Dreamysyu

PARIS, TX —  Last week, 28-year-old anime fan Learmont Irons reevaluated his life upon finding out that his current “anime of the season” was originally porn. Reports indicate that Irons was browsing the franchise’s Wikipedia page when he discovered the horrifying truth.  While struggling to cope with this revelation, Irons barricaded himself in his room. Eyewitness accounts state that he refused to come out until “Nasu took back what he did”.
Kinoko Nasu has been unavailable for comment since the incident.
When questioned about his reaction, Irons had this to say, “When I first started watching [Fate/Stay Night] Unlimited Blade Works I expected the girls to be pure maidens. Imagine my shock when I found lewd images of my favorite character. It’s one thing if it’s fan art, but the fact that it was official ruined my image of Tohsaka Rin. I felt betrayed.”
When asked about other characters such as Saber and Sakura, Irons said he had no problem with that. He explained that since neither Saber nor Sakura were his waifu then he could “care less about those sluts and their H scenes in the visual novel.”
Anime expert and Type-Moon enthusiast, Howard Ludo shared his thoughts on the matter, “It’s these dirty secondaries. They think that they can waltz right in here without reading fifty hours of scrolling text. [Irons] wouldn’t have been surprised if he had read the fucking visual novel.”
There are similar reports involving such beloved series as Little Busters, Utawarerumono and Yosuga no Sora. Fans seem to be uncomfortable with the fact that their favorite anime was originally fap fodder for lonely Japanese men. This has baffled researchers.
“During this difficult time of betrayal I am confiding in the anime whose authentic, pure, and heartfelt love story made me fall in love with the medium: Kanon,” reads a note left by Irons.
As of press time, Irons is still barricaded in his room. According to his MyAnimeList account, Irons is still keeping up with the series despite the setbacks.


Sauce

As someone who's never played your games before, but is vaguely interested in The Last Birdling:  i know that talking up your own stuff can be bad, but you should also beware the other way around.  You might want to be a little less hard on yourself when describing your own body of work.  If the whole thing is "Jesus Christ, I'm so sorry that I suck" then you run the risk of causing people to say "Well, gee, this game looked good, but maybe I should reconsider..."

Akatsuki no Yona is simply amazing, especially if you're a fan of strong (in the sense of strength of character) female leads. One of my very favorites.

Hi everyone ! Thank you for allowing me to post here, not just today, but for the past five years. The Last Birdling will be released next week on September 1st, so I have decided to put my portfolio of games on sale:

http://store.steampowered.com/bundle/2684/InvertMouse_Bundle/
The Last Birdling marks my fifth year not in game development, but at least under the name InvertMouse. I have released five to six titles on Steam now, and they have all taught me valuable lessons. It all started with Unhack 1 on this very forum, so I want to thank those who have been around since 2012. I have grown from five years' worth of mistakes since then, and as you will see below, I cannot bring myself to overhype some of these older titles. They still have all of my heart in them, though. That I will always be able to promise.

First, there was Unhack 1, which has many immature traits in retrospect. I must continue to accept critique even when it is for older titles that no longer reflect my skill level.

Then there is Bermuda, which I admit is a failure. I made plenty of management mistakes, and the results are out there for the world to see. Failure is not as scary once you have suffered through it. Please let me stress all the errors are on me, not anyone else on the team.

Next, we have Without Within 1 and 2. Initially, the first game received negative reviews from people who hated anime and/or visual novels. As the days went by, players who fell in love with Vinty have defended these titles. Vinty is kind, but she can also be a jerk. She is simply real.

There was Cursed Sight, featuring a protagonist who had caused some divided opinions. If I were to rewrite this story, I know I can do a much better job. Maybe I will revisit this one someday.

Then most recently came Unhack 2. This project was once a disaster due to my lack of research on AI. After months of study and rewrites, the game had evolved into my personal favorite. I hope more people may try out this title, because its themes have left me with plenty to think about.
The Last Birdling is a combination of all the lessons I have learned since 2012, and when it drops next week, I am sure I will grow from it yet again. I hope you will give the game a chance on September 1st. If you think the title is worth wishlisting, or if you are up for joining the Steam community, I would really appreciate it:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/629430/The_Last_Birdling/
Thank you so much everyone. See you next week !

So I guess our PHP setup wasn't that "unusual" after all...  Sorry it took that long either way, was out camping and not dealing with Invision's BS.
The themes need to be updated, as usual when updating IPB.

Probably. Almost certainly over, that is. In any case, the forums software will be running some indexing behind the scenes and things could yet get wonky. If you run into bugs, please speak up in this thread.
There are also several new features to the blog, but I left the list of them back in the United States and will need to recompile it. In the meantime, just assume that everything you like is filled with sparkly updates, and everything you dislike went away. 
EDIT: The visual formatting of the forums are a bit off as well. This has to do with our various forums themes. As soon as I get home tonight, I'll start the laborious process of updating them, and then things should be pretty once more. (Except for Rooke's theme. That one's just crap.)
EDIT: I mentioned it in the blog post, but whenever you come back and notice the forums are alive, please drop a big "Thank You!" to Nayleen (and, to a lesser extent, Invision) for bringing us back from the edge of the abyss!

Just finished Akatsuki no Yona. It's strange how this show is full of things I would expect to completely break the experience for me, like some cliches and extremely overpowered male characters, but I still ended up loving this show. Definitely picking up the manga.

Most kids grow up watching anime and reading manga in Japan, but those who become true otakus number about three in twenty.   VNs are generally only played by adult otakus, which make up a smaller percentage of the total population.  Most VN players in Japan are already general otakus, from what my friend tells me, because ero visual novels are considered to be 'deeper in the otaku abyss' than manga, anime, or LNs.  Non-ero VNs are more accessible but also are primarily on console or portable mediums, and so they are more likely to be played by younger otakus and even younger non-otakus there.  However, most of those are otomege or all-ages ports of eroge, lol.
Edit: Something to keep in mind about the fanbase here is that OELVNs are much more accessible in general than Japanese VNs, meaning that there are a lot of people who start from there and expand into Japanese VNs without having become anime or manga fans first.
 

They have updated the 18+ info page.
They are still censoring the game slightly by removing the beastiality CG, but they are NOT removing any text from the scene, apparently, so the only thing missing will be the CG.
Still sucks that they are censoring the game at all, but at least now the only thing we have to do is just look up the CG, and we're fine. The removed text was my biggest issue, as that's something I would have to go into the JP game to read, which would have been a lot of effort for such a small amount of lines.
I'm still clinging to the hope that they'll just cave and add the CG back in, though I doubt they will.

Sona-Nyl is waiting for Koestl. He must finish his Grisaia adventure, get some deserved break, and probably then start working on Sona-Nyl.

That's what I was referring to when I said it was a completely understandable mistake at a language level.
Perception of color and language are actually fascinatingly intertwined topics. Refer to this lovely wikipedia article for a lot of background, but even more interestingly, this article asserts that the vast majority of humans didn't even perceive blue as a distinct color until modern times. I also remember reading an article a few years ago (though I couldn't dig it up now) where some guy who was fascinated by this carefully never taught his child that the sky was blue, and then, when the child was still pretty young, the guy asked his kid what color the sky was, which netted the answer "Gray, I guess?"
Bottom line: our brains are weird.

Finished Kasumi's route in Dies Irae. I should probably first say that this is not the first VN by Masada I've read. I've read Senshinkan before, and that left me with pretty mixed feelings on the author. I consider myself a fan of chuuni, and the darker (even edgier) the story is the more I'm likely to enjoy it. As such, I was pretty excited when I read Senshinkan at first - Masada's works put on the airs of extremely edgy chuuni... but unfortunately, that is all they seem to do, as on the core they're nothing more but extremely cliched shounen. I was baffled by the stark contrast between the grimdark text and the "Friendship power!" kind of story in Senshinkan, but I just chalked it up to the main theme, given the main character's disposition towards virtues. I did like the story (there was some impressive layering going on), the (villain) characters, but I did have my doubts with the actual chuuni, getting bored to death with never-ending re-matches.
As such, I was more scared of Dies Irae than excited, really. I did want to read it, but I was worried that it might be exactly what I disliked about Senshinkan - but in the end, curiosity won over, and the hyper-edgy Nazi aesthetic made me pick up the game. And, to put it shortly... I was right to be worried.
The prologue didn't sell me on the VN, in fact, it almost made me drop it. It was full of Masada's flashiness for the sake of flashiness, with action scenes serving no other purpose but to show you how damn cool everything is... only I didn't buy it. When I read chuuni, I want infodumps. I want battles that get their rules laid down and thoroughly explained, and have crazy things happening according to these rules. While Masada does this sometimes (Senshinkan had some scenes like that, albeit not many), the prologue exemplified everything I dislike about his writing of fight scenes. It's like he is trying to convince you how amazing everything is with words alone, without actually giving you any reason to be impressed in the first place. It all comes across as pretty... flat.
Luckily enough, the VN turned around immediately as the actual story started. Crazy pseudo-philosophy dialogues, edgy protagonist with clearly defined character that promised an interesting and entertaining point of view, some nice twists, it was great! And then... then the shounen tournament arc happened. The main character that was supposed to be unique, as the VN and the villains would want you to believe, quickly devolved into an insufferably cliched shounen protagonist. I won't go into any details to avoid spoilers, but the amount of shounen cliches in this route was driving me against the wall. What was even worse was Masada's attempt at being clever and self-aware - but making fun of things like friendship power and relying on it only seconds later doesn't make it any better, it makes it downright obnoxious. The actual chuuni was probably by far the biggest disappointment. The only fight scene that was actually exciting was the very first encounter, after that it just got boring. Masada just sticks to describing cool things for the most part, so there's not much to enjoy about the scenes other than mindlessly going with it - it's not like any of it really matters, because the main character just wins by some bullshit every single time in a true shounen fashion, and to make things even worse almost none of the wins even feel deserved. I get that this is the first route, but watching the main character fall for the same shit over and over and in the end be unable to do anything cool at all in a story about crazy battles isn't fun whatsoever - at least there are better characters than him that make the battle scenes at least somewhat exciting.
Anyway, it's not like I hated the whole thing. I enjoyed the characters (maybe except Ren... and Kasumi, to some extent, even though I wanted to like her), I liked the story that got hinted at (as I mentioned above, the first half of the common route actually got me really hyped, hopefully there is more of that kind of stuff here), and I liked the route ending. At the very least the last battle was pretty cool, and so was the way it turned out. I can only hope that the VN gets better from now on, but so far, I'm not impressed.
 
 
There are people who say this? The Umineko "fanbase" really is the worst. Never before have I seen a story where so many people would ignore almost half of it just to make themselves feel smart via pathetic theory-crafting that just picks the convenient parts and dismisses the rest. It's even sadder that this is happening to Umineko of all things, considering its subject matter. I'm glad you were able to get something out of these two episodes; after all, Umineko is trying to get across a message, and the last two episodes are crucial for that. Any "fans" looking on it strictly as a mystery story are not only doing the story huge disservice, but probably can't read at all in the first place.

Finishing up the final episode of Umineko Chiru. It's been a long and bumpy ride. This emotional rollercoaster has been exhausting, constantly shifting from happy moments to sudden tension (no thanks to a certain troll of a witch). Still, despite my problems with the jarring shifts in tone, I'm impressed that even in these two final episodes that were deemed "unnecessary" by many Umineko fans, I'm still able to discover some inspiring life lessons. It truly exemplifies Ryukishi07's talent.
Regarding the characters, I'm really not too fond of Ange, even though I could relate with her bitterness and pessimism.
I suppose her character did require closure, but I could now see why people were satisfied enough with the tale ending at episode 6. Personally, I would've been satisfied if it had ended at 7 (even though I was a bit sore that the "truth" about Beatrice's actual motive for the murders was still hinted rather than explicitly explained). 8 felt like it dragged the story on just to throw in a happier outcome. I guess I can see why Ange was pissed at such sappiness.
Nevertheless, in spite of all the flaws, this has been a great journey. God, this was one amazing VN, easily ranking up among the likes of Fate/Stay Night and Steins;Gate.
After my trip to Rokkenjima has concluded, it's finally time to begin the juicy parts of the Muv-Luv story...

Even worse when CGs spoil the events that come several lines after they appear. I usually don't care when CGs don't follow the text very closely, but these moments usually irritate me.

I've no words for that...

Even worse when CGs spoil the events that come several lines after they appear. I usually don't care when CGs don't follow the text very closely, but these moments usually irritate me.

Even worse when CGs spoil the events that come several lines after they appear. I usually don't care when CGs don't follow the text very closely, but these moments usually irritate me.

Sure, but that wasn't my point. If the text is describing one thing but the CG shows another it is very distracting and makes the reader too conscious. It's best to stop showing the CG as soon as the text changes to something else.

Guess they heard that Sakura titles are selling well in the west, and now they have dollar signs in their eyes because they've even two Sakura's in their name... 

Heh, if you read it closely both translators muddled up their metaphors here. A curtain is used for concealment (think theatre curtains) or prettying up a frame (normal curtains,) but here they both use it as a backdrop (not a curtain.)
A common mistake is when people think they want to make writing sound grand by adding more words. That's got little to do with it. Grand writing can be lengthy or brief, rather it's the precision of language use and clarity of images presented which marks grand language. Grand language is precise, and the images conjured tend to be evocative and ... well, make sense. 
Basically GHS needs to practice writing more instead of writing 300 page essays dissecting Cross Channel:
A distant memory shrouded in the mists of time.
Though I could not remember the year or my age,
I remember a grand bedroom befitting one well born.
There were many places one could sit, the canopied bed, the European styled chair,
but I always preferred the floor.
Especially on nights like that.
Through the window, strewn on a blanket of darkness,
twinkled countless specks of light. A twinkling that ended only at the window frame.
And in the glass that separated that world from mine was the image of a young lady.
Full of grace and clothed in a western dress,
she was kept secluded from the world.
Obviously not a translator but it's not really a place to be grandiose is it? xD I mean, they're describing a room and a sky for heaven's sake xD
The bits of prose in that excerpt are some of the worst pieces of writing I've seen all year 0.0

A great poet once said "people die when they are killed."

I presume this is more of a question towards those, who already wrote or worked on a released game.
As some of you may know, I'm actually in the process of designing a visual novel and been working on the script for a couple past months. As much as the tools and methods I decided to use had proven to be quite fine in the beginning, it came to a point where I can no longer efficiently work due to the sheer complexity of the story itself - it's peculiar, non-standard construction, events and all the character interactions and relationships that tie them together. I also found out using a couple different tools across the production stage became rather burdensome and I'm kind of annoyed of having to switch between multiple windows, web browser and text documents in order to continue, as it is highly distracting and I often end up doing everything except focusing on the actual script.
That's why I'd like to discuss screenwriting for vn's and methods - or as we could say - different approaches to storybulding. How do you organize your work around script writing for vn's and most importantly - what is the software you use? What kind of structure do you prefer for your text-based documents? Do you had any experience working in team with other writers and how did it impact the whole creative/writing process? Do you prefer working with others or found that writing solo is a lot more comfortable, regardless whether the vn is linear or branched and with routes? What are your toughts in general?
If there's anyone who's either screenwriting/storybuilding on a daily basis, I'd love to hear what tools you use frequently or is there any actual software you're really fond of, be it web-based or standalone.
I'm considering switching from my current workflow method, as I found it to be rather unreliable and... quite messy, when things grew bigger.

I must be a luxurious individual, then, because socks are all I get for my birthday these days.
 
I assure you that the better at the language you are, the less you care about grammar and misspellings on posts and forums online.
This is entirely anecdotal, but I've found that the people who are focused on correcting others or who judge others on how they spell and write tend to not be completely fluent at the language in question either.
In a fairly informal, 'simply a means of communication' setting like this, I mean.
Stuff like actually writing stories always benefits from constructive criticism, since it's not as much about communication as it is about being enjoyable for the reader... generally. Depends on what you write for.

Honestly, I often have the same problem, though I try not to care that much. The worst thing about conversations online in a language you aren't really fluent in is that there is no real way to check whether you write everything right or not.

Can you guess her name?

It's "Unfortunate Mermaid".