Darbury

Seems to be Shoukansha: https://vndb.org/v7976

The .ks files are text files, just with a different extension. Open them in a text editor capable of handling alternate encodings such as Shift-JIS or UTF-16 (depending on the exact game). If you don't have one already, Atom and Visual Studio Code are both fine options.

Welcome to Fuwa, from one dad to another. Don't worry, we've got all kinds here... Ronald Reagan? The actor?! Then who was vice-president, Jerry Lewis?

Welcome to Fuwa! You can absolutely do what you’re looking for in Ren’Py. Just use NVL mode: https://www.renpy.org/doc/html/nvl_mode.html It’s a little harder to customize than ADV mode (text and name tag at bottom), but still entirely doable.

Yup, something in that direction could definitely work. And since you won't have to worry about contrast against arbitrary backgrounds, you can remove the outline and just go with a dark color for the nav text. (Unstroked text will almost always be more legible at small point sizes.)

This version, 100% — plus, like, 3% percent I had sitting around in my jacket pocket. It solves so many problems for you. It minimizes the impact of the dithered backgrounds while also giving them visual context. It keeps character sprites from sliding to the far, far edges of the canvas (or behind their own dialogue portraits). And it just looks rad. Restyle that Ren'py bottom nav with an 8-bit pixel font and you got yourself a winner.

Yeah, I got a bad batch of gas station sushi and ended up in a medically induced coma for the past four years. Just woke up this morning. Anything interesting happen while I was out? Can’t wait to finally see how Game of Thrones ends... @NSAID: I totally get the low/no budget dilemma. Been there, done that, got the off-brand t-shirt. Maybe just tack it on your v2.0 to-do list?

Welcome to Fuwa! Always glad to see creators putting new material out there. One friendly suggestion: have a native English reader go through your script. While I haven't played the full VN yet, your Steam screenshots have enough anguished English in them ("I look at the both of my hands", "despite the sky is still shrouded") that it might easily dissuade someone from downloading/playing the game. You've clearly put a lot of work into this, so it's worth the extra effort to make sure that readers can fully immerse themselves in the world you've created.

Nice blog post! And for what it's worth, I've grown somewhat more tolerant of ellipses over the years. Have they worn me down? ...Maybe. I suppose the key is using them with intentionality, and not as a typographical shrug that takes the place of finishing a thought or properly punctuating a sentence. To your point, it's hard for an ellipsis to do the important work of demarcating time when those same three dots are also being employed in a dozen other pointless odd-jobs throughout the text.

Sango's route is universally considered (by me) to be the worst of the lot, with way too much forced drama/psychobabble. So take heart! It can only get better from here.

You can bring the eroge with you to the tropics, you know. Why stop at 80%? Live the dream.

Welcome to Fuwa! I've gotta say, your tastes overlap mine to an extent that's eerie. (A) Have you been stalking me? (B) If so, do you know where I put my car keys after lunch? I'm having trouble finding them.

How about "a squid munching on a dried old man"? Now there's a description everyone can relate to.

Literal translation: You go to the orchestra for some Mozart. The musicians come on stage and give you some Mozart, note-for-note, measure for measure, just as it's written in the sheet music. Expressive translation: You go to the orchestra for some Mozart. The musicians come on stage and begin playing some Mozart. But the conductor's fine-tuned the piece to account for the acoustics of the hall, the strengths and weaknesses of her players — who are her first chairs, her soloists? — and her understanding of how the music needs to flow. When should it swell? When should it whisper? What's it trying to say? In both cases, you've heard a work by Mozart. But in only one, I'd suggest, have you been given the chance to experience it. (Replace all the above with a Led Zep cover band if you'd like. I won't judge.)

It's not too much to ask. After so many years spent living on scraps, we've just become accustomed to asking too little.