he had to find other members to join as well… but why are all those joined so cheeky? Heroines in Namaiki Delation consist of (pictures for reference, left to right): - Nishimura Shiori (the childhood friend of the main character, clingy towards him, used to be shy but has gained confidence over the years and became a lot sweeter, and is trusted by the students and the staff; RED) - Natsushima Misaki (the little sister, cool, serious, scolds the protagonist often to hide her true feelings towards him (you know where this is going, right?); WHITE) - Shinkai Nagisa (I can't believe she shares a surname with the well-known Japanese director! MC's kouhai, she's the violent one and is treated as a delinquent but is actually sweet, also she's into karate; BLACK) - Meia Kreutzerung Hakuhou (a genius inventor, looks like an elementary schooler but is actually a high schooler due to skipping grades, childish but very smart, goes to school just to experience what high school is like; GOLD). Variety between the heroines is wide. Not as wide when compared to games made by another company, but wide enough that I can call "original." Now, what about the main character? Self-insert, donkan, no face, no voice. Standard shit that I've grown tired of. Lemme be a voice actor, damn it! Next game is Yakimochi Stream. Dominant theme is jealousy, naturally. The plot revolves around Takumi, the once-again self-insert main character, who leaves England because his little sister sent him a telegram telling him to come home immediately. Under the impression she was attacked, he comes back home to find that his little sister, Sana, became a shut-in and blames England for taking him away (she literally cusses at the country, what did it do to deserve this treatment?). Takumi decides to halt his studies abroad and transfer to a school in Japan, and ends up meeting his other female friends. Speaking of which, there are four of them and yes, all four are the heroines. Pay attention to this: - Ibuki Kohane (the protagonist's childhood friend, she promised to be beautiful by the time she comes back, and so it does happen, she's the tsundere one; jealousy index: 80%, chest class: Southern Alps; RED) - Yukikura Mutsuki (childhood friend No. 2??? because she knew Takumi even before he transferred to the school in Japan; jealousy index: 100%, chest class: Kilimanjaro; WHITE) - Kirishima Sana (little sister of the main character, a serious brocon that's, imo, beyond saving, and she's also quite an academic chick; jealousy index: idk% (technically 120%), chest class: Mount Fuji; BLACK) - Tania Helvellyn (that's right, transfer student, foreigner, she's an athlete, just like everyone else for some reason, follows the MC back home to be with him; jealousy index: 70%, chest class: Mont Blanc; GOLD). So you starting to see a pattern here? If not, I got you covered, keep on reading. The MC is the same, except a lot denser. All the girls also have giant boobies, which I don't really mind but it's overkill imo. As a wise Steam user once said, "I like my heroines how I like my fruit basket, assorted." And they're right - assorted heroines allow for an easier pick. Not everyone likes them big. Pinnacle of the company everyone! Wagamama High Spec is up, and this one may or may not need any explanation. You know it, I know it, bless Sekai and Denpa for bringing home the bacon! Ahem. WagaHigh is centered around a guy named Narumi Kouki who attends an academy which used to be for girls only. He goes by the name of Potato Salad for his manga series, Deredere Scramble, and works with Mr Deer. He joins the student council after an encounter with the student council president, Rokuonji Kaoruko (BEST GIRL ALERT), who also happens to be Mr Deer. After joining, he's placed in a trial since Sakuragi R. Ashe (the vice president) is skeptical of his skills. The heroines (pay attention once again): - Miyase Mihiro (the childhood friend of the main character, likes to tease him a lot, is actually sweet, best friends with Toa, owns a family restaurant; RED) - Narumi Toa (MC's little sister, lazy, but also a programmer, plays video games, skips school, cold towards the MC but likes him a lot, earns money because of apps that predict the lottery...; WHITE) - Rokuonji Kaoruko (The aforementioned best girl imo, fite me! Smart, beautiful, student council president that is also a secret artist named Mr Deer, has a bad sense of humour, lives in a strict family; BLACK) - Sakuragi Rooflet Ashe (Yet another foreigner, vice president, the classic tsundere character, pianist with a pinch of composer, has a large appetite, her character is too strong; GOLD). While I definitely appreciate the enthusiasm that this visual novel has, something still doesn't quite add up. The protag is a bit better I guess, but he's still the generic old, self-insert kind. At some point, I decided to rewrite the entirety of the visual novel by skimming over some unneeded plots, and it ended up being just as mediocre. I guess I'm not that good at writing fanfics. But Kaoruko was the focus, because she really needs more love... She's completely overshadowed by Toa due to her immense popularity, Ashe due to her route being highly praised, and Mihiro for just being the comedic relief and also having the largest rack. Ahem. My bad. Back to the topic. ... At this point, you should have started noticing that something was going off. I'm skipping over WagaHigh OC because it's technically the game above. Moving over swiftly, here's Raspberry Hexahedron- I mean Raspberry Cube. The plot... The MC, Satoru, regrets being a delinquent and decides to have a change of heart. He goes back to his hometown to help out a few people who he ends up befriending, three being the heroines: he saved Mikoto from thugs, helped Minato with her garden and helped Yuu with her military shop. However, Ruri, the student council president, seemed to have had some grudge against him because he found himself in a pathetic state after falling in a pit trying to chase her down. She also refused to help him out and took a picture of him instead... Damn, reality truly is harsh nowadays, and I'm getting real tired already. ... Well anyway, the heroines... Here we go again... Try and guess... - Kanou Minato (the only member of the gardening club, takes care of it every day while trying to gather new members, sweet, hard-working, lives in an agricultural family, has a lot of friends (translating this from the official website because there's literally no info about this game)) - Sakuraba Victoria Ruri (the student council president that has a grudge against the protagonist, IS the student council, claiming that she can do stuff by herself, actually a troublesome person, ice beauty) - Kaidou Mikoto (MC's far-away relative, does chores, lives in an apartment that isn't doing well financially, a gentle person, but very much worried about debt) - Yuzuki Yuu (not only a tsundere but also a gal, runs a military store, likes coffee, swears... I'm sorry, I have nothing to say, my Japanese is very rusty, check the website for yourself). Haah... haa... Damn, I think that's about it... 5/10, needs more raspberries. Please explain the significance of that title. Noticed it yet? Yes? No? Well, either way, this is it... Here comes the kicker. The characters. The fucking characters of each of these games. Madosoft is "notorious" (quotation marks because nobody cares tbh) for reusing colour palettes for the four heroines for all the games they ever made, and will make in the future. Taking that into perspective, this makes Namaiki Delation, their very first game, look like the, wait for it, Citizen Kane of visual novels. The more you notice it, the more grating it becomes! This is something even I didn't quite notice until a certain accident happened and I decided to do some research... Turns out, they really don't work with different colour palettes. This will (in a comedic way) explain how Madosoft's heroines have (d)evolved throughout the years. Heck, Hamidashi Creative, their newest installment, suffers from the same problems!! I would like this problem to be dubbed the "Madosoft Syndrome" (unless there's another company that has the same practice as them). This is the major problem with this company. Before the conclusion, I would like to let you know a few facts, and maybe some ways you could research along. Madosoft also organised two Madosoft Live events: one in 2017 and one in 2018. I think this was just to promote their products further which wasn't necessarily bad but I can't say much about it because there's no way to find any other info about it. The official websites for both of these are still open, so feel free to check it out: http://madosoft.net/madolive2017/ http://madosoft.net/madolive2018/ Merchandise is literally all over Japan. Body pillows, tiddy mouse pads, stickers, prints, tapestries, stationery... And even with all this, it's difficult to get a hold of any of these unless you're rich, lucky, or rich AND lucky. Well, there's Comicket, so if you happen to come by and see a Madosoft stand, you know what to do. Cafes are also often themed by Madosoft products. I think this is just being a sell-out. I understand you want your products to sell and I see nothing wrong with that, but this is just going completely overboard. You can disagree with me if you want, tbh I did see other companies do that, too. Raspberry Cube also has a Nintendo Switch port. What's in it? Ask God. Obviously the base game is there, but is there any bonus content? I doubt it. Plus it's like 8,000+ Yen. ... Wagamama High Spec will also be ported to the Switch. How do I know this? Well today... THEY FUCKING ANNOUNCED IT ON THEIR WEBSITE. WHY. JUST WHY. I would understand if you were to add content that I can't see in my PC version of the game, but otherwise... WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY- ... What's next, Yakimochi Stream? Is anybody gonna talk about Namaiki? That game is gone, nobody remembers it anymore. "I'm gonna cry. I'm seriously gonna cry. Waaaaaah!" ... ....... ............................... I just had a breakdown, didn't I? Well anyway, that about sums it up. In conclusion, Madosoft is one big joke. OK plots, OK characters even, just BAD practices. Case closed. Lemme know if I missed anything, or if you agree or disagree with my opinion on this company. Thanks you for reading this far, I appreciate it, really! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here's a joke for you: Q: What's the difference between Madosoft and a printer?

Hi everyone, I'm yumi from pantsudev and we're working on a translation of the 2019 adult visual novel True Love's Lily Dyes Red 真愛の百合は赤く染まる Manakashi no Yuri wa Akaku Somaru https://vndb.org/v26232 Team Team: pantsudev - Discord - Homepage - Twitter Lead: @yumi Translators: yumi, BlackBane91, @LuckyDaikon Editors: yumi, @aho Programmer: yumi Contributors: @Zakamutt, @Funnerific Background The work started sometime in the spring of 2020, mostly due to happenstance. I was bored and started hacking around this nifty new VN I'd found. I developed my own tools and launcher/loader and started translating. Once it started to actually look somewhat viable and promising, I announced my lone work here so that at least nobody would accidentally be duplicating my efforts at the same time. Current State Since the start of the project, I've been fortunate to meet some fantastic, nice and helpful friends who've certainly helped take the project to another level. Progress has been sometimes sporadic, sometimes steadfast, yet always inevitable. I'm a busy person, but never abandon my projects. With ever more passion to see this work to completion, I want to stress that we are now actively recruiting members! Right now we're in the most dire need for an additional editor! Please see my posting about the position further down (link here) - But the TL;DR is: We might also still be taking on additional translators, and possibly TLC/QA. If you'd like to apply for any position, please join our Discord and/or DM yumi#0163 with an introduction! Everyone is also totally welcome to join our Discord server to hang around and see what we're working on 2020-12-24: XMAS 2020 Demo/Trailer: This is just a bunch of random clips to show how it looks at the moment. Spoiler free and non-chonological. Everything shown in the video is subject to change. Alright, cool! Anything else? Feel free to let us know what you think! Join our Discord or reply to this thread, or PM me with any questions. Thanks for reading!

but how mad are you

VNs sometimes get criticized for their overuse of the ellipse (…). And I suppose I'll start my defense of the use of ellipses in VNs, by extending an olive branch. VNs do misuse the ellipse to an astounding degree, and I have an interesting little anecdote demonstrating this point. In college, me and some friends decided to spend a Friday night getting drunk and reading the worst VNs we could find. We stumbled upon Gender Bender DNA Twister Extreme. There is a LOT wrong with this VN, but a glaringly consistent detail of bad writing we all noticed was the excessive use of ellipses. After we all collectively noticed and pointed out how often ellipses were being used, we decided to start counting every instance of an ellipse we spotted. Keep in mind, they had already been used plenty before we even started to count. Before we even reached a total playtime of 1 hour, we counted over 100 uses of ellipses, and gave up counting after that. I share this anecdote for two reasons. Firstly, as a petty example that Gender Bender DNA Twister Extreme is horrible and I almost want to say it has no right to exist. And secondly that overall I am in agreement that ellipses do get misused often in VNs. So I am not entirely attacking this point of criticism, but I do think that many who do champion this specific criticism of VN writing miss one very important function that the ellipses achieves in VN writing, that it can't achieve in traditional print. The written word as it is presented in VNs is transient. With each click you typically receive one line at a time. And after a certain point all the lines disappear and you are greeted with fresh words from the top of the screen if NVL, or the top of the dialogue box if ADV. Furthermore often (though not always), sentences aren't displayed whole at once. But rather they get displayed in a sort of typewriter effect. This means that regardless of whether the narrative is in past tense or present tense, the occurrence of the text and the story to the reader will always be in the present. Character dialogue, internal monologues, narrative descriptions, it is all being presented to us in real time. A book on the other hand has everything written out and open to display. You can scan the whole page as well as the next page, and you have equal access to every page of the book at any given time. Want to skip to the ending? Well the medium can't stop you. This is not true of VNs. You can fast-forward, but you can't just skip to the end. The only way you can typically access specific parts of a VN is by creating a save point and therefore being able to load it up whenever you want. But you only have that option for everything you already read, you can't just pick and load sections you haven't experienced yet. Because for all intense and purposes, that's in the future. It hasn't happened yet. In other words, there is a sense of time in how the narrative of a VN gets expressed. Well in VNs, the ellipse can be used to demarcate time and expression. In this way, VNs can literally show the passage of time, without having to tell it. And I always thought the golden rule of writing was “show don't tell”, in this function the ellipse is being used optimally to show and not tell. Here is an example of how I would write a certain passage if I were writing it for a book/short-story, and then I will proceed to rewrite it for a VN. Novel/Short-story: “I don't know about that,” she briefly paused while biting her lip, “you sure it will be okay?” Visual Novel coded in Renpy: “I don't know about that...{w=1.5} you sure it will be okay?” The {w=1.5} is a wait command in Renpy that pauses the text for 1.5 seconds before resuming the rest of the line. Without having to tell the reader “she briefly paused”, we literally showed the pause by manipulating the speed in which the text gets displayed. The ellipse helps signal to the reader that the character is hesitating to express her thoughts, while the {w=1.5} command is running in the background. Now if the detail of “biting her lip” is also important to you. You would have to script things slightly differently, but you could make it that after the ellipse her sprite changes and bites her lip and you hold on that image for 1.5 seconds, before transitioning back to her previous expression and continue the text. So now you not only showed her hesitation and the gap in time it took for her to finish her thought, but you also showed her expression change. This is a way you can “show and not tell” with VNs that you could never achieve when writing for traditional print media.

I first started writing this in like 2018 and I finished half of it now but I didn't do it the way I was planning back then and it's a bit of a disjointed mess. I hope it's good enough anyway. - There have been some arguments as to what the definition of a visual novel should be, and that's well and good. But let's look at it from the other direction: what works should our definition of visual novels include? Let us begin our journey with a silly, myopic statement I will nevertheless repeat until @Palas finally calls a hit on me: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is not a visual novel. Okay, bullets fired, I feel better already. But why am I trying to define the boundaries of the visual novel category to exclude the pretty good adventure game series Ace Attorney, and what kinds of criteria am I using? Furthermore, why would anyone disagree with me when I am obviously right? ...Okay, let's back up a bit. Why do I care so much about categories at all? Categories Categories are useful because they allow us to make predictions about something assigned to that category. In the visual novel community, there are there are several important predictions to make: 1. I am likely to enjoy this work if it executes its aesthetic well 2. I would consider a person who reads/plays/likes this more a part of the community than one that does not 3. I would probably enjoy talking to someone who reads this work {about visual novels} We can see straight away that different parts of this would be important to different people. If you want to be part of a close-knit community, getting 2 and 3 right matters a lot. If you can find the visual novels you enjoy without community assistance, 1 matters little. The VN category helps us determine what things are acceptable to discuss, and what things are not our (main) concern. Similarly, the category helps us determine what people will be in our community, and what people will not. It's generally more entertaining to discuss things you care about, and it's better when the people you discuss with are more in tune with you. As such, there are real stakes, and real reasons to want to avoid being maximally inclusive. But what draws people to VNs, and what does that draw mean for their desired definition of the VN category? Let me attempt a list of categories: Archetypes of attraction to VNs Weebs The Weeb likes some part of Japanese culture. The Weeb is very skeptical and/or dismissive of visual novels not made in Japan, though the Weeb might make an exception for things made in Korea or China (Indonesia is probably too Western, however). If we asked the Weeb, the main problem with the visual novel category right now would be that too many people see fit to include a flood of shitty EVNs. The Weeb might grudgingly accept Katawa Shoujo depending on the Weeb's other preferences. Moefuck The Moefuck reads visual novels because they really like cute girls or boys. Often personal aesthetics play a big part here and specific preferences are hard to predict, for example certain Moefucks may reject an entire artist or company due to the artstyle in their works being unacceptable. The Moefuck cluster is often seen as an amorphous, rainbow-vomiting blob ruining visual novels by the more seriously afflicted storycucks, but in truth there is more variation in it than they may expect. Moefucks are not necessarily hostile to works with serious stories, they just prefer those stories to also have cute girls. Storycucks The Storycuck wants to experience good stories, and finds VNs to be a source of such stories. In terminal cases, the Storycuck may not be able to deal with the large amount of filler in many visual novels and bounce right out into the community periphery after initially being hooked by some particularly well-paced VN. The perfectly horrible case is the Storycuck that is too distracted to watch shows, unable to get into books due to lack of visual stimulus, yet also unable to deal with SoL content. Is there any being more cursed? Anyway, I digress. The Storycuck doesn't really care that much about medium conventions like moe or superficial presentation style or whatever: they want a compelling narrative. If we ask a Storycuck, one problem with the visual novel category right now is that it doesn't admit other related genres like walking simulators, or things like Actual Sunlight and To The Moon. Their perspective on more extreme extensions like Phoenix Wright or even JRPGs will depend on their evaluation of gameplay. Degenerate Fappers These gender-neutral guys just wanna have fun, in a way that generally requires at least one hand to be free for use. You're unlikely to actually see pure Fappers in the community as they don't really have stories to discuss. I'd try the f95zone or whatever if I were looking. In mixes with other types, this manifests as disinterest in anything that does not have porn. In their eyes, if it's got no ero, it has no place calling itself a VN — after all, if it can't be fapped to, there's no point in reading it! Ero-JRPG fanboys So now you're thinking to yourself - these guys (still gender-neutral) have got to have a lot of overlap with the Degenerate Fappers. I agree, but I think it's worth separating out the two. The Degenerate Fappers don't really have a need for the visual novel category because of their DF association — they'll be arguing mostly from another type's perspective, with a modifier of Horny — but the Ero-JRPG fanboys have a lot to lose if their objects of passion are cut out of the VN category. Why? Because the wider JRPG community often has a serious intolerance of porn in their games. There _are_ places that specify in just Ero-JRPGs [nekohen], but there aren't that many games in the category, and focus for some may be less on the story contents (often machine translated!) and more on the gameplay (ui only patches!) and porn. This leads to wishing to classify Ero-JRPGs like Toushin Toshi II, Evenicle, etc. as VNs despite them being basically equivalent to your average JRPG if one ignores the sex scenes. The pure Ero-JRPG fanboy doesn't really like to read for long stretches without interaction, and if it could remove something from the definition, it would probably pick first choice-free visual novels, then extensionally VNs with few enough choices to be bothersome. Autists The motivation of the Autist when it comes to the visual novel category is that it be clear and defined by a definition that is as Not Bullshit as possible. This is a meta-motivation that may cause people to go against the naive interests of their other types. For example, observe the Storycuck Zaka's high Autism interaction as he proclaims walking simulators should not be considered VNs, despite him having liked Gone Home quite a bit and being interested in more of the genre. The Autist's greatest gripe is when people goddamn try to shove things in the FUCKING category that obviously don't fit PLEASE STOP IT DAMN YOU. VN Evangelists The VN Evangelist wants to spread the word of visual novels by any means possible, and is not afraid to butt heads with some stuffy Autist if they have to. They can and will use imprecise language like "it's like playing an anime, man", wide definitions (expect Phoenix Wright to be on their list of 'VNs' to play for beginners), and such villainy to attempt to get more people into visual novels. A community member in favor of more exclusion may cringe at their methods and predict that they will overwhelmingly attract annoying orbitals who will finish DDLC or whatever and then fuck up discussion with their terrible, uninformed opinions. The Evangelist will tell said member to loosen the fuck up and not be so elitist, and who knows maybe DDLC-kun will be a productive member of the community one day NOT THAT THEY AREN'T ALREADY BUT ANYWAY. And so on. The VN Evangelist wishes more things were on vndb in general so it could have more arguments to get people to try other 'VNs' out. Artistes The Artiste is probably making a VN. Or two. It's got culture up to here. VNs are a medium, but it's so boring if you just take the conventions for granted, right? They want to break and remake in a Shivan storm of creation, never settling for the mediocrity of the established form. They resent criteria that restrict their medium-busting ambitions, and would like for you to abandon your silly notions of traditional presentation methods. The Artiste wants you to fucking chill out on insisting on any definition, but okay can we have like, The Walking Dead in the category please? (Zaka: No.) Oh and Actual Sunlight should definitely be in the category. (Zaka: Sure) Incredibly half-arsed conclusion Speaking as a person who is a Storycuck and Autist, but has low amounts of Weeb, Moefuck, and Horny, I think we should have a somewhat restrictive definition of visual novels, but we should welcome diverse artstyles and embrace EVNs. As I don't value gameplay highly, I consider the _choiceless visual novel_ the best way to ground the category, even though this is arguably ahistorical. Choices are fine, intrusive gameplay only good if it serves the narrative, and things that are OBVIOUSLY JRPGs FOR CHRIST'S SAKE should frankly just be taken out of VNDB right this minute. That said if something is very close to a VN and also story heavy and honestly it kind of reads like a VN? fuck it IS a VN fuck you include Actual Sunlight actually... then uhh yeah... Maybe we can compromise my ideals. —But your reasons for being into VNs may be very different. And this is why we must fight. I can only hope I will one day prevail, or at least see Actual Sunlight (kino) included on VNDB. Until then, I will attempt to appeal to the Autism in both of us to at least get a sensible — if fragile — boundary established.

Status update Overall progress: Translation: 14685/43896 Editing: 6637/43896

Status update Overall progress: Translation: 19232/43896 Editing: 10482/43896

I QC'd this together with Infernoplex, casual_scrub and someone called Jack. It was an arduous, monumental task but we probably did well enough. Should you find some problems feel free to post screenshots in the #majikoi-discussion chat on the JAST Discord or here! (*´∀｀*) Happy Majikoi-mas

Hey there all! I will start with saying that I really treasure my time spent writing this blog and interacting with various people involved in the EVN community. You guys were awesome company in this journey and despite the obscurity of this project, I feel like it benefited me personally in many ways and maybe even helped people appreciate the value within the non-JP visual novel scene. I'm really thankful to all the people that read my blog, the devs that offered me their time and gave me their games for review – they all made these 2+ years into something special. When I started this project, there were two main things that motivated me. The first one was the frustration over dismissal of EVNs which is still common sense in the large parts of the VN fan community – belittling of the very games that made me fall in love with the visual novel formula. I wanted to create a space that is fully dedicated to discussion and promotion of EVNs as worthwhile and significant part of the genre. The second part was even more personal – my personal struggles with video game addiction and other issues, my ambition to shift my focus into a more challenging and creative activity. In many ways, I consider both my goals relative successes. While slowly, the perception of EVNs is changing and the scene evolving in interesting ways – while it shares pretty much all the suffering of other indie niches, with PC gaming in general being oversaturated and hard to navigate, I feel that it at least established itself as a significant formula that is attractive for story-oriented devs and appreciated by a significant audience. In other words, EVNs are here to stay and in time fewer and fewer people will be able to easily dismiss them as poor imitations of Japanese games. Whether my work had any impact in this regard? Apart from a bunch of people on Fuwanovel that I know I influenced in personal interactions, I honestly have no idea. I want to think there was some minor impact, but I had enough fun in the process and learned enough that I don't mind either way. I did my best and changed a few things about myself, which was the most important part for me. Of course, I'm in no way saying that I'm putting the blog on hiatus because my job here is done. The real reason is much more prosaic – I just can't keep up with it. The last month was particularly devastating in this regard, with very little time for me to either read or write. And while an obvious answer would be to just work at my own pace and publish stuff whenever I'm able to, it's not really something that would work out for me. Missing deadlines, thinking about future projects, it all became a source of stress rather than a source of fun, and I feel it would only get worse with time. While I really wanted to keep the project alive, I don't want to do so at any cost. I feel burned out. I barely read VNs for fun. I don't watch anime for a few months now. I need a change of pace and ability to rediscover my love for these hobbies. The blog, sadly, became a prime obstacle in this. So, what's going to happen now? The blog will cease to get updates, unless something special happens. I might still do game jam summaries, as those are something I massively enjoy. I might also publish something on Fuwanovel from time to time – I'm theoretically still an editor there. The one part of the project that's definitely here to stay is the Steam Curator account. The devs that sent me their games deserve to at least get a Steam review and, generally, an evaluation of their work. I will also use my Twitter to publish updates about new games listed on the Curator account. The Steam reviews themselves will likely be a bit more polished – not that much though, I don't want to jump straight into the same burnout-inducing rabbit whole. So, once more, thank you for sticking around and I hope my project gave you some amusement. And, of course, see you around – I'm not giving up on EVNs and the community around them any time soon.

We're happy to announce that the Kickstarter for VenusBlood HOLLOW International is now online! Give it a look if you enjoyed the previous title or Strategy RPG games! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ninetail/venusblood-hollow-english-localization-project

Easily the best Venus Blood game, story-wise and gameplay-wise. Not to mention the protagonist and main heroine have an insanely strong personal bond that makes you really root for them, though they are evil.

As I was one of the members that burned out a while back (too many VNs played for the sake of my blog on the site), I know something of where you are coming from. I was spending something like 50 hours a week playing VNs, many of them I didn't like or whose concept I found boring and pedestrian, to be able to be fair when doing my VN of the Month column. I was using a tiny scoop to try to get through the piles of hot steaming brown stuff to get to the stuff that shone regardless of genre, and my satisfaction levels kept falling until I just fell apart. I was even working on one screen while playing on another at times, while using meal times as a time to get caught up on a VN. To this day, I have to be careful not to play too much in the way of VNs, or my trauma comes back, despite the fact that I am loving what I'm reading. Heck, I'm currently recovering from another bout of that while doing something else to put myself back together. More recently, I was becoming increasingly depressed that the only community I still enjoyed being a part of was doomed. With the increased rl stress that hits every time I leave the house over the last four months, I was on the verge of collapse when I decided to get online and do my latest scan of the forums... and saw this. To be honest, just the fact that you are getting involved in the site again at all eased a lot of the pent-up stress that has been weighing on me every time I come online of late, so thanks for coming back.

Status update Overall progress: Translation: 14685/43896 Editing: 6227/43896

Hello everyone, this is one of the CG of my visual novel "one day to disappear" what do you say? The style is not manga, but the designer is very good. I'd like you to play my demo, find it here! thanks! https://onedaytodisappear.itch.io/one-day-to-disappear

Status update Overall progress: Translation: 14425/43896 Editing: 5825/43896 Moemi route is being translated.

Well, I see where you're coming from, but consider that in Japan most VNs are eroge for which the main selling point is the combination of compelling stories and sexual content... And they sell well enough through those two features. VNs with significant gameplay are kind of their own, much more mainstream market and that's fine. That is, if we're talking about adventure game-style gameplay. There's a shitton of VNs that implement RPG and Strategy game mechanics – fairly few get translated to English, but Rance games, Eiyuu Senki, Evenicle and Venus Blood -Frontier- are notable examples of gameplay eroge. You also have a decent number VNs with raising sim and dating sim elements, like Littlewitch Romanesque or Gaokao.Love.100Days. Obviously, there was in the past a huge market for heavily gameplay oriented dating/raising sims in Japan – I honestly have no idea how much alive it is nowadays. To be honest, though, I went into VNs exactly to escape from gameplay, which in narrative games can often just become pointless padding distracting from the parts I actually care about. Of course, that doesn't have to be the case if the gameplay is well implemented and I'm sure it can make stuff more appealing to an average gamer, but I'd hate for gameplay elements to be shoved everywhere just for that reason. And if that means VNs are cursed to stay obscure forever? I can live with that.

Ey, I just hit 4000 posts, or should I say, I'm only 10283 posts away from Nosebleed's disgusting post count. Wohoo. Totally going to beat that in like... 2 weeks. Totally. I'd like to take this moment to thank some special people here on Fuwanovel. @Fiddle For being the best user. @Fiddle For being the funniest user. @Fiddle For being the best at posting funny gifs, even in the most serious of discussions. @Fiddle For being the best AND the funniest user. ... ... ... Yeah, that seems to be everyone! Oh, right, AMA and all that. Ask me stuff!

Seems like a good way to keep track of VN playtime and .exes if VNs aren't on Steam or something: Download: https://micah686.github.io/VnManager/ Report Issues: https://github.com/micah686/VnManager/issues Ask for features: https://github.com/micah686/VnManager/discussions

Ah, fuck it. I was just going to bed and I realized I want to complete this now. I'm going to start working on it again. Next up is Hikari's route. As grueling as it is translating this as a non-native speaker, I can't ignore the skills I have gained over the years or letting the progress I have go to waste.

Linux port comment here: https://forums.fuwanovel.net/topic/23163-ao-no-kanata-no-four-rythm-linux-port-18-patch-for-nintendo-switch/?tab=comments#comment-522629 Aokana - EXTRA1 Linux Port: https://forums.fuwanovel.net/topic/23163-linux-port-now-released-ao-no-kanata-no-four-rythm-linux-port-18-patch-for-nintendo-switch/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-523833 Switch patch: Hello, I made this patch some days ago out of pure boredom just to see if my hacked switch with Aokana installed on it would be able to handle R18 assets and I thought about releasing for other people who still haven't played the game and would like to on their hacked switch, but uncut, since otherwise it would be forever stuck for no reason on my hard drive as I already completed the game on PC. Keep in mind this only works with a Hacked Switch with Atmosphere. If you want to see if you can hack your switch follow this guide: https://nh-server.github.io/. The zip is premade so that, provided that you're using Atmosphere CFW (which you will if you finish carefully the guide there), you only have to unzip the contents of the patch to your SD card's root folder. For other CFW users (not necessary if you already have atmosphere/followed the guide I linked previously): It may work with other CFWs, provided they can patch romfs. Just make sure the path is the same (romfs/Data/StreamingAssets/patch.dat). Atmosphere is the most popular though, so I only tested there. The H-Scene button in the gallery replay menu, although blank in this release, still works, so if you unlocked some of them just click it. This works with the Base version + Update 1.01. I'm not sure if future updates will break this, so keep that in mind. To know if the mod works correctly, you'll see "1.01 SW (R18+PE)" on the bottom right corner when it's loaded (it's usually "SW 1.01" only). Screenshot (WARNING: NSFW): Download link: http://www.mediafire.com/file/yf86ywni65n6ki8/file Some technical details in the making of this patch which may be or not interesting: This VN is made on a custom C# VN engine on top of Unity, made by NekoNyan. It's visibly made for reusability in the future, and according to some announcements it will be reused in future projects of them. It's very nicely done so kudos to them. While .NET binaries in the PC are unobfuscated, the Switch port used IL2CPP, probably due to platform limitations. Despite being in Unity, this engine loads content from a custom format instead of using Unity itself for them (not that it's a necessarily bad thing to do). It has some custom simple encryption, with the keys of the files themselves being inside of the archive. Other than that, it's just an archive with files and folders inside of it. They slightly changed the encryption algorithm for the Switch version. While the PC format was easily readable by looking at decompiled C# code about how the PC version itself loads it, it was trickier to see how the switch loaded it because of the game being compiled to C++. That said, this cool tool helped me to locate the encryption function for the Switch, which turned out to be a simple 2 lines change. This change doesn't affect size nor performance so I can only imagine why they did this.... With that figured out, I had to make an (re/un)packer for this game to pack the R18 assets since it needed to use the switch format for it to work. I can release the source code and binaries if anybody's interested, just hit me up here or by email. The switch version prefers different formats of its assets: swp (some Switch image format?) instead of webp, ogg vorbis instead of ogg opus, and some others. Even so, it supports loading all formats of the PC version. The switch version contains voices for H-Scenes on the base game (except for the Perfect Edition H-Scenes), even though they go completely unused. This effectively lowers the size of this patch. Some trivial metadata for the replay gallery is still there, but goes unused because you never unlock any H-Scenes. The binary as well as bs5 scripts (aokana's script format) still contains lots of code that handle R18 assets and scenes, if they somehow (heh) were to be available to the game, which facilitated this patch by a lot. This engine made by NekoNyan is very well done and I hope to see more VNs localized by them on it If you find a problem just let me know here or by email (mincocaja@gmail.com). I hope you enjoy it! I know Nintendo won't....

Status update Overall progress: Translation: 18473/43896 Editing: 9324/43896 Moemi route translated.

Publisher ShiraVN and developer DMM Games will release an international edition of supernatural horror visual novel Iwaihime for PC via Steam and Johren on October 23. It will support English, Japanese, and Chinese (Simplified and Chinese) language options. A demo is available now via Steam. Written by Ryukishi07, the creator of the When They Cry series, Iwaihime first launched for PC in January 2016 in Japan. An updated version, which was partially rewritten and contained additional scenario and CG images, was released as Iwaihime: Matsuri for PlayStation 4 and PS Vita in July 2017 in Japan. The international edition of Iwaihime includes the scenario adjustments and CG improvements Iwaihime: Matsuri. https://www.gematsu.com/2020/10/supernatural-horror-visual-novel-iwaihime-for-pc-coming-west-on-october-23

Confession: With all my love for computers, I'm apparently a complete idiot when it goes to tech. For like a year now I was getting more and more problems with my PC's tiny (128GB) SSD, always running out of space and bottlenecking my system despite me putting all large apps on the accompanying hard drive and actively trying to keep things tidy. For the last few months I was thinking about various workarounds and only today it occurred to me that I should check out what kind of SSD it is, buy a larger one, make a system backup to an external drive and switch it out... Which will cost me like 70$ and a few hours of work max. Aren't my last two living braincells amazing? Edit: So, the surgery was successful and the patient is stable! Quite possibly, he'll soon be better than he ever was... :3 I had to make a clean Windows install after all, but I guess that's for the better after a few years of continous use. This should make the daily use quite a bit nicer... And my life by extention, considering the coronavirus is going out of control in Poland and I'm likely to sit in this room, looking at this screen quite a lot in the coming months.

Status update Overall progress: Translation: 16661/43896 Editing: 9324/43896

Lesser known than its more popular sister, The Dandelion Girl is another VN that at least started its development by anonymous users on 4chan. And like Katawa Shoujo it's quite good, although very different. And in fact, I think it contrasts quite nicely with Katawa Shoujo. Katawa Shoujo very intentionally strove to conform to the standard visual novel formula. Hence why it takes place in Japan, in a high school, has branching routes with various heroines, and even included H-scenes. I think the goal of Katawa Shoujo was to make a solid entry in the visual novel landscape within the standards commonly set by the High School romance genre it chose. The Dandelion Girl on the other hand is not an original story, being an adaptation of a short-story of the same name by Robert F. Young. To me this was a breath of fresh air, as I always welcome VNs that see themselves more as digital books then as games. The early to mid 2000's doujin scene seemed to embrace this mentality a bit with works like Narcissu and True Remembrance, and accordingly the art style of The Dandelion Girl somewhat reminds me of True Remembrance. In fact as a whole the Kinetic Novel genre/medium seems to be a weird bastard child of VNs that probably would see more success with print novel readers rather than with it's current target demographic of VN readers. Which is probably at least among the reasons that The Dandelion Girl seems to be languishing in relative obscurity. But it is a solid adaptation which really places the reader in the world of the original short story. Its opening scene where the screen fades into a view of a blue sky with a melancholic piano piece playing in the background creates a strong ambiance which contextualizes the writing quite nicely. Overall the music and visuals do a good job supporting the writing. Never interfering with it by being overly flashy, nor contradicting the mood of the prose. It serves its purpose by distracting your eyes and ears, and allowing your mind to effortlessly focus on the story. And before you know it, you'll be finished with the heart warming tale and left with a cozy feeling inside. If Katawa Shoujo is nice meal, than The Dandelion Girl is a nice evening snack to accompany your tea.

... 3 hours later.... The current patch is intended to be used for the current Steam version of Noratoto. Please support HARUKAZE! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1010600/The_Princess_the_Stray_Cat_and_Matters_of_the_Heart/ Google Drive: https://bit.ly/3aVH6oc GDrive Mirror: https://bit.ly/3gifJWt Mirror MEGA: https://bit.ly/3l9ysXP Usage: Unzip the archive and copy the two folders and the files inside the folder you've installed Noratoto. This is how your installation folder should look like: https://imgur.com/Ahe2YEf To uninstall the patch, just delete said files/folders or move them out to an outside folder. The saves created at the original content should works while any save taken at the new content will be broken. What is included now: -20 Hscenes previously cut were integrated to the story, along with smaller text sections before and after them. These are all untranslated for the time being, however the original japanese text is still available if you select the appropiate language setting." -CGs and character sprites are restored to their original forms. No white light rays and fog anymore! -The new CGs appear in the ILLUSTRATIONS menu as you encounter them in game. -A brand new MEMORIES tab containing the Hscenes you've unlocked. What is planned for future patches: -Patricia Hscene scripts will get translated first, resulting in the second partial patch. -The rest of the routes will come later, one character at a time. -Restoring cut lines from the original, non-H script. Example: https://imgur.com/a/DjxsTmB What is not planned to get fixed: -The backlog is broken for Hscenes and for the part of the script that was originally cut. It will start working again as the player returns to a part of the original script, including the jump functionality. -It's recommended to set English as the main language and Japanese as the sub language. If only English is set as the main language, then a few untranslated choices will have no captions. -Remember to save occasionally, the game is poorly optimized and tends to be unstable. -If you find a reproducible bug, you can post it here in this topic. Please attach a savefile so we can take a look at it.

Feel free to leave any feedback you have, positive or negative, in the comments. Ko-Fi Donation Link: https://ko-fi.com/nowitsangetime Notable Links (all SFW): Sol Press blog post about dropping Future Radio and other Laplacian titles - https://solpress.co/blog/846/news-regarding-laplacians-the-future-radio-and-the-artificial-pigeons MangaGamer releases Beat Angel Escalayer R- https://twitter.com/MangaGamer/status/1270930887165739008?s=20 Information on Re:ZERO The Prophecy of the Throne - https://www.crunchyroll.com/en-gb/anime-news/2020/06/09/rezero-the-prophecy-of-the-throne-game-confirmed-for-the-west Master Magistrate on Steam - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1066630/Master_Magistrate/ Master Magistrate 18+ Patch - https://mega.nz/file/bJdgVIZR#pck5Wn8KaHtQ0rWisFzPGug9iyEj1AAj6RsatQVie9w Aokana Extra 2 Japanese announcement - https://sprite.org/information/2020/06/16/id-1453/ Mahoutsukai no Yoru English Patch Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf-9w9O5B7o Aokana PS4 Scene Modification Announcement - https://twitter.com/PQubeGames/status/1273539684946325504 ATRI -My Dear Moments- on Steam - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1230140/ATRI_My_Dear_Moments/ Adabana Odd Tales on Steam (blocked in EU) - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1094820/Adabana_Odd_Tales/?curator_clanid=36936933 Maitetsu Anime announcement (JP) - https://twitter.com/rail_romanesque/status/1275715557300547586?s=20 Tomoyo After Switch Announcement site - https://www.prot.co.jp/switch/tomoyoafter/index.html GRISAIA PHANTOM TRIGGER 01&02 Switch eShop - https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/grisaia-phantom-trigger-01and02-switch/ Alka Translations Monthly Status Report July 2020 - https://alkatranslations.com/alka-translations-status-report-july-2020/ Trailer and information on fault milestone two side: below - https://www.projectwritten.com/post-en/fault-ms2b-new-short-pv Gin'iro Haruka Momoji Route Patch - https://tsurezurescans.wordpress.com/2020/06/29/giniro-haruka-update-30-momiji-route-patch/ Props to AndrewBlackSwordsman for the theme rendition in the intro. Follow him here: https://www.youtube.com/user/andrewblackswordsman Social Media you can find/contact me at: Twitter: https://twitter.com/superange128 MyAnimeList: https://myanimelist.net/profile/NowItsAngeTime Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/nowitsangetime Discord NowItsAngeTime #5392

I wrote earlier about how I thought when translating a few lines in Shinimasu. This series is going to be in that vein, with an eye to explaining translation decisions and highlighting unusual takes. I’m going to try to make it interesting for people not knowing Japanese, but to save effort I’m not going to be providing literal translation equivalents to lines. Why am I doing this? Because my brain is a fuck and producing blog posts is an interesting motivation for doing a second pass on my translation. Unfortunately for those expecting worthwhile content I feel like digressing a bit into history and methods for this first post, though. This is what my TL setup has looked like for most of the time I’ve worked on the project: I started out doing 64 lines in December 2017, this got Asonn involved, and he introduced me to Porygon, who set up a git repository* and provided the tool you see. My brain swears I tweeted this pastebin, and I know I at least got some comment, but twitter search can’t find it so who the fuck knows? Anyway, I probably did 129 lines just copying from the game or script (can’t remember), then I copied them to the tool and worked there. One of the joys of working with porygon is that he has highly motivating auto-updating progress pages for you to fap to after pushing your new lines. This probably helped me more than I’d really like to admit. Either way, apart from being convenient for reinsertion later**, the tool has rudimentary edict-lookup of the (autoparsed) tl lines, which is convenient if you’re extremely fucking lazy. I’m not going to say I never used it (I am extremely fucking lazy), but going j-j definitely was needed more than once. Other than that I guess it’s ok, though it does have a still-unfixed bug where it’ll fuck up and display too few lines of text in a box due to some miscalculation. It’s certainly missing some features my dream tool would have, though. Personally I’d love to be able to see the script commands surrounding a line through some UI element to expand, as this could partially substitute for actually having the VN open for visual/scenographic context. It doesn’t have EPWING lookup, but that’s high effort since the format is bullshit apparently. It also doesn’t let you play voiced lines associated with spoken lines, though Shinimasu is unvoiced so I guess it doesn’t really matter for this project. Today I had to contact pory since it had stoped working properly; it turned out my build of the tool was old enough that a bug with java 9 (I had recently updated) was making it unusable. He quickly got a fix for the tool, but it took enough time that I lost the energy for revising my tl. Or that’s my excuse, anyway. See you next time for actual tl discussion w *What’s a git repository? Well the long answer is long and full of programmer-speak, but basically it lets you keep an online backup of your files, preserving older versions each time you decide to add a newer version to the server. You can do this while multiple people are working on the same file sometimes, though it can get hairy. I ended up not needing this much, but it’s been good insurance against data loss (and I have changed laptops at least once during translation, also had to reinstall windows once…). Really if you don’t have a backup for any translation of length, you’re probably doing it wrong (but also I am a CS student so it’s… not as hard for me w) **By virtue of saving the line number in the original script where the Japanese line was and associating that with the eventual translated line. I used a simplified version of this myself based on google sheets columns when I did tech for the ichigo & kyuugo tl. View the full article

I prefer this brief guide

Mmm... I'm going to be clear that the idea behind this has me a bit skeptical. I'm going to state my reasons below. 1. The Nazis didn't make exceptions for 'useful' Jewish people. During the war, while individuals might shelter or help a Jewish individual escape from the pogrom, you didn't see them being spared from the camps or execution in the open. 2. People who get involved in the kind of dogma you see here don't change their minds easily. A three hour VN wouldn't provide a 'feels real' experience for a Nazi party member from that era changing their colors, no matter how you worked it. Even more so with people in positions of authority, since the party of the era selected loyalists for positions of any sort of influence, and people who showed any sign of wavering didn't make it up through the ranks. This is even more so with women, since women in positions of influence (rare to the extreme) were usually 'mothers of the Aryan Race'. 3. This is a reinforcement of 2, in that it needs to be stated that logical arguments do not change the minds of dogmatists. 4. Timing. This is really, really bad timing. With what is going on right now, Nazi-related fiction is radioactive. It doesn't matter how you handle it, it will backfire against you. Edit: To clarify, I'm not trying to be a jerk about this. I'm merely warning you that this is likely to be the reaction from people who really think about your game's concept. My advice is to eliminate the romantic elements completely or cut out one of the heroines.

tae kim

Status update Overall progress: Translation: 11948/43896 Editing: 5287/43896 Common route translated, will spend some time going back over already translated lines and getting ready the translation with honorifics. Common route patch once it's edited.

Alriiiiiiiight, now comes the moment no one asked for: the disappointing answers and the shocking results! 1) A Not my fault the teachers never picked a book I actually wanted to read so classic lit usually put me to sleep. My school's cafeteria was also so-so most of the time so lunch break didn't deserve top spot by any means either. 2) B I wanted to argue with Poltroon's motive but... eeerrr... Last time I tried to argue with a friend I don't like DMC all that much they pointed how I was buying my 2nd copy of DMC4 in that same instant so welp, I give up trying to hide it. 3) A I FEEL LIKE A CHAMPION OF SELF-CONTROL WOOOO! I hope the streak doesn't break any time soon. And yes, there are BL gachas but either their translations or gameplay sucks too much for me to care about grinding them so I usually stick to otome ones. 4) B At least that was the original answer, but turns out I beat one more yesterday after posting. Go me, but oops. I'm sorry for breaking my promise that all questions had one right answer, so everyone gets a point for this one as an apology. Bonus 0.5 for Lesiak for getting it right the first time, bonus 0.25 for Zaka for having faith in my capacity of beating 11 bosses and bonus 0.1 for Kiri because he picked the 11 option too one way or the other I guess. 5) A I'm real sorry, but my shit sense of humor kinda prevents me of not choosing Mogeko Castle. I do love To The Moon, but default assets, the align puzzles serves no real purpose, yadda yadda technical bullshit excuses yadda yadda 6) C The other options are glorious, but the last one comes with an extra Archer and oh my god, imagine being served by Archer and eating with him, yadda yadda fangirlism yadda yadda 7) A I prefer 9S as a character, but voice prize goes to Eve. This is him btw (on the right): And if anyone's wondering what the コノママジャダメ is: So after this breakdown, the final score ends up as: 1st - Fiddle (4 pts) 2nd - Zaka (3.25 pts) 3rd - Poltroon (3 pts) 4th - Kiri (2.1 pts) 5th - Lesiak (1.5 pts) So our crowned champion whose badge is coming soon-tm-maybe-never is: FIDDLE!!! Moral of the story: Sheeps are powerful and now I'm scared

Aiming for a Christmas release *fingers crossed* I hope everyone is well.