Danko

Hey there. I've enjoyed reading your interview. Your project certainly seems on the more professional side among many other EVN projects. You have a very talented artist - it's very hard to do non-anime art in an appealing way, but you succeeded at it. Would be looking forward for your game, and I hope that the writing and story will be as good as the art!

I'm surprised it's not mentioned yet, but first Danganronpa has some of the best character designs, even though the style is mostly a caricature: Junko, Celeste, Touko, Taka, Byakuya, Monokuma himself, and especially Hifumi.

Yes, this is very true. Note to OELVN developers: Pleasing core VN audience and pleasing general PC gamer audience are very different things. Tailoring the game for one of them will probably cause a "meh" from the other. Guess which one of those has more people. Guess which one of those cares about your game more. Decide who you want to impress (aka pick your target audience, business basics, duhh).

Yes, I've seen this point of view often as well, and I believe it's true, to some extent. However, I've also noticed the opposite: if VN tries too hard to find it's own grounds and abandons all tropes and japanese roots, it has next to no chance to capture their audience. That's the point #2 I've showed in first post - being "too different" makes VNs fail. Would you read a VN about gay black man trying to fight discrimination and find his happiness? Or russian noir detective about solving crimes in the rainy alleys of Saint-Petersburg? A VN based on comic books in cartoon style with JRPG fighting system? A romantic stat raising VN in style and era of Pride and Prejudice? (I know I would) Or would you rather read japanese anime slice of life schoolgirl romance with 8 dateable girls? (I probably still would) I know those are obviously bad examples and don't represent anything, but what do you think the general audience would prefer? There were a few OELVNs that tried to firmly hold their ground, like the novels of MoeCube (Cinders, Solstice), but while they succeeded at it, I feel that's also the reason they didn't get much attention from VN fans. So some people want OELVNs to be unique and different. But I feel that most just want more Japanese anime stuff.

Hello, everyone. As a recent addition to the VN community I'm starting to notice a few common trends in core VN readers. One of them is that original english language visual novels (OELVNs) are, simply put, not very popular. It's usually pretty subtle, not in a way like "Eewww, OELVN", but rather in a way that many OELVNs get forgotten or missed by the community completely. From what I've noticed, 90% of discussion is either discussion of original japanese titles or their translations, while indie west VNs often go way below the radar. I would like to go deeper to understand this trend. I can see a few possible explainations behind this. 1) OELVNs are just pretty bad? Needless to say, there are much fewer serious VN developers in the west compared to Japan, where the genre was born and continues to thrive to this day. Because of this, most OELVNs are produced by indies of various size and budget, many of them lacking the quality in both art, story and writing. So far, there are probably no universally acclaimed OELVNs except Katawa Shoujo. Some other notable, but not too popular in the VN community examples include novels by Christine Love and perhaps Cinders by MoeCube. Oh, and the beautiful Hanako Games (LLtQ, Black Closet), if you consider them VNs. And that's about it. 2) OELVNs are just too different? Just as there's a sizable cultural gap between the West and the East, OELVNs try to take a different approach in their stories, content and art. Some of the things I think the western developers often do differently: -Much less focus on erotic and controversial content, since west traditionally has very strong taboos on sexuality and mature themes -Non-anime art style (sometimes) -Less genre (anime\otaku\moe) tropes -Political correctness and other modern western tropes -More interactivity (more choices, mini-games, stat raising, genre-mixing) Now, for some player those changes might be unwelcome and lower their interest in the game. Which of those, I wonder? So what do you think? -How often do you play OELVNs and which are your favourite ones? -Why do you prefer the Japanese VNs? -What about OELVNs makes you less interested in playing them? -Or am I completely wrong and everyone loves them? This thread is meant not to make some personal point, but as a place to discuss this possible issue. I very well know nobody (probably) really hates OELVNs, it's more about understanding better what the core VN fans think about non-japanese visual novels and what turns them on/off. Believe me, there are lots of english VN developers right now eager to make something you will buy and enjoy. Now, what advice would you give them as a Visual Novel lover?