Plk_Lesiak

I'm so lonely here lately... Still, I have a small update about a tiny semi-hiatus of the external blog and my plans for the future. Also, I think I finally made my site into something that is not completely hideous, even if it's far, far from being perfect. I hope. You'll be the judge of that. http://evnchronicles.blogspot.com/2018/09/vacations-state-of-blog-update.html

It's "part 1" for a reason. And yeah, of course I did, the second post will come out this Friday. ;p

Wow... I wanted to do some more (uncoordinated and self-inspired) shilling for this campaign but I guess I'll wait to not get associated with this.

Enlighten us, senpai.

Can't say I'm that sold on it after the previews, but it sure might be interesting (if it don't turn out just pretentious). Will it revolutionise anything? Well, was every VN after School Days an interactive anime movie? They won't all become this either.

While not nearly as famous as Winged Cloud’s Sakura games, Silver Cow Studio’s Time Tenshi is one of the longest-running EVN series, following a single storyline and consistent cast of characters since late 2015. So far, its developers published three, fairly substantial entries in the franchise: Time Tenshi, Time Tenshi 2 (released in mid-2016 and later expanded significantly in the Special Edition version) and Time Tenshi Paradox – an episodic game, with two parts already available and most likely more coming in the near future. All of them, unusually at this day and age, follow a relatively tame, ecchi formula with no actual hentai scenes – a choice Silver Cow seems to be quite dedicated to, despite the general trend of inserting 18+ patches into everything that can even remotely justify the full-on adult content. But, enough of history lessons – how’s the story of busty time travellers and sexy side effects of temporal dislocation holding up in the current, competitive market of anime boob slideshows? Surprisingly well, I’d say! Or at least, to a certain point... Time Tenshi Time Tenshi starts with a bang and soon after, follows it up with a few extra ones. The first scene features our male lead, Kenji (the usual faceless, high-schooler protagonist-kun), witnessing his house burning down along with his parents. After being hospitalized for a few months because of the shock, he’s picked up by his only close relative – maternal grandfather, an elusive scientist who was barely present in his family’s life. He invites Kenji to live in his laboratory complex, where he hides… A time machine, obviously! And while this might be quite predictable, there’s another important twist, which will be a leading theme in the Time Tenshi games from this moment forward: time travel has a fairly peculiar side effect when used by women, making their hormones go out of control, their boobs and butts grow enormously (until they return to their time) and turning them… Eager, for a brief time after they come back from the past (that’s the one direction in which the time machine works). And the professor’s assistants happen to be three gorgeous women in overly-revealing uniforms! Who would’ve thought! Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogpost.com

School Days maybe? It's pretty much all about cheating.

If that's the case, and she's into manga/anime, you should really be able to explain it to her. You can even ask her upfront if it's ok with her if you play a game with hentai scenes from time to time, it's not like she's unaware you might consume porn - pretty much everyone does.

Well, if she's going to leave you because you play porn games or because you're an otaku, not sure if it spells success for your relationship in the future. I'm with my gf for many years now, we were living together on and off in the past and for a few months now it became pretty much permanent. Experience tells me that full transparency is the best approach - I'm not really an eroge fan, but if I'm playing something with h-scenes I just tell her to avoid awkward situations. We even read some eroge EVNs together. She's particularly anti-porn, but I can still make it work, so it's probably not impossible in other cases. If VNs are important to you, dropping them out of fear just feels unhealthy. That being said, if she cought you playing Maggot Baits all of the sudden, or fapping to loli h-scenes, I can imagine her freaking out. It's up to you two to communicate properly and decide what's acceptable for both sides. If she's a reasonable person, I'm sure you can introduce her to the topic and at least learn whether she has a problem with it. There's a chance you're worrying over nothing - and if you were right, you simply shouldn't be forced to pretend you're someone else to the person you want to build a relationship with. Does this come from experience? :s

Libra gathered more than that and everyone knew it's rather shit even before the translation disaster happened. This game has much to offer and they market it in a smart way, I don't say it won't be tough, but its definitely doable. They've launched at a pretty ungodly hour and are already at 6-7% a few hours later, we'll see where it'll all be in a few days.

My VN consumption is sailing the seas of crap and mediocrity while quality VNs are the occasional harbors. It makes them feel that much better though. :3 I'll get to it though. Just like I'll get to Flowers... As soon as RL let's me consume anything beyond let's plays...

I don't mind, I estimate it will take me another year and a half before I get to reading the first one. :] Actual romance sounds awesome though. :3

How did you end up there then?

Wow, that's a surprisingly reasonable answer! I approve. Hope you'll have fun around here!

Welcome to Fuwa! So, are you a Pulltop fan? What's your take on MoeNovel?

If you don't know, you're better off that way. :3

I personally think that VNs are simply not a good formula for horror, at least not the "scary" type - you can have suspenseful moments in an average-lenght VN, but you can't reasonably keep it like that all the way through like you could with a movie. "Disturbing", on the other way, is something that VNs can do amazingly well, as evident by Saya no Uta, Lynne, Soundless, or even Clock Up titles (I don't think calling euphoria or Maggot Baits horrors would not be that much of a stretch). So, you'll more often see good VNs with horror themes/elements than straight up horrors, unless it's some kind of short, indie stuff. Also, what others said is very valid - it's moe and ero content that sells, you have some niche fetishes that work with horror, but generally, it's not what's the most profitable or "safest" to make.

Hello, new person! ... It might be a strange question, but are you a bee? Or THE Bee?

Issue with Germany is about lack of proper age verification on Steam - from what I read you need a third party, reliable system to legally sell porn in Germany, to make sure it can't be purchased by minors - not the kind of law that many companies would care about, knowing how internet works, but I imagine both Valve and publishers would rather play it safe at this point.

While this situation is changing significantly nowadays, as the Western visual novel market is professionalizing both when it goes to development and publishing, in the past EVN scene was primarily a world of extremely short, freeware titles, created by countless enthusiasts as minor passion projects or game jam entries. While these games, often very simple and minimalistic, rarely deliver sufficient material for full reviews, many of them are still worthwhile and artistically pleasing titles that I would like to cover more consistently. For this reason, I’ve conceived this new format – mini-reviews, that will provide the basic outlook of the VNs in question and rate them on a simple, three-point scale: - Highly Recommended: for short VNs that provide an exceptional, memorable experience despite their limitations - Recommended: for titles that are enjoyable, but significantly flawed or advisable mostly for people enjoying their specific subgenre/dominant themes they use - Not Recommended: for titles that in my opinion simply fell flat or were misguided to the point they’re most likely not worth your time – a rating I expect very rarely to use, considering the games and authors I’m going to cover In the next few months, I hope to deliver a few posts in this formula, while I’ll also be redacting the old Yuri Game Jam/Free Yuri EVN lists according to it. As a starting point, however, I’ll take a look at a developer with maybe the most impressive catalogue of short, free VNs, some of which I’ve already covered in the YGJ series. While The Sad Story of Emmeline Burns and Once on a Windswept Night might be ebi-hime’s best-known freeware titles, since late 2014 she released 8 other free games of varied scale and quality (I am skipping the earliest ones, not listed on her Itch.io page – those were mostly humorous experiments with the VN formula rather than legitimate stories). Recently, ebi announced abandoning freeware projects for good, as they were draining too much of her time and resources – and while it might be a sad thing to hear, it’s both understandable from the viewpoint of any commercial developer and a good opportunity to look back at her extremely generous contributions to the EVN scene. Today, I’ll cover the first four games from the eight mentioned before, in the chronological order, starting with Dejection: An Ode, released on November 2014 and ending with Round the Mulberry Bush from the mid-2016. In two weeks I will complete this list, starting with Where the Sun Always Shines and ending with the 2018 April Fool’s VN Learning in Love!. I hope you’ll be willing to accompany me on this little journey and enjoy reading my reviews! ------------------------------------ Dejection: An Ode Taking its title from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem, this VN is a direct predecessor to Asphyxia, taking the same themes of gender-bent romantic era English poets, depression, substance abuse and unrequited love. Samantha, female version of Coleridge is placed here as the protagonist, with an unhealthy obsession about her best friend and fellow poet Lillian (William Wordsworth) and constantly struggling with what we can assume is a bipolar disorder – episodes of extreme agitation and inspiration, followed by extreme depression and inability to work. Her struggle is shown through simple visuals, with just sprites and a few backgrounds, but the dynamic and stylized prose makes it a very enjoyable and convincing read. The abrupt, inconclusive ending felt slightly disappointing, but the story makes it clear that any proper resolution of the plot would be even sadder and harder to accept. While it’s definitely a simple and minimalistic game, visibly from the very early period of ebi’s activity as a developer, it’s still very much a worthwhile read, especially for the fans of her characteristic style of writing and storytelling. Final rating: Highly Recommended Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

Yeah, I wondered if I'm the only one that finds the fact they never fixed this awful piece of promo art and used it for title screen insulting? It feels below a developer of their size (sorry for slight OT)...

Welcome to Fuwanovel! When you get done with Ace Academy you might consider giving Crystalline a try, PixelFade stuff is quite fun.

SubaHibi was a very peculiar case, as the "all ages" version was basically an extended demo (first 2 chapters) while the whole rest of the game was hidden behind a patch. Quite an absurd workaround on Frontwings part, but indeed, it's the kind of aberration that shouldn't happen under the new rules. TBH, I hope that we can keep both the reasonable all-ages releases and get games such as Saya no Uta or Kara no Shoujo on Steam, but it might quite likely be 2-3 years berore the situation stabilizes into some kind of clear pattern.

I think this is the road most publishers will take, at least with the titles that were already released or prepared for release. With the straight-up ero games, like nukige or games with very drastic themes, they'll start making their way to Steam more often and go straight to the adult-only category. But with titles that might actually earn additional sales by offering all-ages option and having extra visibility to non-porn-oriented players, like most moege, I don't see a reason for publishers not to make the 18+ content optional. As long as they don't abuse the system (ex. Sekai holding 18+ for a large ransom), there's really no downsides to having more options.