SomethingFunny31

I would seriously recommend starting as small as possible, especially if you've never done anything like this before. There are tons of great and successful visual novels that were made by small teams. Trying to make a game of that scale when you don't have a shit ton of experience is a recipe for disaster. As someone who is biracial, I would love to see a VN like that someday, but please start small I'm begging you.

Well, you say "something like this", as if it meant a relatively small-scale project, but you point to one of the highest-budget EVNs ever made. Also, take into consideration that even that game, or something like Love in Space's Shining Song Starnova with its tons of content and JP seiyuus, do not ask for $60. Bah, the Sorcery Jokers and Grisaia, which you mention at the beginning of your post, don't try to sell for $60 in the West despite the licensing and translation costs being likely comparable to producing a smaller VN from scratch.
Not saying this to hate on your idea or to discourage you, but realistically speaking, there are 2-3 studios in the West doing VN projects of this scale: PixelFade, Love in Space and Studio Elan. All three rely on years of experience and a loyal fanbase, along with regular crowdfunding to make it viable. VNs are still a very niche market and while a project this ambitious could work... It could just as easily turn into a disaster. particularly if you don't have experience in project management and a very good feel of the market. Be careful with this, particularly with the scale and associated costs, ambition tends to quickly run ahead of skills and resources at hand.

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Yeah we have Nekonyan announce the exact release date for this. As for me while granted I know that some reviewers didn't exactly have favorable opinion on this, I still look forward to the release of this. Also I'm quite surprised that Nekonyan decided to release this first seeing that I did guess they'll release Hello Lady, but more VN is always good so I have no problem with that. I'll add the heroines along with their VA info later, and of course the poll as well. Forget to say that the title is the pun of 'aishiteru' (TL Note: Aishiteru mean I love you).
The tweet from Nekonyan below for the proof, and yes we also already have Steam store available for this as well (The link to the Steam store).
Edited - As promised I'll add the VA info for the heroines below.
1. Hanamori Shiori

The MC (Hajime) childhood friend in that she's quite devoted to him, in that she'll do anything for the sake of Hajime including helping him to abolished the romance ban rule. That said, she's quite anxious so much that she prefer to show her intend through action instead of words. Her VA is Nakajima Saki in that she's voiced Kouzaki Umi from Koiresort, Saotome Miharu from Miagete, Shigure Kanako from Konosora, Alexander from Eiyuu Senki, Sasamori Karin from To Heart 2, and Mochizuki Maho from Daitoshokan.
2. Koshimizu Kasumi

She somehow know Hajime from the past, and she decided to transferred into his school in order to know him more. That said rather than she take the initiative, after she confess her feeling to Hajime she prefer if Hajime himself is the one who take an action to her. Her VA is Ozaki Mami in that her roles are Okihara Misa from Hoshiori, Aritagawa Nio from Loca Love, Amabane Madoka from Love Cube, Bors from Eiyuu Senki, Ginjou Haruko from Tsukiyori 2, and Okita Shino from Ouka Sabaki.
3. Yuuki Ayaka

The winner of school beauty pageant for two years straight. Because of her personality in that she's quite bright and bombastic people did think of her as a playgirl, when in fact shes more or less quite innocent when it come to the romance in that she's hoping that the romance is like fairy tale. Her VA is Ui aka Oohashi Ayuru in that she also voiced Enomoto Kaho from Your Diary, Narutaki Maho from Sukiren, Sairenji Murasaki from Seven Days, Hotaru Rinne from Astral Air, Sakurakouji Luna from Tsukiyori, and Eurasia of End from Noraneko duology.
4. Kozuka Yui

The youngest heroine in IxShe Tell who is also the student council president for the sister school. Despite being the youngest heroine, Yu also tried her best to act as an adult so much that she looks older than her age is, and she also didn't like that people judge her character based on the her appearance alone. Her VA is Suzuya Maya (I prefer her alias this time) who also voiced Nashiro Momiji from Ginharu, Liese von Archlond from Venus Blood Hypno/Hollow, Forunisgein from Kami no Rhapsody, Nanase Shizuku from Imopara 2, Seguchi Saya from Onikiss, and Spartan Clarke from Evenicle 2.
5. Yamabuki Yoshino

The vice president of student council president (Forgot to mention that Hajime is the student council president) in that she's against Hajime revoke the romance ban rule. That said even with her political stand is against Hajime, slowly but surely she find herself to fall in love with Hajime. Out of all other heroines VA, Yoshino's VA here (Gotou Mai) here is have quite a number of well-known roles such as Narumi Toa from Wagahigh, Wakakusa Nanoha from Baldr Sky, Hayama Mizuki from ef, Angelica Rocca from Katahane, Takekawa Benio from Comyu, and Mukou Aoi from Kimikoi.
That's all for the heroines along with VA info, and I guess what I can suggest in regard of this VN would be just treat this as a moege (In the most normal sense, not in a sense like 'all VNs are moege' or 'hot blooded VN are moege').

Well, I see where you're coming from, but consider that in Japan most VNs are eroge for which the main selling point is the combination of compelling stories and sexual content... And they sell well enough through those two features. VNs with significant gameplay are kind of their own, much more mainstream market and that's fine.
That is, if we're talking about adventure game-style gameplay. There's a shitton of VNs that implement RPG and Strategy game mechanics – fairly few get translated to English, but Rance games, Eiyuu Senki, Evenicle and Venus Blood -Frontier- are notable examples of gameplay eroge. You also have a decent number VNs with raising sim and dating sim elements, like Littlewitch Romanesque or Gaokao.Love.100Days. Obviously, there was in the past a huge market for heavily gameplay oriented dating/raising sims in Japan – I honestly have no idea how much alive it is nowadays.
To be honest, though, I went into VNs exactly to escape from gameplay, which in narrative games can often just become pointless padding distracting from the parts I actually care about. Of course, that doesn't have to be the case if the gameplay is well implemented and I'm sure it can make stuff more appealing to an average gamer, but I'd hate for gameplay elements to be shoved everywhere just for that reason. And if that means VNs are cursed to stay obscure forever? I can live with that.

These stand out for me.  Hapymaher, Tokyo Babel, and Sakura no Mori Dreamers
Here are some untranslated... maybe they'll get translations eventually.
Konata yori Kanata made
Houkago no Futekikakusha
Heliotrope Sore wa Shi ni Itaru Kami no Ai (Heliotrope - That is the Love of God that Leads to Death)
Kanojo wa Tenshi de Imouto de
Sakura, Moyu
Soukou Akki Muramasa
Yurikago yori Tenshi Made
 
 

Another day, another big brain post by ange.  
It's not exactly a bad thing for a hobby to be more closed off than others. There are plenty of VN communities.
  How about writing a book/manga/LN???
 
Yeah, well, that's what fan translation means, dude. Hello???   I think they're partially at fault for this. They could announce games only when they're closer to completion, not run update blogs, and not create things like discord servers where they're more easily exposed to toxicity.   I imagine it's the same for something like anime. Anyhow who studies Translation will have their teachers tell them that literary translation pays the least. It's just the way things are.
Not sure about this either. There are plenty of decent EVNs which are recognized by the community. But there's also a ton of games that are simply amateurish and sometimes try too hard to be Japanese.
This is BS. There is more stuff being released nowadays than ever before. I've talked with several Japanese learners who say that if VNs were translated at the same pace as they are now back when they started, they would never have started learning Japanese.
Had to re-read this a couple times to actually understand what you were trying to get at. Honestly, tell me what matters most: the amount of people you can talk to, or the quality of the discussions? I am completely fine with sharing my opinions with a restrict group of friends, though now and then I feel the urge to write a review or two. Perhaps you're the one at fault since you seem to enjoy sharing every little opinion you have with the wide world.  

Whats makes you think that including porn in the story disincentives the writer from writing a story that he wants?  including porn in the story will not make the story good or bad... the story will remain as it is... off course there are SOME ( Not all ) writers who dont want to include porn.. and feel like if they dont include it wont sell well.. but like i said there are only some..
 
Offcourse they will be unhappy.. they paid for it, its their money..so obviously  as the ones who took their money its your responsibility to keep the people whom you took money from a little bit updated from time to time..  Its not as if their saying we want our stuff asap.. they just want to know how things are progressing.. if there is any progress or lack of  it...
 
Also who isnt at mercy of deadlines even outside of localisation companies..
you think we dont get shit from our clients when we pass deadlines.. trust me your not the only ones
 
Its Natural that if the company involved incurs loss upon every release.. it will run short on funds to pay its employees..unless they have some sort of external  sponsorship or financing....
Why loss.. there are alot of factors.. decision making by the company heads also pays an important role... ( like deciding which VN to get localisation off,  Deciding how to go about promoting the said localisation ,  and you definitely dont want to get on bad side of your customer.. your dependent on their money after all  )..
 

this is because vns are bad
remove vns and everything goes well

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Other people might disagree with me, but I'd like to bring up Kana Little Sister, or the updated version, Kana Okaeri. It's generally considered a good VN, but I rarely see anyone mention it, possibly because of the fact that the original version will celebrate its 20th anniversary in two months. Despite its age, I think it deserves more time in the spotlight, since it's one of the visual novels that has had the most impact on me emotionally.

I myself started learning japanese by just buying the books used for japanese classes and learned by going through the books. I think this is a decent way to get started, and I would recommend the book genki 1 as a start if you want to go this route. Of course there are other ways to get into learning japanese, but I found that for myself it worked really well as a start since the book is quite easy and covers a lot of the basics.

This guide is fairly good. Its section on the DTR method is outdated however, I recommend asking about it in #learn_japanese in the /r/visualnovels discord when you get to that point.
Note that any method that you like that isn't monstrously inefficient is probably good. Conversely, if you hate something, its supposed efficiency probably doesn't matter.

Bones>Muscle>Skin
Bones=Grammar
Muscle=Vocab
Skin=writing system
This is just a prioritization system based on my personal experiences.  Specific methods to learn each have already been outlined in numerous threads on this forum.  More than anything else, you should focus on mastering grammar.  If you have the grammar mastered, the rest is just filling in the gaps, and having a basis in grammar enables you to read from context more effectively.  In terms of vocab, I'm going to be blunt by stating that there is no way you can just out and out memorize all Japanese words from a list.  Japanese is a language with over two thousand years of history and four major eras of linguistics that make true mastery of vocabulary a task of Herculean proportions.  Instead, after you've picked up most of the 'common use' terms that get used on a daily basis (verbs and their forms being the most vital), I suggest just diving into watching anime without subtitles (various genres, not just SOL, since SOL linguistics are generally limited to a much smaller sampling) or reading VNs with text hooker and parser (no outright MTL, only a parser like jparser that gives you furigana for kanji and/or kana). 
While learning both kana systems (katakana and hiragana) is a task that can be completed in under a week if you put your mind to it, kanji takes months or years, depending on your free time for working on it.  As a result, learning kanji inevitably has the lowest priority on my personal recommendation for learning Japanese, as long as you are just interested in playing VNs.  However, that is  not to say you should neglect it entirely... there are a lot of insights that can be drawn from Japanese use of various kanji that deepen the experience in the more complex VNs and books, and kanji puns are a mainstay stupid joke in a lot of anime, manga and VNs, so having a grasp of HOW kanji are used, even if you don't necessarily know all the kanji in question, is a vital skill to pick up along the way.  Nonetheless, it is a skill that you should look into picking up along the way.
This style of learning has upsides and downsides... it is a system for the impatient.  People who don't want to wait for translations of visual novels often pick a route similar to this one.  However, if you are looking to live in Japan, it is better to take a more comprehensive route, learning kanji as a higher priority while at the same time you learn the rest of the language as a whole.  In that sense, 'classroom learning' is your best option if you intend to make a go of living for a while over there, though my method makes comprehension of the spoken language easier.
Edit:  Classroom learning has the benefit of giving you a chance to do verbal exercises.  My methodology is specialized for consumption of media and comprehension rather than usage.  While I can speak Japanese, every Japanese I've ever met says my Japanese is 'katai'.  This is because most of my learning was done from text and private practice without someone to talk back at me. 

Coming from a fellow Japanese learner / Clephas-level of JP proficiency wannabe who has started and stopped twice (most recent - 2 months ago) in learning JP, I would say first of all you should ask yourself whether or not you have the endurance and motivation to succeed.
Japanese is a complex language (duh at myself) with thousands of letters (katakana, hiragana, and most common kanjis used combined) and misc stuff (particles, grammer etc) to memorize (a lot of them like the particles have multiple meaning/usage too). By my estimation, you will need to invest at least a year of constant studying (attending classes or not) to read the average VN comfortably (may take you, I dun know, 6 months if you feel you can study and practice everyday though).
This post isn't meant to scare you, but rather to mentally prepare you for it (I think most people gets overwhelmed by the language because they did not know what to expect). Come in only when you feel you can go through  with it, otherwise you will be wasting your time. Of course, you should think of the reward: you will gain access to comprehensibility to not only Visual Novels, but everything else in Japan
(FYI, the reason I lost motivation to JPN leaning isn't mainly due to the difficulty to it, but rather I can read CN and there was a skew of CN TL releases which I don't have the self discipline to put aside for the sake for learning Japanese as I started learning it mainly to read JPN VNs anyway. If that's wasn't the case, I would probably be able to comfortably read JPN Vns by now   )

China has a long history of VN fan translation, and a fairly big market for official releases. In the past two years, there are quite a few Chinese translation companies releasing on steam and achieving good sales figures, so I'm not surprised to see companies like Sekai trying to capture a share of this market. What I am surprised to see is how they actually do it.
Yesterday Sekai released "WAGAMAMA HIGH SPEC" Chinese translation. To our surpise, it's 100% identical to fan translated patch, even the mistakes like misspelled words.
It's very well known in Chinese VN community that this translation involves a scandal. The original translation team gave up the project, then picked up by a second translation group. It was planned for release using the name of both groups, but the original team leader stole the translation then released the game using original team name just before the second group released the final version. Basically, he personally didn't translate anything but claiming he did everything... Since it's not a monetised issue, the two version translation is just a joke about how messy fan translations nowdays among Chinese VN community.
What really surpised me is that this guy sold "his" translation to Sekai Project, and Sekai didn't perform any kind of due diligence before buying the translation. Until people buying the game suddenly realised idential translation, then we know what actually happened.
Fan translation is always a grey area. Is this copyright infringement? Probably not, but it is really hurting Chinese VN translation community when a large company like Sekai blindly buying translation and earning money, while the real translators get nothing in return.

Dorei to no Seikatsu -Teaching Feeling- is literally a game about taking care of a loli. Can get very sexual, but only if you choose to and the premise is nowhere as gross as Musumaker.

@tymmur was tling musumaker

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Occasionally around evening to midnight but afternoon on weekends.

Like food, please don't consume VNs after midnight

Hey there guys! I'm just wondering when do you guys play visual novels? I love playing them when it's late at night with my headphones plugged in. Something about it makes feel more intimate.