Nier

Ain't that the truth.
Once upon a time, in the late 2000's, I started learning Japanese.  I was sick and tired of all the good Japanese-developed video games that I couldn't play.  At that time, nearly all console games were Japanese.  Most of the Western-developed ones kinda sucked.  However, a funny thing happened.  The market changed; over the course of the PS2's lifespan, console games started shifting away from being an almost entirely Japanese production.  English developers gradually stepped up their game, and kept stepping it up, and now all the best-selling titles on consoles are Western-developed (unless you're Nintendo).
Now, if I'm not mistaken, the Japanese VN market is in a serious crisis right now.  Sales have plummeted compared to where they were ten years ago, and seem to have reached a new stable point.  Naturally, this will affect product quality.  OELVN developers also have not had very long to mature compared to the Japanese market.  So in the future, I would be very surprised if the OELVN market did not significantly improve from where it is now.  It just depends on what kind of timeframe you're talking about.  Six months from now probably looks a lot like today.  Six years?  Not so much.  Six decades?  The Japanese VN industry isn't even six decades old yet!  Who the hell knows?

What's your favourite OELVN? Ramsay Butter me Up
Will OELVNs ever be as good as Japanese VNs? Never, the level of writing are too far apart, and besides look at the producers and quality of OELVNs being released, eww m9.
Why are OELVNs generally considered worse than Japanese VNs? Level of writing gap, art, sound track (They have no production fees) It's in English.
What are the attributes that make OELVNs stand out (in a positive way) from their Japanese counterparts? No. Pfft Winged Cloud
Recommend a random (relatively unknown) OELVN I don't know.
Is Undertale an OELVN? No, it's just a western JRPG thing.
And of so has it already made VNs popular in the west?... And if so has Fuwanovel lost its purpose of existence?! Making VNs popular in the west created a cancer fan base in the west too, so err let me shield myself with Japanese barrier.

Basically what you're asking is akin to this "Can western made JRPGs ever be as good as made in Japan JRPGs?"

Having just gone through Kimi ga Nozomu Eien and making my way through KimiAru I'm finding my Japanese reading skills are better than I've given myself credit for. I'm kicking around the idea of translating a short game and seeing how that goes.
However, complex hacking, coding patches or installation packages, etc. is not in my wheelhouse and not something I'm interested in learning. If the process is too complex or too much of a hassle for me to do, knowing me like I know me I'll get sick of it and say screw it long before the project is done.
Here's where you can help me help you. I want to extract a line of text from the game, do some CTRL+C CTRL+F CTRL+V action, type in the English replacement and be done.  If encryption needs to be broken, files need to be hacked or whatever else needs to be done to get it to the point where all I have to do is the translating, then someone will need to step up and get that done to get me in the game.
I have three candidates for games to translate and don't have a preference between them. Making the process easy for me is going to be the primary deciding factor in which one I do. The candidates are:
1.Majikoi Drama CD vol.1 (the game on the CD, not the actual audio drama)
2.X-Change R
3.Koutetsu no Majo Annerose
Get me to the point where the only work I have to do is the actual translating, and I'll give one of these a go.

ＪＡＰＡＮ:
- Superior Mental Capabilities.
- Superior Aesthetical Senses.
- Superior Emotional Intelligence.
- Superior Storytelling Skills.
- Superior Musical Talent.
- Superior Culture.
FACTS.

Hello, everyone!  
We would like to return to updating this topic regularly and keep folks here and Fuwanovel up-to-date with the situation with LMRnR.
In the time since our last post here, we have released a bunch of stuff, including an early alpha promo video, new art, and other news. You can find more information about how we've been doing by reading through our blog.
In the most recent of our updates thus far, we have talked about the situation with the alpha builds and the upcoming demo (it should be ready fairly soon!) and a thing very important for any game – the GUI. 
We are also glad to show everyone a sample of our in-game menu:

And we would be extremely grateful for any kind of feedback. Please, tell us what you think!
More news, GUI, and other interesting stuff coming soon™!

It's been a month since the last blog post, time for a new one! There's some new info and new art, tell us what you think! http://sovietgames.su/en/one-small-step/

Hello everyone!

We're happy to announce that our Kickstarter campaign is now live and the «Love, Money, Rock'n'Roll» demo version is released!
You can support us here or try out the demo here!

I know that for Japanese VN campaigns Physical Game copies is a very popular reward, for OELVN (well basically a term used for any VN that is not from Japan irregardless of the fact wether it is originally in english or not) it is not as popular but still gets some additional non-negligible amount of pledging (depending on the prices and popularity of the project's campaign). Here is The Human Reignition Project Kickstarter campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sekaiproject/the-human-reignition-project-an-english-visual-nov/description, one of the most funded OELVNs on kickstarter and if you calculate the backing tiers for the physical rewards of the game:
Amount Pledged: 4000 USD from 100 backers (40 USD Early Bird Reward Tier Limited to 100 Spots, Physical Copy of the Game)
Amount Pledged: 800 USD from 16 backers (50 USD Reward Tier, Physical Copy of the Game)
Amount Pledged: 780 USD from 13 backers (60 USD Reward Tier, Physical Copy of the Game + Digital Copy of the Game)
Amount Pledged: 1120 USD from 16 backers (70 USD Reward Tier, Physical Copy of the Game + Physical Copy of the OST)
Amount Pledged: 640 USD from 8 backers (80 USD Reward Tier, Physical Copy of the Game + Physical Hardcover Artboot)
Amount Pledged: 10000 USD from 100 backers (100 USD Reward Tier, Physical Copy of the Game + Physical Copy of the OST + Physical Hardcover Artbook + Kickstarter Exclusive Character Print)
Amount Pledged: 1250 USD from 5 backers (250 USD Reward Tier Limited to 5 Spots, Physical Copy of the Game + Physical Original Character Illustration)
You will see that the total adds up to 18590 USD, which is significant enough to warrant physical reward tiers for the game.
They even recently opened a Backerkit Pre-Orders page to offer physical rewards to the late comers: https://the-human-reignition-project-an-english-visual-nov.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders which is still additional money brought in post-funding thanks to the inclusion of physical rewards.

*post an e-rant about SJWs and "anti-whiteness" on a weeaboo forum*
Sexpat detected!

[Dons cynical hat]Random aspiring doujin author plucked from school and paid peanuts ... probably.
Japanese developers will pay more than whatever Winged Cloud can afford to dish out, and provide more stable and consistent employment. Therefore, whoever's been plucked from the populace is someone who isn't good enough to work for them. I wouldn't expect some great new level of writing, here.[/Removes cynical hat]

Well, people have different opinions, nothing wrong with that. Some liked it, some did not. (This is pretty much the norm for all games tbh.)
I personally enjoyed the game a lot, and recommend playing it. The game was funny and although it contained large amounts of slice of life moments, it still kept the story somewhat in focus throughout the whole game. The characters were pretty interesting, and I found the backstory of the main character and the mystery surrounding R-ne especially intriguing. The art is pretty, the animations are very nice, and the cliffhanger at the end had me hungry for more. (As in, I don't see it as a bad thing. I'm looking forward to vol.2, and it is coming out in about a month or so, so you won't have to wait very long for the continuation.)

Relaunched the campaign with more info on rewards and the game:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/18824204/white-violin-gothic-yuri-visual-novel/

Fuwanovel in a nutshell: "We hate Sakura games, but we can't stop talking about them anyway. "

Fuwanovel in a nutshell: "We hate Sakura games, but we can't stop talking about them anyway. "

Fuwanovel in a nutshell: "We hate Sakura games, but we can't stop talking about them anyway. "

Fuwanovel in a nutshell: "We hate Sakura games, but we can't stop talking about them anyway. "

Weekly update.
 
University is keeping me quite busy, and next week I have a mock exam, so this week has been primarily sutdying. I was also sick on wedensday, which only added to my workload, as I had some catching up to do. Long story short, the progress isn't amazing. Still, I did get a tiny bit of TLing done.
I will try to make next week more eventful, once my mock exam is over. See you next week
Opening

Translated: 100% (26/26)

Edited: 100% (26/26)

QCed: 0% (0/26)

 
Common

Translated: 100% (1662/1662)

Edited: 100% (1662/1662)

QCed: 0% (0/1662)

 
Ichika

Translated: 41% (895/2183)

Edited: 21% (458/2183)

QCed: 0% (0/2183)


Futaba

Translated: 100% (2001/2001)

Edited: 100% (2001/2001)

QCed: 0% (0/2001)

 
Total

Translated: 78% (4584/5872)

Edited: 71% (4147/5872)

QCed: 0% (0/5872)

I'm sure MG is feeling pretty good about their decision to dump these guys right about now.

Well, what's bad about that? If I wanted "western art" i'd read Graphic Novels, Comic Books or Franco-Belgian Comics. But I am not, only reason why I am even slightly interested in some OELVN is due to what catched my attention first, it's the great anime art, which not alot of them have that. Main reason why I was drawn unto backing The Human Reignition Project is because I got attracted to the great anime art by your super talented Pinoy artist Kätzchen:
http://rated-katzchen.deviantart.com/
https://twitter.com/RatedKatzchen
https://www.facebook.com/ratedkatzchen/
https://www.patreon.com/ratedkatzchen
Seriously the few OELVN who uses western art won't even get the time of day from me, same for the ones who got crappy art (which is quite alot of them actually).

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2016-09-22/visual-art-key-harmonia-kinetic-novel-trailer-reveals-english-release-on-friday/.106757
 

Hi everyone, i would be interesting to see a real translation of Anaheim Girl's Love Story which's a Yuri and Mecha VN. The translation's already existing (in a form of html file...). Various hacker tried in the past to make tool, some are public, some are not. Yes i did make my research and tried for myself (being a yellow hat hacker). After more than 2 hours, doing research and testing tools, i found mostly what's needed but mostly incomplete. So here's the status of the stuff i found.
 
Before Everything, an introduction of the VN : Anaheim Girl's Love Story's a fanfic from Gundam, 2 female electronics engineers who become in love while building a gundam. It's a Yuri with Mecha on a Gundam setting, it do has adult  More info : https://vndb.org/v6924
 
-The HTML file contain almost all the translation of the VN, there seem to have some line untranslated according to some hacking thread from previous attempts. Around 850 lines would be required to be translated from Japanese to English. Source in this archived thread and patch's also there : http://archived.moe/u/thread/1352750/
-It might also need some TLC, Editing and QC if the previous one man translator did a bad job, cannot verify since i am still cannot read japanese and my english's not a native english.
-We need to have tools to extract it, the tools i found are incomplete extraction tools made in python (i think it's python 3). The hacker did made a kickstarter for personal profit from those tool (35 backer, around $750) and give up because of depression. I believe it might be able to extract file but not recompress them correctly, i did not got any luck to extract the game.dat file. Source in Python : https://bitbucket.org/tinfoil/irl/overview
-A good news, the official Japanese engine's public, you can download it on the official website, so guessing the extractor work, we might be able to recompress them with the official tool, might need an expert view about this. It just seem applocal or syslocal in Japanese's not enough and you need windows to be in Japanese for it to work (or maybe Windows XP build since the app's menu's not showing in UTF-8 encoding (old Japanese machine language printing instead of real Japanese)). A guide about how to compress using the engine exist with the link to the official website : http://forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=11572
-We also need to recopy each line into the script or each script (if it's segmented correctly like any rational dev would do). That could be either done myself (after TLC, Editing and QC if needed) or multiple user could help copy pasting or i would simply manage using some VBS in excel and notepad++ (since i can only do some basic delphi and some advance vbs in excel, well, that was 2 year ago). Having a reinsertion tool or script would really save us time.
 
So, what we need at first's an hacker who could extract the game.dat file and get the script from it. Nothing else can be done until we got the script. Thank to anyone having a try, my knowledge has a yellow hat hacker's not enough, so i hope someone could do what nobody has succeed. Thank you.
 
Team : 
Reinsertion : Myself
Translation : Oppai-Missile (original html file)
Tools : tinfoil (Unfinished)

What's your favourite OELVN? - Analogue: A Hate Story
Will OELVNs ever be as good as Japanese VNs? - As a medium, No. There's too many structural limitations for western VNs to be better than the Japanese industry as a whole.
The nature of VNs are inherently more Japanese in nature:
Show Vs Tell (West prefers show, Japanese prefer tell) The west isn't all that keen on reading The west has established mediums to tell longform stories like radio shows/podcasts, TVs, actual books, etc. VNs are essentially a YA medium in Japan that's highly linked to weeb culture, Doubt the west could tackle that. Even if OELVNs got popular in the west it would probably be classified as adventure like the Telltale games mentioned in the podcast. Outside of the nature of VNs, I think that it would be very hard for the west to create a comparable industry of VNs to Japan. Japan can make VNs targeting the Japanese market and there will be a market in the west for it. The west doesn't have that advantage, and Due to the fact that the market is so predominately Japanese focused and has Japanese tendencies, I have a hard time believing it could pull away and thrive without the Japanese market like we have in games. There's also the fact that we have many established development studios in japan able to pour large budgets into the games, while it would take a lot for the western market to catch up, which I just don't see happening.

Individual titles? Hell yeah. Just because one's from a specific country doesn't make them inherently superior at making a work of art that's better than others. While sparse, there's already great OELVNs that are as good as Japan like Katawa Shoujo and Analogue.  
Why are OELVNs generally considered worse than Japanese VNs? - They're almost all indie, low budget affairs which inherently leads to lower quality. There's also the fact that while not all of them, quite a lot of them try to emulate the Japanese style with Japanese tropes, an approach that usually fails. There's also the fact that we're weebs and some weebs are elitist scum.
What are the attributes that make OELVNs stand out (in a positive way) from their Japanese counterparts? - Uh, idk. The only real difference should be who makes them. There's no inherent reason why OELVNs should have an atribute better than Japanese VNs or vice versa. Though, from what i've played, I'd have to say that they tend to tackle social issues that are more relevant to a western reader, and that they seem to have more stylistic liberties. 
Recommend a random (relatively unknown) OELVN - Even though I've mentioned it a fair amount of times in this post, gotta give more love to Analogue: A Hate Story  or anything by Christine Love for that matter. (See what I did there? See it? You weren't impressed by my bad pun? aww...)

Oh right I agree, the most famous OELVN uses anime art, the most sucessfull OELVN kickstarter campaigns used anime art, including the most famous one Katawa Shoujo, which released quite a bit of Art Books throughout the years:

good ole ks.