Black Sands Entertainment

the cool thing about it is it is 5k big. So zooming in will not pixelate. Also the forest is a different layer so we will be able to make hidden sights underneath and then simply change the opacity to see the hidden areas.

alpha of the map. We will be finishing it up in a couple of days.

It looks professional.  I'm not sure what sort of critique you're looking for.
From a lore standpoint I assume you plan to populate it with different creature types.  Be aware that from an ecological standpoint it doesn't make much sense to have distinct zones with their own flora and fauna if the entire thing is only 5 miles wide.  In fact, with a space that small it's doubtful whether a stable ecosystem could even be maintained.  It could be instructive to study up on the Galapagos Islands if you wish to introduce an element of realism.
Also, how is there a desert next to a lake with a river flowing through it?  Grasslands next to a forest?  A forest next to an active volcano?  Consider how these bizarre phenomena could happen within natural laws--and if you can't explain them through natural laws, then explain them with supernatural ones.

Aha.  That's really all you need to explain it then.

they are asking for 210,000 but have the shittiest reward tiers i ever seen. They are trying desperately to not spend anything on rewards.

always unique. Most OELVNs change shirts. We change nations!

Genre:Adventure, Investigative, Management, and psychological Visual Novel   Platforms:PC, Mac, Linux, PS4   Languages:English (Fully Voiced), English (Text)   Visual Style: DreamWorks style graphics mixed with dark and mythological themes.   Progress:~20% of the game completed. (20 hour game)   Estimated release:~Summer 2017   “Whether friend or tyrant, I will become a King!"   Welcome to the Rift, a dimensional tear located in Canaan where the ancient gods were created and where you must prove your worthiness to lead the world of men. You have allies and the training needed to fight, but nothing will prepare you for the wonders and horrors of the unstable plains in the Rift.     Manage Respect, Relationships, and Mental will when making decisions. Assigning team members to missions best suited for them. Discovering weaknesses to epic enemies through investigations. Collecting real world lore and in game lore by discovering hidden items. Unlocking secrets of the past by collecting memory gems. Making timed decisions and avoiding damage in high intensity situations. Leveling up your characters to specialize in unique skills.     Time   In the game, everything will cost time to complete and characters may be away, unable to do a task available. Time is managed by the player and he has 6 months to prepare to face Nun. Special events will happen at certain times such as full moon cycles, changing of season, etc. This will give the player a level of management that makes them feel immersed.   Leveling   Each character has core stats which helps them succeed in feats. Completing certain missions and training will gain you very limited talent points to specialize your character in lore friendly ways.     Respect   You are a leader. You must earn the respect of your soldiers! Decisions you make and the success of those decisions will affect the confidence your allies have in you. If you fail a lot, they will lose confidence and go rogue during critical decisions. You may even lose command. A true Pharaoh never loses command…       Kinship   While how successful you are in decision making and your sense in the field affects the way they see you, it does not help one bit on how they think of you as a person. In order to get on their good side, you must appeal to their innate personalities. One cannot please everyone so make your choices wisely. It is worth noting that Kinship affects how allies act when not around you or when not commanded.     Stability   You are the strongest. Unfortunately, you are also the most flawed… You have an issue with Dementia and you must suppress these voices throughout your time in the Rift. The tradeoff is considerable though because when you were young, and you let the voices run wild, you could do things others could only dream of. In these dark days, will you allow your mind to slip in order to wield more power or will you avoid such pleasures and rely on knowledge of self?     The rift has stood for thousands of years, since the day Nun arrived from the planet Nibiru. Located in the barren lands of Canaan, this void was created to keep the outside world uncontaminated while Nun worked on his creations. He spent centuries studying the humans and when he figured out this world, he created ancients similar to the life found on his home planet. They warred with each other inside the Rift until only 3 families remained. When they left the Rift, Nun used a stability gem to alter reality and hide the incomprehensible damage done. But now, thousands of years since the great sundering, Nun has created another race of beings to combat his creations from ions past. In order for them to prove themselves, they must survive the Rift, as it were during the time of the ancients. Stability is no more! Can the mortals survive the Trials of the Rift?   There are many different types of quests in Black Sands. We will briefly go through some of them to better understand the gameplay mechanics involved in each. In Black Sands, time, health, and deployment all work against you as you stride to prepare yourself for the final battle with Nun.   Scouting - designed to seek new quests exclusively. Minimal danger   Investigation - A quest that requires discipline and perception. Player must decipher material and decide what is important and not. Proper investigation rewards secrets.   Tracking - This is an extremely heavy skill check category that requires quick decision making and a little luck. These missions are available only once before they go back into the quest pool.   Social - This is a quest where you develop relationships with the other characters and learn more about them.   Instant Events - Automatically happen when certain criteria are met. May have nothing to do with prior tasks.   Group Events - The entire group must participate. Nun will go over your notes and inspect your facility whenever this happens.   Epic Events - Storyline Events that are either triggered by actions or chose by the player. These tend to have more decision making then other events.   Exploration - A quest designed to explore unknown locations. These quests have no prior knowledge so player must use their wits to move forward. The farther you get, the better the rewards. These missions can be ended at any time but there is no guarantee you can return.     This game is directly inspired by Dragon Age and Telltale. Their strong narratives and crucial game changing decisions inspired me to design a visual novel unlike any before it.   Additional motivation was found in the way Hollywood depicts middle eastern and Saharan people. We do a lot of research and use annotations in game to teach the actual history behind the fantasy of our world.   Future   We will be converting all sprites to Live2d and making them look a bit more realistic and 20x more brutal. The goal is to make this like Conan while having the art leveling of pixar, dreamworks.     How can I help?   Follow us on facebook, Cosplay our characters, Share the hell out of this, and Pay homage to the gods by buying some of our merchandise.   Don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter and remember, Nun sees all.   We have these posters and more. You can support us while getting something tangible that will uplift both you and your families.     Facebook Twitter Official Page Official Store Youtube

Major Overhaul of Project Page

I plan on completely overhauling the main page soon. In the meantime...

Apedemak! Pride of the Pack

Yay, I got my own part <3
Man, those were the days. Fuwa was the first forum I participated in actively, and back then I could just go on posting about absolutely nothing forever. I still remember you did give me that Legendary Spammer title before I got to 500 posts - thanks for it, by the way (even though you removed it a day later ) 
At times you've been a pain, but nowdays I'm mostly happy you're around, as I think about just any member I talked to in 2013. 
Oh, I never did get banned from IRC, by the way. If it happened, it lasted for a pretty short time... After frodo I did still pop up a lot there, after all. I complained the bot was gone for like, 2 weeks  
Looking forward to the rest. 

Now I know many of you are reading that title and either saying, "Bats, there are already histories of Fuwanovel written by other members! What makes yours any different?" History is history after all. I have wanted to do this many times, and right now is a good time I think. Fuwanovel has a ton of new members, members that are post-Aaeru, post- Vax, post- Ryoji, post- torrents. Fuwanovel today is vastly different than what it was just 2 short years ago. I have been browsing the dankest of visual novel websites, Fuwanovel, for 3.5ish years now. I feel I am an a unique position to tell the story of Fuwanovel as I see it. Many of you know that I used to be a global moderator. Even less of you likely know that I also used to be a site administrator. For that reason, I got to see many of the changes happening to Fuwanovel behind closed doors. I was a part of some of the decision making that led Fuwanovel to where it is now. So, this post will be all about that jazz. This post will not be white washed. It will not be some Fuwa Propaganda. I have made many mistakes in my time on Fuwanovel, and in my eyes, so have other people. Please do not report this post, or censor it because you think I am insulting people. I am keeping this as respectful as possible. Now that the breading of this historical sandwich is in place, how about a little background as to why I joined Fuwanovel. 
Back when I joined, on November 20th, 2012, I had read but two VNs. Katawa Shoujo and Analogue: A Hate Story. Analogue was what got the ball rolling, and after an RPGFan.com suggestion, I decided to read Ever17. I found a particular site that offered VN downloads, however they were multi-part .rar files. Screw that. I am a lazy solidbatman who wants one download and one only. So, I continued my search, found Fuwanovel, and downloaded Ever17 from the old front page.
If you are very new, and don't know what Fuwanovel used to be, let me explain. Fuwanovel, until somewhat recently, offered pre-patched torrents of visual novels. These were portable, download and play VNs with minimal effort required from the user. Aaeru's goal was to make playing VNs as easy as possible, and this was well before Steam VNs were even a blip on the radar really. Sure, one or two existed like Analogue, but it was nothing compared to what we have now. These pre-patched VNs did not always work, but generally, results were fine. 
Back to me now, I did not actually join Fuwanovel upon downloading Ever17. That did not come until I was enjoying Ever17, and downloaded Never7 to follow up with. Unfortunately, Never7 had a sound issue, and I was unable to solve it on my own. So, I joined the Fuwanovel forums in what I still think is the best introduction post ever written. At the time, I was planning on just messing around a little bit, getting my help for Never7, and moving on. Instead, I found a helpful, extremely friendly, tight knit community eager to spread their love of visual novels to anyone willing to listen. I was still friendly back then too. I quickly took part in anime discussions, gaming discussions, and generally helping people out whenever possible. Fuwanovel was a baby still, only being formed in August 2012, and was just gaining its footing.
To this day, I still have not sought help for my Never7 problem on Fuwanovel. 
I eventually found my way into Steve's teamspeak server, and with his encouragement, I finished Clannad. Early on, I actually was friends with Steve, and enjoyed talking to him. This was before either of us were moderators. We had many a good discussion about various anime and VNs, and I quickly learned that in his teamspeak, no link was a the only kind of safe link. He also learned of my distaste for sexualized lolis, and was constantly posting things to trip me up into looking at one. Much fun was had on his Teamspeak, and eventually Tay popped in to ask us if we wished to become moderators.
This may have also been around the time as the IRC room AMApocolypse. Snotsuku, a resident troll, decided to intice everyone into spamming the forums with AMA threads. Oddly enough, this marked my early encounter with Zakamutt, as he and Kendjin both were slapped on the wrists for their actions and Snow faced a temporary ban. I do remember helping Tay and Ryoji sort that mess out (it resulted in a dedicated IRC thread, and the beginnings of the Games and Chatter board) but again, I don't remember if I was a moderator yet.
Notable members that become moderators with me were Steve, Down, and Luch. Luch, while quiet, helped many people with technical issues resulting from downloads on Fuwanovel. Down is Down and is still what I consider the gold standard for how a moderator should handle himself on a large forum. Steve and I, well, our relationship began crumbling at this time. We both had very very different ideas on how Fuwanovel should move forward. If memory serves, on of the first messy staff arguments was over a NSFW loli image being posted. Another early argument was over whether or not the forums should have links to pirated localized VNs. The loli debate pitted Steve and Aaeru against Ryoji and I. Ryoji and I were similar in that we were crass, loud, filled with profanity. Steve was... Steve. Condescending, and the type to put his fingers in his ears and go, "Not listening!" His walls of texts failed to address issues raised, which only served to make Ryoji and I even angrier. Aaeru just did not seem to understand at times what was going on, or was too timid to jump into the bloodbath. 
I was extremely disrespectful in those arguments, and absolutely should have carried myself better. Tay came in, reached something of a compromise that was begrudgingly accepted by both sides. Arguments between Steve, and I continued over everything. Spam posts, loli images, piracy. It was a mess. Again, my anger typically got the best of me, and Tay, or another moderator would swoop in and attempt to resolve the situation. I stopped going to Steve's TS and began hanging out on the IRC chat room. 
It was there the birth of Kaguya was witnessed. From spammer to global mod. Not before getting banned from the IRC for abusing frodo the bot. Kaguya was a crazy spammer. We even caught him liking his own posts to boost his reputation. Baby Kaguya just did not give a fuck, and that was part of his appeal to some I suppose. I don't recall if Nosebleed ever hung out in the irc room. He can let you know if he did.  Regardless, some shapign up happened and suddenly boom, global mod.
Now something interesting happened somewhere in that time frame that resulted in me being promoted to an admin. Ryoji left Fuwanovel after basically shaping the forums. I don't think it would be wise to really get into the specifics, but it was not really a good situation. I volunteered to take on the admin spot, while in the back of my mind knowing it would be a temporary promotion. The first thing I did was finally clamp down on sexualized loli images, and pirated links on the forums. This once again led me to bump heads with Steve and Aaeru. It took me an entire day of arguing with Steve on his TS before he finally agreed to put any sexualized loli images in spoilers and label them NSFW. He also agreed to keep them only in his loli thread. It was exhausting arguing with Steve. 
Things were going somewhat smoothly, until Fuwapocolypse 1 happened. Aaeru kind of vanished around the same time, causing a massive headache for poor Tay. I found myself completely useless in the situation. I believe the problem was that Aaeru had pirated the forum software, and it finally caught up to use with a take down. Tay managed to raise some funds, and we purchased the legit copy that we use today. Nayleen was a huge help around that time, so I stepped down right about the same time he became an admin. I decided I no longer wanted to be staff for Fwuanovel. My constant fighting had helped nothing, and I just wanted to be done. 
At this time, the original Fuwanovel blog, VisualNovelAer was sort of dead I think. There was the random post now and again, but it was dead and social media outreach was smallish. Aaeru's disappearance left Tay high and dry, and then came the second Fuwapocolypse. At issue was the fact Tay had been threatened with legal action. With Aaeru completely vanished, IP holders went after Tay for being in charge of the site. This resulted in Tay having to lay low for a while and severely limit his itneractions with the site. Cybersteel took over hosting the server and Steve became admin. That was a disaster. 
Steve asked me to come back onto the staff to balance it out a bit I guess. I reluctantly agreed, only to find the same old issues at play. Steve was unwilling to listen to anyone but his little echo chamber, which infuriated me, leading me to go off again and again before finally asking to be relieved of my mod powers. It took 3 hours of arguing with Steve just to get off the mod team. 
-End Part I-
I will work on this more, adding more detail as I find some older posts with some of this action, and remember things better. For example, Grisaia and Clannad getting western releases caused some issues, and so did the final Loli Battle (which resulted in Steve finally leaving Fuwanovel and Sanah becoming the new defender of Fuwa Lolis  ) The rebirth of the blog, the birth of FuwaReviews, the death of torrents, and social media stuff will be covered in Part 2 when I do it. Also look forward to irc explosions, Original Ren's appearance, and other more member centric focused stuff. Maybe I'll even get into Aaeru nearly killing Fuwanovel for good. Was kind of swept under the rug for various, good reasons. 
I have made my fair share of mistakes with Fuwanovel. I've been too adversarial at times, disrespectful, and just mean. I fully admit a lot of my strong language is uncalled for. I also admit that I think of plenty of people on Fuwanovel as entitled, ignorant, fools with too many ideals and not enough practicality. I am also aware that many of you likely feel the same way about me. I'm fine with that. I can dish it out, and I can take it. 

I plan on completely overhauling the main page soon. In the meantime...

Apedemak! Pride of the Pack

Last update was Feb 6th "The first coloured CGs are done.".
In late December they said it would be coming out in March.

this is refreshing. The art style is different in all the right ways.

Yeah the voices in the trailer are really good, and looking forward to the future of this project

I love the voiced trailer, it sounds really epic! The character designs are really cool as well, can't wait to see more of it.

Let me know how it goes, I bought it for my Vita when it was on sale ages ago but never got around to it 

It seems interesting
Have fun

Remember this game is like a prequel to Blazblue so if something doesn't make sanse, it might be because you are missing part of the required amount of lore you needed to understand it.

this is not what people complain about. In fact, it is the exact opposite. An american visual novel made by an american who never been in japan makes a game set in tokyo. That is what pisses this community off.

Gonna knock this one out. My kind of VN. People kicking faces in.

Looks fairly good
I like the little touches, like the right-colored war paint and the equipment

Bydos, the Prodigy

this is not what people complain about. In fact, it is the exact opposite. An american visual novel made by an american who never been in japan makes a game set in tokyo. That is what pisses this community off.

I only mention this because anyone can say "i can get you on steam" but that really means nothing and selling 15 to 35% of your revenue for such a thing is bonkers. I like seeing publishers bring their own well established market and press contacts to the table.If I am giving up 35% of my revenue, i need an over 50% return on investment for it to be worth the time.