Darklord Rooke

I'll be blunt... despite appearances, this isn't a chuunige. It is a sort of cross between fantasy, science fantasy, and mystery. I'll just say that I wasn't impressed by it... if only because there were numerous technical failures throughout the game (think the kind of BGM random cut-offs you sometimes encounter in older games), and most of the story is shared by all the paths... the only difference is in the epilogue, h-scenes, and who dies and lives at the end.

The protagonist is a former detective who is living in virtual exile in a walled-off city occupied by foreign military forces. It is pretty much a lawless city, where just about anything can happen... which would have been more interesting if so much of the VN hadn't been the protagonist being pushed around, unable to adapt to events.

For those who start reading this VN... it isn't your imagination. There is very little 'conversation' in this VN, though there is a lot of talking back and forth. Almost no one in this VN listens when someone else speaks and half the characters are either deranged or seemingly senile. The protagonist has something resembling common sense... except when it fails solely to make the story move forward after endless scenes that were probably intended to get you to like the heroines and other characters but don't quite manage it.

A few examples... Antonio the failed mafioso who forgets what he told someone five minutes later and can't follow instructions to save his life. His friend Mint who basically repeats what other people say and acts like a small child with the body of a man. Colossus, the sneak thief who got trapped in the city because he thought the ladder over the great wall was a way into a rich man's house... it goes on and on. The number of people that are incapable of listening in this VN made me want to pound my head on a wall. If it were just one or two, it would have been funny... but almost every character in this VN shows signs of this quality at one point or another.

It might sound funny but it quickly begins to wear on your nerves when you realize the conversations never go anywhere and there isn't a punchline.

The mystery of this VN is revealed in bits and pieces along the way... but by the time you start getting an outline of what is going on, you've most likely grown to hate the entire cast of characters. There are some scenes near the end that are definitely intended to be emotional... but simply aren't because you haven't developed an attachment to them. The fact that this extends to the heroines to one extent or another only makes things worse.

In the end, what am I trying to say? Don't play this VN unless you are a masochist... a really hard masochist. It really is painful to struggle through this mess.

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Visual Novel Discussion
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"For sale in Japan only": A Japanese developer's perspective on the eroge embargo (Link)

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To be honest, the harvest for this year so far has been kind of... less than impressive, to say the least. The best VN I've played this year so far was Silverio Vendetta, and even I think it would have been much better if it had only contained Vendetta's path. I'll come straight out with it and say there aren't any solid candidates so far, even though the year is almost half-over. Last year, by this time, there were four solid candidates - though the later part of the year blew most of them out of the water, and all the candidates from 2013 were concentrated around the beginning of the year.

It is kind of worrying how little in the way of exciting VNs has been released so far this year, and while I am holding out hopes for the new game from Tigre Soft and one or two other possible releases, my experience so far this year is that all the major companies seem to be trying to spit out games that will make them a quick buck for small amounts of effort (fandiscs, shorter games than usual with fewer cgs, using newbie writers, etc). To an extent, that was true last year as well, but it has gotten worse since this year began. For someone who is basically plowing through an average of four or five new VNs every month (or six or seven, like last month), this is not just a minor issue but a real problem. While I found Silverio Vendetta in February to be immensely fun, there really hasn't been anything that blew me out of the water so far.

Understand, this isn't a case of my standards being too high (normally, I would suspect that, but looking at the ones I've played so far objectively...). Rather, it is a case of the bar being lowered overall, by the companies doing the releasing. As an example, Giga released yet another visually impressive but somewhat subpar moe-battle VN near the beginning of the year with an obvious eye toward imitating (poorly) some of Majikoi's more enjoyable aspects, combined with some from the Ikki Tousen anime's concept. Normally, this VN would have been exciting, and it did have all the elements necessary to make a good VN... put together in such a manner that it turned out to be surprisingly bland.

Sanoba Witch, which I had some rather high hopes for, also disappointed me somewhat. For all Yuzusoft's flaws, that company has always tended to understand where the line between serious and joke needs to be drawn in each of its games (ie Dracu-riot). Unfortunately, there was only one path in that game that I could unreservedly praise, and it definitely wasn't kamige material.

Combine that with a poor showing by Minato Soft and barely acceptable works by Pulltop and a few other companies, and I have to wonder exactly what is going on in the eroge business right now.

I know I sound unnecessarily condemnatory, and you would be right to say I'm being pessimistic. However, the fact remains that it hasn't been a good year so far, and six months without a kamige is downright depressing. Of course, you usually can only expect one or two kamige in a given year... but most of the best companies have been producing disappointments, so I think my pessimism is well-deserved, personally.

First, I want to say thank you to those who patiently listened as I whined and complained about this VN as I played it. I should also explain what I was complaining about first, so that people don't get the impression that this is an awful VN, just because I have complaints about it. I'll place this in spoilers for people who don't care about my whining.





Second, I should say that I have a firm belief that Ryukishi's VNs make better anime than they do VNs, because his scenario design is far better than his writing (not to mention his art). His love for torturing and killing his own characters is very similar to that of George Martin or Glen Cook, but he mixes it up with that peculiar disconnect from reality and surrealism that is unique to Japanese writers, especially when it comes to violence or sex, lol.

The first part of this story looks like it comes out from a Japanese-colored version of our own film noir. To be honest, I found it pretty amusing and an overall fun ride. I cried and laughed with the characters, and I got to like the various people Rose and her crew met. The second part is somewhat less amusing, as it is mixed in with hope followed by a quick fall into despair, as things take a turn for the worse that never quite gets better. The third and last arc (there are four seasons but only three arcs, really) is devastatingly emotional and full of a despair far surpassing that of the first two. Friends die, others betray, and characters you have come to love suffer. In other words, it has all the ingredients you need for a good trilogy (which is what it feels like).

The themes involved will probably confuse about fifty percent of those who read this who aren't from Asia. I'm not kidding. Simply put, it requires the ability to appreciate the character, weaknesses and strengths of the Chinese, Americans, and Japanese at the same time. As such, the learning curve for fully appreciating this VN is a bit steep. In fact, in some ways it is more steep than I/O because the matters it deals with aren't matters of science but of culture and people.

I suggest anyone who wants to fully understand a lot of what they say - especially the exchanges between the Chinese mafia and Rose's people - read up on current events in the relations between Japan and China, because this story has been heavily influenced by the recent mess in diplomatic relations between the two. A lot of it is mixed up with the usual emotionalism that defines Japanese writing, but the core arguments are based in current events, rather than just ones of the distant past.

Is this a good VN? That's an excellent question, me. To be honest, it is hard to say. There are a ridiculous number of flaws to the setting, and the writing, while much better than Ryuukishi07's past efforts, is still less than poetic (and his event descriptions are still as weak as ever). However, if you just look at the fun factor...? This is a fairly enjoyable experience. Oh, for those who hate to see characters they like suffer or die off or who can't deal with concepts like prostitution, organized crime, or corruption as a matter of daily life this would be a hard VN to read. In some ways, this is far darker than his past VNs, because the actual daily events include no sense of fantasy, save for the setting itself. As a result, people who could enjoy Higurashi, Umineko, and Higanbana with no problems might very well show signs of rejection with this one. At the same time, people who despised the others might very well like this one, because - while it does share all of Ryuukishi's usual habits - both bad and good - it is outside of his usual ballpark in the subject matter.

Edit2: Whoops, the last edit was a bit too... sharp. To avoid controversy I have sealed it behind a spoiler tag. Read at your own risk.

Introduction:
 
Gurenka (vndb) is made by Escu:de, a VN company which has a fairly long history of games I've never heard about. I stumbled upon the title on vndb (The naked red-haired girl in the screenshots had nothing to do with it, I swear!). As a Chuunibyou story, I thought I'd try to make a new start to the genre. My previous experiences in Chuunibyou ran me aground with 11eyes -Tsumi to Batsu to Aganai no Shoujo, which featured lack luster school slice-of-life combined with endless battles I couldn't see a point to. I ended up dropping it fairly early on.
 
As far as I can tell, Chuunibyou is all about embracing your the young teenager in yourself, the way some of us might have played "pretend games" with spies, secret organizations, and superpowers when we were kids. Chuunibyou involves combat where the circumstances of the fight fall secondary to the rolling emotions and the impact of the characters. Perhaps it because the characters themselves didn't make an impression but I couldn't get into the characters emotions during the 11eyes's fights. But that is fine, because Gurenka was a lot better in that regard.
 
From the UI and title song, I immediately felt the atmospheric component of the game. From the the lack of visible characters on the title screen (it's just wall of hazy red), I also thought the story might be more tragic, with the atmosphere acting stifling at times. When you finish a routes, you can toggle a character display on the title screen. Such a different impression from that red wall! All in all, the system aspect is very well polished. It's great.
 
Story:
 
{Note: This post is made having finished the common route (or at least one side of it) and Elsrise's route.}
 
In the first few hours, the presence of the supernatural is quickly established. Unlike VN's who start with a supernatural prologue and then fall in slice-of-life, the MC has the supernatural be, quite literally on his doorstep.
 
It isn't long before Otherworld's start popping up. To be honest, when the protagonist starts invoking his powers and dealing with the situation, I was pretty left in the dust. I get what you're probably capable of combat-wise, but I don't know how it works, don't know how it solved the problem, don't know how I should think about it, nor where things are going to go from here.
 
From there on, the VN is a flurry of conversations with the characters, investigating the strange events, and new outbreaks. The incidents exist very much in an on-going fashion, with them happening and being dealt with in a non-linear fashion.
 
Now that I look back on it, most of the conversations were kept short and light. The few extended scenes themselves were varied, including a slice-of-life conversation and the conversation between the teacher and Saori in the hallway. I liked how that one stirred the pot of possibilities up while hinting at the two's characters. Good pacing overall.
 
The latter half of the common route and beginning of the route had some important fights involving Kuon, Ryouji and Elsrise. I enjoyed how past confrontations often got brought up later in the story. Sometimes things that happened are explained, other times the characters mention things that were strange that they noticed. Doing so made the fights feel important to the story.
 
I also think the middle part of the novel had pretty good flow. The relevant conversations, shifting of relations, and successive scenes all felt quite smooth.
 
The final segment of Elsrise's route was one big showdown. Suffice to say, it was exciting. Kuon is badass. When the trio was pinned down in the city, despite it just being a fight (there was no huge plot build-up nor greater purpose they were fighting for), just the renewed danger made it feel like full-on crisis mode. Though, it was a bit hard to follow along with the Otherworld plot, as it wasn't obvious what was going to develop into the next source of adversity. The origins and objective of the "foe" probably weren't fully explained in Elsrise's route, though I expect them to be in Kuon's route.
 
 
Plot structure:
 
The overlying plot was Kuon staying by Kyouji's side until she sealed enough Otherworlds. As is common for stories with an initial nebulous overarching objective, its progress wasn't focused on much, other than Kuon noticeably becoming stronger as time went on. As Ryouji took towards sealing the Otherworlds, he quickly found himself caught up in much more immediate matters. Then, towards the end of the story, when Kuon breaks the news that this next incident might be the last, the reader, at least I was, filled with nostalgia/reluctance. This doesn't strike me as anything groundbreaking, but still, I can approve of a VN that can properly induce those emotions. There are a few BGM tracks that only play once or twice near the end which help set the different moods. There were a lot of little enjoyable things in the novel.
 
Besides sealing the Otherworlds, there wasn't really a major concrete goal to work towards. This was pretty different from what I was used to.
If I had to say, what made the plot feel moving forward was:
1. The protag gradually gaining an understanding of the Otherworld. At first he was just thrown into the fray, but later he makes observations and hears speculation and explanations of the other characters. [1]
2. The protag gradually learns more about Alsrise and Alize. [2]
 
--Moderate spoilers--
[1] We first viewed the Otherworld as something that encroaches on the real world, and which attaches to (ie. haunts) a person.
Then comes the hypothesis from Saori, that the Otherworld and the real world being two seperate worlds with can be crossed by making them overlap slightly.
Then we get the explanation from Elsrise that the Otherworld is basically "masses of power" present all over the world, which reacts to people's strong emotions and manifests them.
[2] At first we only know that she doesn't mind leaving the Otherworlds alone. Later on we learn that she is worried what will happen if too many are sealed and gathered in one place, instead of being allowed to dissipate naturally. Lastly, we learn about Alsrise's homeland and her nature, being the product of people's dreams/longings.
--End of spoilers--
 
I think I understand how the Otherworld forms the plot in the common route. The idea is that a ill-defined source (the Otherworld) leads to seemingly very-different scenarios, but which have some similarities to each other once we understand more of the details. The way Gurenka does it seems like one approach to using supernatural phenomena to fuel plot events.
 
I find it exciting how the nature of the Otherworld makes keeps the supernatural element relevant even for the human heroines. The humans routes will almost certainly focus more on the internal struggles of those heroines and how they are realized by the Otherworld.
 
 
Presentation:
 
At the start I mentioned Gurenka's polished menu and UI. Gurenka's one of the few novels which I've really felt how much the production values improved the experience (another that comes to mind is Eustia). The sprite and visual effects do a solid job in accentuating the characters motions. That, combined with the music, art, and sfx helped immerse the reader in the fight scenes.
 
I did had some minor complaints for the fights, nothing too much. It might be me not being used to reading fight scenes, but some of the effects CG's didn't seem match with the text description. Also sometimes attacks from different people used the same cg, which was confusing and made it harder to picture the action.
 
 
On the personableness of the opposing heriones
 
I like how Gurenka handles potential enemies interacting and sharing the same space. What I mean is this setup can lead to some constrained and predicable scenes (Tsukihime and Fate/Stay night). In Gurenka, they bump heads occasionally, but it isn't drawn out, and so it ends up feeling very smooth and pleasant while still being believable. Though, the latter might have only been possible thanks to the broad-mindedness of Kuon and amiableness of Elsrise.
 
Both kuon and Elsrise are in a position where they can further the main plot, without dumb quarrels (of course, if their quarrels had been story-worthy, that would have been a different matter).
 
I thought the Elsrise was going to be kuon's direct enemy, with their history being somehow tied to that, but she ended up being an unrelated existence, which was unexpected, but nice. The story might have felt constrained and a bit of a rehash if Elsrise's route was just another side of the same quarrel.
 
Kyouji and Elsrise's relationship development is a quite abbreviated, but their relationship is given an appropriate amount of along-the-way thought considering the space and the fact that the VN's plot does not hinge on their relationship. In terms of plausibility, Alize surprisingly succeeds in making the two's quick development more believable, but here also Elsrise's personality plays a large role.
 
 
On the MC's lack of personality:
 
Ryouji's thoughts, comments and reactions are sufficient to make the the VN scenes flow and be interesting, but he doesn't have a strong personality you can pin him down to.
 
Having an MC with a stronger personality would let the reader appreciate him as a character when he interacts with the other characters. It would also might include his character development. As he gets closer to Elsrise, you can see most prominently in her reactions. I can't recognize a change in him, because I can't grasp him as an individual in the first place!
 
A stronger personality might have also made his conversations with Saori more animated, with a back-and-forth dialogues instead of one-way conversations.
 
 
On the MC acting and thinking like a middle school student:
 
Ryouji being a bit of a kid actually interacts well with the characters and parts of the story:
 
Kuon is doesn't mind having fun together with, and at the expense of, a teenager like Ryouji.
Elsrise, at first, treats Ryouji as a noncombatant [3] (in that she has mercy on him), because of their gap in power and experience and because he is a human. However afterwards, she considers him properly and doesn't dismiss him for being a teenager.
To be honest, Ryouji having the mind of a teenager didn't effect his ability to get things done. There were no tactical geniuses in this VN: he was just about as competent as everyone else. It just is clearly visible occasionally, such as during Elsrise's route. It would have been nice if he gave more thought and consideration to Elsrise, towards the individual she might be.
 
Ryouji's human friends operate on pretty much the same frequency, so that fits too.
 
The other thing that works well with his young self is the fights in Gurenka. While they have a sense of crisis and "oh shit", they don't have a grave seriousness like a more serious title would. Because of that, perhaps his teenager's fighting spirit is more appropriate than an adult's would be. I'll be sure to compare the emotions at play when I read other Chuunibyou VN's like Evolimit and Tokyo Babel.
 
[3] リーゼ「これで分かったでしょう？あなたの所にいるあの化け猫の所にお帰りなさい」
俺に何の力もなく、くおんのおまけとしか思われていない。
だからこそこうして会話もするし、手加減もされる。
 
 
Closing words:
 
So far it's been an enjoyable ride. The characters are impressionable. Kuon is a riot and occasionally a storm, Elsrise is admirable, Fumika is adorable when she is pouting, Saori is the intelligent deducer of the group: I will be pleased if her route reflects the intelligence she displays so far. The miko is by far the character we know the least about. She has almost no telling lines in the whole route. I hope she gets a long enough route and makes an impression later on.
 
For the next route, I'm going to resume from the closest branch on the flowchart (flowcharts 最高!!!). Onwards to Kuon's(?) route!!!

Edit: Easy fix for this problem provided by binaryfail (scroll to Edit 1)!
After writing up my review for Venus Blood Gaia, I decided to launch into the next and most recent title in the series, Venus Blood Hypno.  To my chagrin, upon starting the game I was greeted with a screen similar to the one above.  Notice how the Japanese interface text is cut off?
English players of Japanese-language PC games will be familiar with the various locale hoops that need to be cleared to get these games to work right. Pretty much all titles require the user to set the system locale for non-Unicode programs to Japanese; this has the side-effect of causing a few installed programs to change from an English interface to a Japanese interface. This is annoying, but usually remedied by locating the language setting in the program's preferences and changing it from system default to English. A few especially irksome games, like some of Debonosu's titles, display gibberish instead of Japanese unless the time format is also set to Japanese. Eushully titles spawn periodic error popups unless the game is installed with the time format set to Japanese.
I'm used to dealing with these issues, so I figured there would be a similar easy workaround to get this title working. I did find a workaround... and it's not pretty. As it turns out, this game requires the Japanese multilingual user interface (MUI) to be installed (also known as changing the display language). What does that mean? It means all the interface elements in Windows become Japanese (including the start menu and control panel). That's shockingly bad if you've been relying on machine translators to stumble through VNs until now. But wait, it gets better. In Windows Vista and Windows 7, the ability to switch MUIs isn't included with the retail version for end-users! Only the Ultimate and Enterprise editions have this functionality! And here's the kicker: Microsoft isn't even selling Windows 7 Ultimate Edition upgrades anymore!
Fortunately a 3rd party has come up with an unofficial solution: Vistalizator. This 3rd party tool allows the user to bypass Microsoft's version protections and directly install and switch between MUIs. I've tested it and it works.
 

 
It's somewhat cumbersome to set up because you have to download several different files, one of which is specific to your version of Windows, and you're also forced to install several Windows updates. At the end of all that work, you'll be able to switch between English and Japanese interfaces with a simple Windows restart, just like you'd switch system locale (but with the caveat that a future Windows update could break the tool, with unknown effects on your system). Switching my MUI to Japanese caused some web pages in Chrome to display English text in an odd font (English Wikipedia was almost unreadable), so I had to manually reconfigure Chrome to use English as the display language.
I'm a big fan of the Venus Blood franchise, so this incompatibility really disappointed me.
3rd party tool to fix the corrupted interface display by switching to the Japanese multilingual user interface (Windows Vista and Windows 7, Home and Professional editions): Vistalizator
Users with qualifying versions of Windows can instead use the built-in Windows solution (Windows 8 [all versions], Windows 10 [probably all versions?], Windows Vista and Windows 7 Ultimate and Enterprise editions): Changing the display language
Locale Emulator has also been recommended as a general solution that works with this title.
Solution originally reported in the HongFire Venus Blood Hypno thread by Berries82 and Hopeful Death
Edit 1: Fan hacker binaryfail has identified the underlying issue and provided an easy fix that doesn't require changing the display language / MUI! Simply download this .dll file and add it to your Venus Blood Hypno install directory.
Venus Blood Hypno font fix
See my followup post for a response by Keimaru of Ninetail, the developer of Venus Blood Hypno!
"For sale in Japan only": A Japanese developer's perspective on the eroge embargo

Avatar: The Last Fuwabender*
 
 
 
 
*Note: There will be no Avatar: The Last Airbender references from this point on.*
 
An avatar, also known as profile picture, is defined via Google as "An icon or figure representing a particular person in computer games, Internet forums, etc."
 
In the case of the Fuwanovel Forums, avatars typically represent one's identity, or at least represents whatever appeals to them personally at that particular point in time (such as a favorite character, "waifu", etc).
 
Many users of this forum have different ways of utilizing their avatars and through years of extensive research I have been able to group them into the following:
The Eternal: users who have had a single avatar since the beginning of their creation. ie. Zalor The Loyalist: users who have a single unique avatar that they change to variations of. Can change to another avatar, but typically returns to the original unique avatar ie. TarzanofVersailles The Bandwagoner: users who change their avatar on a whim depending on their current mood or preferences which can change over time. This can branch to Settlers who very rarely change their avatar to a new one ie. Clephas, or Travelers who change to a new avatar relatively quickly ie. Eclipsed (pre-Louise era) The Identity Crisiser: users who cycle / rotate their avatar on a frequent basis to a select few unique avatars while typically being unable to settle down on any particular one. May also become a Bandwagoner at times. ie. Kaguya-sama  
Eternals are the most powerful class of avatar users. Their very existence is so great, that if one were to ever somehow undergo an avatar change, the resulting shockwave can very well destroy the forums (an example being the fateful Taypocalypse of '14).
 
Loyalists are the second most powerful class of avatars. They are typically very fond of their avatars and only choose variations of said avatar when changing avatars, or in the case that they do choose a new avatar, they tend to revert back to the original unique one eventually.
 
Bandwagoners (subclass: Settlers/Travelers) are the common folk. Settlers are more powerful than Travelers.
 
The Identity Crisisers are the wildcards. One can never fully determine if a Crisiser has finally settled on an avatar or if the Crisiser will continue their neverending quest for their one true avatar.
 
~~
TL;DR, here are all of my avatars since the beginning of my time here on Fuwanovel (times are approx.; not all images from an era are displayed.)
 
Lurker Era (Sept)
 
 
 
 
Date A Live Era (Sept - Nov)
 
 
 
 
Kotori Era (Dec - Jan) <Love Live>
 
 
 
 
Date A Live II Era (Jan)
 
 
 
 
Charlotte Era (Feb) <Machine Doll>
 
 
 
 
Frenda Era (Feb) <Toaru Majutsu no Index>
 
 
 
 
Louise Era (Mar - Present) <Zero no Tsukaima>
 
 
 
 
 
What avatar class are you?
 
~~
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more Eclipsed's ramblings!

Hey guys, so I was thinking about how I wanted to use this blog in terms of promoting my song covers, and I realized that making a new post every time I upload something is overkill, since- for the moment, at least- I'm uploading multiple times a week. So for the foreseeable future, I'll be making a post with links to everything I've done that week.

First off is one that's a week and one day old, but it's new enough that I'll count it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKBg9wMf_Y4

Next is one from a few days ago. Honestly, this is probably the weakest of the bunch, so prepare yourself if you subject yourself to it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhAiswNUYe4

And here's the newest one, just uploaded a few minutes ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UL9Hlnz3dI

I'm not going to argue about what defines a VN here. To be blunt, the fights over that issue - which were fairly pointless - were bad enough in the forums. That said, I am going to explain why VN terms tend to be so fuzzy and hard/impossible to pin down.

1. We are basically defining a medium that is new to us (new being a relative term, lol).
2. Pseudo-Japanisms like charage, moege, nakige, etc. are generalized terms that represent a certain type of structure and purpose to individual VNs. For people who like to nitpick, these terms really aren't fitting, because they are basically umbrella terms that contain a lot more than you'd think.
3. The Japanese otaku-media tendency to turn everything into an archetype creates an illusion of a 'universal unity of ideas'.

Of course, there are a lot of different reasons besides these, but these are some of the more obvious ones. However, perhaps the one that bothers people the most are the pseudo-Japanisms that I and some others use and have been helpfully defined (inasmuch as that is possible) by various people. I should first explain what a pseudo-Japanism is. First, as a prime example, a visual novel is a term that came from the Japanese originally, but it is one we took and redefined for our own purposes. While the term originated in Japan, it is rarely used over there and the fundamental meaning is slightly different to them than it is to us. This is similar to the pseudo-anglicanisms like 'マンション’ that litter the Japanese language.

Similarly, while the term 'moege' was coined in Japan, the actual meaning of the word changed immensely just in the past few years, as it was absorbed and reshaped by the perceptions of the Western community. Anyone who has played a 'straight moege' like Shuffle or Da Capo will understand what they are, but once you start expanding into the various other types that expanded from moege to birth new child genres, people start getting confused.

To be blunt, we've gone and created a new specialist genre that pretends to be from Japan but is really almost wholly our own, because the meanings are not, strictly speaking, matching to those in Japan anymore. Of course, in a narrow sense of the word, some are the same - such as nakige and utsuge - but in the broad sense of the word, the concept of the 'charage' is almost entirely one we created to define a type of VN that branched out and away from the VNs we define as moege.

In other words, the big mistake a lot of new and old people in the community make is in thinking these terms mean the same to the community in Japan as they do to the people here. These terms are ultimately ours, as they have been irreversibly shaped by our perceptions of their meaning in the way they are used.

For the sake of those who don't have as much experience as I do, I'll explain the Japanese tendency toward archetyping everything. First, you have to understand that Asian culture in general sees imitation as a compliment, rather than a failing or an insult. Second, Japanese thinking is hyper-conservative, despite the rich sub-cultures that have bored holes into the base of their society. This extends to otaku culture as well and is encouraged by the commercialization of new mediums and genres as they become popular. In Japan, it wouldn't be wrong to say people 'like what they recognize'. It is this that leads to archetypical characters, settings, and stories being so dominant in VNs, anime, and manga. Of course, we see the same thing over here... but it is a much slower process. In just two or three years, we can see what was new becoming an archetype in otaku media. Over here, it tends to take ten to twenty years. It is simply a function of how our cultures work. Americans tend to dislike obviously repeating themes, and as a result we have a lot of encouragement for 'creativity' and it is harder for something to become an archetype in the first place, because we move on so fast. The Japanese find something they like, then they repeat it over and over until it becomes a tradition. Modern technology has just exacerbated this tendency, when it comes to otaku culture, lol.

Edit: I should also note that the natural tendency of the Japanese is to polish things until they shine, a tendency that is reflected in their high-quality domestic products. To an extent, we can see that with VNs, as companies tend to prefer to produce a solid product that is similar if not identical to all its previous products. Unfortunately, the limitations created by that are unsuited to entertainment in general, which is the big reason why great artists and writers will all of the sudden suffer from a deep drop in quality (usually because companies want them to reproduce exactly the same VN as before, lol).

This is a few days old at this point, but seeing as I'm just now creating this blog, I figured it would be nice to start off with a link to a project I'm really proud of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKl5hnGsI3M

This is Gentle Jena from Planetarian, with lyrics I wrote myself. I had a lot of fun with this, and I may do more similar projects with VN BGMs in the future. The lyrics and some explanation of said lyrics are in the video description, if you're curious.

By the way, I'll probably do my first review soon. I haven't decided which VN to do it on yet, but look forward to it, I guess.

In the Fallout 4 thread here, I was seemingly cynical on the game for no reason. I have reasons, I just didn't post them. So to not be that bitter pointlessly cynical guy, I'll talk about why I'm still not very excited for FO4. I'll start by talking about Bethesda's older games, because a lot of posters here weren't around for them, and I'll establish the trends that make me skeptical of more Bethesda-produced open-world RPGs. Bethesda started the Elder Scrolls series as just some self-insertion sandbox for their in-office D&D campaign. This is fine, Arena was a charming game in its own right. But it had nary an ounce of narrative to it, which was normal for anything other than adventure games at the time. The world was threatened and you were given a vague directive at the start, you went from dungeon samey dungeon, and eventually found the bad guy, killed him, and won the game. With Daggerfall, you had a bit more introductory story. The world was in trouble and only you can save it. You had to accomplish several tasks before confronting the big bad. Every once in a while you met with an NPC who had small amounts of exposition. There were more side-quests strewn about with some pretty basic objectives, mostly without any story behind them. The game was procedurally generated (not on the fly) so that's to be expected. There were also books around that explained the world a little, it was pretty interesting. You went from dungeon to samey dungeon, killed the bad guy, won the game. By this point, people started expecting more from not just RPGs, but from games in general. Narratives were becoming a big thing, Bioware and Black Isle started doing their things with storytelling in RPGs, and Metal Gear Solid in action games. Bethesda felt like they had to adapt, they had to tell cool stories with strong narratives in their games, too!

Morrowind was actually a pretty dang good first attempt at this. The world building was surprisingly strong, the setting was unique and interesting. It held inspiration from Heart of Darkness, which was fairly bold for a fantasy RPG. There was a complex political climate with clashes between colonizers and the colonized, on top of this world-threatening event that's going down. You met many of the people deeply involved with the sticky situation the island finds itself in, including the local god-king Vivec who is holding the island hostage by artificially suspending a giant meteor above it (including preserving its inertia) and claiming that if followers stop worshipping him, the meteor will crash and kill everyone. Welp. There's lots of cool stuff like this strewn about. But here's the thing, it's all relating to the setting and the backstory. Anything beyond that is pretty threadbare. Your mission was to find the savior the dark elf prophecies speak of so this person can save the world from some looming evil. You go from dungeon to samey dungeon, and BIG TWIST: you were the savior the whole time! You save the world, game over. You saw a lot of cool stuff along the way, but it felt more like a sightseeing tour than a proper narrative. You were an agent following the whims of others the whole time, too. You get the sense that no one at Bethesda had any experience writing these kinds of stories. But the world-building was so cool that you wanted to keep exploring for hours on end, seeing the unique sights of Morrowind and getting involved in their conflicts. The main quest kind of sucked, but the side quests were a lot of fun. They themselves didn't have particularly strong stories and were mainly filled with one-dimensional characters who just wanted a task done, but there was some real neat stuff thrown in there, like the last dwarf alive, in some plague colony, with his lower body replaced by mechanical spider legs. Cool! It was also the first TES game with an extensive mod community.






(Morrowind was full of bizarre flora, fauna, and architecture)


Oblivion was a disaster in a lot of ways. The industry was firmly planting itself in support of strong narratives in not just certain kinds of games, but ALL games, now. While Half Life did a lot for storytelling in shooters at the time, it was nothing in comparison to Max Payne, an intense third-person shooter with a lengthy, twisting plot and plenty of dialog. There was Warcraft 3, a real-time strategy with an epic fantasy story attached (the previous WC games had stories that were more window-dressing than anything). If your game didn't tell a long, complex story, it was junk. It didn't matter what kind of game it was. Even Rockstar got in on the trend with their nonsensical murder simulators, Vice City and especially San Andreas. Bethesda could not afford to release an open world RPG without an absolutely epic story. But here's the thing, they SUCK at at storytelling! They're good at writing backstory, at worldbuilding. Every other facet of their writing is terrible. But gosh darn if they weren't going to try. They splurged on several very expensive voice actors to deliver their surely incredible dialog, then only had a handful of VAs rest for the rest of their hundreds of characters. Oops. The dialog in the main questline was as generic as possible. There were no truly interesting hooks to it, the player didn't have to make any difficult decisions, and the characters were as flat as cardboard. You were tasked to find the savior, did so by going from dungeon to samey dungeon, doing a LOT of busywork in closing those damn oblivion gates, and BIG TWIST: there is no twist! You find the savior and he defeats the final boss, saving the world for you. You weren't even the main hero! Bethesda's one saving grace, their world-building, failed them here. Cyrodiil was originally written as a dense jungle with interesting, dynamic cultures, but was retconned because they deemed verdant plains and deer-filled forests to have more mass appeal in the US and Europe. They spent a lot of money developing a complex AI system where every NPC would have needs and wants, and would seek out their own methods to fulfill them, and then disabled it because it didn't work at all. One thing Bethesda did do is up their game on the side quests. A lot of them were generic, but there were these main guilds in the game, and each one had their own storyline, and some got reasonably involved. They were mostly kind of middling, but the star of the show was the Dark Brotherhood questline, where you join a guild of assassins. There were twists and turns to its story, shady characters with grey-area motives, many assassination contracts had complex setups, and there were multiple endings to the quest line. It felt like its own game. Looking back on it, it's really nothing special, but it was like a small pond in the middle of a scorching desert, an oasis players took solace in and gathered around as a shining example of how to do questing in an open world game. One man wrote and designed all of these quests, Emil Pagliarulo, and his work stood out so much from the rest of Bethesda's offering, they handed him the reigns to all of Fallout 3.

Fallout 3 was a cool game, although it didn't feel very much like a real Fallout game. I'm not talking about the shift in perspective and gameplay, but the shift in tone, storytelling style, and world design. And you know what? Bethesda's writing still sucked. It became clear that Emil Pagliarulo is not an especially skilled writer. When taken out of the sea of shit the rest of Oblivion was, Emil's quest design and writing was shown to be fairly amateurish and not actually all that interesting. The story still felt uninspired. It was a personal story to find your father (and maybe save the world in the process), but therein laid the problem. The player character was still nameless, mute, and devoid of personality. Can you really tell a personal story involving family with that kind of setup? Well, you can, but you can't get anyone to care. And while the world design was reasonably interesting in its own right, with plenty of unique sights to see, the setting overall was a total failure. It was meant to be 100 years after the apocalypse, but it felt like it was just one year, with no organization, barely anything in the way of factions (other than two shadowy organizations), and people still scrambling and scavenging to survive. I still had more fun with it than I did with Oblivion, but it felt so lacking in so many areas. A couple years later, New Vegas came out developed by a different studio, one staffed by members with experience developing previous Fallout games, Obsidian Entertainment. And it totally clowned Bethesda and their attempt at a Fallout game. It had its own set of downsides, but gosh was New Vegas fun. Many characters individually had more depth to them than the combined depth of all of FO3's characters combined. The quests had a wealth of options, diverging branches, and alternate outcomes. The dialog was often witty and compelling to listen to. The world truly felt like how a post-apocalyptic world should feel like, with budding governments, organized banditry, and more overt faction wars competing for territory with the citizenry caught in the middle. They even managed to make the story feel personal despite your character being a no-name cipher. Many of the dungeons felt more unique. There was more loot with a crafting system. The combat, armor, and weapon systems felt more balanced and more fun. The one point I will concede is that aimlessly exploring the wasteland felt a bit more frustrating and less rewarding.






(an example of the branching structure of one side quest in New Vegas)


Would Bethesda learn from their mistakes in Oblivion and Fallout 3, and Obsidian's triumphs in New Vegas? Yes and no. Skyrim was fun. Bethesda's world-building strength has returned to them Skyrim was gorgeous, varied, and a joy to explore. They incentivized exploration in some really smart ways. Character leveling didn't feel so broken. The story, though, was still a problem. Bethesda is still shit at writing. You are the chosen one, overcome these trials, delve through dungeon through samey dungeon, kill a dragon or two, and save the world! It was still stock fantasy fair, without a hint of depth or creativity. That's okay though, because exploring the world is fun. What about the questing in the rest of the world? Well, the faction quests felt like stepped-up versions of Oblivion's faction quests. They had a bit more dialog, a bit more story to them, but most of them were still kind of mediocre. The characters were still largely one dimensional. Most of them did allow you to make a decision or two, which could affect the outcome in some inconsequential manner. The stand-out side-plot in this game was the civil war. It created an interesting political climate, but how much did it really impact the world? You could side with one faction or the other, and each had their own quest line. The faction I sided with lead up to a cool battle where we laid siege to a major city, and assaulted it. There were missions that lead up to it that determined the effectiveness of the soldiers, siege weapons, etc. When you finally got into the battle, and catapults were going off, spells were firing, and soldiers were charging the gates, it was so cool! Then the scripting broke at multiple points, requiring reloads. Well, it's an Elder Scrolls game. Then you won the battle, some buildings were smoldering a little, and a different man sat on the throne. That was it. You could go into towns occupied by the opposing faction and no one would bat an eye at you. It felt like the battle had no impact whatsoever. It was all a bit underwhelming. Bethesda repeatedly teases the players in their games, make grand promises, and fail to deliver time and time again.

I'm kind of getting sick of being disappointed. I'm getting sick of being a no-personality mute who is little more than an errand boy. I'm sick of the samey dungeons in every single game. I'm sick of the quest design that feels like you're going down a straight predetermined line instead of doing things your way. I'm sick of the shoddy writing, the shallow characters with crystal clear motivations, the stale and generic dialog, and the simple boilerplate storylines. Yes, Bethesda makes some great worlds to explore, but you know, I've played every single Bethesda game. I've played plenty of other compelling open world games. I've kind of had my fill. I watch the Fallout 4 trailer and am filled with apathy. I'm not saying Bethesda should ditch the open world, not at all, but I need something more. I'm looking forward to E3 this year. I'm a long-time fan of Bethesda's games, and I desperately want them to prove me wrong. But I won't hold my breath for it.

----------------------

On a side-note, The Witcher 3 has been giving me that something more. Its characters are all fascinating, even the minor ones. The story is a compelling search for your adopted daughter in trouble. The quests are sprawling with many avenues of approach and outcomes, even the side quests. The writing is entertaining and never fails to capture your attention. You are prompted with so many decisions on such a constant basis, all of which have some impact on the world big or small, that it no longer feels like you're playing a god controlling the fates of these characters, but you ARE Geralt of Rivia, in the world, making these decisions. It's an incredibly immersive experience. You end up never wanting to reload and take back your decisions, because they become so personal. And the open world is not sacrificed even a little in the face of this narrative experience, with a huge world to explore with an enormous amount of things to discover. The Witcher 3 allows us to have our cake and eat it, too. What is a Bethesda game in the face of this?






(as I write this, I'm itching to jump back into The Witcher 3)

Recently, a spirited argument erupted in the Monobeno -Happy End- project thread regarding the perceived poor quality of translation samples. As this a topic of general controversy in the fan translation scene, I decided it might be worth addressing on a general level to those who might not care about this particular title. Please don't take this post as an invitation to reignite controversy in that thread; post your comments here instead.
 
Fan translation is as much about the journey as the destination. While the audience may only care about the final product, for the translator the journey may be even more important. This is an opportunity for a translator to improve both his Japanese skills and his English skills. As much as he's doing it for you, he's doing it for himself. I don't understand why anyone would think that fan translators have an obligation to provide a quality product, and that the audience should have an expectation of a quality product. All fan translations should be treated as being of suspect quality until proven otherwise. That's really all there is to it. If you're unhappy with the final product, don't play it. A game like Monobeno will never ever get licensed in English, so it's not like a substandard fan project would be ruining our chance at a professional translation (as might be the case with other titles).
 
So before you complain about projects that don't meet your quality standards, remember that no one deserves a quality product for free, and that fan translators have just as much of a right to benefit from a project as their audience. Maybe if there were a better resource for tracking translation quality across different releases we wouldn't even be having these arguments. And maybe if the more skilled fan translators simply took pride in the quality of their own work, and weren't so preoccupied with the attention other groups were getting, there wouldn't be so much bickering going on.
 
[This is a repost of my response in that thread edited for a general audience]

(This is the safe-for-work mirror of my LewdGamer article H-RPG Kagura Douchuuki Gets Greenlight for Censorship [NSFW])

Steam: An opportunity and a threat to ero-gaming

The opening of Steam to visual novels is changing the face of professional eroge localization. Until very recently this was a world where every eroge, no matter its merit or lack thereof, sold more or less the same. Story-focused eroge consume several times the resources in time and manpower as short sex-heavy titles, and lackluster sales meant these titles had trouble simply recouping translation and voice licensing costs. Just recently, Mangagamer warned that the failure of Princess Evangile (NSFW) could spell the end of moe-focused romantic comedies in English. Meanwhile, JAST's Peter Payne similarly declared that gameplay titles are 2-3 times more costly to localize than even story-focused eroge, and added that if Seinarukana does not sell better than their previous RPGs then it would likely be the last ero-RPG they choose to license (JAST’s failure to market Seinarukana as an RPG could doom English H-RPGs).

Enter Steam. Valve opened up Steam Greenlight to developers of all varieties and backpedaled on its stance that visual novels were not welcome on its platform. Visual novels began appearing on Steam and selling in unprecedented numbers. Capitalizing on this lucky break, JAST and Mangagamer rushed to offer censored versions of their eroge on the Steam marketplace. All at once, the calculus of eroge localization was flipped on its heels, as high-quality story-focused titles showed that they could turn a profit along with their budget porn brethren. Sales of Princess Evangile exceeded expectations. JAST reported increased adult version sales of Littlewitch Romanesque after its Steam debut, despite the availability of a fan patch that restored the adult content in the much cheaper Steam version. A successful release of Seinarukana is within reach, assuming JAST can get a version of it on Steam.


But for all its promise, Steam is a censored platform that does NOT welcome lewd games. There was always the risk that Japanese eroge developers would see Steam as a target market rather than as a means to fund eroge localization. And today we are confronted with the first eroge developer to bypass their natural fanbase--erogamers like you and me--and go straight for Steam, setting a dangerous precedent should they stay the path and find success.

Opening + gameplay trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvG1Ez2xJnM

Steam Greenlight page
VNDB
Official Japanese site (NSFW)

Announcing an English release of Kagura Douchuuki

With little fanfare ero-RPG developer Debonosu has unleashed its rogue-like RPG Kagura Douchuuki on Steam Greenlight. Originally released in 2009, Kagura Douchuuki was Debo no Su Seisakusho's first title after rising from the ashes of Studio e.go!. Fans of fan-translated RPGs Castle Fantasia 2 Renewal and Men at Work 2 will recognize the bewitching art of Kazue Yamamoto. Originally released as an eroge, Debonosu also released a non-adult version with erotic content removed, which presumably is the version being offered on Greenlight. It is unclear whether there are plans for a release of the adult version. Contrary to rumor, Sekai Project provided a translation of the description as a gesture of goodwill, but at present are not affiliated with Debonosu's effort to release Kagura Douchuuki in English (source).

Premise



Kagura Douchuuki takes place in a remote village built around a hot springs resort in modern-day Japan. The once prosperous village, now largely abandoned, provides a nostalgic glimpse into a rural past unfettered by modern-day civilization and the din of machines. Residents of this rural village have been disappearing recently, and despite a police investigation bizarre incidents continue to plague the area. Suspecting the involvement of otherworldly creatures known as youkai, a squad of Shinto exorcists is dispatched to investigate the disappearances. This 3-member squad consists of two warrior priestesses, sword-wielding Ibuki from the Youkai Coexistence faction and spear-wielding Nazuna from the Youkai Extermination faction, and the monk Minase tasked with coordinating the investigation and performing purification rites. Can the two priestesses overcome their differences and get to the bottom of the mysterious disappearances?


Ibuki (left), Nazuna (right)

Gameplay overview

I played a few hours into this game several years ago, so I'll try to recap what I remember. As shown in the second half of the video, Kagura Douchuuki features rogue-like gameplay: the player controls Ibuki and Nazuna as they investigate the youkai-infested forest around the village. The maps are essentially randomly-generated dungeon floors, where the objective is to locate the entrance to successive floors while fighting off randomly spawning enemies. Story objectives typically task the mikos with fighting through a specified number of floors to a boss encounter, defeat of which progresses the story.



Items and equipment are littered throughout each floor as well as being dropped by monsters and bosses, and these are the main source of character growth. As I recall, there's 3x2 equipment slots: weapon, armor, accessory. Characters level up by defeating monsters, unlocking new skills, but levels are lost after leaving the dungeon (except in Easy mode). In addition, unequipped items in inventory are lost upon defeat (Normal mode), while in Hard mode equipped items are also lost. Inventory space is very limited, so players will not be able to carry every item they find.

Combat takes places in semi real time with movement and attacks each being counted as one turn. Players and enemies can move in 4 directions; whenever the player moves or attacks, enemies do so as well. Attacks can occur diagonally as well. This game has gamepad support, which is a definite plus. Players can alternate freely between Ibuki and Nazuna. Ibuki is a melee fighter that can attack 1 space in front of her. Nazuna can attack 2 spaces out with her spear, but her defense is weaker so she takes more damage. Some enemies are best dealt with by Nazuna due to her longer reach, while Ibuki's higher defense is useful for others. Health is recovered with food and potions, while MP for skills recovers with time.

Story

While the gameplay dominates time-wise, Kagura Douchuuki still has significant stretches of text between dungeon excursions, and boss fights are preceded by story segments as well. The characters are the main draw rather than the plot, with interactions between Ibuki and Nazuna often forming the crux of the dialogue. Ibuki is a clumsy but good-natured girl (with an Osakan dialect) who seeks coexistence with the youkai, while Nazuna is a stern tsundere-type who believes the youkai should be eradicated without mercy. The plot isn't very deep, but it adequately serves up reasons to go dungeon crawling while providing opportunities for Ibuki and Nazuna to quarrel. There might be a romance arc with Minase, but I didn't play far enough to confirm.



Adult content

The adult version of Kagura Douchuuki is filled to the brim with sexual content. There's a reason that the priestesses do all the fighting: youkai are extremely hostile to and kill any males they encounter, but they use human females to propagate. They subdue and rape females they come across, but otherwise don't harm their captives. With time and sufficient insemination, these females will spawn more youkai or become youkai themselves. However, the sperm of a human male is curative of youkai fertilization due to its spiritual antagonism to youkai negative energies

In short, there's 2 unique defeat rape scenes for every monster type and boss, one per heroine. In addition, there's further scenes involving purification of the youkai fertilizations by Minase, which are required to prevent an eventual game over (i.e., being turned into a youkai) after being defeated. On top of that, there's textual and voice variations of the scenes on subsequent defeats that make the scenes worth re-experiencing, including variations for defloration. The art is one of this game's main assets, and the H-scenes really bring that out. Quite simply, the ero in this game is awesome, and frankly the writing in the H-scenes is more interesting than the main plot as it's very descriptive and filled with emotion. Contrast that with the cliched and somewhat dull vibe I got from the main plot.

Evaluation

EGS median: 70 (109 votes)
VNDB rating: 7.1 (12 votes)
Personal: 6/10

Kagura Douchuuki's strength is its art. And, ironically enough, every CG on both Getchu (NSFW) and the official site (18+ version, NSFW) is from an ero-scene. I can only imagine that Debonosu had to gut most of the art assets to create the non-adult version, and in fact a quick survey of the site for the non-adult version shows 4 CG compared to the 24 CG shown on the adult site. And as explained above, the H-scenes are really quite good. If you're into monster rape, you can't do much better than Debonosu's Kagura series--in English or Japanese.

The rogue-like gameplay is decent. It's simple without being overly tedious. I'm not a fan of level resetting, but you can always play on Easy if that bothers you. I wouldn't call the gameplay engaging, but at least it doesn't feel like a chore like Yumina the Ethereal's dungeon crawling did.

The story is... mediocre. If you've played the translated Studio e.go! titles, you'll know what to expect. If you like moe comedy, then maybe you'll appreciate the story more than I did. I found the dialogue to be pretty standard fare, and the plot was uninspired and mostly an excuse to set up the dungeon excursions and character dialogue. In the few hours I played, the setting didn't get much development and ended up feeling very generic, which is a shame because I feel that with a bit more detail into the mythology and the town's circumstances the story would've been much more engaging. I've played some of the sequel Kagura Gensoutan and I found the setting in that one a bit more developed.

Overall, Kagura Douchuuki compares well against titles like the Raidy series. The art is on par with if not better than the Raidy series (though it lacks animation), and it edges out Raidy in terms of battle system and story development. But as a non-adult title? It doesn't have much going for it other than having gameplay and not being terrible. It's unremarkable. I honestly can't recommend it against the likes of Littlewitch Romanesque, Aselia the Eternal, and Seinarukana, or even Yumina the Ethereal.

Kagura Douchuuki Sou and expansions

Debonosu released an updated version of Kagura Douchuuki in December 2014, Kagura Douchuuki Sou, which added widescreen support (game and CG resolution increased from 800x600 to 1024x576) and added 40 HCG to the defeat scenes. Three append disks were also released which added new dungeons, new monsters, further story content, and a new playable heroine. The Steam Greenlight campaign appears to be for the non-adult slimmed-down version of the original 2009 release, meaning that it won't include all of the bonus content released since.


Koharu, the additional heroine from append disk 3

Debonosu's other titles

Debonosu has a diverse lineup of gameplay titles, and if you include Studio e.go! titles they have a huge selection of games under their belt. The Kagura games are a long-running series including other rogue-likes and an SRPG (Kurenai Kagura). While the Kagura series is focused on monsters raping defeated miko, their other titles are more varied thematically (many featuring no defeat rape at all), though all boast high sexual content. These other titles include a Tales series-like sidescrolling RPG with raising sim elements (Sora o Aogite Kumo Takaku), a loli action RPG with item synthesis and base management (Hanasaku Otome to Koi no Grimoire), a dungeon crawler (Chaos Labyrinth), a real-time strategy game set against a backdrop of military conflict (Senjou no Folklore), and a traditional RPG (Gigai no Alruna).


Sora o Aogite Kumo Takaku (left), Gigai no Alruna (right)

Closing thoughts

Debonosu is what I'd term a third-tier gameplay eroge developer: they produce a wide variety of decent games, none of which are particularly outstanding. Their gameplay systems range from adequate to entertaining, their stories are character-centric with a comedy focus and plots that are simple and uninspired, and their art and especially their ero is excellent and probably the main draw.

Given the limited selection of licensed gameplay eroge in English, Debonosu fills a niche for high sexual content non-nukige gameplay titles. Stripping the ero-content out of these titles removes the very assets that make these titles stand out in the first place. My recommendation to readers is to clamor for release of the adult version of this title and future titles. While it's important for marketing purposes to get this game and others on Steam, without the ero these titles are merely soulless husks. The non-adult versions will never be more than hollow stand-ins for the adult versions. You can't strip the art out from titles that are remarkable only for their art and expect a satisfactory result.

(Also check out the followup post Tell Debonosu you want the uncut version of Kagura Douchuuki)

Article edited 5/29/15 to clarify Sekai Project's role in the Steam Greenlight campaign.
Article edited 5/31/15 to add information about Kagura Douchuuki Sou and append disks.

Well, the ass safari was less than I had hoped. Meryl will literally run away if she spots you, not to mention, her footsteps sound different than the other guards. A shame.





Meryl runs off to the bathroom and we are treated to a nice long scene of character development. Meryl claims to have wanted to be a soldier all her life after seeing and hearing of heroes like her uncle, Campbell, and Solid Snake, soldiers who are soldier and not the genetically modified soldiers of FOXHOUND. Snake claims he is no hero (a theme we will see more of). Regardless, Meryl wants to help Snake. Snake is reluctant at first, but agrees since Meryl tells Snake to shoot her if she slows him down. She pulls out a Level 5 key card and says the next area we need to get to is the Commanders Office. Off we go!

The guards have all gone for some reason. The strange haunting music that was playing before has also stopped. All is quiet. We enter into a long hallway, and the music is back. A strange, haunting hymn like chorus. Meryl runs in front of us, and falls to the ground. The screen starts flashing, and the perspective keeps changing. Meryl suddenly stands back up, and in a hollow voice claims to be okay. Her voice sounds as if its behind a mask.

"Come on Mr. FOXHOUND. The Commander is waiting."

We enter the room and the door locks behind us. Meryl seems to lose her mind, raising her gun to us.

"How do you like me Snake?"

"Make love to me Snake! Hurry!"

Snake sees a man in a gas mask floating behind her.

"What? You don't like girls?" the man asks.

Well, we need to subdue Meryl before doing anything else. Preferably in a non-lethal way, requests Campbell. We unleash a few punching combos and knock her out. The floating man in the gas mask finally reveals himself as, Psycho Mantis. Now we let him read our saves, deaths, alerts, and memory card. Mantis tells me that I am "a highly skilled warrior well suited to the stealth mission." He obviously does not read this blog. And with nothing on my memory card, he moves on to shaking my controller. Thank you Dualshock 3. Thats it for the demonstration. Time to fight.

The Mantis fight is a very strange, meta fight. The first thing we need to do is a fun controller trick, otherwise he will dodge every single one of our attacks. The screen will go black at this time, and the word, "HIDEO" appears in the top right corner. Mantis has a few attacks. For one of them, he goes invisible, and appears in areas of the room to throw some sort of energy blast at me. Another attack is picking up furniture and spinning them around in a giant circle. He will also flat out just throw crap at you too. One trick to find him sometimes is to go into first person mode. The perspective will be from his, and not yours.

This fight is as simple as just dodging his attacks and popping a round off in his face in between his attacks. After a while, he will again, take over Meryl. Same drill as before. We knock her out. Mantis commends us for being highly skilled. It takes skills to beat up women in the MGS universe apparently. Failing at his plan twice now, Mantis now orders Meryl to shoot herself. We stop this from happening, again by beating Meryl up, and Mantis takes things to the next level, again. Now we use the first person perspective to spot him as he no longer removes his cloak except to throw things at us. A few more shots, and he down for good.

Now for a codec call. We reassure Campbell that Meryl is safe. Naomi claims that the effects of the mind control will wear off. Then in a passive aggressive manner, Naomi asks Snake why bothered to save Meryl when he has killed tons of others of people. Mantis tells us the way to get to Metal Gear, claiming that Snake has no past, no future, and no hope. He is helping Snake, because Snake is just like him. Mantis then drops that he did not agree with the Boss' revolution. He just joined up to kill as many people as he could. Snake, is worse than the Boss he says, and says Snake is a monster compared to himself. It also seems Meryl has fallen for Snake, but there may be no future together for the two. Mantis then opens a secret door for us, and claims it was the first time he had ever helped someone.

Now for Meryl to have a crises of doubt. Snake threatens to leave her behind, and she quickly regains control. She then pushes snake about what Mantis said about him. She drops the issue and asks Snake his name.

"A name means nothing on the battlefield."

"How old are you?"

"Old enough to know what death looks like."

"Any family?"

"No, but I was raised by many people."

"Anyone you like?"

"I've never been interested in anyone else's life."

"...You're a sad lonely man."

And with that line, we end Part 4. Psycho Mantis is an extremely memorable villain and was just awesome to experience the first time around. His theme song is haunting, and matches him perfectly. The first time I ever did his battle, I did not know the controller trick. I died enough that Campbell eventually called me and told me what to do. It was funny and sad. Like this playthrough.

I died a million times trying to get past the laser beams at the end of the hanger. But screw it, we finally did it.





The moment I step out into the new area, a snowy patch of land between two buildings, I recieve a codec call. This new person calls themselves Deepthroat, as in the informant from the Watergate Scandal. He warns us of claymore mines around the area as well as a tank up ahead waiting to ambush me.

As expected of myself, I died twice from claymores. Then the tank ran me over... then I killed myself with capture claymore.

I've lost count now of how many times I've died. Lets just round to... 15? Regardless, I finally kill the tank through some lucky grenade throws and advance into the next area. But not before a cutscene takes place, introducing us to a future boss character, Raven. To emphasis his name, ravens fly everywhere, and he has a Raven tattooed. Subtlety isn't a big thing with Metal Gear bosses. Good voice acting, also is not a thing either. Raven, in some strange, Austrian accent (but he's Native American) talks to his Boss, along with Ocelot. They want Snake left alive for the time being, with Raven ending the nice talk with, "The raven on my forehead thirsts for his blood." Its super dumb but who cares.

In the next room, we can't use any weapons or be spotted. The room is where the government stores all of its nuclear warheads that have been dismantled. Snake makes a quick jab at how careless the storage is, but regardless, we carry on, aiming to get through this room without being spotted.

Shit.

I got spotted and died. I finally make my way to the next elevator, and alert every guard in the next room by throwing a stun grenade by mistake. At this time, a fatal flaw of the game shows itself. In an effort to be cinematic in a sense, leaning against walls only grants you view of in front of you. This is horrible when hiding behind a pillar, as I can only see one direction and cant easily switch to see the other side. A guard easily spots me because of this, by luck managing to stay in my blind spot the entire time. Death again.

I quickly fix my mistake and grab a rocket launcher on the floor. I'll need it for the next floor down. Upon arriving, Deepthroat calls again to inform me that the floor is electrified, and that the room is filled with gas for some reason. Nice.

I have to use the rocket launcher, which is remote controlled, to destroy the power supply for the floors, then run past the room as fast as possible. This part is absolute bullshit. Due to the nature of the top down view of this room, you cannot see in front of you as you control the rocket. Meaning navigating the rocket to the power supply is a test of trial and error. After 8 attempts, I get it, grab a few goodies, including a FAMAS, and move into the next area.

In the next room, we hear the sounds of someone begging for their life before a thump. What could this be? I move forward, and the sight is a grisly one. Blood everywhere, and bodies line the hallway as a strange noise plays. The victims appear to have been cut with a blade. Who could this be I wonder? A single survivor stumbles from the end of the hallway, his last words being, "Its a ghost." We turn the corner, and find a soldier suspended in the air. Then, the ninja appears, his cloak turning off. He finishes off the soldier he has, and moves into the next room. Time to follow him!

The next sight is pitiful. A man in a lab coat is pissing himself as the cyborg ninja stands over him. The ninja turns and looks at Snake, demanding a fight to the death. As you fight him in hand to hand combat (quite easy I might add) he asks if Snake remember this, if its familiar to Snake.

The battle itself is easy enough. Simply keep moving, and avoid the ninja heft punches and kicks. As soon as he attacks, unleash a 3 punch combo. At one point, he will use his cloak and hide. Just look for a polygon distortion in the area. Finally, his last form, walk directly at him, and avoid his power punch. Then, its a simple matter of shooting him a few times when he starts losing control of himself.

After the battle, it is revealed that the ninja in question is Gray Fox, the leader of the Zanzibar Rebellion which took place in Metal Gear 2 (not to be confused with Metal Gear Solid 2). I Metal Gear 2, Snake kills Gray Fox, but Naomi explains, he was revived to be a test subject for gene therapy. He was forced to undergo all kinds of tests and experiments. Naomi seems worried we might try to kill him, and that the info on Gray Fox is confidential.

Now to handle the man in a lab coat, Hal Emmerich. The man who pissed himself. He also designed Metal Gear, though he thought it was built to shoot down nuclear missiles. Snake loses his cool, believing the Emmerich knew Metal Gear launched nuclear missiles. Emmerich is adamant he knew nothing of this. He then gives us a quick rundown of the armament of Metal Gear; a rail gun, vulcan cannon, and a laser. Some post- "discovering your life work is a walking nuclear equipped deathmobile" depression conversation takes place, and we get back to the root of all of this.

Meryl's ass. Emmerich says that this female soldier who found him had a cute way of walking, how she wiggled her butt. REMEMBER WHEN I SAID THIS WAS IMPORTANT!? We have to find Meryl now, by looking at butts. Emmerich decides that Snake should call him Otacon, which is a play on Otakon. Otacon is a nerd, is what the game is getting at.

With that, we call it a day. I died way way too much and generally continue to suck at this game. BUT! Next time, its an ass safari.

Death Count: 16ish
Alert Count: I give up on this
Stupid Convenient Plot Element: 2
Ass Safari Hype: >9000

Hello everyone! Rose here, bringing you guys another member highlight. Today we'll be talking about someone who has been around for quite a while now but might not have caught your attention yet, even though he deserves it a lot. Zalor has been here for two years now, and while he doesn't have ten thousand posts nor three hundred threads created, he surely made the few ones under his belt count. Most recently, he proposed some interesting discussion topics that were also mentioned in our "Threads you should check out" list, so you might want to check them out.

Now, as the title implies, he has done a few analyses that will be linked below, together with a small commentary about each of those. When it comes to VNs, a lot of people say that we lack some content that other fandoms have in amplitude, such as fanfictions, fanarts, well-though theories and articles in general, and that much is pretty much true. For that reason, people like Zalor are amazingly valuable to our community and his work deserves a lot of recognition, not only for being a content that we lack, but also for their admirably high quality. Unfortunately, as I haven't read Narcissu nor Kanon, I couldn't write something about those analyses but I reached out for people who did but had never read his works, so reading their thoughts was even better for me, and surely it'll also be like that for Zalor.



"The greatest tribute you could pay an artist is to seriously think about their work"



-
Zalor
Perspective in Saya no Uta (Link)

"A fantastic analysis! From the well-crafted introduction to the relatively comical last line, Zalor delivers some nice thoughts about what could very well be one of the most complex and deep translated VN to date. Not only pointing the protagonist, he also shares insights about the perspectives of all the main cast on the many possible ways to see and understand the world built in the novel. I'd also like to give a quick shout-out to Plénitude, who made interesting observations and rethought Zalor's interpretations, adding a lot to the discussion." -Rose

Kanon: Mai and Sayuri Analysis (Link)

"It was a really good read, well thought out, good amount of detailed analysis without nitpicking or over analyzing, he drew parallels well and I personally liked the fact that while Mai is more focused in that route you agree with my assessment that Sayuri is by far the more tragic of the two heroines." -krill

Narcissu and Death (Link)

"Wonderful analysis of Narcissu. Just as the tale of Narcissu is a somber one, the analysis follows suit going into detail through the various interactions between the main character and Setsumi. A specific standout point would be the relation drawn between sensuality and death, which was particularly well thought-out. And finally, with a reference to the literary genius, Joesph Cambell, and a well structured conclusion, I found that our opinions agreed greatly. Narcissu truly is, as Zalor said, an 'uncensored portrayal of the complete hopelessness and isolation in facing death'." -LinovaA






With this, I'm ending this recognition post. I hope you guys enjoyed it and that our brief comments were enough to get you guys interested in his works. Zalor brings a lot to our community and I hope to have the pleasure to read more of his analyses in the future. Keep up the amazing work, soldier. Your efforts are definitely appreciated!

Lets get one thing out of the way really quickly. In Part 1, I said the terrorists were demanding money from the US government or they would launch a nuke. That was incorrect. The terrorists are actually demanding the remains of Big Boss, a super solider that we will learn more about down the road. Sorry for being a moron.






Picking right up from where we left off last time, the DARPA chief is dead, from an apparent heart attack. Outside, we hear a commotion, and then cell door opens up. Snake is quickly held at gunpoint by a female guard while a guy in the background, is knocked out cold on the floor and without any clothes (SUPER IMPORTANT MAYBE?). The female guard mistakes Snake for Liquid for some reason. Its clear that this girl has little combat experience, but a shooting gallery sequence gives her the experience she needs and reinforces the idea that I am terrible at this game.

In this sequence, armed guards come rushing through a door and you simply have to shoot or knock them out. I began this bit with no ammo however, and nearly died running for the two boxes. After dispatching the first wave, a few more appear, with one wave rushing in after throwing these grenades. I mistook them for stun grenades and stood over top of them. They were explosives instead. Goodbye cruel world. On the verge of death, I somehow complete the sequence... a Key miracle if I've ever seen one.

The female guard runs off but not before we get a good look at her ass for plot related reasons I'm sure. In the middle of all of this, a cut away scene takes place with three men, one of whom wears a mask. One of them complains that another killed the man, diving too deeply into his mind for the launch codes. They have another plan, however. This is our introduction to Psycho Mantis, the psychic embedded with FOXHOUND, the former special ops group that has turned terrorist.

At this point, I am completely at a loss as to what to do. I pick up some C4 and begin knocking on walls to find false walls, as instructed by calling Campbell, before falling to my death in a trap floor. Of all the ways to go, a cartoon villain trap does me in. I'm really glad I'm not streaming or recording this.

This seems to be the first major use of sound as a game play element in Metal Gear Solid. You can knock on walls to draw guards away from their posts, but in this case, we are looking for walls that have rooms behind them. Their is a visual cue as they do look different than the rest of the walls, but they also sound very different when you knock on them. Once you find the wall, simply place C4 on it, and detonate. Its a fun game play element the series ran with in this installment, though I can't recall if it shows back up again. We'll find out eventually.

Here we go. I find the room with the Arms Tech guy in a literal bind. The Arms Tech President is tied to a bunch of C4. From behind the set up steps a man wearing cowboy boots calling himself Revolver Ocelot. We wants to see "if the man can live up to the legend". Time for the first boss battle.

I vividly remember this battle from my first playthrough many years ago. Ocelot uses a 6 shot revolver that takes time to reload. The key is to keep moving and hit him as he reloads. Doing this, I manage to only be hit once or twice and easily defeat him. My only major screw up was shooting the tied up Arms Tech President once. He took the bullet like a trooper though. Honestly, I'm surprised I didn't hit any of the trip wire to detonate the bombs.

Upon defeating Ocelot, he prepares for round 2, before an invisible being enters the room and slices off Ocelot's arm, freeing the Arms Tech President too. The Arms Tech guy seems to recognize the new being, exclaiming about the exoskelton as the invisibility wears off. The new person is wearing some sort of cybernetic suit and using a sword as a weapon. When he lays eyes on Snake, he goes crazy, screaming and seizing up before fleeing the room.

What follows is a trademark of the Metal Gear Solid series; a ton of talking. This scene goes on for about 10 minutes or so. The Arms Tech president explains what his company does, and why he created Metal Gear REX, the new Metal Gear. He tells Snake to find Hal Emmerich, his chief scientist and to contact the female solider via codec. The female soldier in question is actually Campbell's niece, Meryl. In the first big 4th wall breaking moment, he tells Snake to check the back of the CD case for Meryl's coded frequency. He also lets drop that the terrorists of FOXHOUND got the code out of him. Once again, just as he is about to tell Snake something very important, he dies of a heart attack. His final words being, "...they are using you to..." and then he dies. Convenient is it not?

Now the terrorists have both nuclear launch codes for Metal Gear REX, so we have to find Meryl or Hal Emmerich to stop this things from happening. Luckily for me, I have my CD case still! I call and.... I get no response. Perfect! I exit the stage and try again. Bingo.

Meryl is a fan of Snake. Most ladies are. Snake proceeds to hit on her. The writing in this game is funny at times, but not overly in your face with comedy. Meryl claims that women have more hiding places than men, so she was able to hide the cancellation information from guards. After much talking, Snake tells Meryl to stay the hell out of his way, while they work together (tsundesnake). Snake decides if he is unable to cancel the nuke launch, he'll destroy Metal Gear REX. He's destroyed a Metal Gear before (pre Metal Gear Solid games). Snake now heads off to find Hal Emmerich. And this is where we save for the day.

One of the major complaints about the Metal Gear Solid series is the high amount of cutscenes and codec conversations. Of the 2 hours or so that I've played, at least a solid 1/3 of it has been cutscenes or codec talks. Sadly, for an older, smaller title such as the first MGS, it leads to gameplay sections being somewhat short and choppy. This could be because of the limitations of the PS1, but also maybe Kojima going too cinematic for the game. I do recall the game opening more as it goes along, so we will see if I remember that correctly. With the amount of plot twists that the series likes to use, it really is no shock that there is a ton of story telling going on, and the attention to detail only compounds the issue. I'm looking forward to seeing how the series evolves in this regard, though I know MGS2 suffers from the same issue.

Death Count: 3
Alert Count: 4
Stupid Convenient Plot Element Count: 2

I died 5 minutes into the game, and killed 3 guards. I still got it.





Anyway, a few beginning notes. Naomi's accent is a British one in Metal Gear Solid and Mei Ling is a super stereotypical Asian girl accent. No doubt we'll see those two voices stay the same through the entire series. Hideo Kojima, the director, loves cinematic games, and Metal Gear Solid opens very similar to a move opening. Snake swims through water as opening credits appear on screen. As you complete the first stage, those credits keep going. Its a nice little movie style touch, and we will see plenty more of those.

Like a typical Metal Gear Solid later, the game opens with plenty of exposition. Kojima has a thing about details, and boy does this game go into detail. We get explanations about the Codec communication system, which is basically a radio, but we also are told why no one else around Snake can hear it. Then we get an explanation of how Snake was able to swim through cold water, and how he smuggled cigarettes through Naomi's strip search before the mission (he swallows the box).

Early on in the game, we are given a quick tutorial about the semi-open endness of the sneaking. The game points out that there are a few ways into the facility we are sneaking into, and our commander, Campbell tells us to choose our own COA (course of action so says the game).

Naturally, I make as much noise as possible, get spotted, and chased across the stage until I happen upon a gun. It is much easier to sneak around when all of the guards are simply dead. When I try to save once I've snuck into the building, I finally remember why I meant to buy a digital version of the game. Mei Ling's lines cant be read off the disc when saving thanks to a tiny little scratch I never resurfaced. This is of minor importance since I can still save. A shame I won't get to hear all of her quotes (a tradition all mission data specialists seem to carry on post MGS1).

Once we are in an air duct, Master Miller calls us. He is Snake's old friend and mentor. He also speaks with a hint of a British accent. The name Miller will appear later on when we hit Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. He lets us know that if we have questions about Alaska, to call him. We won't be calling him. Ever. Fuck Alaska.

Oh shit, I forgot why I was here. We are apparently looking for the DARPA chief who has been taken hostage by terrorists being led by someone with the code name, Liquid. The terrorists have a miniature army of soldiers and a nuclear weapon at their disposal. Using this they have taken over a military base in Alaska located on Shadow Moses Island. If I recall, the terrorists demand money. Its never that simple though, is it?

While crawling through the air duct, a guard tells another guard that the ducts will be sprayed for rats soon. No better time for pest control than during a hostage situation that has the whole US government paralyzed due to nuclear threat! I need to find an elevator to get to the basement where the DARPA dude is.

Annnnd I died again trying to find the elevator. Things are going swell. A quick reload, and elevator ride and we are back into more air ducts to get to the DARPA chief. Along the way, we see a red haired girl doing sit ups in her cell. Moving on from that, we get to the DARPA chief.

He informs Snake that the terrorist have a hold of a nuclear equipped walking battle tank... a Metal Gear which was being stored in secret on Shadow Moses. It also turns out that the President of Arms Tech is also on the island. The terrorists need DARPAs and Arms Tech's passwords to launch their nuke. Now, we have to go on a quest to get card keys to cancel the nuke launch. Oh shit the DARPA guy had a random heart attack right when he was about to explain something crazy!


And thus completes the first hour of Metal Gear Solid.

I really suck at it so far. The controls are a little wonky, but otherwise, the game holds up fairly well through the first hour. The voice acting is pretty good, which is a nice thing for a game so old. The more gameplay heavy parts are coming up now that the basic premise and quest of the story have been established.

Death Count: 2
Alert Count: 4
Stupid Convenient Plot Element Count: 1

The following list only contains threads made from April 04 to April 11, any older thread will be placed under the "Updated" banner if new relevant content is added to it



If you don't know how the list works, please check the project
thread.


This week features a new category called "Feedback", please check the project thread for further explanation.







Discussion
VNs need more adults in them! (Link)
Programmer's Corner (Link)
hardest visual novel you've read (Link)
Sekai Project Sakura-Con panel report (Link)
Particular Lines That Change Everything (Link)
Visual Novel sale numbers (Link)
Starlight Vega [Yuri OELVN] (Link)

Other Discussion
Preserving Older Games Is "Hacking" and Illegal (Link)
Fuwanovel Video Game Club (Link)

Feedback
Discussion: Save repository (Link)
[Poll]SideBar Quicklinks (Link)

Blog Post
Rockmandash’s Guide to Visual Novels on the Go! (Link)
The danger of importing erotic games (Link)
Hentai - the burden of a genre (Link)
And so we begin... (Link) - Rooke's critique continuation

And so we begin...really really late. Sorry bout that but RL got hectic for a few weeks. PS: I cut this blog post down from 3,000 words, to less than 1,500. You're welcome

Welcome to the start of my blog series. The way I’ll organise this critique is to go through different writing techniques first, and then showcase how they were badly used by Winged Cloud. Unfortunately due to very strict time-constraints I’ll have to split this first entry into 2 components, so in this blog post I’ll discuss the first writing technique, in the next blog post I’ll analyse how that technique was used in the game. Then in the blog post after I’ll introduce the next writing technique and so forth.

Eventually I may even get to story, character, and the purpose of scenes. Bear in mind the following are my thought processes about writing techniques, which I assembled myself.

A necessary Beginning

What is “good writing?” “Good writing” is the flimsy excuse people on the internet use to give their criticisms weight. If you don’t like a book because the book isn’t for you, then the reason you didn’t like the book would lie on your shoulders. That sounds an awful lot like being your fault. People never want things to be their fault, it’s right up there with taking responsibility for their actions. Ew, who wants to do that? But if you said you didn’t like it because it was badly written, well, then the fault is the book’s and not yours. This is a much better feeling to have.

But seriously, what is “good writing?” Well, "good writing" is what happens when you take on-board every piece of writing advice given to you over the years and produce a novel which is completely unsellable. That book could be said to have been written in a “good style.”

AHHH! WHAT IS “GOOD WRITING?!” Okay, okay, the concept is ludicrously straight forward. A story-teller has a story they wish to tell, and in a novel the writing is the method with which that story is conveyed to the reader. If the storyteller can convey vivid and engaging images of the scenes to the reader, then they have succeeded. If the images are not so well conveyed, they could still have succeeded. If the imagery and pacing have been completely screwed, then we can say the writing is not good. A writer’s goal will always be to maximise the impact of their writing so the image is conveyed in an impactful way. Language techniques will be the tools the writer will use, and this goal will consumer their lives.

In a visual novel the concept is much the same, but less involved. The writer must still convey the bit that are not shown by visuals and sound to the audience.

Simple, no? So now on to the first technique.

Technique #1 - Show vs Tell, and when to use each

Ugh, what a clichéd piece of advice to begin with. Well, there’s a very good reason I started here, and it involves a hat and some small pieces of paper. But let us delve into this "oft-dished-out" piece of advice.

Everybody always tells budding writers to “show” and don’t “tell,” but the truth is if writers always followed this advice their work would be bloated, it would be boring, and it would be so weighty that nobody would be able to lift the damn thing. A writer will “show” some bits, and they’ll “tell” some bits. What technique they use at each point is a decision only the writer themselves can answer (this is part of a writer’s “style.”)

So, what does it mean when a writer “tells” something. Well, what generally happens is the narrator observes the circumstances happening around them, but instead of funnelling these observations to the reader, the narrator funnels the conclusions they draw instead. These conclusions will tend to be short, categorical statements (like he was tall, or he was miffed) because that is what we humans tend to do, make a bunch of observations, condense these observations into a conclusion which fits nicely into a category, and file that information away. When this method is overused the problems it can cause are many - not enough information to produce a decent image (you’ve reduced the information so it fits into a bite-size statement,) each person categorises things differently (leading to incorrect images being formed,) and pacing issues (galore.)

For example, if a reader is told a man is angry, this not only limits information and leads to a less detailed image, but people associate "anger" with different behaviours depending on their own experience and the environment they grew up in. So where the character actually clenched their fists and glared, the reader could have imagined him dropping to his knees, repeatedly whacking himself on the head with a tea kettle, and screeching to the heavens. This affects character development.

But we humans tend to have very few stock images for each category, so what happens if more than one person in the story is “angry?” What happens if 4 people got “angry”? 6 people got “angry?” Then the reader will be imagining multiple people whacking themselves on the head with a tea kettle. And if everybody gets angry at once? Well, let's just hope there’s a hell of a lot of tea kettles.

But it doesn’t stop there, every “chair” would be the same, every “2 story brick house” would be the same, every “table”, every “hand”. All “approaching footsteps” would sound the same, even if one of the characters had a peg-leg, and another was a fat, slobby, 4-legged centaur who cried great, soppy tears whenever he had to climb a set of stairs.

And we’re still not done, because that’s not the only thing an overuse of “tell” does. An overuse of “tell” takes away the manipulation of pacing a writer wields at his disposal. By it’s very nature, the lack of description in “tell” automatically speeds up the pace of events, but during those periods where you want to denote a passing of time or during those periods where you want to slow down the story, more description is added to give the reader an actual and innate feeling that time has passed.

When a writer “tells” a reader that "half an hour has passed," it doesn’t give the reader a visceral sense that time has, actually, passed. However, wondering about the significance of a man’s hitched up trousers for 5 or 6 very long paragraphs will impart a VERY visceral sense of time passing to the reader.

So, does a writer need to "show" everything with their prose? No. Often you may not want much detail, sometimes you’ll want to speed up the pace of the scene. Maybe you want to employ default reader images somewhere in your story (here a writer can use “tell” to their considerable advantage.) Flip to any page of any published book and it will always contain a mixture of “show” and “tell.” What mixture you choose will depend on what style you want to employ. But the reason this piece of advice is so clichéd is because many people don’t put enough detail into their writing to impart a decent image to the reader.

How this applies to Visual Novels

Visual Novels are a different medium to novels, and with their inclusion of visuals and sound the prose doesn't need to be as dense. But unless the visuals and sounds paint a complete picture, like in The Walking Dead, some prose will still be necessary and standard writing techniques apply.

Next Post: How Sakura Spirit handled this technique
Next Next Post: Redundancy, bloat, and the value of precision.

And so we begin...really really late. Sorry bout that but RL got hectic for a few weeks. PS: I cut this blog post down from 3,000 words, to less than 1,500. You're welcome

Welcome to the start of my blog series. The way I’ll organise this critique is to go through different writing techniques first, and then showcase how they were badly used by Winged Cloud. Unfortunately due to very strict time-constraints I’ll have to split this first entry into 2 components, so in this blog post I’ll discuss the first writing technique, in the next blog post I’ll analyse how that technique was used in the game. Then in the blog post after I’ll introduce the next writing technique and so forth.

Eventually I may even get to story, character, and the purpose of scenes. Bear in mind the following are my thought processes about writing techniques, which I assembled myself.

A necessary Beginning

What is “good writing?” “Good writing” is the flimsy excuse people on the internet use to give their criticisms weight. If you don’t like a book because the book isn’t for you, then the reason you didn’t like the book would lie on your shoulders. That sounds an awful lot like being your fault. People never want things to be their fault, it’s right up there with taking responsibility for their actions. Ew, who wants to do that? But if you said you didn’t like it because it was badly written, well, then the fault is the book’s and not yours. This is a much better feeling to have.

But seriously, what is “good writing?” Well, "good writing" is what happens when you take on-board every piece of writing advice given to you over the years and produce a novel which is completely unsellable. That book could be said to have been written in a “good style.”

AHHH! WHAT IS “GOOD WRITING?!” Okay, okay, the concept is ludicrously straight forward. A story-teller has a story they wish to tell, and in a novel the writing is the method with which that story is conveyed to the reader. If the storyteller can convey vivid and engaging images of the scenes to the reader, then they have succeeded. If the images are not so well conveyed, they could still have succeeded. If the imagery and pacing have been completely screwed, then we can say the writing is not good. A writer’s goal will always be to maximise the impact of their writing so the image is conveyed in an impactful way. Language techniques will be the tools the writer will use, and this goal will consumer their lives.

In a visual novel the concept is much the same, but less involved. The writer must still convey the bit that are not shown by visuals and sound to the audience.

Simple, no? So now on to the first technique.

Technique #1 - Show vs Tell, and when to use each

Ugh, what a clichéd piece of advice to begin with. Well, there’s a very good reason I started here, and it involves a hat and some small pieces of paper. But let us delve into this "oft-dished-out" piece of advice.

Everybody always tells budding writers to “show” and don’t “tell,” but the truth is if writers always followed this advice their work would be bloated, it would be boring, and it would be so weighty that nobody would be able to lift the damn thing. A writer will “show” some bits, and they’ll “tell” some bits. What technique they use at each point is a decision only the writer themselves can answer (this is part of a writer’s “style.”)

So, what does it mean when a writer “tells” something. Well, what generally happens is the narrator observes the circumstances happening around them, but instead of funnelling these observations to the reader, the narrator funnels the conclusions they draw instead. These conclusions will tend to be short, categorical statements (like he was tall, or he was miffed) because that is what we humans tend to do, make a bunch of observations, condense these observations into a conclusion which fits nicely into a category, and file that information away. When this method is overused the problems it can cause are many - not enough information to produce a decent image (you’ve reduced the information so it fits into a bite-size statement,) each person categorises things differently (leading to incorrect images being formed,) and pacing issues (galore.)

For example, if a reader is told a man is angry, this not only limits information and leads to a less detailed image, but people associate "anger" with different behaviours depending on their own experience and the environment they grew up in. So where the character actually clenched their fists and glared, the reader could have imagined him dropping to his knees, repeatedly whacking himself on the head with a tea kettle, and screeching to the heavens. This affects character development.

But we humans tend to have very few stock images for each category, so what happens if more than one person in the story is “angry?” What happens if 4 people got “angry”? 6 people got “angry?” Then the reader will be imagining multiple people whacking themselves on the head with a tea kettle. And if everybody gets angry at once? Well, let's just hope there’s a hell of a lot of tea kettles.

But it doesn’t stop there, every “chair” would be the same, every “2 story brick house” would be the same, every “table”, every “hand”. All “approaching footsteps” would sound the same, even if one of the characters had a peg-leg, and another was a fat, slobby, 4-legged centaur who cried great, soppy tears whenever he had to climb a set of stairs.

And we’re still not done, because that’s not the only thing an overuse of “tell” does. An overuse of “tell” takes away the manipulation of pacing a writer wields at his disposal. By it’s very nature, the lack of description in “tell” automatically speeds up the pace of events, but during those periods where you want to denote a passing of time or during those periods where you want to slow down the story, more description is added to give the reader an actual and innate feeling that time has passed.

When a writer “tells” a reader that "half an hour has passed," it doesn’t give the reader a visceral sense that time has, actually, passed. However, wondering about the significance of a man’s hitched up trousers for 5 or 6 very long paragraphs will impart a VERY visceral sense of time passing to the reader.

So, does a writer need to "show" everything with their prose? No. Often you may not want much detail, sometimes you’ll want to speed up the pace of the scene. Maybe you want to employ default reader images somewhere in your story (here a writer can use “tell” to their considerable advantage.) Flip to any page of any published book and it will always contain a mixture of “show” and “tell.” What mixture you choose will depend on what style you want to employ. But the reason this piece of advice is so clichéd is because many people don’t put enough detail into their writing to impart a decent image to the reader.

How this applies to Visual Novels

Visual Novels are a different medium to novels, and with their inclusion of visuals and sound the prose doesn't need to be as dense. But unless the visuals and sounds paint a complete picture, like in The Walking Dead, some prose will still be necessary and standard writing techniques apply.

Next Post: How Sakura Spirit handled this technique
Next Next Post: Redundancy, bloat, and the value of precision.

And so we begin...really really late. Sorry bout that but RL got hectic for a few weeks. PS: I cut this blog post down from 3,000 words, to less than 1,500. You're welcome

Welcome to the start of my blog series. The way I’ll organise this critique is to go through different writing techniques first, and then showcase how they were badly used by Winged Cloud. Unfortunately due to very strict time-constraints I’ll have to split this first entry into 2 components, so in this blog post I’ll discuss the first writing technique, in the next blog post I’ll analyse how that technique was used in the game. Then in the blog post after I’ll introduce the next writing technique and so forth.

Eventually I may even get to story, character, and the purpose of scenes. Bear in mind the following are my thought processes about writing techniques, which I assembled myself.

A necessary Beginning

What is “good writing?” “Good writing” is the flimsy excuse people on the internet use to give their criticisms weight. If you don’t like a book because the book isn’t for you, then the reason you didn’t like the book would lie on your shoulders. That sounds an awful lot like being your fault. People never want things to be their fault, it’s right up there with taking responsibility for their actions. Ew, who wants to do that? But if you said you didn’t like it because it was badly written, well, then the fault is the book’s and not yours. This is a much better feeling to have.

But seriously, what is “good writing?” Well, "good writing" is what happens when you take on-board every piece of writing advice given to you over the years and produce a novel which is completely unsellable. That book could be said to have been written in a “good style.”

AHHH! WHAT IS “GOOD WRITING?!” Okay, okay, the concept is ludicrously straight forward. A story-teller has a story they wish to tell, and in a novel the writing is the method with which that story is conveyed to the reader. If the storyteller can convey vivid and engaging images of the scenes to the reader, then they have succeeded. If the images are not so well conveyed, they could still have succeeded. If the imagery and pacing have been completely screwed, then we can say the writing is not good. A writer’s goal will always be to maximise the impact of their writing so the image is conveyed in an impactful way. Language techniques will be the tools the writer will use, and this goal will consumer their lives.

In a visual novel the concept is much the same, but less involved. The writer must still convey the bit that are not shown by visuals and sound to the audience.

Simple, no? So now on to the first technique.

Technique #1 - Show vs Tell, and when to use each

Ugh, what a clichéd piece of advice to begin with. Well, there’s a very good reason I started here, and it involves a hat and some small pieces of paper. But let us delve into this "oft-dished-out" piece of advice.

Everybody always tells budding writers to “show” and don’t “tell,” but the truth is if writers always followed this advice their work would be bloated, it would be boring, and it would be so weighty that nobody would be able to lift the damn thing. A writer will “show” some bits, and they’ll “tell” some bits. What technique they use at each point is a decision only the writer themselves can answer (this is part of a writer’s “style.”)

So, what does it mean when a writer “tells” something. Well, what generally happens is the narrator observes the circumstances happening around them, but instead of funnelling these observations to the reader, the narrator funnels the conclusions they draw instead. These conclusions will tend to be short, categorical statements (like he was tall, or he was miffed) because that is what we humans tend to do, make a bunch of observations, condense these observations into a conclusion which fits nicely into a category, and file that information away. When this method is overused the problems it can cause are many - not enough information to produce a decent image (you’ve reduced the information so it fits into a bite-size statement,) each person categorises things differently (leading to incorrect images being formed,) and pacing issues (galore.)

For example, if a reader is told a man is angry, this not only limits information and leads to a less detailed image, but people associate "anger" with different behaviours depending on their own experience and the environment they grew up in. So where the character actually clenched their fists and glared, the reader could have imagined him dropping to his knees, repeatedly whacking himself on the head with a tea kettle, and screeching to the heavens. This affects character development.

But we humans tend to have very few stock images for each category, so what happens if more than one person in the story is “angry?” What happens if 4 people got “angry”? 6 people got “angry?” Then the reader will be imagining multiple people whacking themselves on the head with a tea kettle. And if everybody gets angry at once? Well, let's just hope there’s a hell of a lot of tea kettles.

But it doesn’t stop there, every “chair” would be the same, every “2 story brick house” would be the same, every “table”, every “hand”. All “approaching footsteps” would sound the same, even if one of the characters had a peg-leg, and another was a fat, slobby, 4-legged centaur who cried great, soppy tears whenever he had to climb a set of stairs.

And we’re still not done, because that’s not the only thing an overuse of “tell” does. An overuse of “tell” takes away the manipulation of pacing a writer wields at his disposal. By it’s very nature, the lack of description in “tell” automatically speeds up the pace of events, but during those periods where you want to denote a passing of time or during those periods where you want to slow down the story, more description is added to give the reader an actual and innate feeling that time has passed.

When a writer “tells” a reader that "half an hour has passed," it doesn’t give the reader a visceral sense that time has, actually, passed. However, wondering about the significance of a man’s hitched up trousers for 5 or 6 very long paragraphs will impart a VERY visceral sense of time passing to the reader.

So, does a writer need to "show" everything with their prose? No. Often you may not want much detail, sometimes you’ll want to speed up the pace of the scene. Maybe you want to employ default reader images somewhere in your story (here a writer can use “tell” to their considerable advantage.) Flip to any page of any published book and it will always contain a mixture of “show” and “tell.” What mixture you choose will depend on what style you want to employ. But the reason this piece of advice is so clichéd is because many people don’t put enough detail into their writing to impart a decent image to the reader.

How this applies to Visual Novels

Visual Novels are a different medium to novels, and with their inclusion of visuals and sound the prose doesn't need to be as dense. But unless the visuals and sounds paint a complete picture, like in The Walking Dead, some prose will still be necessary and standard writing techniques apply.

Next Post: How Sakura Spirit handled this technique
Next Next Post: Redundancy, bloat, and the value of precision.

And so we begin...really really late. Sorry bout that but RL got hectic for a few weeks. PS: I cut this blog post down from 3,000 words, to less than 1,500. You're welcome

Welcome to the start of my blog series. The way I’ll organise this critique is to go through different writing techniques first, and then showcase how they were badly used by Winged Cloud. Unfortunately due to very strict time-constraints I’ll have to split this first entry into 2 components, so in this blog post I’ll discuss the first writing technique, in the next blog post I’ll analyse how that technique was used in the game. Then in the blog post after I’ll introduce the next writing technique and so forth.

Eventually I may even get to story, character, and the purpose of scenes. Bear in mind the following are my thought processes about writing techniques, which I assembled myself.

A necessary Beginning

What is “good writing?” “Good writing” is the flimsy excuse people on the internet use to give their criticisms weight. If you don’t like a book because the book isn’t for you, then the reason you didn’t like the book would lie on your shoulders. That sounds an awful lot like being your fault. People never want things to be their fault, it’s right up there with taking responsibility for their actions. Ew, who wants to do that? But if you said you didn’t like it because it was badly written, well, then the fault is the book’s and not yours. This is a much better feeling to have.

But seriously, what is “good writing?” Well, "good writing" is what happens when you take on-board every piece of writing advice given to you over the years and produce a novel which is completely unsellable. That book could be said to have been written in a “good style.”

AHHH! WHAT IS “GOOD WRITING?!” Okay, okay, the concept is ludicrously straight forward. A story-teller has a story they wish to tell, and in a novel the writing is the method with which that story is conveyed to the reader. If the storyteller can convey vivid and engaging images of the scenes to the reader, then they have succeeded. If the images are not so well conveyed, they could still have succeeded. If the imagery and pacing have been completely screwed, then we can say the writing is not good. A writer’s goal will always be to maximise the impact of their writing so the image is conveyed in an impactful way. Language techniques will be the tools the writer will use, and this goal will consumer their lives.

In a visual novel the concept is much the same, but less involved. The writer must still convey the bit that are not shown by visuals and sound to the audience.

Simple, no? So now on to the first technique.

Technique #1 - Show vs Tell, and when to use each

Ugh, what a clichéd piece of advice to begin with. Well, there’s a very good reason I started here, and it involves a hat and some small pieces of paper. But let us delve into this "oft-dished-out" piece of advice.

Everybody always tells budding writers to “show” and don’t “tell,” but the truth is if writers always followed this advice their work would be bloated, it would be boring, and it would be so weighty that nobody would be able to lift the damn thing. A writer will “show” some bits, and they’ll “tell” some bits. What technique they use at each point is a decision only the writer themselves can answer (this is part of a writer’s “style.”)

So, what does it mean when a writer “tells” something. Well, what generally happens is the narrator observes the circumstances happening around them, but instead of funnelling these observations to the reader, the narrator funnels the conclusions they draw instead. These conclusions will tend to be short, categorical statements (like he was tall, or he was miffed) because that is what we humans tend to do, make a bunch of observations, condense these observations into a conclusion which fits nicely into a category, and file that information away. When this method is overused the problems it can cause are many - not enough information to produce a decent image (you’ve reduced the information so it fits into a bite-size statement,) each person categorises things differently (leading to incorrect images being formed,) and pacing issues (galore.)

For example, if a reader is told a man is angry, this not only limits information and leads to a less detailed image, but people associate "anger" with different behaviours depending on their own experience and the environment they grew up in. So where the character actually clenched their fists and glared, the reader could have imagined him dropping to his knees, repeatedly whacking himself on the head with a tea kettle, and screeching to the heavens. This affects character development.

But we humans tend to have very few stock images for each category, so what happens if more than one person in the story is “angry?” What happens if 4 people got “angry”? 6 people got “angry?” Then the reader will be imagining multiple people whacking themselves on the head with a tea kettle. And if everybody gets angry at once? Well, let's just hope there’s a hell of a lot of tea kettles.

But it doesn’t stop there, every “chair” would be the same, every “2 story brick house” would be the same, every “table”, every “hand”. All “approaching footsteps” would sound the same, even if one of the characters had a peg-leg, and another was a fat, slobby, 4-legged centaur who cried great, soppy tears whenever he had to climb a set of stairs.

And we’re still not done, because that’s not the only thing an overuse of “tell” does. An overuse of “tell” takes away the manipulation of pacing a writer wields at his disposal. By it’s very nature, the lack of description in “tell” automatically speeds up the pace of events, but during those periods where you want to denote a passing of time or during those periods where you want to slow down the story, more description is added to give the reader an actual and innate feeling that time has passed.

When a writer “tells” a reader that "half an hour has passed," it doesn’t give the reader a visceral sense that time has, actually, passed. However, wondering about the significance of a man’s hitched up trousers for 5 or 6 very long paragraphs will impart a VERY visceral sense of time passing to the reader.

So, does a writer need to "show" everything with their prose? No. Often you may not want much detail, sometimes you’ll want to speed up the pace of the scene. Maybe you want to employ default reader images somewhere in your story (here a writer can use “tell” to their considerable advantage.) Flip to any page of any published book and it will always contain a mixture of “show” and “tell.” What mixture you choose will depend on what style you want to employ. But the reason this piece of advice is so clichéd is because many people don’t put enough detail into their writing to impart a decent image to the reader.

How this applies to Visual Novels

Visual Novels are a different medium to novels, and with their inclusion of visuals and sound the prose doesn't need to be as dense. But unless the visuals and sounds paint a complete picture, like in The Walking Dead, some prose will still be necessary and standard writing techniques apply.

Next Post: How Sakura Spirit handled this technique
Next Next Post: Redundancy, bloat, and the value of precision.

And so we begin...really really late. Sorry bout that but RL got hectic for a few weeks. PS: I cut this blog post down from 3,000 words, to less than 1,500. You're welcome

Welcome to the start of my blog series. The way I’ll organise this critique is to go through different writing techniques first, and then showcase how they were badly used by Winged Cloud. Unfortunately due to very strict time-constraints I’ll have to split this first entry into 2 components, so in this blog post I’ll discuss the first writing technique, in the next blog post I’ll analyse how that technique was used in the game. Then in the blog post after I’ll introduce the next writing technique and so forth.

Eventually I may even get to story, character, and the purpose of scenes. Bear in mind the following are my thought processes about writing techniques, which I assembled myself.

A necessary Beginning

What is “good writing?” “Good writing” is the flimsy excuse people on the internet use to give their criticisms weight. If you don’t like a book because the book isn’t for you, then the reason you didn’t like the book would lie on your shoulders. That sounds an awful lot like being your fault. People never want things to be their fault, it’s right up there with taking responsibility for their actions. Ew, who wants to do that? But if you said you didn’t like it because it was badly written, well, then the fault is the book’s and not yours. This is a much better feeling to have.

But seriously, what is “good writing?” Well, "good writing" is what happens when you take on-board every piece of writing advice given to you over the years and produce a novel which is completely unsellable. That book could be said to have been written in a “good style.”

AHHH! WHAT IS “GOOD WRITING?!” Okay, okay, the concept is ludicrously straight forward. A story-teller has a story they wish to tell, and in a novel the writing is the method with which that story is conveyed to the reader. If the storyteller can convey vivid and engaging images of the scenes to the reader, then they have succeeded. If the images are not so well conveyed, they could still have succeeded. If the imagery and pacing have been completely screwed, then we can say the writing is not good. A writer’s goal will always be to maximise the impact of their writing so the image is conveyed in an impactful way. Language techniques will be the tools the writer will use, and this goal will consumer their lives.

In a visual novel the concept is much the same, but less involved. The writer must still convey the bit that are not shown by visuals and sound to the audience.

Simple, no? So now on to the first technique.

Technique #1 - Show vs Tell, and when to use each

Ugh, what a clichéd piece of advice to begin with. Well, there’s a very good reason I started here, and it involves a hat and some small pieces of paper. But let us delve into this "oft-dished-out" piece of advice.

Everybody always tells budding writers to “show” and don’t “tell,” but the truth is if writers always followed this advice their work would be bloated, it would be boring, and it would be so weighty that nobody would be able to lift the damn thing. A writer will “show” some bits, and they’ll “tell” some bits. What technique they use at each point is a decision only the writer themselves can answer (this is part of a writer’s “style.”)

So, what does it mean when a writer “tells” something. Well, what generally happens is the narrator observes the circumstances happening around them, but instead of funnelling these observations to the reader, the narrator funnels the conclusions they draw instead. These conclusions will tend to be short, categorical statements (like he was tall, or he was miffed) because that is what we humans tend to do, make a bunch of observations, condense these observations into a conclusion which fits nicely into a category, and file that information away. When this method is overused the problems it can cause are many - not enough information to produce a decent image (you’ve reduced the information so it fits into a bite-size statement,) each person categorises things differently (leading to incorrect images being formed,) and pacing issues (galore.)

For example, if a reader is told a man is angry, this not only limits information and leads to a less detailed image, but people associate "anger" with different behaviours depending on their own experience and the environment they grew up in. So where the character actually clenched their fists and glared, the reader could have imagined him dropping to his knees, repeatedly whacking himself on the head with a tea kettle, and screeching to the heavens. This affects character development.

But we humans tend to have very few stock images for each category, so what happens if more than one person in the story is “angry?” What happens if 4 people got “angry”? 6 people got “angry?” Then the reader will be imagining multiple people whacking themselves on the head with a tea kettle. And if everybody gets angry at once? Well, let's just hope there’s a hell of a lot of tea kettles.

But it doesn’t stop there, every “chair” would be the same, every “2 story brick house” would be the same, every “table”, every “hand”. All “approaching footsteps” would sound the same, even if one of the characters had a peg-leg, and another was a fat, slobby, 4-legged centaur who cried great, soppy tears whenever he had to climb a set of stairs.

And we’re still not done, because that’s not the only thing an overuse of “tell” does. An overuse of “tell” takes away the manipulation of pacing a writer wields at his disposal. By it’s very nature, the lack of description in “tell” automatically speeds up the pace of events, but during those periods where you want to denote a passing of time or during those periods where you want to slow down the story, more description is added to give the reader an actual and innate feeling that time has passed.

When a writer “tells” a reader that "half an hour has passed," it doesn’t give the reader a visceral sense that time has, actually, passed. However, wondering about the significance of a man’s hitched up trousers for 5 or 6 very long paragraphs will impart a VERY visceral sense of time passing to the reader.

So, does a writer need to "show" everything with their prose? No. Often you may not want much detail, sometimes you’ll want to speed up the pace of the scene. Maybe you want to employ default reader images somewhere in your story (here a writer can use “tell” to their considerable advantage.) Flip to any page of any published book and it will always contain a mixture of “show” and “tell.” What mixture you choose will depend on what style you want to employ. But the reason this piece of advice is so clichéd is because many people don’t put enough detail into their writing to impart a decent image to the reader.

How this applies to Visual Novels

Visual Novels are a different medium to novels, and with their inclusion of visuals and sound the prose doesn't need to be as dense. But unless the visuals and sounds paint a complete picture, like in The Walking Dead, some prose will still be necessary and standard writing techniques apply.

Next Post: How Sakura Spirit handled this technique
Next Next Post: Redundancy, bloat, and the value of precision.

And so we begin...really really late. Sorry bout that but RL got hectic for a few weeks. PS: I cut this blog post down from 3,000 words, to less than 1,500. You're welcome

Welcome to the start of my blog series. The way I’ll organise this critique is to go through different writing techniques first, and then showcase how they were badly used by Winged Cloud. Unfortunately due to very strict time-constraints I’ll have to split this first entry into 2 components, so in this blog post I’ll discuss the first writing technique, in the next blog post I’ll analyse how that technique was used in the game. Then in the blog post after I’ll introduce the next writing technique and so forth.

Eventually I may even get to story, character, and the purpose of scenes. Bear in mind the following are my thought processes about writing techniques, which I assembled myself.

A necessary Beginning

What is “good writing?” “Good writing” is the flimsy excuse people on the internet use to give their criticisms weight. If you don’t like a book because the book isn’t for you, then the reason you didn’t like the book would lie on your shoulders. That sounds an awful lot like being your fault. People never want things to be their fault, it’s right up there with taking responsibility for their actions. Ew, who wants to do that? But if you said you didn’t like it because it was badly written, well, then the fault is the book’s and not yours. This is a much better feeling to have.

But seriously, what is “good writing?” Well, "good writing" is what happens when you take on-board every piece of writing advice given to you over the years and produce a novel which is completely unsellable. That book could be said to have been written in a “good style.”

AHHH! WHAT IS “GOOD WRITING?!” Okay, okay, the concept is ludicrously straight forward. A story-teller has a story they wish to tell, and in a novel the writing is the method with which that story is conveyed to the reader. If the storyteller can convey vivid and engaging images of the scenes to the reader, then they have succeeded. If the images are not so well conveyed, they could still have succeeded. If the imagery and pacing have been completely screwed, then we can say the writing is not good. A writer’s goal will always be to maximise the impact of their writing so the image is conveyed in an impactful way. Language techniques will be the tools the writer will use, and this goal will consumer their lives.

In a visual novel the concept is much the same, but less involved. The writer must still convey the bit that are not shown by visuals and sound to the audience.

Simple, no? So now on to the first technique.

Technique #1 - Show vs Tell, and when to use each

Ugh, what a clichéd piece of advice to begin with. Well, there’s a very good reason I started here, and it involves a hat and some small pieces of paper. But let us delve into this "oft-dished-out" piece of advice.

Everybody always tells budding writers to “show” and don’t “tell,” but the truth is if writers always followed this advice their work would be bloated, it would be boring, and it would be so weighty that nobody would be able to lift the damn thing. A writer will “show” some bits, and they’ll “tell” some bits. What technique they use at each point is a decision only the writer themselves can answer (this is part of a writer’s “style.”)

So, what does it mean when a writer “tells” something. Well, what generally happens is the narrator observes the circumstances happening around them, but instead of funnelling these observations to the reader, the narrator funnels the conclusions they draw instead. These conclusions will tend to be short, categorical statements (like he was tall, or he was miffed) because that is what we humans tend to do, make a bunch of observations, condense these observations into a conclusion which fits nicely into a category, and file that information away. When this method is overused the problems it can cause are many - not enough information to produce a decent image (you’ve reduced the information so it fits into a bite-size statement,) each person categorises things differently (leading to incorrect images being formed,) and pacing issues (galore.)

For example, if a reader is told a man is angry, this not only limits information and leads to a less detailed image, but people associate "anger" with different behaviours depending on their own experience and the environment they grew up in. So where the character actually clenched their fists and glared, the reader could have imagined him dropping to his knees, repeatedly whacking himself on the head with a tea kettle, and screeching to the heavens. This affects character development.

But we humans tend to have very few stock images for each category, so what happens if more than one person in the story is “angry?” What happens if 4 people got “angry”? 6 people got “angry?” Then the reader will be imagining multiple people whacking themselves on the head with a tea kettle. And if everybody gets angry at once? Well, let's just hope there’s a hell of a lot of tea kettles.

But it doesn’t stop there, every “chair” would be the same, every “2 story brick house” would be the same, every “table”, every “hand”. All “approaching footsteps” would sound the same, even if one of the characters had a peg-leg, and another was a fat, slobby, 4-legged centaur who cried great, soppy tears whenever he had to climb a set of stairs.

And we’re still not done, because that’s not the only thing an overuse of “tell” does. An overuse of “tell” takes away the manipulation of pacing a writer wields at his disposal. By it’s very nature, the lack of description in “tell” automatically speeds up the pace of events, but during those periods where you want to denote a passing of time or during those periods where you want to slow down the story, more description is added to give the reader an actual and innate feeling that time has passed.

When a writer “tells” a reader that "half an hour has passed," it doesn’t give the reader a visceral sense that time has, actually, passed. However, wondering about the significance of a man’s hitched up trousers for 5 or 6 very long paragraphs will impart a VERY visceral sense of time passing to the reader.

So, does a writer need to "show" everything with their prose? No. Often you may not want much detail, sometimes you’ll want to speed up the pace of the scene. Maybe you want to employ default reader images somewhere in your story (here a writer can use “tell” to their considerable advantage.) Flip to any page of any published book and it will always contain a mixture of “show” and “tell.” What mixture you choose will depend on what style you want to employ. But the reason this piece of advice is so clichéd is because many people don’t put enough detail into their writing to impart a decent image to the reader.

How this applies to Visual Novels

Visual Novels are a different medium to novels, and with their inclusion of visuals and sound the prose doesn't need to be as dense. But unless the visuals and sounds paint a complete picture, like in The Walking Dead, some prose will still be necessary and standard writing techniques apply.

Next Post: How Sakura Spirit handled this technique
Next Next Post: Redundancy, bloat, and the value of precision.