Tay

The following list only contains threads made from June 20 to June 27, any older thread will be placed under the "Updated" banner if new relevant content is added to it.



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





Visual Novel Discussion
Is it good to read two routes of the same VN the same time? (Link)
Scariest heroines (Link)
Angel Beats (Link)

Development Boards
How to code a VN with Ren'py, Part 3 (Comprehensive Guide) (Link)

Other Discussion
Portal Stories: Mel - A Portal 2 mod (Link)
Eternal Senia RPG maker game (Link)
Final Fantasy XIV Heavensward (Link)
Summer 2015 Anime Chart (Link)
Some places you should visit when coming to Indonesia (Link)
Fakku Going Legitimate: A Ray Of Hope For Hentai Manga? (Link)

Blog posts
New Covers From 6/14/15-6/21/15 (Link)
It appears to be the blog’s anniversary (Link)
Struggling with Popularity (Link)
"For sale in Japan only": A Japanese developer's perspective on the eroge embargo (Link)

Fuwanovel community
Fuwanovel "Like" Stats (Link)
Request and Poll: Ability to delete posts (Link)
What's your fuwa browsing habit? (Link)

​Staff Announcement
New "Loli/Shota" Policy & Details (Link)

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

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

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

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

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

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

The following list only contains threads made from June 06 to June 13, any older thread will be placed under the "Updated" banner if new relevant content is added to it.



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


The way we categorize the threads has been reworked to be easier for us to do so. With this you guys can also just look for the category you're interested in and ignore the others if you only frequent a specific section of the forums. The project thread will be updated as soon as I stop being too lazy to rewrite the wall of text.










Visual Novel Discussion

Is there professional criticism of VNs in Japan? (Link)
Frontwing's New Game - Hatsuru Koto Naki Mirai Yori (Link)
10 Common VN trobleshootings and some specific games trobleshootings (Link)
Cheap Visual Novels! (Link)
Have you already played VNs with your girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife? (Link)
In Reality Visual Novel (Link)
Ragnarok: Believe Visual Novel (Link)
Nekopara Vol. 0 Coming Out On Comiket 88 (Link)
Boyfriend Stealer Kickstarter (Link)
Discuss: Visual Novel Direction (Link)
What Makes a Bad Fan Translation? (Link)
Are Lolis in Eroge illegal in the US? (Link)
Digital shops for Japanese-language eroge (digital downloads) (Link)​





Development Boards

A fan translation of Dies Irae battle scene 2 (Link)
Black Sands Entertainment is looking for Partners (Link)
Corpse Party 2: Dead Patient English Patch (Link)
The Human Reignition Project [OELVN] [Demo Soon] (Link)
[steam Greenlight] Orion: Sci-Fi VN (Link)





Other Discussion

China Bans Anime (Link)
UNIEL (Link)
Ori and the Blind Forest (Link)
Give Me Your Worst (Link)





Blog Post

New Covers From 5/30/15-6/7/15 (Link)
01. Mystery (Summary) (Link)
Fuwa's Lovely Ms. Suikashoujo (Link)
Dualtail introduces new anti-gaijin measures with Venus Blood Hypno (Link)





Staff Announcement

[PSA] Change in default theme (Link)
[PSA] You can now link your Steam username in your profile information (Link)
Quick Update: Nohman, Eclipsed, Beato, Ren, Stray Cat, Board Mods, and moar! (Link)





Fuwanovel Community

Go Thread - for beginners and advanced players (Link)
"Here at Fuwanovel" (Link)
Very Important Message Regarding Purchases from Akiba + Shipping -OriginalRen (Link) (!)





Games/Giveaways

Graffiti Giveaway Game! (Link)





(!) - While this thread should have been part of next week's list, I think putting it here should help Ren get his questions answered faster, as well as getting the winners of his games/giveaways to understand the current situation of their prizes' shipment.Th

In my game, Serious to the End, it tells of Aya being depressed with her life. Now understand this happens in real life too, many even taking it as far as killing other people for a happy ending. This doesnt happen in America it also happens in other parts of the world, it can be many reasons but the end result is the same. The game I made is to help people understand how suicidal people feel and how it's never that easy. I'm starting a campaign+crowdfunding, to help rise money or even spread the word about suicide. You dont have to buy my game but if you do, it will help raise money for The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. They will use the money for education, research, advocate for public policy, and support those affected by suicide.

Help spread the word or help with the funding, its up to you.
https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/27606-suicide-awareness-funding

p.s: (to fuwanovel's i have no idea if i did the blog right, how do you use this thing?!)

The following list only contains threads made from May 23 to June 06, any older thread will be placed under the "Updated" banner if new relevant content is added to it.



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


Week #11 and #12 are being put together due to the project being reworked and a failure from my part when managing how long it would take.











Discussion

Do you prefer the text box to take up the whole screen, or to have it at the bottom? (Link)
Panzermadels: Tank Dating Simulator (OELVN) (Link)
[Android] - Visual Novel Reader (Link)
Poll: Expanding the Community Blog project (Link)
Fund-raiser for Fire Victim and Artist Tsukinon (Link)
RGD - Full Patch released (Link)
Memory's Dogma (Link)
Hocus Pocus Prince - Otome (Link)
Symphonic Rain Fanart (Link)
VN reading club - June 2015 (Yume Miru Kusuri) (Link)





Updated

Complete List of ALL English Translated VNs (Link)



Lists

List of All VNs with English Partial Patches and Their Progress (Link)



Announcement

[OELVN] Vision of Aurora Borealis (Link)
Chloe (Puzzle, click and point, horror) (Link)
Holy Breaker Translation Project (Link)
Tsujidou-san no Jun'ai Road Translation Project [Need TLs & Editors] (New Project) (Link)
Continuation! Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai Translation (Link)
OELVN – Lost Winter Nights [Recruiting BG artists, Graphists, English writers] (Link)
DWO - Visual Novel series (Link)



Staff Announcement

Ongoing Projects - How to get your Thread here (Link)
[PSA] Anime/Manga Recommendations Board (Link)
[PSA] Tags For Visual Novel Talk (Link)



Game

Fuwanovel Member Trivia Game (Link)



Other Discussion

Choose One to Save (Link)
Western Animated Movies and Cartoons General Discussion (Link)
How does a person actually *enjoy* reading? (Link)
Fuwanovel Fight Club (Link)
Pokémon Emerald: Moemon + Nuzlocke Challenge http://forums.fuwanovel.net/uploads/emoticons/default_biggrin.png' alt=':D'> (Link)
[Kickstarter] Tokyo Dark (Link)
How does one deal with the fact that the job he wants is nigh impossible to get? (Link)
Yuri Is Love, Yuri Is Life (Link)
XCOM 2 Announced (Link)
Book reading club - (Link)
Heroes of the Storm (Link)
What's your favorite japanese food? (Link)
FuwaThugs (GTA Online Crew) (Link)
TERA Guild Yasai Raiders Recruitment (Link)
SCP discussion thread (Link)
Underdog Anime (Link)



Blog Posts

Kagura Douchuuki, censorship, and apathy towards the English market (Link)
Introduction and Japan (Link)
Steins;Gate OP: Skyclad no Kansokusha (Kitty-tama Version) (Link)
Fallout 4 Is Not Very Exciting to Me, and Here's Why. (Link)
Summer Anime 2015: Impressions & Predictions (Link)
Welcome To YandereGirl's Blog~ (Link)
Avatar: The Last Fuwabender* (Link)
Hyouka Was A Mistake (Link)
VNs: A Veteran's Opinion (Link)

I want to talk about Sweet Fuse at Your side a otome game for PSP and PS Vita.
Since it become my favorite game, I love the game very much and enjoy play it alot.
I wanted to play the game since it come out but I didnt have money then to buy it.
But now was I finnaly able to buy it and I'm very happy for it.
I dont regret buy it Ever, this game are so awasome and I feel excited everytime I play it.
Its some Secene where I'm thinking what its going to happend next and what its going to happend.
I never experince that in otome game before, so it was first time for me.
I'm at Shidou rute right now, so is second time I play it.
Shidou its my favorite characther so far, he is very handsome and cool person.

I picked this one as my second game for VN of the Month May for a very simple reason... this company's previous works(1/2 Summer and Timepiece Ensemble) were overall enjoyable/emotionally powerful and I was hoping for a repeat of the experience. I'll be honest and say outright that it is nowhere near either of those two for sheer emotional impact, but I did find it more interesting in some ways, intellectually.

First, the basic setting is pretty interesting. The VN takes place in a school with an absolute caste system, where most of the students are 'failures' brought in from around the country and forcibly enrolled in order to reform them and a few dozen high-level students rule over them with an iron fist. This is achieved through the use of bracelets and anklets that stick together when activated at a special student's console and a collar that can unleash electric shocks as punishment.

The protagonist basically comes into the school with the purpose of doing something about Tenjouin Aika, who is the overall absolute authority of the school, as well as being the head of the special students' organization through sheer charisma and personal ability. The story is split into two differently themed sets of routes, one purely romance-themed and the other focused on the behind-the-scenes occult circumstances that shaped the school's policies. The former's heroines are Naho and Nono, with Nono as the main heroine of that one. The latter is focused on Aika and Kanade, with a focus on Aika. That isn't to say that Kanade or Naho's routes are neglected... it is simply that the most important issues for each of the two main themes of the game is only resolved in the main heroines' routes.

The overall quality of the game - both in terms of narrative and basic story structure - is quite high and generally enjoyable, but it lacks the nakige-qualities of 1/2 Summer and Timepiece Ensemble, which is something of a downer. Rather, it focuses - sometimes to excess - on the rather straightforward themes I mentioned above, the occult issues and the straight-out romantic ones. The main theme of the story in either case is individual/personal growth, though it is a bit more complex than that.

I think that the biggest problems with this VN - and what stops it from being a truly superlative one overall - is that there is no exploration of heroine or protagonist backstory whatsoever and the fact that the lack of an extensive after-story for the heroines other than Aika.

Review - Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea (PS3)
                                                  Atelier Shallie Alchemists of the Dusk Sea cover art     The Atelier series unlike other JRPG’s doesn’t focus on combat. Instead the games are about gathering items and synthesizing them using magic. Another unique aspect to the franchise was the clock. If you let it run down before completing all your tasks it was game over. Atelier Shallie removes the time aspect entirely giving you as long as you want to finish objectives, which must off put some hardcore fans of the series. In Atelier Shallie you can play as either Shallotte, or Shalliesta. No seriously there is a playable character named after a type of onion. Shallotte is the obvious choice since Shallistera has about as much character as a plank of wood. So if you picked best girl your story will revolve around learning the basics of alchemy, gathering items, synthesizing them and some typical RPG battling and exploration although I assume it isn’t much different with Shallistera. Shallotte has a lot of scenes where we get to hear her thoughts which is actually adds a little bit of depth to an otherwise fun yet predominately one-note character. Otherwise the narrative won’t surprise you, it’s very much by the numbers for a Japanese role playing game.
  The soundtrack in Atelier Shallie is terrific. You’ll hear some of the same tracks dozens of times as you explore the hub that connects everything in town or explore the World map. The last atelier game I played was Rorona plus on the Vita and I found the English dub to be pretty poor so far Shallie I just stuck to the original Japanese language for the whole game and found it to be good Shallotte especially so. Like with every other Atelier game on the PlayStation 3 way more attention is payed to the character designs then to the environment. The series didn’t even embrace full 3 dimensional graphics until 2009 so this is hardly a surprise. That said Atelier Shallie has some definite improvements over past games in this series. Whilst the environments are still under-detailed there is some half decent lighting and shadowing. This is put to especially good use in the mid ground and background, giving us a pretty clear delineation of space. Instead of having the playable area just sort of disappear into a fog like it did in some of the earlier games. Battle animations are also better than they have ever been. The animation for lip synching could be a whole lot better, mouths just kind of open and close without a variety of different movements to express particular sounds. I wasn’t expecting anything realistic and I have seen worse but you can’t help but notice this during the cutscenes.
      Atelier Shallie Alechemists of the Dusk Sea gameplay screenshot   The in-game environments are still under-detailed but there is some half decent lighting and shadowing. This is put to especially good use in the mid ground and background, giving us a pretty clear delineation of space. Instead of having the playable area just sort of disappear into a fog like it did in some of the earlier games. Battle animations are also better than they have ever been. The animation for lip synching could be a whole lot better, mouths just kind of open and close without a variety of different movements to express particular sounds. I wasn’t expecting anything realistic and I have seen worse but you can’t help but notice this during the cutscenes. The battle system is paired down in this game compared to other JRPG’s. You can’t customize your parties’ attacks and spells in anyway whatsoever, you just have to rely on what abilities you get given when you level up. To mix things up a little you have a burst meter which builds up for every attack you make. This can give you the edge in longer battles by increasing your damage when the meter is filled. You also have some quick time style events in battles where you can swap the character about to receive a hit from the enemy by using an on screen button prompt. Basically this comes down to allowing one of your party members to tank more damage. The battling is completely turn based, there is no movement so the burst and QTE mechanics are extremely important for strategizing.  

 
                 


                  Atelier Shallie Alchemists of the Dusk Sea - synthesis   The meat of the game is synthesizing. For every item you pick up in the game World the item meter fills. Once this meter is full you can choose what special item you receive such as a relic from the past, increase the number of a particular item and so on. It cuts down on the item collecting and adds a bit of a random element to which is much needed since you will collect many hundreds of similar items. Atelier Shallie does a good job of explaining all the nuances of synthesis through its in-game tutorials and you’re never expected to learn too much at once. Even so a lot of synthesis is basically tedious grinding to increase your alchemy level, and there will be times when you’re number-blind from going through the same steps ad-nauseum.  Even so by removing the time aspect and including in-depth synthesize tutorials, Atelier Shallie sets itself up as a good entry point to newcomers who may have been intimidated by the difficulty of the previous games in this franchise.   Dodd, R. (2015). ComicConReviews: Review - Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea (PS3). [online] Comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/atelier-shallie-alchemists-of-dusk-sea.html [Accessed 11 Aug. 2016].  

I'm going to be blunt, I wasn't really up for playing this in the first place, and as a result, my opinion of this VN is probably quite a bit lower than it actually deserves... but at the same time, it is probably a bit more realistic than those who are tricked by the pretty pictures. I mostly picked this one up to satisfy those who are curious and because it is technically a May release.

From a writing standpoint, this VN is about average, as moege go. There is nothing really special about the narration and the dialogue is actually weaker than I'm accustomed to from non-doujin titles. As such, there really isn't anything to praise linguistically. There are a lot of attempts at humor in this VN, but they are just that... attempts. Not only that, but the patchy way they voiced the game - about half is voiced, half is not - makes it hard to absorb oneself in reading this. It would have been better if they either forewent voices entirely if they didn't have the cash to at least fully voice the heroines in all scenes.

From a visual standpoint... this game is actually as good-looking as a commercial release, and the fact that all the major characters except the protagonist have tachie is a huge plus. As a potential minus (though not for me) the style is a bit old, though not so old that someone who hadn't experienced older styles would have noticed.

I already mentioned the voices above... but what I didn't mention was the music, which was singularly unimpressive, even if you are considering the fact that this was a doujin game. Most VNs manage to have at least a certain level of quality to their soundtracks, even if they are forgettable... but this one doesn't quite make it on that account.

As for the story... disappointing is the only word I had for it. I was surprised at how pathetic the presentation of the plot (such as it was) was, and I have to wonder why they bothered to release this if the endings in general were going to leave you feeling 'eh, what? It's over, that's it?'

For those not aware of it, Fuwa is hosting a giveaway for Love At First Sight, a visual novel that was just released on steam. To participate, just complete the following task and post your entry on the giveaway thread. The deadline is around 26 hours from now so you can still do it! Go show Sachi that you're worth a chance!







Task:



Sachi Usui, a cyclops girl and the main heroine from Love At First Sight is incredibly shy, that's why your task is to write out how you would win over her heart.

Released 2 days ago on 17/05, Dear Mariko is a short 10 minutes RPG Maker-based visual novel (with about 15-30 minutes actual gameplay) from Soyasushi Production, an amateur visual novel making group. The game is distributed for free on their site.





“Mariko, I love you.
But I can’t do this anymore.
It’s not your fault,
and there was nothing you could’ve done for me.
There’s nothing you could’ve done about ‘her’.”

Dear Mariko is a short, simple game about a girl who comes home to find a goodbye letter from the one she loves.


Into the game, you will be able to control the main heroine, going around the house and examine every item, which all filled with memory about her beloved one - Darien. Upon going into the bedroom, she will find the letter that Darien left before disappearing from the house. That's when the feel strike you and things start going down - fast.

There are 3 different endings for you to explore: the True Ending, Normal Ending and Bad Ending. Rather than choosing "choice 1, choice 2", you will have to use your logic plus some experiences with RPG game to get all the endings.





Wow. Normally I have zero interest in OELVN (despite being in an OELVN group myself) (no offence), but for some reason, this game drew my attention and I ended up deciding to try it out. And I made a right decision.
Despite being really short, this game can still give you a good amount of feel, with the surprise twist in the story. It's not difficult to clear all 3 endings, but chances are you will still get stuck in the bad ending for quite some times before figuring out the right thing to do. The sprites are pretty well-drawn (for an OELVN), the music suits the theme well, and a little-but-crucial-and-right-timing support from voice acting. It's a shame that they couldn't develop the story more though. Still, this game is a MUST if you want to have some quick feel + "fun"(?).
Score: 9/10.

Walkthrough (spoiler)




Note: If you encounter the "RGSS-RTP Standard not found." error when opening the game, all you need to do is opening the Game.ini file and delete the "Standard" in the "RTP1=" line.


My previous review: Mousou Complete! (Trial Edition)

The following list only contains threads made from May 09 to May 16, any older thread will be placed under the "Updated" banner if new relevant content is added to it.



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






Discussion
The Decline of Reading in Relation to VNs (Link)
Songs That (Unintentionally) Describe VN (Link)
How/Where do you Recruit for TL/OELVN Projects? (Link)
Least liked protagonist? (Link)
Starless : first impressions.(Link)
Fuwanovel's Musical Extravaganza Official Thread (Link)
Angel Beats - Demo Translation (Link)
Share your Impressions of TRD: Toko, Episode 0 (Link)
Jast´s Peter Payne Interviewed By LewdGamer (Link)

Other Discussion
Song Covers (Link)
Interesting Dreams (Link)
Ambient Music (Link)
Has your enjoyment from gaming remained the same throughout the years? (Link)
Do you workout? (Link)
How does one feel "integrated" online (Link)
Finding reviewers on your wavelength (Link)
Inability To Like Main Heroines (Link)

Staff Announcement
[PSA] Updates On The Rules (Link)

Announcement
Monobeno -Happy End- Translation Project (Link)
Skyspear Translations Thread (Link)
Serious to the End [demo] (Link)
Learning TyranoBuilder, Let's Collaborate (Link)
Several VNs you can Translate (Link)

​Game
Show By Post! A Musical Band Creation Activity (Link)

Blog Post
Interview: Lupiesoft Team and #TRDToko (Link)
Interview: No One But You (Link)

Who are you?
We're Alternative Projects, translating Muv-Luv related VNs. We have released translations for Muv-Luv Alternative Chronicles 01 and The Day After 02 in the past two years. We are opening recruitment to get more help as we have a larger line-up of projects we are looking to work on next.

What are you looking for?
TLCs: Able to understand Japanese fluently, and check the original meaning against the translated lines for any lost content. If you are able to suggest edits and line corrections to make it read better that'll be a bonus.
Editors: Able to work sentences into a coherent story, correct grammar and tenses, and check the flow of the story from line to line. Some knowledge of the Muv-Luv Unlimited/Alternative universe is necessary, so that you know what you are getting into. Knowledge of military workings and science-fiction is preferable.
Hackers/Programmers: Able to help convert text files with Japanese and English text to excel and back, keeping the text format the same. Will need to be compatible with Afhook tool, so if you have some knowledge of the tool that would be preferable.

If you want to help us, please write us an e-mail, [email protected]

Something that we really care about is consistency. We are looking for people who are willing to commit to the project in the long run without pulling out halfway through. That said, we do understand that this is a hobby and that IRL issues will always come first. We appreciate open communication on issues and concerns in the team.

Current projects:
Adoration (ML Chronicles 02's sidestory, currently in progress)
Our planned project line-up: ML Chronicles 03 and 04, Haruko Maniax, Ayu Mayu Alternative, Total Eclipse, Schwarzemarken (VN and LN).
Note: Projects will be confirmed once we have the personnel.

In this post I'll attempt to introduce JWPce (for those who don't know what it is)
(* = refer to JWPce User Manual)

JWPce

JWPce (Japanese Word Processor for Windows) by Glenn Rosenthal is a program designed for English speakers who are studying Japanese.



Now, JWPce has BUNCH of functions (13 others) but I'm only going to talk about the DICTIONARY FUNCTION.


Upon searching a word, the dictionary will give you the word in Kanji, the word in Hiragana and the meaning of the word.




The dictionary is not limited to Japanese to English.
Press Ctrl A to search from English to Japanese. (To return to Japanese to English, Ctrl K)






How to use the Dictionary for Learning Japanese through Visual Novels

Rains told me about this program. lol
This is what I'm using to read Raw VNs. (I'm not an expert yet)

After opening the program, press F6.



On the left side, you'll see buttons such as Search, Sort... Click Options.




A window will appear. Look on the left side and check Track Clipboard. Then OK.



Say you have a hooked Japanese sentence on the ITH.





Upon highlighting a word (in the ITH) that you do not know, the dictionary will automatically search that word.



This is the result of the procedure I described above.



If you look at the upper right side of the dictionary, you'll see four stuff you can check or uncheck.



These things are used to limit the search. A matter of one's preference.

Personally, I check them all so that only the needed meanings are shown and the search is fast (but there are disadvantages too).



Basically, you will be reading the text on the ITH which means that parsing (identifying words, particles, etc.) is done by you.

In case no matches are found, a warning is triggered and the default warning sound is annoying. Sound can be made tolerable by changing your Windows theme.

JWPce uses EDICT, ENAMDICT, and other dictionaries (you can add others) at the same time.*

It also has a USER DICTIONARY - a personalized dictionary you can make.*


Note:

☆ JWPce is free under the terms of GNU General Public License Link to download
☆ No romaji in this program. Go learn Kana first.
☆ Radical Look-up (F5) is useful for Kanjis you can't hook
☆ Again, to make the warning sound quite acceptable in the ears, I suggest changing your theme.
☆ There are times when the program crashes. This is because of certain words (it can't search). I suggest moving to the next line of the game and open the program again.

☆ To recognize the kanji more (make it bigger) or for more details about a certain kanji, point the mouse to the kanji (on the dictionary), right click then click Get info.




☆ I suggest reading the User Manual (atleast the section about dictionary)
☆ Some things I said are based only on my observations. Stuff may vary.
☆ credit to rainsismyfav for introducing me to JWPce / ITH method


I will answer questions I can / am willing to answer.
Also please correct me for false information I might have stated.

See you around.

Cat has been around the world since more than thousands years ago. Their long history with humans has made their own place in human's ethiology, history, and society. If you were to ask 100 girls what the cutest animal is, about 70 of them will answer "cat". So, cats are undoubtedly popular. But even among this popular species, there is one who stands out even more. Although his existence is still unclear and no one has never laid his/her eyes on him, this one guy, I mean cat surely "exists" in our hearts. He is no other than Schrödinger's cat.

As his name implies, his master is named Schrödinger. So what exactly the charm of this cat? What is his relation with the owner and what impact they brought to our world? We'll know that next week. See you............

Ahem, just kidding. Maybe some of you have known a bit about this felis' identity. Yeah, he is a cat which is used by its master Erwin Schrödinger to prove his thought theory about Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics applied to everyday objects. This particular experiment presents our fellas Schrödinger's cat COULD BE SIMULTANEOUSLY BOTH AND DEAD, which is caused by being linked to a random subatomic event that may or may not occur. This state is called as a quantum superposition.

The experiment is like this:

Schrödinger's cat: a cat, a flask of poison, and a radioactive source are placed in a sealed box. If an internal monitor detects radioactivity (i.e. a single atom decaying), the flask is shattered, releasing the poison that kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when one looks in the box, one sees the cat either alive or dead, not both alive and dead. This poses the question of when exactly quantum superposition ends and reality collapses into one possibility or the other.

Maybe some of you confused from the lengthy detailed explanation. In short, when Schrödinger's cat is put to the box, and the box then closed and sealed, we won't know whether the cat is alive or dead until we open the box, even if the box is hazardous and full of poisons. So during the time the cat is still inside the sealed box, it is SIMULTANEOUSLY ALIVE AND DEAD. But this is a PARADOX. Something alive couldn't be dead and something dead couldn't be alive. From here, comes several interpretations:

1. Copenhagen interpretation
2. Many-worlds interpretation and consistent histories
3. Ensemble interpretation
4. Relational interpretation
5. Objective collapse theories
6. Some other less popular theories (explanation on this will be skipped)

1. Copenhagen interpretation

In the Copenhagen interpretation, a system stops being a superposition of states and becomes either one or the other when an observation takes place. In short, this interpretation greatly depends on the existence of an observer, when the observer open the box and "observe" the cat, then it could be known the state of this cat.

2. Many-worlds interpretation and consistent histories

This theory basically said the same thing as Copenhagen interpretation, with one difference, that is the state between the box opened and after the box open decoherent from each other. In other words, when the box opened, THE WORLD SPLIT INTO 2 POSSIBILITIES, the observer see a dead cat and the observer see a live cat. This is also rhyme with consistent histories, that denies a possibility a live cat coming from a dead one.

3. Ensemble interpretation

Basically this interpretation said that this condition is only a statistical matter. Meaning it's only one of several prepared cats undergoing the same experiment. So it is ONLY A TRIVIAL MATTER.

4. Relational interpretation

This interpretation doesn't differentiate between the observer, the apparatus, and the cat or between animate object and inanimate one. Meaning that the cat or the apparatus could also be an observer. In short, if we see with the cat's point of view, he already knew (he has the information) about the condition, while the observer still doesn't, the observer will get the information the time he open the box.

5. Objective collapse theories

This last theory stated that superpositions are destroyed spontaneously (irrespective of external observation) when some objective physical threshold (of time, mass, temperature, irreversibility, etc.) is reached. Thus, the cat would be expected to have settled into a definite state long before the box is opened.


If you still don't get the idea or getting confused by the explanation, this illustion MAY help:


This thought experiment maybe seems so high-level and this quantum mechanic thingy doesn't sit well with you, but it's the fact about Schrödinger's cat, not a cute furry one, but rather transparent and tricky one. But still, Schrödinger's cat sure is one helluva cat not to be ignored.

Okay I am putting up a ALPHA Demo with Missing Assets So that everyone can get a feel for the game. i want people to play it before the KS is done. Remember lots of assets are missing so some things may not look right and some scenes may not be complete. With this you can get a feel for the story and such.

http://noby.unwontedstudios.com/noby_demo.zip

Makoto Itou is often vilified as the worst VN protagonist ever. These people clearly haven't played Cross Days.

VNDB
Getchu

Cross Days is a retelling of the events of School Days from the perspective of Yuuki Ashikaga, a boy in the same year as Makoto Itou, the protagonist of School Days. Yuuki is childhood friends with Hikari Kuroda and a member of the library club, and his older sister Chie belongs to the basketball club. Good-natured but indecisive, he often puts the needs of others before his own because he can't muster the courage to say "no". His sister introduces him to Roka Kitsuregawa, whom he quickly develops a crush on. Roka likes him too but misunderstands his relationship with Hikari. Roka tells Yuuki she's going out with Makoto to make Yuuki jealous. Kotonoha, who frequents the library, tells Yuuki she's Makoto's girlfriend, yet Makoto's classmates say he's going out with Sekai. Swept up in romantic intrigue, Yuuki has to figure out how to convince Roka that he's serious about her while getting her to give up on Makoto.

Much of the plot of Cross Days revolves around romantic misunderstandings, often reinforced and propagated by gossip. Yuuki and Roka are the main couple, while Makoto and Kotonoha are the secondary couple. The way these relationships play out forms the crux of the plot. The story begins with Makoto in a relationship with Sekai, following the route in School Days where Makoto pairs up with Sekai almost from the start. Sekai herself is a minor character.

Unlike School Days's Makoto, the plot of Cross Days doesn't revolve around the protagonist Yuuki, and this is a core weakness. Yuuki is very much swept up in the events occurring around him, and he is unable to directly solve the problems he's confronted with. Instead, his influence is indirect--he influences other actors who have the power to change events, such as Makoto. Cross Days is as much about the various characters surrounding Yuuki as it is about Yuuki himself, and as a result the experience ends up feeling rather fragmented. Much of the game is spent viewing events from an "outside" perspective other than Yuuki's, really reinforcing the feeling that this isn't Yuuki's story. As a player, I felt alienated by the arbitrary perspective shifts that often had no direct relation to the events surrounding Yuuki.

This leads to one of the game's main issues: the hopelessly convoluted scenario. The triggers for the various branches in the game's plot are cryptic and difficult to comprehend even in retrospect, much less when you're encountering them for the first time. As a player, you end up feeling very much like Yuuki--lost and fumbling about at random as situations spin out of control in often ludicrous fashion. This is in contrast to School Days, where there was usually a clear connection between Makoto's choices and downstream consequences. The choices in this game left me befuddled, and I ended up using a walkthrough after wandering aimlessly through the scenario a few times and haphazardly hitting the major routes. In some cases, the flow diagram in-game isn't even accurate (i.e., flowing one-way from left to right)--instead you can end up on a route that retraces to an earlier branch point. The scenario was patched to fix some of the divergence issues, but this actually makes the problem even worse because it breaks the earlier fan-made guides. I was unable to get most of the endings in the boys' love route because I couldn't figure out the proper sequence of choices even after trying several different guides.

The game has many of the same problems as School Days. It crashes/hangs frequently, especially if you scene skip in a scene with a choice. The problem is more acute in Cross Days because there's no "skip to the next choice" feature as there was in School Days HQ. Like School Days, the scenario consists of many puzzle pieces intended to fit together in many different configurations--but not all the configurations tell a cohesive story. Certain paths detour around scenes that are necessary for explaining/instigating downstream events.

Cross Days features a total of 22 endings (8 are in the BL route, which I haven't fully explored). The endings I saw were all distinct. There's some distinct routes that diverge midway, such as the ones focusing on BL and Ai Yamagata. The actual divergence has nothing to do with these themes however. Sadly many of the endings have no epilogue (especially the ones ending in H-scenes), so there's a nagging lack of closure. Reflecting the overall feel of Cross Days, many of the endings are "bad ends" for Yuuki and Roka.

The game is hard to evaluate. Despite all the problems, Cross Days captivated me for several days straight. I literally did nothing in my free time except play this game. Roka makes a great main heroine, and her jealousy is positively adorable. Her push-pull relationship with Yuuki is a highlight of the game. I was disappointed however that there was no opportunity to pair up Yuuki with Kotonoha. The setting has incredible detail that emerges when you explore all the different routes, conveying the sense of a truly living world. You end up missing much of the backstory if you only play through to one or two endings. The animation is engaging, with visual cues used to convey information layered on top of the dialogue. There isn't much fluff dialogue that serves no purpose in the story.

Cross Days is a rare interactive movie VN with a highly dynamic scenario that evolves based on your choices. If that's your cup of tea, there's hardly any alternatives to the School Days series. If you liked School Days, you should give Cross Days a try--but realize that the experience is different. Cross Days was clearly intended to be experienced after School Days, so don't make this your first sampling of the series. If you didn't like School Days, you probably won't like Cross Days, as it sports one of the weakest protagonists I've come across in a VN, and makes Makoto look like Rance by comparison.

Score: 7/10 (including -1 penalty for crashes and freezes)
Recommended for fans of series who have already played School Days and Shiny Days and are hungering for more.

I played this title in Japanese. If you're interested in seeing Cross Days in English, support JAST USA's English releases of School Days HQ and Shiny Days and let JAST know you're interested in Cross Days on their new official forums.

Ok, this is the first part of my words on Evenicle, which will be the last VN I play from April's releases. I am only playing this one because it was specifically requested by several people, and to be honest, I wasn't really looking forward to it. I am not a fan of the Rance series or Alice Soft in general, because their VNs' plots just aren't that interesting, generally. The ratio of goofy to serious is generally too slanted in the goofy direction, so I tend to get bored about halfway through. Not to mention that most of their games' actual plots are so awfully written that they might as well not exist at all.

That said, as a game - so far - Evenicle is actually fairly enjoyable, for what it is. Asta, the protagonist, is - like almost all Alice Soft protagonists - a harem-maker and a sex-fiend, but fortunately, he isn't a Rance-type, which was a relief for me - since I loathe Rance. Story-wise... the setting is interesting and what is going on in general has possibilities, but I hate that they use so much obvious foreshadowing... especially in the naming of certain areas (El Quixote, lol).

I'm at the end of Chapter 3, and one thing I'm finding is that the actual difficulty level of everyday battles is just a bit too uneven. There are way too many points where the difficulty spikes low or high, where it doesn't really make sense for it to do so... and that's just regular fights. Boss fights tend to be anticlimactic, with the exception of one fight at the end of Chapter 2 - so far.

The way you gain skills is a bit irritating as well. It seems like you randomly get skills for the various characters at the end of battles - regardless of levels - and out of chests, of all things. I've never been fond of games that add useless or annoying gimmicks onto what is - in the end - a regular jrpg-style game outside of story segments. However, I more or less expected this kind of thing, because Alice Soft is almost as bad as Idea Factory about the gimmicks issue...

Well, that's it for now, look forward to my final review after I've completed the game.

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Discussion
VN Reading Club Revival (Link)
Favorite Visual Novel publishers? (Link)
Otome games and the difference in emotional involvement (Link)
Do otomeges have a higher chance of success than galges in the Western market? (Link)
Western Genres for VNs (Link)
Am I dreaming? Sakura no Uta -Sakura no Mori no Ue wo Mau- to be released on 07.24.015 (Link)
(Spoilers) Was Terra a good route? (Rewrite) (Link)
How Can Visual Novel Players Expose Newcomers to the Genre? (Link)
How do you read VNs (Stolen from reddit) (Link)
Has a VN ever made you depressed? (Link)
Complete This Conversation - Episode 02! (Link)
How do you determine that you have read a good Visual novel ? http://forums.fuwanovel.net/uploads/emoticons/default_happy.png' alt='^_^'> (Link)

Blog Post
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Anti-Feminism in VNs (Link)
Japanese Word Processor / JWPce - The dictionary (Link)
A farewell and some messages (Link)

Announcement
Magnificent//Omniversal Love (OELVN Project - Development) (Link)

Part 4 was almost completely typed up and ready to go, but Chrome's shitty backspace shortcut fucked me over and caused me to go back a webpage, erasing all of my work. I'll retype as much as I can remember tomorrow evening.

As for the good news, with summer here, I will hopefully be pumping these out at a much faster rate. Maybe we even get to the mess of MGS2 before June?

Hello everyone! Rose here, bringing you guys something a bit different from usual. Today I'm here to announce a few things about the blog and the team. First of all, Ezeefreak is no longer part of the Recognition Team. He helped us a lot during our early days when we still didn't knew how to do our job properly and I am really grateful for that, as well as for everything else he did for the team. I wish him nothing but the best for his forum and for everything else in his life, he's a really great person and I'm glad that he was one of us.

Secondly, I'm also going to use this post to remind those who read the Recognition Blog of two things:
We do accept suggestions for highlighting posts, be it a thread, person or whatever else you feel like deserve it. We won't accept everything, but don't hesitate to make a suggestion, we'll take a look at all of them.
If your thread received a meaningful update or was reworked in some way, you can request us to feature it on the "Threads you should check out" weekly list. That said, translation projects have their own space for that so we won't add them.

And lastly, I received some feedback regarding some of our posts and I am likely going to either rewrite them, or make slight adjustments. I feel like having a better pattern should do us well and that's what I'll aim for with the changes. I'm also aware that some people have mixed feelings about some of our posts and I'll try to do better from now on, the Recognition Team is a new Fuwa feature and we still gotta work on some things, but I feel like we'll keep improving with time.

That was it for this post, thanks for reading everyone and please, give Ezee some warm fuzzies for all he did so far, he definitely deserve some.

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Funniest Out-of-Context VN Quotes (Link)
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VN epilogues/endings (Link)
What is a "good" H-scene. (Link)
Will you buy Shiny Days from Jast? (Link)
Katawa Shoujo gets a physical version in Japan (Link)
Portrait / Side sprites next to the textbox (Link)
The Artistic Value of the Visual Novel (Link)
Princess Evangile: A Case For Mateship (Link)


Other Discussion
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Thoughts on anime/manga that are used for LN promotion. (Link)
Steam starts selling paid mods (Link)


Feedback
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​
Blog Post
Why I endorse JAST’s censorship of Shiny Days (Link)
Zalor - The Analyst (Link)

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

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



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



-
Zalor
Perspective in Saya no Uta (Link)

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

Kanon: Mai and Sayuri Analysis (Link)

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

Narcissu and Death (Link)

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






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

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Discussion
Are Visual Novels readers/players a niche? (Link)
Do you enjoy controversial or taboo themes/stories? (Link)
Hanahira! English Patch Released (Link)
Can you read multiple vn's at once? (Link)​
Conditions of play (trying to sound all academic X'D) (Link)

Feedback
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Other Discussion
Time travel, universe jumping, and all media related to it. (Link)

Blog Post
Weekly Music Picks #1 (Link)
First UnTL'd VN FIN -- Totono Pls (Link)

Announcement
Majikoi A-1 - (Possible) Translation Project (Link)
The Unknowns Saga Vol 3: Physical cosmology (Link)
No One But You (Link)

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Announcement
Bunny Black 1 translation patch released! (Link)

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Interest in a Fuwa Gaming Club (Link)
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Spring 2015 Anime Discussion (Link)
Weekly VN/Route Appreciation Thread (Link)

Games
Fuwanovel's Fantasy Quest! (Link)

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VN Review: Dies Irae (Link)

Updated
Blue* TL Project [Demo/Prologue Released] (Link)