Arcadeotic

Time for another update, actually on Saturday for once.
Nothing special happened this week, QC isn't perpetually in an Ice Age any longer, and got a nice nump in progress, but there has been no editing this week, sadly.
Aizen-sama, the guy who you might know from MajoKoi and WG translation projects is now QC'ing this project, so steady progress in that front should be secured now.
Now I just need to do something about steady editing progress.
Anyways, progress:
Translation: 100%
Editing: 22,9%
QC: 8,5%
Proofreading: 0%
 
Till next week.

What up, everyone. Here we go with the 8th weekly update. Welp, two months may have passed but the progress done until now has been pretty nice if I say so myself. This week has been rather slow, so I apologize for that. We have recruited our twentieth member, @Torky who will help us in the Majo Koi Team as a Translator to fill our current MIA (but that will definitely be back, work issues don't let them be with us atm) translators, which are @Hasa and @RaurosFalls. On a side and personal note, I'll be working as a QC for Bishoujo Mangekyou in Euphemic Translations, so that's that. ANyways, let's get straight into the update, shall we?
Witch's Garden
The prologue has been completely TLC'd. The common route is already completed by 30% in that aspect and Misumi's and Ririko's routes have started to receive TLC as well. Ayari's route has had some TLC completed as well, but it will be stalled and Misumi + Ririko will have priority, since they belong to our future 50% game patch. The editing has been progressing rather slowly, but it will resume this week to complete the prologue. Currently the route being translated is Eclairs. We have an updated progress board in our website and... well... I think that's it for the news. I'll just post the numbers below:

Majo Koi Nikki
Progress has advanced rather slowly in terms of translation. Editing has been resumed and we've moved on from the prologue to the common route of the game. We'll post an updated progress board as well as soon as we completely figure the route's numbers out, since they are pretty bad divided and it's pretty difficult to tell them apart. Regarding the partial patch, the only thing left is to repack the translated interface images and we'll be pretty much done with it and be ready for releasing it. We're sorry for the delay, hehe. The numbers are below:

DISCLAIMER: THESE AREN'T THE EXACT NUMBERS, WE'RE STILL FIGURING OUT ROUTES AND OTHER STUFF.
DISCLAIMER 2: THOSE 99% ON BOTH EDITING AND TL OF THE PROLOGUE ARE BECAUSE THE TRIAL PATCH HAS EXTRA LINES. WE'LL TAKE CARE OF THAT ASAP, THE FULL GAME'S PROLOGUE LINES HAVE BEEN COMPLETELY TRANSLATED.
Anyways, I think that's all for this week. Thanks for reading, as always, and have a nice week everyone.

We just hit 50% translation! Yaay!

I just wrapped up the translation of Futaba's good ending last night, (fought through some H-scenes... ) And here we are!


 
So with this, we are officially halfway there. It's a pretty good feeling. Although the actual line count hasn't changed that much since last week, just seeing the "50%" makes me feel awesome  


 
I wanted to do something a bit special for the halfway mark, so I'm going to talk a bit about the game first, then I'll be answering some random questions some people might have/ just in general talk a bit about the project and how things are progressing on our end. Let's begin with some info about the game:


 
Many people might not really know that much about this small, fairly new yurige by a fairly unknown company. In Tsui Yuri, you follow the twin sisters Futaba and Ichika, who get along very well. So well in fact, that their mother thinks it is a bit too much, and she asks them to spend some time apart. Seeing as they live in the same house, go to the same school and pretty much always do everything together, this is a bit hard, and their relationship is strained. The story is told from both girls' perspectives, and there is 2 routes, with 4 endings total.

During the common route, you will make several choices that will impact the story and the girls' relationship. The "status" meter in game will show you how strongly each character cares for the other at any given time, and each choice will change this meter to a varying degree. One choice might bump Ichika's feelings a lot, where as some might make her care less and less for Futaba, and so on.


Currently not translated, as the image editing is not done by me. It is in the works, but not done yet.


What really interested me about this game was the choice and route system. There is no real set combination of choices that will lead to a route; you can freely play with the status meter, making different choices to see how it changes their feelings. To get a character's route, that character's feelings has to be stronger than the other one. (Meaning if Futaba has about 60% and Ichika has 40%, you enter Futaba's route.) But, if you manage to completely push it all the way to one side, (so now Ichika doesn't care about Futaba at all,) then you will get a bad ending. Meaning, which ending you get is decided by your choices in the common route, and not during the actual character route itself. This is really cool, because that means you actually get a "bad route" and not just a bad ending. (The line count in the bad routes are actually just a tiny bit shorter than the good ones. If you like bad endings with a bit of meat to them, these are actually pretty good. Also, yandere fans, look out.)

In addition, some of the choices you make in the common route will give you different variations of each scene, some which includes unique CGs, so saving and testing out new stuff is actually pretty much required. (Though, seeing as the game is quite short, it's a neat feature, not something that makes you sigh because you have read something similar before.)

Story wise, it is a very light game with no real "plot" other than two sisters growing more and more fond of each other. It deals with them moving from the line of "sisters" to "lovers" and things like that. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but for yuri fans it's a really solid title. Also, like I mentioned, the bad endings are actually pretty dark, so for the twisted fellas out there, this one might be a bit interesting for you if you can stomach some adorableness first.  


 
Let us take a quick look at the characters:

Ichika



Ichika is the smart, cool and collected sister. She speaks politely, has a very calm air to her, is a perfect honor student and is also the vice-president on the student council. She is a bit too soft on Futaba, always helping her out with anything Futaba needs. Although she is very smart, she isn't the brightest when it comes to relationships in general - she simply isn't that used to interacting with people.


 
Futaba (God I love her pout.)



Futaba is the energy bomb of the two. She loves Ichika more than anything in the world, and always follows her sister around. She is way too spoiled, and doesn't do much on her own; she wants her sister to help her out with it. She isn't the smartest kid around, but she is very good at sports, and is a member of the tennis club. She is also way too adorable.


 
Yuri



The sisters' childhood friend and Ichika's classmate. Yuri is a bit of a joker who tends to put ideas in the girls' heads. She speaks her mind, even if what she has to say isn't the most appropriate, which makes for some hilarious situations.

But although she tends to joke around a lot, she has a bit of an adult-like feel to her and is a very mature person when she needs to be.


 
Saki



The sisters' second childhood friend and Futaba's classmate. She is a bit different from Yuri, and is a lot more polite and in many ways, similar to Ichika. Saki is a very gentle and sweet person, and wants to help the sisters out whenever they are feeling down. One big difference between Ichika and Saki is that Saki gets what people are thinking a lot easier, making her a bit less of an "airhead" when it comes to relationships and people's feelings.


 

 

 
Moving over to some questions and answers.


 
Question... (kind of): When I started the project, I felt that there was a few people who weren't quite sure whether or not I could do this. I think the quality of the final translation was their main concern. Basically, am I a complete scrub, or do I actually have some skills?  

Answer: Well, a few things to keep in mind. 1, this game is very fluffy and very simple. It is also quite short. That does not mean it's something to underestimate of course, but I would never have started the project if I wasn't ready. There is a reason I aimed for a short, fluffy title without any intricate plot lines that would be hard to follow for a new translator.

In addition, the second I felt a bit overwhelmed, I stopped the project for a bit, as I knew that wasn't the way things should be. I am completely comfortable with this project now, and although I know my translation will not be a top tier piece of work, I can assure you at the very least, it won't be wrong. Like, I won't translate peppers to peas. (Isn't that right Kriririri ) 

Anyways, I know I am new to this, I know I will make some tiny mistakes here and there, I know the quality will be a bit lower than what some of the very skilled individuals out there manages, but overall I am happy with the way things are going. I'm learning a lot, I'm improving, and this is just the beginning of my translation career. (Even if that makes some people more angry than happy )


 
Question: Will there be a prologue patch/ partial patch released?

Answer: We still have a few issues with the engine, (which is stupid and retarded,) so a potential patch now would have a few annoying bugs and errors which would just be distracting. The scripts also aren't really polished quite yet, as it's only been me and an editor working on it as of right now so... I'm going to say, no. It just wouldn't be a pleasant read in its current state, and seeing as the game is so short, it's pretty much pointless either way.


 
Question: Do you have an ETA for the patch?

Answer: It's hard to say. I could give you a rough estimate, but I would rather not. The thing is, the amount of time I have to work on this is a bit limited. I absolutely love working on it, and I have a blast the entire time I do, (except for when the damn H-scenes suck the life out of me.)

The thing is, this is my first translation. I have never translated anything before, and the work is very tasking. Sounds silly, I mean, all I do is look at something in Japanese, then write it in English, right? Well, there is a lot more to it, and honestly, it's very mentally draining. Even just a simple one hour session can leave me exhausted. Not because I get bored, but simply because I have to think a lot, and I'm not used to that. Wait...

Because of the fairly limited amount of time I have each week, there is only so much I can get done on a weekly basis without overworking myself. This is a very new thing to me, and I want to make sure I move forward at a comfortable pace. Seeing as I have no deadline or anything, I can take it exactly at the pace I personally feel is right, even though that might be a bit frustrating to others.

Basically, I can say that it will be released in 2016 for sure, but I can't say anything more specific than that.


 
A bit of progress on how things are going on our end.

The translation and editing is going fine, and is moving around the same speed. The reason the editing is lagging a tiny bit behind me right now, is because the translation I work on every week isn't made available on the GIT for the editor until I upload it on Thursday nights. That means he literally has to edit it all during that night to get it ready for the Friday update, which ... well, if he was doing that I'd be a bit worried.


 
We have met a few problems in the game which the hacker has to take a look at. This is something I can't do anything about, as I barely know what a computer is, so without Porygon on this project, this whole thing would not have been possible. (Thank you so much.)


 
Image editing will be done so that the entire menu and UI is in English. There is no ETA on this, and all I can say is that it will be done at some point. An individual approached me without me asking for their help, which made me extremely happy. As of right now, I don't know if they want to be mentioned or not, so I'll wait until I know that for sure before I talk about that any more. Point is, it will be done at some point.


 
To finish up this post, I'll just put out there that we are working hard and that the patch will be finished. I know a decent amount of new teams tend to suddenly just die out and vanish. That will not be the case with this project. Like I said before, I'm having a blast translating this. Although it might not seem like I'm getting a lot done, it's simply because I'm making sure I don't rush through things. Also keep in mind that real life is a thing, and that sometimes it takes priority over the translation.

Thanks for sticking with me and the team, and I hope you are looking forward to the patch.

See you in next week's update.

strikes again, so I'm reposting this, more or less for my self-gratification and to sate my inner perfectionist
Well, now that my part is mostly done, these posts are most likely getting much smaller.
I also got asked to join the revived Witch’s Garden TL project as a Proofreader/QC’er over at Luna Translations now that I’m free and personally, I really like the game, so I’m happy of being asked to do it. If you want, I’ll leave a link to their translation blog here and you can find them on the bottom of the front page too.
The editing’s progressing at a steady page and QC’s still perpetually frozen in place, but that isn’t a big deal at this point yet. I’ll also finish the image editing and minor tweaking soonish.
 
Translation: 100%
Editing: 22,9%
QC: 3,1%
Proofreading: 0% 
 

strikes again, so I'm reposting this, more or less for my self-gratification and to sate my inner perfectionist
Well, now that my part is mostly done, these posts are most likely getting much smaller.
I also got asked to join the revived Witch’s Garden TL project as a Proofreader/QC’er over at Luna Translations now that I’m free and personally, I really like the game, so I’m happy of being asked to do it. If you want, I’ll leave a link to their translation blog here and you can find them on the bottom of the front page too.
The editing’s progressing at a steady page and QC’s still perpetually frozen in place, but that isn’t a big deal at this point yet. I’ll also finish the image editing and minor tweaking soonish.
 
Translation: 100%
Editing: 22,9%
QC: 3,1%
Proofreading: 0% 
 

strikes again, so I'm reposting this, more or less for my self-gratification and to sate my inner perfectionist
Well, now that my part is mostly done, these posts are most likely getting much smaller.
I also got asked to join the revived Witch’s Garden TL project as a Proofreader/QC’er over at Luna Translations now that I’m free and personally, I really like the game, so I’m happy of being asked to do it. If you want, I’ll leave a link to their translation blog here and you can find them on the bottom of the front page too.
The editing’s progressing at a steady page and QC’s still perpetually frozen in place, but that isn’t a big deal at this point yet. I’ll also finish the image editing and minor tweaking soonish.
 
Translation: 100%
Editing: 22,9%
QC: 3,1%
Proofreading: 0% 
 

Since the translated prologue script for Majo Koi Nikki is more or less finalized, I decided to kill two birds with one stone. So here I am, kicking off the editing blog I've been meaning to work on for a while, and also trying to build some hype for our TL project, where we are planning to release a patch for the official free trial version of the game soon, as a signal of how things are going towards our final patch for the full game.
Like many things in life, translating occasionally means making trade-offs. With a large text, some detail and nuance isn't going to come through, regardless of how good at it you are. As a translator, TLC, or editor, one prime responsibility you have is to identify as many of those nuances and references as you can. But even if you're quite successful on that mark, you'll still occasionally be faced with a set of translation options that precludes maintaining everything; even among the nuances you found, something must be lost in translation. What should you do? Simple: evaluate your options and choose the best trade-off available. This is a story about a trade-off.

The first sentence of the VNDB summary of Majo Koi Nikki (courtesy of these fine fellows) is: "Alice lives alone in an old barber shop in the shopping district of the rose-colored town." Rose-colored town? Now, don't get me wrong, there's a whole lot of pink in this game, especially in the UI, but the city itself isn't anything you could call rose-colored, unless you were talking about plant stems. See the below night-time aerial shot of the town for reference to how not pink it is, as well as just how pink the UI is. So where did that oddly specific phrase come from?
Well, it turns out there's this Japanese phrase, バラ色, appearing all over the original script. It'd be pronounced "barairo", and literally translated, it of course means rose-colored. It most commonly appears modifying a word for town/block/neighborhood (that's their "rose-colored town"), and then with that it also appears modifying a shopping district (finally giving the "shopping district of the rose-colored town" in the VNDB summary). It also modifies a train station; obviously the train station located in that neighborhood. The first translator to come across this phrase, recognizing it as a neighborhood name, just romanized it: "Barairo District", "Barairo Station", "Barairo shopping district". The last phrase has a minor issue (you might wonder, is it a subset of Barairo District, or just a different name for the same whole place? it's the former), but there is a bigger problem here.
First off, having multiple translators on the project gave us an interesting view: the phrase got translations as varied as "rose town" and "the pink district". And that spurred us towards consciously thinking: isn't some obsession with pinkness, flowers, or roses kind of an important thing in this game?

Definitely more green than rose-colored. Alas, this map view and its cute chibi sprites aren't part of the free trial.
I'm writing this blog, of course, because the answer was yes. Rose-colored stuff are an obvious and important motif. And better yet, pretty much every time the writer wanted to put that motif to use, this exact adjective, "barairo", is the word used in the original JP text to signal it. One late-breaking character in the prologue actually has "Barairo" in his full title, and his nickname is a portmanteau of his title: "Baragon". If that's not enough, meanwhile, the adjective "barairo" is the crux of what I view as probably the most important line in the whole prologue (which I'm not going to say any more about; gotta save the goodies for later, after all).
To a Japanese speaker, all these things will layer over each other with no problem; it's the same word, after all. But we're not going to literally change that character's name even if it sounded remotely natural to call this guy "Rose-coloredgon" (or, God forbid, "Rogon"; sounds like a hygiene product), and we can't start using "barairo" in English as an adjective to say something is rose-colored; something's got to give.
So here's the trade-off we made. First of all, the "Barairo District" gets an English-translated proper name: Rose Village. Sounds nice and quaint, though we technically lost the color from the literal translation. The whole English phrase "rose-colored" starts sounding cumbersome when you try to put it in a proper name, hence, Rose Village. Doesn't it sound like a great place to go get a haircut? "Rose Village Station" and "the Rose Village shopping district" fall out of this naming pretty naturally and sound fine.
For the cases where the phrase was simply used as an adjective, rather than a proper name, we're consistently using the adjective "rosy", to get maximum resonance with all the roses we just strewed around the text.
Now what about that guy with "Barairo" in his full title? Similarly, it got turned into "Rose"; his title sounds pretty good that way. I'm not telling you what it is. And his nickname? Still Baragon. Which is no longer a portmanteau. That's what we lost. That's the nature of a trade-off. It's unfortunate, but all things considered, it's a small sacrifice for the greater good.
And what did we get in trade? Why, only all those lovely roses that the English readers will now see and connect together in their minds, consciously or unconsciously, and which should resonate strongly with the pink UI and pink CGs you'll come across while reading this lovely VN.
The patch for the free trial of Majo Koi Nikki isn't out yet, but it's on its way. If you're the romantic type, maybe think of it as a bouquet of roses, from us to you. Enjoy!

Visual Novel Translation Status (06/25/2016)
Okay, for all French reader or user here, don't worry. What I mean here is the title for opening song of one VN in image header (Grisaia no Meikyuu) in French (Because Grisaia like to use French, so I decided to use the Frech from opening title for this week review). The opening title was World's End, and I must admit it was quite catchy, although I still thinking Kajitsu was enough. But if you want to play Meikyuu, go ahead and beware of cliffhanger at the end.
Anyway, here's my VNTS Review for this week and sorry for a bit late here. As for this week, we had many progress from fan translation alone. While for Sekai and Mangagamer, it was still their usual. However, this week we had surprise from other segment. So I think I'll start from Mangagamer section first, then Fan Translation, Sekai, and finally Other. Oh, beforehand as the opening news for anyone who cares, we had Sonicomi entering Golden Master according to JAST Twitter here (I should report it at last week, but I forgot).
Mangagamer
Nothing too excited if we looking from their progress, although full translation of Da Capo 3 was of course welcome news here (At least Kouryuu managed to fulfill his promise by fully translating it before AX 2016, or to be exact 11 or so days before it). But even after translating finished there's still editing (Which right now it was at 98%), scripting, and beta testing. Hopefully they'll managed to release Da Capo 3 this year. For more info, this VN was had some history once again with Fuwanovel. I'll try to elaborate more later.
For other progress, we had Pygmalion 16% edited, Fata Morgana fandisc 18% translated, Imopara 2 48% translated and a quarter edited, and Kuroinu 80% translated and 21% edited. Not much comment needed here, other than if Pygmalion need 2 weeks for 8% editing progress, will it fully edited at December first week I wonder (And obviously it'll be released in 2017 duh). I think that's all for Mangagamer section this week. Oh, and by the way none of the project was in scripting if you still curious how about Mangagamer will give us news in regard of their in scripting project.
Fan Translation
We had so many progress from here. Let me try to round up all of them here.
Hanasaki had Hikari's route 16% translated. By the way admin Tay, you mistaken Inori for Hikari. The right one once again it was Hikari's route that translated at 16%. Majokoi was at 17.08% translated and 10.68% edited. By the way, the team was in need of 2 beta testers. If you interested, just look at this blog post here. Oh, and they almost had prologue patch ready for release. Bishoujo Mangekyou was fully translated and 20.3% edited. Arcadeotic said the release date could be in a few months (Hopefully this year). Tsui Yuri was 40% translated and 30% edited. Kanobito was had 110 scripts left to translated according to @mitchhamilton. Good luck to endure more sex scene Mitch, because from VNDB and some review I knew that this game had high sex count. Majikoi A-1 fandisc was released. Good for hardcore Majikoi fan I guess. Although I didn't care too much about this, I'm still thanking the team for completing original Majikoi translation project though. Tsuki no Yorisou project was finally added to the VNTS. Congratulations, and since if we look at the overall translation progress it was quite hard to tell if this project was advancing or not, I'll just report the progress from the route. And for this week we had prologue and common route fully translated, and Luna route was at 15% translated. Astral Air was touching 90% progress for both translation and editing (Actually each week before the percentage was the progress for both), or to be exact the progress itself was at 92.50% (Too bad it wasn't 4% progress though (Only 3.67% progress), but I'm still grateful okay). Okay, since Tay already said congratulation to Chuee at his Twitter, let me said congratulations for very big progress to the translator himself, @SupremeTentacle. Okay, I think that's all for roundup this week at Fan translation section. For last word, I think this section was had most exciting if we look at the progress, although for the release it was quite not so exciting to me though (Only Majikoi A -1 fandisc, although once again if you hardcore Majikoi fan go ahead and play it).
Sekai Project 
Actually also their usual once again if we look at their progress. Okay for the opening news, congratulations for very big success kickstarter for Princess Knight (Around 36,000 fund gathered, which was 3 times original goal (12,000)). And this week we had 2 projects completed in term of translation progress (Darekoi and WEE Episode 3), while we also had one almost completed translation project here (Nashville was translated at 98.04%). For more progress, we had Maitetsu was at 13.09% translated and Chrono Clock was at 20.95% translated. For My Little Kitties, well I think it's like Nekopara, only we had one catgirl and also we had Sakura Ayane and Uchida Maaya working as seiyuu there somehow in Korean VN (By the way, I remember that their role at Gochiusa was Cocoa and Sharo respectively). As for the biggest release from Sekai, it was obviously Meikyuu and I think I'd commented enough both on forum and the first paragraph.
Other
Okay, actually other than Corona Blossom Chapter 1 which almost funded at this point (Only 489 left to be funded) there's no update from this section. But this section was had surprised us. The surprise was ChuSingura 46+1 Chapter 1 was released and free to play at the Steam. It means that the Kickstarter was real, if it's a bit unrefined. Actually from some review that I'd read, ChuSingura was one of very good VN, and actually this release could maybe introduce the good VN to the people outside Japan. Although if I may said, this release had the problem. Not in term of translation or the censorship (The censorship reason was actually understandable because unlike MoeNovel case, this time there's a reason that they had experience to released it on PSP before), but more in engine which one user said it was more likely caused by the engine wasn't fitting for the VN itself and more fitting to the mobage. Hopefully if JAPAN or NextNinja still willing to release next ChuSingura chapters, they will fix the engine to make the game more comfortable to play. Also hopefully the JAPAN will to fix the communication with the fan. Oh, and for last word, if I may praise JAPAN here, it would be their decision to release ChuSingura Chapter 1 because from there we could see of how serious they were actually by sort of showing translation example.
I think that's all for this week, and sorry if I miss some progress. See you next week.
PS - Forgot one more progress, and it's Bokuten. For Bokuten, right now it was 95% edited.

It's finally done.
I finally managed to 100% translated Bishoujo Mangekyou in its entirety. Actually it happened quite early, 20th, if I recall correctly. It took me 5 monsths and 7 days to translate the whole scrip according to my calculations.
It's ben awfully rewarding and I appreciate you all sticking with me along this project, my team and I will do our best to make sure the end product is of high quality.
I'll say this now, this won't be my last transaltion project, but it sure will be my last 'double-translation', so all the following projects will be translated purely from the original script and some double-script translations.
Anyhoo, now that the translation's done, I am now largely free, so I can return back to what I did before starting this project. The patch release date is still TBA, but it could be done in a few months' time.
Progress:
Translation: 100%
Editing: 20,3%
QC: 3,1%
Proofreading: 0%
 

It's finally done.
I finally managed to 100% translated Bishoujo Mangekyou in its entirety. Actually it happened quite early, 20th, if I recall correctly. It took me 5 monsths and 7 days to translate the whole scrip according to my calculations.
It's ben awfully rewarding and I appreciate you all sticking with me along this project, my team and I will do our best to make sure the end product is of high quality.
I'll say this now, this won't be my last transaltion project, but it sure will be my last 'double-translation', so all the following projects will be translated purely from the original script and some double-script translations.
Anyhoo, now that the translation's done, I am now largely free, so I can return back to what I did before starting this project. The patch release date is still TBA, but it could be done in a few months' time.
Progress:
Translation: 100%
Editing: 20,3%
QC: 3,1%
Proofreading: 0%
 

It's finally done.
I finally managed to 100% translated Bishoujo Mangekyou in its entirety. Actually it happened quite early, 20th, if I recall correctly. It took me 5 monsths and 7 days to translate the whole scrip according to my calculations.
It's ben awfully rewarding and I appreciate you all sticking with me along this project, my team and I will do our best to make sure the end product is of high quality.
I'll say this now, this won't be my last transaltion project, but it sure will be my last 'double-translation', so all the following projects will be translated purely from the original script and some double-script translations.
Anyhoo, now that the translation's done, I am now largely free, so I can return back to what I did before starting this project. The patch release date is still TBA, but it could be done in a few months' time.
Progress:
Translation: 100%
Editing: 20,3%
QC: 3,1%
Proofreading: 0%
 

It's finally done.
I finally managed to 100% translated Bishoujo Mangekyou in its entirety. Actually it happened quite early, 20th, if I recall correctly. It took me 5 monsths and 7 days to translate the whole scrip according to my calculations.
It's ben awfully rewarding and I appreciate you all sticking with me along this project, my team and I will do our best to make sure the end product is of high quality.
I'll say this now, this won't be my last transaltion project, but it sure will be my last 'double-translation', so all the following projects will be translated purely from the original script and some double-script translations.
Anyhoo, now that the translation's done, I am now largely free, so I can return back to what I did before starting this project. The patch release date is still TBA, but it could be done in a few months' time.
Progress:
Translation: 100%
Editing: 20,3%
QC: 3,1%
Proofreading: 0%
 

It's finally done.
I finally managed to 100% translated Bishoujo Mangekyou in its entirety. Actually it happened quite early, 20th, if I recall correctly. It took me 5 monsths and 7 days to translate the whole scrip according to my calculations.
It's ben awfully rewarding and I appreciate you all sticking with me along this project, my team and I will do our best to make sure the end product is of high quality.
I'll say this now, this won't be my last transaltion project, but it sure will be my last 'double-translation', so all the following projects will be translated purely from the original script and some double-script translations.
Anyhoo, now that the translation's done, I am now largely free, so I can return back to what I did before starting this project. The patch release date is still TBA, but it could be done in a few months' time.
Progress:
Translation: 100%
Editing: 20,3%
QC: 3,1%
Proofreading: 0%
 

After some great discussion regarding v1 of this working definition, I brought it back to the shop for some tweaks and tinkering. The results are posted below as v2 of the definition. And I'm sure I'll repeat this cycle many, many more times.
So, without further ado...
A 5-point test for visual novels
1. It must be read/played on an electronic device that outputs to a screen.
Fairly self-explanatory. Computers, game consoles, handhelds, phones — hell, even a smart watch would qualify. A printed VN would be considered a graphic novel (or a choose-your-own-adventure book). An audio file of a VN would be an audiobook.
2. It must convey an authored narrative.
By narrative, we mean an organized account of true or fictional events, actions, thoughts, etc. In other words, the visual novel has to tell a “story.” The entirety of the Detroit phone book displayed in Ren’py is not a VN, even if it’s accompanied by a whole chorus line of catgirls.
By authored, we mean the narrative must be an act of transformative intent by its author. A VN cannot rely upon sandboxes, emergent gameplay, or similar mechanisms to generate its narrative arc (though they may be used to flavor it). Such experiences, while highly interesting, result in something other than a visual novel.
To put Rule 2 in more narratological terms: both the story and discourse of a VN must be deliberate acts.
3. It must use art & copy as the near-exclusive means for conveying that narrative.
Art: A visual novel must have visuals. Crazy talk, right? It doesn’t matter if those visuals are 1-bit pixel art, hand illustration, 3D renders, photography, or video. Ideally, these images will also be germane to the narrative.
Copy: At the heart of any VN is the act of reading — eyes looking at words and turning them into meaning. A VN should be structured around this. If significant portions of the story are delivered as voice-over/video without text, then title isn’t a visual novel. If the text can be turned off — e.g., captions, subtitles, etc. — then the title isn’t a visual novel.
4. Uninterrupted reading must comprise the near-entirety of one’s experience with the title.
For the purposes of our discussion, let’s assume a continuum that looks roughly like:
non-reading gameplay (0%) >>>> reading as gameplay (100%)
Past the 98% mark or so, we can usefully consider a title to be a straight-up  “visual novel.” From 50%-97%, we can usefully consider that title to be a VN-hybrid (a cross between a VN and another genre of game, such as an SRPG). Below that point, we don’t consider it to be a visual novel at all, but we can still discuss its VN-like elements (or lack thereof).
5. It must possess a defined “page” structure that’s generated in real time and is, to some extent, controllable by the reader.
Page structure: Unlike a novel seen in a word processor's window, a VN intentionally constrains what we may read and/or see at any given time. A VN-creator is almost like a film director in this respect, breaking a larger narrative into individual shots — in our case, screens or “pages” — for dramatic effect. Such narrative chunking is one trait that helps us distinguish visual novels from things like web novels or e-books. There are different conventions for such page display — ADV, NVL, diegetic, etc. — and each contains its own assumptions about how a story will be displayed. 
Real-time generation: Feel free to fight me on this, but a pre-rendered PDF is not a visual novel. A “Let’s Play” of a visual novel is not, itself, a visual novel. While it seems an arbitrary distinction to make, I’ll make it nonetheless. A VN must use a real-time engine of some sort to assemble art + copy for display.
Controllability: In most cases, this is achieved by turning to the next “page” of the VN with a click, tap, or button press, but any user input could suffice — speech or motion controls, for instance. If the option is available (e.g., via an “auto-play” setting) the reader may choose to waive this ability. But why have this requirement at all? (If you remember, I intentionally chose to omit it in v1 of my definition.) It's here now because, at their core, VNs are both literature and video games. Can you have a novel without mechanical interaction? Sure; I argued as much in v1. But can you have a video game that allows for no interaction or control? Not really; it'd be a machima at best, indistinguishable from a video. And yes, I know Mountain exists, and there's still some small level of control there, if not meaningful interaction.

A VN may also…
A VN may offer a non-linear/branching narrative… or it may not.
A VN may feature sound and music… or it may not.
A VN may feature a story and/or visuals rooted in the anime/manga tradition… or it may not.
A VN may be made by Japanese developers… or it may not.
A VN may feature erotic content… or it may not.
 
Extra credit
"This is stupid. I know a visual novel when I see one."
Well, what about the visual novel you haven’t yet seen?
"Can't a visual novel be just text and no images? Why are we privileging one form of content over another?"
You can create such a beast in a visual novel engine, sure — but it's not a visual novel. It's something like a visual novel, something I haven't yet seen an agreed-upon name for. I invite you to propose one here. Why do we make such a distinction? Genre lines are arbitrary, but we do have to draw them somewhere. Otherwise, anything could be considered a visual novel, which doesn't make for useful discussions. "This tree stump is telling me a visual story about its history, bro. And the tree is the author. And nature is its game engine. And I'm playing it right now." And Domino's stops delivering pizza to the dorm lounge at 2 a.m., so you better finish up wondering if we're all living in an exact simulation of the universe sometime soon. Bro.
"Can't a visual novel be just images and no text? Why are we privileging one form of content over another?"
See the above.
"But when you get right down to it, what’s a 'story' anyway? Or a 'narrative'? And is an 'author' even necessary? Or 'readers'?"
All good questions. They’ve been debated for hundreds of years, and they’ll continue to be debated for hundreds more. Suffice to say, we won’t solve them here. Go ask Stanley Fish or something.
That's right. Go Fish.

Visual Novel Translation Status (06/18/2016)
As for the title because this week VN from VNTS Image header was had same premise as Go Go Nippon, only we going to Kyoto instead of Tokyo, I'd use the title Go Go Nippon and for the expansion we had My First Trip to Kyoto because the VN Setting was in Kyoto.
This week, to be honest it was quite plain if we looking from the progress that Decay made. But from Steam we had many exciting announcement from there. First, we had KARAKARA demo release, which to be honest I'm still not playing it yet (I'll write my impression later). Second we had Meikyuu release announcement next week, which should be enough if you looking forward to Yuuji story (If not enough ie want to see more H-Scenes, well too bad you must wait for a while). For last announcement, we'll had Muv Luv released at July 14th. My question is will they using new opening or not, other than that I think it's quite redundant release imo because we already had this translated some times ago. But if some of you want to read Muv Luv using new translation, go ahead and you may looking forward to July 14th.
For Sekai, the progress here was good in some VN, while we also had questionable progress like Maitetsu (Decreasing? What's happened here). As the roundup, Darekoi was had the biggest jump here (From 79% to 90.01%), while for Love, Guitar, and Nashville it was at 77.7% (Lucky number here). I'd checked Nashville and it was another yuri VN, and speaking about yuri VN, this week we had Highway Blossom released. As for more interesting project, looks like Sekai willing to update Tenshin Rahman and Chrono Clock regularly (This week both of the progess was at 29.99% and 19.19% respectively) so I'll keep my eyes on those two from now on. For last progressedps, we had 2236 at 62.77% translated and WEE Episode 3 at 97.15% translated. I think that's all for Sekai (KARAKARA and Meikyuu was already covered in previous paragraph).
Since I'd already covered Muv Luv, for other segment first update we had Corona Blossom Chapter 1 was funded at 22,087 of 30,000 (Almost three quarter funded) with 2 weeks left. And for Hakuai, too bad that they need delay the release, but if they need that to fix the translation can't be help here I guess (Hopefully it could satisfy Zakamutt who find the initial Hakuai translation was disappointing). For last update, we didn't had Libra update, but Mikandi promised us that they'll give update 2 weeks each (Just like Mangagamer), and by the way they tell us that they often need to beg the translator to move faster. Oh, and they assured us that they were on schedule for the release. Let's see it later.
From Mangagamer, we had surprise Tatarigoroshi release from them. As for next chapter, hopefully Mangagamer didn't take too long for releasing Himatsubushi, which is the shortest chapter in Higurashi. I'm waiting for Tatarigoroshi mod by the way. Forother announcements from them, wait for next week.
Finally, for fan translation, we had usual progess here, although our Arcadeotic this time was managed to give us update for Bishoujo Mangekyou at the beginning of this week (8th script was 81% translated, and overall translation progress was at 97%. Also right now it was 18% edited). Tsui Yuri, this week we didn't had translation progress (But if you really need translation progress, Dergonu said he managed to translate 30 lines iirc) but we had major bump in editing from 8% to 29%. For Majokoi, we had 12% translation progess and apparently they planning to release prologue patch. Speaking about Majokoi translation group (Luna Translation), they add another project here although I didn't do enough research right now other than there's a 15% translated patch for this VN (Oh, the VN was Musumaker). And for Nursery Rhyme, according to the thread it was updated back at January before this update (Right now it was 56% translated). I only knew that this VN was came from same company as Tayutama for now.
Koiken Otome, thanks Decay for give the progress because I just knew it. Anyway, for Koiken Otome right now it was at 92.38% QC-ing, and hopefully they managed to fight the DDoS attack that caused the project lead delay the release (According to the post, supposedly this patch will be released at June 5th, but because there was some troll had grudge against some community, he decided to attacking server that host the community by DDoS, and unfortunately Koiken Otome server was the same server as targeted one). For last update (Astral Air), looks like this time Supreme Tentacle was prove us that what Chuee promised will come true (Translation will picked up in summer). I knew that there's still some QC left, but hopefully it'll take no long time and if possible we had it released this year. As for the progress, it was 3.88% jump from last week (Will we see 4% jump I wonder), bringing Astral Air to 88.83% translated.
For this week, I think that's all for my review and sorry if I miss some. See you next week.
PS - Congratulations on English patch release from big breast nukige 'Kimonen demo Harem Guild', Quof. And if some reader like big breast, go get the patch and play it.
PPS - Add one more progress here. For Hanasaki, right now they had Hikari's route translated at 12% progress.

Aah, I'm tired.
It has been three days since the last update, but I'ver already surprassed and perhaps even doubled the amount I translated, thus I'm completely exhausted. I see sex lines where-ever I go and to put it frankly, it's not fun. Well, at least now I'll have six whole days to recharge until I finish this.
That's right, I'm aiming for my translation to be finished next week. I won't laze around like I usually do, forget about translating for a few days, notice you an upcoming update and then proceed to translate for two days. No, I will finish this next week. And the best part of the whole novel is at hand, so my motivation has reached its maximum potential.
As for other things, the editing got a nice bump but QC is still frozen solid. Nothing can be done about it, sorry about that.
Look forward to the end next week.
Progress:
Translation: 7/8 script files finished, 8th script file 81% completed (~97%)
Editing: 18%
QC: 3,1%
Proofreading: 0%
 
Let's finish this, next week.

Aah, I'm tired.
It has been three days since the last update, but I'ver already surprassed and perhaps even doubled the amount I translated, thus I'm completely exhausted. I see sex lines where-ever I go and to put it frankly, it's not fun. Well, at least now I'll have six whole days to recharge until I finish this.
That's right, I'm aiming for my translation to be finished next week. I won't laze around like I usually do, forget about translating for a few days, notice you an upcoming update and then proceed to translate for two days. No, I will finish this next week. And the best part of the whole novel is at hand, so my motivation has reached its maximum potential.
As for other things, the editing got a nice bump but QC is still frozen solid. Nothing can be done about it, sorry about that.
Look forward to the end next week.
Progress:
Translation: 7/8 script files finished, 8th script file 81% completed (~97%)
Editing: 18%
QC: 3,1%
Proofreading: 0%
 
Let's finish this, next week.

Aah, I'm tired.
It has been three days since the last update, but I'ver already surprassed and perhaps even doubled the amount I translated, thus I'm completely exhausted. I see sex lines where-ever I go and to put it frankly, it's not fun. Well, at least now I'll have six whole days to recharge until I finish this.
That's right, I'm aiming for my translation to be finished next week. I won't laze around like I usually do, forget about translating for a few days, notice you an upcoming update and then proceed to translate for two days. No, I will finish this next week. And the best part of the whole novel is at hand, so my motivation has reached its maximum potential.
As for other things, the editing got a nice bump but QC is still frozen solid. Nothing can be done about it, sorry about that.
Look forward to the end next week.
Progress:
Translation: 7/8 script files finished, 8th script file 81% completed (~97%)
Editing: 18%
QC: 3,1%
Proofreading: 0%
 
Let's finish this, next week.

Aah, I'm tired.
It has been three days since the last update, but I'ver already surprassed and perhaps even doubled the amount I translated, thus I'm completely exhausted. I see sex lines where-ever I go and to put it frankly, it's not fun. Well, at least now I'll have six whole days to recharge until I finish this.
That's right, I'm aiming for my translation to be finished next week. I won't laze around like I usually do, forget about translating for a few days, notice you an upcoming update and then proceed to translate for two days. No, I will finish this next week. And the best part of the whole novel is at hand, so my motivation has reached its maximum potential.
As for other things, the editing got a nice bump but QC is still frozen solid. Nothing can be done about it, sorry about that.
Look forward to the end next week.
Progress:
Translation: 7/8 script files finished, 8th script file 81% completed (~97%)
Editing: 18%
QC: 3,1%
Proofreading: 0%
 
Let's finish this, next week.

Visual Novel Translation Status (06/11/2016)
Since Tay this time using the sketch from Fault's artist in regard of Fata Morgana Steam release, so this week because at the picture we had characters from both Fata Morgana (Maid and White Haired Girl) and Fault (Selphine and Ritona), I made the title 'Fata Morgana and Fault Crossover Fan Fiction'. Oh, and speaking about Fata Morgana it was quite interesting, although the second door was quite bloody imo (Also if you looking for moe girl in Fata Morgana, I suggest you better look at Pauline because I think her design was the most close resemble from Japanese anime girl usual design imo). Anyway, here's my VNTS Review for this week, and I think for this week (And maybe in next weeks depending of my interest) I'll open new segment with the title 'Other' which covered all of the translation group beside usual 4 (Sekai, Mangagamer, JAST, and Fan Translation), or in VNTS word it would be Miscellaneous Projects. As for my opinion, the most interesting update was from Other and Fan Translation, while Mangagamer was had usual 2 weeks update and Sekai was also in their usual state (They add Tenshin Rahman and Chrono Clock now, so I should keep eye on those 2 now).
Sekai Project
Usual update from them, although most of them was slowed down though if we look at the VNTS page (The progress for the updates was not even touching 5%), and we also had some VN which had hiatus (Although it wasn't interesting one anyway) so for this week Sekai Project segment wasn't too interesting from the update (Oh, as for Chrono Clock and Tenshin Rahman translation progress, it was at 17.22% and 25.38% respectively).
Instead of looking at less lively update from Sekai, I think I'll talk about the survey from Sekai since doddler post the Sekai's survey form picture. For the first picture here, well too bad I didn't had any of the console so if Sekai provide number 6 for none, I'll fill all of the choice with 6 ie I will not play VN on any of those console. For the 2nd picture here, I think for now I would fill 1 for Maitetsu, 2 for KARAKARA, 3 for Just Desert, and the rest with 12. It means that for now only Maitetsu and KARAKARA interest me right now, while Just Desert was because the VN once again from Indonesia. Although I knew that Meikyuu and Tokeijikake was good stuff, the reason I wasn't looking forward to it because I knew since back when Kajitsu was in translating process that Meikyuu was ended in cliffhanger, while I'd also read that Tokeijikake was also ended in unresolved mystery. Oh, and for Hoshimemo I think even if the translation was quite bad for some people (Personally I didn't care), it was already discussed and reviewed since back at 2012 so not looking forward to it. That's all for Sekai segment this week.
Mangagamer
Well, Da Capo 3 translation progress wasn't at 100% (To be exact, the translation progress was at 97% and editing progress was at 95%), but at least it's still had the progress, and hopefully the translator will fulfill his promise to finish it in less than 3 weeks (In more than 3 week we'll had AX, and the translator promise that he'll finish the translation before AX). As for other progress, actually not to much but for roundup here Kuroinu was at 78% translated, Pygmalion was fully translated and 8% edited, and for Bokuten it was also already fully translated and for editing process it was at 89%. And also Mangagamer tease us here in regard of in scripting project. I wonder if one of the project would be Himawari. Well, let's see it later.
Oh, and for last update I forgot about it before, but the translation progress for Fata Morgana fandisc was at 12%. Speaking about Fata Morgana, I'd also quite interested with the Drama CD (Speaking about Drama CD, Mangagamer already had Yurirei 3rd Drama CD ready for pre-order there) just like the translator in the interview here, because it was contained some interesting seiyuu. For the special service, since Tay promote Fata Morgana in image header, how about I also give seiyuu list and their MAL page too. Anyway, here's the cast for Fata Morgana Drama CD (I hope if Novectale release voiced version of Fata Morgana, they will use seiyuu from Drama CD).
Michel: Takahiro Sakurai The Maid: Asami Seto The Girl with White Hair: Mamiko Noto Mell Rhodes: Soichiro Hoshi Nellie Rhodes: Kana Asumi The Man: Kenichi Suzumura Pauline: Aki Toyosaki Javi: Yuki Kaji Maria Campanella: Yui Horie Jacopo Bearzatti: Junichi Suwabe And for last voiced character, since it was spoiler I'll just tell that Ami Koshimizu will voiced the spoiler character. Well, if some of you didn't interested in Fata Morgana before, maybe you could consider it from Drama CD seiyuu, and it was once again quite interesting cast. That's all for Mangagamer section here.
Other
The reason I opened this section because we had some interesting update here, and one of them was surprise. Okay, as for this section we already knew that Moonstone will release their moege 'Love Sweets' for English speaker, but we obviously still didn't know when the release date is (Although Moonstone promise us it will be this year). As for Corona Blossom IGG, looks like it'll be only for Chapter 1 while Frontwing want to release Chapter 2 and 3 separately. We still didn't knew though if the VN was could only fully enjoyed by playing all of 3 chapters or not, but I think it was quite not-so-good tactic because it was basically tell the backer that they willing to make more money by making separated release while Frontwing probably could make it in one volume only. Oh well, it's Frontwing strategy though and for Corona Blossom Chapter 1 campaign, right now it was managed to gather 17,052 from the target of 30,000 (56.84% funded). As for Libra, this time it was managed to surprise me by having delivered the progress at Mari's route translation (50% translated right now), but waiting 25 days for 25% progress (Coincidentally the number was same) was definitely tell us the progress was quite slow imo. Well, since Mikandi in the translation page promise us that there will be update for each week, I will keep my eye on it.
Finally, for surprise announcement, in 5 days we'll had another new translated VN. As for the premise, it was MC and her little sister will be going to becoming nurse and so they started their study. From the review, I learned that this game was probably had 4 routes for all of heroine. Oh, and just in case you didn't get it MC here was female, so we'll get the yuri (But since it was on Steam and the producer was Kogado, there's no sex scene here). And for the title, once again instead of calling 'Nurse Love Addiction' I'll called this VN Hakuai. For future player of Hakuai, here's the advice from me. Expect some interesting CG in the middle of story based on spoiler filled review that I read (Once again I wonder what kind of reaction Hakuai player will had here). And since both Zakamutt and Decay was had some complain in regard of translation and UI respectively, I think for now I didn't had any problem with that, although to response Decay it would be nice though if we could play the demo to see if we could adjust the UI to transparent like Japanese demo. Oh well, and that's all for new section here.
Fan Translation
For this week, we had Yukikaze full patch released. While I said I'm far more interested with Yukikaze than Asagi, I think for the woman's breast other than Yukikaze the size was very inappropriate (I knew it was for anyone elso who had vey big breast fetish, but still). Therefore, when I saw Yukikaze, I think I like her design because her breast wasn't too big or in other word flat (Well, if nukige VN offer too many big breast girl, I think seeing flat one was quite refreshing). And speaking about big breast nukige, we had another update in regard of big breast nukige translation project. Once again, here's the page and according to this post, he'll release this patch in this June (For the progress, it was already finished translating and right now it was in editing). Anyway, for any reader here who had fetish for big breast, looking forward to the patch release.
For non nukige project, looks like both Tay and Decay forgot to add this (I knew it was probably in regard of Mangagamer partnership with Navel), so I think I'll keep an eye on this project. Anyway, the project was already here for a while since August, and for the progress it was 30% translated (By the way, the premise was quite interesting with MC cosplay as the girl in order to enter girl's school). Looks quite good if we look from VNDB score (8 for average at VNDB right now).
Anyway, for this week fan translation update, in regard of ToHeart 2 we had ittaku release another beta patch here, and FredtheBarber finished editing twin's route (And bring the editing progress to 85%, also they started to editing Manaka and Sasara route). Also they finished proofreading Konomi route and started on Tamaki route. For Bishoujo Mangekyou, this week we had the 8th script was at 37.7% (Or around 90% to overall script) translated and 9.9% edited. For Tsui Yuri, we had 36% script translated and 8% edited. As for release date for full patch, the translators of those 3 VN (Ittaku, Arcadeotic, and Dergonu) promised that they aim for 2016 release. Good luck for those three. For Saku Saku, there's no progress other than Akerou assure us that the QC still ongoing, while for Irotoridori the progress was at 13% translated (Also Akerou promised us that by August he already finished translating Irotoridori common route. Let's see it later). Majoki right now was at 11% translated and 5% edited (Nice progress).
Finally for Astral Air, this week even crazy was understatement for their progress. In case you wondering, this week the translating progress from last week was at 3.59% (I though 1.65% was already crazy enough), bringing the overall translation progress to 84.95%. And for more news, Corona route was fully translated and they will translated Yuuki route next. Well, looks like Chuee promise in regard of translation progress at summer will picked up was true.
That's all for this week VNTS Review, and see you next week.

A couple blog posts back, I argued that the story exploration game Gone Home can be considered a visual novel. After some great discussion there, it seemed only logical to tackle the much bigger question: “What is a visual novel?
Which is why I’m not going to. That’s a spike-filled, snake-infested pit of a question if I ever saw one — and I already had spikes and snakes for breakfast. Instead, we’re going to attempt to answer a more nuanced question: “What are the minimum requirements something must meet in order to be usefully discussed as a visual novel?”
That’s a slightly different but way more useful angle. Just about anything can be used as a chair, but not everything is a “chair.” As a society, we’ve agreed on a certain set of characteristics that chairs share in common. This lets us discuss chairs with one another and be pretty sure we won't be given a pineapple to sit on.
We’ll do the same here. But for the sake of brevity, we’ll shorthand that question back down to “What’s a visual novel?” It’ll be our little secret.
The VNDB standard
The most obvious place to start looking for answers would be The Visual Novel Database (VNDB), home to info on more than 18,000 VNs. Here’s their answer, found in the VNDB FAQ:
As a working definition, this leaves a lot to be desired. There are an awful lot of cans, mays, typicals, and usuallys. Worse yet, you could easily dream up a VN that meets almost none of the assumptions laid out here — perhaps an extremely short text-based story in which the words run around the outside of a woodcut illustration. There’s absolutely no background music and the player answers no questions, which results in the same plot every time she plays.
A somewhat more satisfying answer can be found in VNDB’s list of requirements that titles must meet before being added to their database. For something to qualify as a visual novel:
Better, but still somewhat problematic. For one thing, it conflates the commonly accepted with the essential. What if someone wants to present a story in a manner other than ADV (text in box below image) or NVL (text overlaying image)? What if they thought of a more innovative configuration of text + art? Tough luck, Billy; go suck eggs in the corner. (They don't seem to strictly enforce this, by the way. Digital: A Love Story is on VNDB, even though it eschews both ADV and NVL for a diegetic presentation.) Moreover, these guidelines can’t seem to decide if no gameplay is allowed at all, as the first two sentences suggest, or if up to 1% simple gameplay is okay.
A title can also be added to the database if it’s a “visual novel/game” hybrid that meets the following requirements:
Again, problematic. The ADV/NVL issue is still there, of course, but now a new wrinkle’s been added: the privileging of narrative over dialogue. The assumption here is that a novel can’t consist entirely (or almost entirely) of dialogue, so a title that doesn’t “consistently” rely upon a formal narrator doesn’t qualify. In truth, there are any number of novels that take this form — The Awkward Age by Henry James, for one. Besides, if Key suddenly dropped a 50-hour all-dialogue school drama that looked and played exactly like Clannad, do you doubt for a second that we'd all consider it a VN? Or that FuwaReviews would give it one star?
But I don’t blame VNDB. They’re not looking to define the visual novel. They’re just trying to set up some semi-reasonable guidelines to help streamline their submission process. Without this, every staffer there would probably be eating gun-barrel sandwiches for lunch.

Fine. Let’s build something better.
I’ve sketched out the beginnings of a more general-purpose test for discussing something as a visual novel. I don’t consider this to be at all authoritative, and in fact, I invite you to critique it and build upon it in the comments below. It’s a starting point, nothing more.
A 7-point test for visual novels
1. It must be “read” on a digital device that outputs to a screen.
Fairly self-explanatory. Computers, consoles, handhelds, phones, e-readers — hell, even a smart watch would qualify. A printed VN would be considered a graphic novel (or a choose-your-own-adventure book). An audio file of a VN would be an audiobook.
2. It must convey a recognizable narrative.
Again, fairly self-explanatory. A VN must be a spoken or written account of connected events. In other words, it needs to tell a story, fictional or otherwise. The entirety of the Detroit phone book displayed in Ren’py is not a VN, even if it’s accompanied by a whole chorus line of catgirls.
3. It must use on-screen text as the primary avenue for conveying that narrative.
At the heart of any VN is the act of reading — eyes looking at words and turning them into meaning. If any significant portion of the story is delivered as voice-over or action without on-screen text, it isn’t a visual novel. Watching Game of Thrones on your laptop with subtitles doesn’t suddenly turn it into a VN.
4. It must have visuals paired with that narrative.
A visual novel must have visuals. Crazy talk, right? It doesn’t matter if those visuals are 8-bit pixel art, hand illustration, 3D renders, photography, or video. Ideally, these images would be germane to the narrative, but even that’s not technically necessary. Having unrelated images wouldn’t keep something from being a VN; it would just make it a *bad* VN.
5. It must be authored.
In other words, the story must be an act of creative intention by its author(s). A VN cannot rely upon sandboxes, emergent gameplay, or similar mechanisms to generate its narrative arc (though they may be used to flavor it). Such experiences, while highly interesting, result in something other than a novel.
6. Reading must comprise the majority of one’s experience with the title.
This one gets tricky, because it cuts deep to the heart of another unresolved question: “Is a visual novel a game?” For the purposes of this discussion, I’d suggest there’s a continuum that looks roughly like:
not a VN >> game w/ some VN qualities >> game/VN hybrid >> VN w/ some game qualities >> VN
Roughly past the halfway mark, we can usefully consider something to be a visual novel for terms of discussion. Below that, we can consider it a game but usefully discuss its VN-like elements (or lack thereof).
7. It must offer a deliberately framed reading experience.
This one’s a little tricky. Here’s the problem: a plain old Word doc containing a short story + embedded images could technically satisfy requirements #1 through #6, but we’d be hard-pressed to call that a visual novel. I’m still tweaking the language for #7, but the general idea is that just as a film director frames a shot, controlling what the audience can see and hear at any given moment, so too does the creator of a visual novel. This is unlike our hypothetical Word doc, in which you could widen the window to see more text than intended, skip around the story out of order, scroll the window so that you can read a passage without seeing its associated art, etc.
I briefly considered adding an eighth bullet point, but chose to leave it on the cutting room floor.
Why did this get dropped? Well, I imagined a traditional novel that was rigged to turn its pages at pre-defined intervals. You can’t speed it up, you can’t slow it down; all you have is an on/off switch. Would that lack of agency suddenly keep this particular book from being a novel? I couldn’t think of a good reason why it would, so I removed the requirement. But I'm open to good arguments for bringing it back.
Closing thoughts, for now
You might note that I’ve avoided any mention of things like: story genre, branching narratives, art style, country of origin, sexual content, sound/music, etc. That’s by design. These things help inform what type of VN a title is, not whether it can be discussed as one.
You might also note that my 7-point test would disqualify Gone Home from being considered a visual novel, invalidating my earlier argument. That’s also by design. Kill your darlings, amirite?

[WARNING]
 [This entry has great amounts of spoilers from Miu's route, which you most likely haven't played, so if you wan't the best experience for the obvious best grill, turn around now. If not, go ahead and enjoy.]
 
 
 
Miu is a so-called 'senpai' to Yuuto in their workplace. When Yuuto gets attacked in the very beginning of the VN, Miu feels responsible for this because she couldn't stop it and Yuuto got dragged to the ambush pretty much unnecessarily. Afterwards, Miu swears to protect Yuuto to right this wrong she did. Miu is pretty much a shy girl, hiding behind a wall of a 'experienced woman'. She's also listed as a Modern Tsundere, but I really don't see it that much in her.
 

 
As I've said countless times already, Miu's route is my favorite, and the same goes for the heroine itself. Honestly, I realy didn't like the heroine, but this is the case for most of my favorite heroines in VNs. In the beginning, she just seems like a sadist tsundere, which was rather annoying, but when she really cared for Yuuto's sudden transformation to a vampire and that her 'sadist experinced woman' side was just an act, I started to warm up to her. What made her shine the most in the Common Route was how she acted when Yuuto saved Azusa from the speeding car, thus revealing his lycanthropy. The genuine emotion was something that was missing from the Common Route, and as such, shone through even more. This kind of behavior made her stand out from just a regular moe-blob heroine, and although heroines in Dracu-Riot aren't this kind of heroines, Miu stands out with actual character development in the very beginning. Needless, to say that she made the biggest expression on me.
 

 
The start of Miu's route is pretty much the same as everyone else's. Some event triggers Yuuto and the heroine to get closer. In this case, the unfortunate conclusion that was in the Common Route, causes Miu to getting confused and sort of going to a boob-groping streak. I'm not even kidding, it's quite hilarious. Afterwards, after they conclude this, Yuuto asks Miu to go on sort of a date with Miu, to buy gifts for everyone, which causes more funny and rose-colored events to happen, like that one with a dressing booth. They also get put together to smoke out some criminals hiding in the shadows, so they have to act like a couple.
This start of the route is pretty nice and fluffy, very well done for a moege. It also has those undertones I adore in VNs, no matter the genre. Miu and Yuuto's ever-growing consciousness of each other is really heart-warming to watch. Also Miu's reaction to these are something that you won't see that often, at least for me, that is.
 

 
After these events, Yuuto starts getting conscious of his feelings for Miu, and proceeds to keep his distance, mostly because of his lychantropy. Their fake-couple acting is also getting taxing for Yuuto, so he's getting more and more akward by the minute and keeping his distance to Miu. Miu of course notices this, and gets more and more depressed. It all cluminates in an amazing kiss in an alleyway. Thye start dating right afterwards, but get one week of house-arrest for illicit behavior in work-hours.
This final part before dating is, well, okay. I never liked this trope of getting farther and farther even if it's really, really obvious that they love eachother, but it was actually bareable. That might be because of Miu's fear for lychantropes was established in the Common Route, and as such there was legitimate reason for Yuuto's actions. That doesn't make it that much better, however. It was just okay, but the climax of this part was more than worth it. It felt very Miu-esque. You really can't describe it without reading the route yourself.
 
The dating part is pretty good. The week-long house arrest is quite funny, as Miu's more than ready for them to become one, but Yuuto's just nerveous. So all they really do is hold hands. However, it all culminates with Miu staying home under the guise of being sick. She asks for Yuuto's room's key with the explanation of 'wanting to borrow manga', although she wants to find a reason why Yuuto hasn't done anything at all. In the truest reoge fashion, she ends masturbating while sniffing Yuuto's boxers. And of course Yuuto comes back when she's still masturbating, and thus the first H-scene happens.
There's some normal couple-like events afterwards and another H-scene. This start and mid-part of the dating part is quite... different, if I say so myself, well at least the beginning-part is. It's been a while since I saw a scene like that in VNs. The following part though, is just your standart 'couples doing couple-like' things, which isn't bad in my opinion. They bring out Miu's somewhat special character out more. The two H-scenes present are amazing, I really did like them.
 

 
Then the meat of the route begins to form, earlier on than other heroine's route's by far. How Yuuto gets kidnapped by the researchers who produce L and how that specific drug feeds the lychantrope genes, ultimately leading to Yuuto basically becoming a super-vampire, trashing everything and everyone. Only the combined efforts of Azusa, Miu and Hyouma can fell him.
Also the way how Miu found where Yuuto was kept captive was touching, to say the least. Somehow hearing the screams of Yuuto's consciousness in her mind and chalking it up to 'power of love' is somehow cheesy and romantic at the same time.
The after-effects of L and how it makes Yuuto's thirst for blood that much stronger makes Miu go jealous by just Yuuto feeling bloodlust and sexual arousal towards his fellow dorm-mates triggers the 3rd H-scene.  All of this makes for a great meter on how much they long for and love each other.
The date afterwards is your standart mushy-mushy lovey-dovey stuff, but I must say that the sound effects in this route are amazing.
 
In the middle of the date they get called by Hyouma and hear that there's a riot outside of the school.
This riot marks the finale of the route. Vampires have grown weaker and ill because of the lack of blood-packs distributed thanks to the drug L's own distribution in blood-packs in its own completely authenticated trade route. After Saya fails to quell the flames of the riot, the only way out of Aqua Eden, the monorail-bridge, gets blown to pieces by a so-called terrorist attack.
This all especially lets Anna and Saya shine to their maximum potential, outshining Elina's route and Azusa's as well to some extent, which I can appreciate. This final part gives life to the rioters, introduces two new characters, Yuka and her mother, and establishes a brand-new villain, goverment's peace-keeping agency, who want to sink the artificial island in its entirety.
Everyone works nicely together, be it Saya and the rioters, the dorm-mates all pulling together, or Yuuto and Miu. The point where Yuuto shields Yuka from the crashing warehouse, making everyone, humans and vampires, to work together manages to do something that no other route could, bringing in the problems of other more minor characters and thus making the more 'alive'.
The ending too, was wonderful. Yuuto decides that he has to destroy the missile aiming towards Aqua Eden in an attempt to destroy it, not for his or Miu's own good, but for everyone's future on the island. The way it all gets resolved was fantastic, definitely deserving the title of best ending in Dracu-Riot!
 

 
All in all, the route's great. There definitely is more effort put into this than say, Azusa's route, but the balance of everything, the icha icha, charactrr ane romantic development, the effort put in the side characters, the underlying themes and the grand finale is all that makes Dracu-Riot! my favorite moege and Miu my favorite route in moege.
 

 
Thanks for reading my heroine impressions in Dracu-Riot!, review coming soon.
 
 
 
 

Well, as it says on the tin, this week I mangaed to reach the 90%-mark. This is pretty good news, as now there's just one last push for this game to be fully translated. I'm pretty excited.
Anyways, this update is going live one day before the normal because of VNTS. Other than that, some slight editing progress was made, but sadly no QC progress.
Other than that, I'll be gone for almost a week with my family, starting next Monday and I'll return late Sunday, so there most likely won't be an update next week, unless I manage to make a mini-update on Sunday or Monday. This of course depends on if I'm fast enough to do such a thing and/or am just lazy or not.
Progress:
Translation: 7/8 script files finished, 8th script file 37,7% completed (~90%)
Editing: 9,9%
QC: 3,1%
Proofreading: 0%
 
Later!

Well, as it says on the tin, this week I mangaed to reach the 90%-mark. This is pretty good news, as now there's just one last push for this game to be fully translated. I'm pretty excited.
Anyways, this update is going live one day before the normal because of VNTS. Other than that, some slight editing progress was made, but sadly no QC progress.
Other than that, I'll be gone for almost a week with my family, starting next Monday and I'll return late Sunday, so there most likely won't be an update next week, unless I manage to make a mini-update on Sunday or Monday. This of course depends on if I'm fast enough to do such a thing and/or am just lazy or not.
Progress:
Translation: 7/8 script files finished, 8th script file 37,7% completed (~90%)
Editing: 9,9%
QC: 3,1%
Proofreading: 0%
 
Later!

Well, as it says on the tin, this week I mangaed to reach the 90%-mark. This is pretty good news, as now there's just one last push for this game to be fully translated. I'm pretty excited.
Anyways, this update is going live one day before the normal because of VNTS. Other than that, some slight editing progress was made, but sadly no QC progress.
Other than that, I'll be gone for almost a week with my family, starting next Monday and I'll return late Sunday, so there most likely won't be an update next week, unless I manage to make a mini-update on Sunday or Monday. This of course depends on if I'm fast enough to do such a thing and/or am just lazy or not.
Progress:
Translation: 7/8 script files finished, 8th script file 37,7% completed (~90%)
Editing: 9,9%
QC: 3,1%
Proofreading: 0%
 
Later!