Plk_Lesiak

Okay, this is the most 80s thing I've found so far. :3 Edit: This is Malaysian technically, but considering the language is virtually the same, I'm not surprised Spotify mix these in auto-generated playlists.

The exploration of Indonesian 80s music (AKA "Indonesian City Pop") has begun! Fun fact, if "love" is ridiculously overused in English song titles, "Cinta" is triply so in ID music, to the point it's kind of ridiculous. Also, Ermy Kullit's greatest hit is called "Kasih"... Which also means "love". I guess there's no reason to over-complicate things...

And Shiny Days by extension, I think? Haven't played that one, but read some guides/endings and it seems to have its share of cheating scenarios too, including hilarious ones, like cheating on Sekai with her mother.

You kind of list a lot of Nakige or dramatic VNs... Trying to relax, I think I would aim for something light and comedic? Like Fureraba, Wagamama High Spec, maybe a Yuzusoft game like Sanoba Witch?

Welcome to Fuwa! Really nice to see that Digital Seclusion lured some people into our community. Hope you'll have fun around here. ^^

Indonesian pop tends to be pretty simple, but it often has this very soothing quality to it...

I like this band's vibe. There's something really endearing about it. :3

Good morning good people of Fuwa! As the person that is keeping the main site slightly less dead than it could've been, I decided I could use a space to post about new content without making new threads every time. Here I (or possibly other authors) will post updates whenever something goes up on Fuwa's frontpage – feel free to comment & discuss. This weekend I published a review of ebi hime's The Mermaid of Zennor, a very interesting and very angsty psychological drama VN. Consider checking it out and leaving your impressions here or in the comments under the article!

Welcome to Fuwa!

Yeah... Man, I am a huge fan of VNs, but I'm still pretty amazed with your faith in the power of waifu games to change lives and reshape society. xD Anyway, you do you, there's clearly no conversation happening here. Just please at least try to consider what everyone told you so far.

I was suspecting it to be a cover but Yura is credited as the author for both melody and lyrics, so it's maybe just subtle(?) influences. Indonesian popculture in general seem pretty heavily influenced by Japanese stuff/going in similar direction over the years. Like, when I asked Ayunda Risu on a stream a few days ago if she has any music recommendation she said there's tons of Indonesian city pop-style music from the 80's. I only started digging into it, but there are even playlists on Spotify explicitly called that and the sounds are indeed pretty close. BTW, @littleshogun, do you have any ID music recs for us?

It's pretty hipster to listen to obscure Japanese pop in Poland... But is it hipster enough? Maybe we can go even deeper? Like... Indonesian pop?

Hard to give tips at this level of (un)specificity. Just as a point of reference, consider Cinders. It's non-anime, but at such levels of quality you won't find people complaining about it. Quality and consistency are most important, there is certain amount of people that are so used to anime art they'll reject any VN that moves away from it, but I wouldn't worry about them too much – they are still a minority and quality will defend itself on its own merits. Also, a good non-anime artstyle will make your project stand out in the vast see of generic ones mindlessly mimicking Japanese VNs. That being said, anime style is probably among the easier ones to get right. If your skill level isn't great and you experiment you risk creating visuals that pretty much appeal to no one and will deter people from giving your game a fair shot. You need to decide which scenario is more likely to happen and act accordingly.

Maaaaaaaaaan... I really don't mean this as an insult, but I can't help but agree with Zalor here. At this point this is more of an issue to solve with a therapy than one to solve with VN development. I really wish you all the success with pursuing a project of your dreams, but staking all your happiness on a piece of fiction that doesn't even exist yet... It's not healthy, to put it mildly and I don't think it can ever give you the satisfaction you seek (and there's a good chance it just won't happen in the very specific format that you're looking for). Maybe I'm wrong on that but please... Talk to someone other than strangers on the internet. All the stuff happening in the background, that you hinted on with your previous posts... It doesn't sound like something a VN can fix.

Wait, what? That's the plot twist I didn't anticipate in the slightest. Can I ask where do you live, or maybe the geographical region if you don't want to be specific? And to the question itself, which I think is probably the best framing you showed up with so far... It really depends. While "a black person in the US" has some strong connotations, there's still a massive variation in circumstances and walks of life of African-Americans. One very good example of a narrative game with a black protagonist is the first Walking Dead game by Telltale. The MC has relatively high social status, but ended up being a convict and there are times when prejudice against him is fairly subtly hinted at/plays a role in the story, without being overstated. Like when you decide whether to talk openly about the outbreak starting while you were on your way to prison. It's up to you to decide whether that's a good approach for your project, but it's best to be very subtle with tackling such issues in a VN. Especially if you don't want to immediately scare off the anti-SJW crowd, which is a good portion of the otaku community. Also, if you're not even American, you should probably find someone who lived through that experience to at least give detailed feedback on your script. The beauty of the indie EVN scene is that it's full of people writing about their own experiences and/or genuinely striving to represent the minorities that have little presence in fiction. But the further you go away from your own circumstances, the more research and intuition it gets to get that stuff right. It's the main reason why good, insightful writing is not something just anyone can come up with and it's good to be painfully aware of that when approaching this kind of project.

Using games for coping with RL problems is not a bad thing by itself. Obsessing over them or doing nothing but playing is where the problems start... And for the OP, I don't think there exists any shortcut to getting what they want... No one will make a project of that scale on someone's whim. I can maybe propose some half-measure VNs, where dark-skinned protagonist is an option at the very least? The first one that comes to my mind is Hustle Cat - protagonist gender choice and both male and female love interests. There's a bunch of good otome and yuri games with dark-skinned protagonists, but I guess you're not interested in those...

1. Base price. If a VN is sold at 30-40 dollars I won't buy it without discount unless it's something I'm extremely into. Lately I'm way less broke and could afford it, but I simply don't pay that kind of money for games (I never bought a AAA game on release, outside of WoW expansions). Or any other form of entertainment media really. 2. Perceived value. It can be any number of factors, like quality of art, length, quality of writing/translation, themes... But if I feel something is overpriced I'll wait for a discount even if I want it for some reasons.

I'd consider euphoria and in general psychological horror VNs way more disturbing than something like Maggot Baits. Over-the-top guro is only effective for a short time or if you're particularly susceptible to it, otherwise it gets boring or plain laughable. So, my picks would be stuff that relies on sense of dread and entrapment, and makes you somewhat care about the characters that get abused. So euphoria... Also maybe Starless or Shiniyuku Kimi, Yakata ni Mebuku Zouo? And if you're looking simply for most fucked up/most over-the-top extreme ones, it'd probably be a competition between Maggot Baits and Starless? The latter probably having even greater variety of weird fetish porn. Still, one could argue for a lot of random nukige to get that title if they find the theme particularly obscene. Like, No Dog No Life is just one gimmick in a short game, but I find its brand of messed up particularly memorable. I'm not a specialist on dark VNs, so these are just loose impressions, but I'm very curious what others consider to be "most disturbing". :3

Yeah, I imagine this is a reason why this tread exists the way it does. Just let's be real, the question OP made was whether a VN with a black MC could have a broad appeal and presented a rather milktoast vision that would have such appeal by being pretty much like any generic VN. A serious VN about being black, on the other hand, would likely be niche even within the already super-niche VN market. We probably need more of such media, but making a commercial VN in such a formula, and on a scale suggested by the OP sounds suicidal.

Soo, looking further for feel-good isekai trash, I stumbled upon Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, which I liked to a surprising degree. While still silly and pretty shallow, I think it nails the feel-good power fantasy to a much higher degree than this season's 300 Slime anime, despite the two shows sharing a lot of their DNA (female protagonist with insane powers, quick resolution of all drama)... That one had a strong opening, but the writing and characters never managed to utilize the idea to a proper degree. In the Bear anime, it's more of a reverse effect – the opening is kind of weak (the way the protagonist is isekai'd is pretty bland and her first moments in the new world not very exciting), but it build up towards something quite satisfying. This is mostly because it focuses on the protagonist and the few core characters a lot and the adventures are pretty meaningful. The protag herself, Yuna, is rather mature and strong-willed, despite being a teenager and the overall gag of her being both formidable and fairly smart despite wearing the ridiculous bear costume (and often using cute bear-themed powers) works quite well. People treat her like a weirdo at first but quickly learn to look past the exterior when she shows what she's capable of, which is, well, very human. She's also not omnipotent, despite being able to do a lot of game-like BS – I loved the whole section late in the season when she had to crack the puzzle of taking down a kraken and just barely pulled it of. All that struggle motivated mostly by her love for seafood and the local fishermen not being able to work with the monster lurking. Also, her sisterly relationship with Fina, which builds throughout the whole first season, is more than lovely – the "found family" theme is important for the show, but also not fully realized – Yuna connects with a lot of people, but stays pretty independent and driven by her own whims and instincts throughout the whole thing, while the bond with Fina stands out as the first and deepest she made in the new world. Overall, it's that kind of extremely-wholesome power fantasy that shows with male protagonists very rarely create, if ever (the reborn as a slime isekai being the only example I can really think of). Like, the first episodes of Deathmarch made me hopeful for something like this, but it ended up with a slave harem... So, I'm not sure if this show deserves more than 7/10 and it's targeted towards a very specific audience... But if you're in that group, you'll likely enjoy it a lot, just like I did.

Among obscure Japanese musicians Punipunidenki is probably my favourite and this new track (dropped literally an hour ago) definitely reinforced that. :3

It's work in progress.

I've been stuck on YouTube for the last 13 years. You'd think that the one upside of that is the site having free content? Well, not really when you're a SIMP.

Ooooooh man, I'm so glad you recommended me this, it would be so easy to miss with those tags and an average rating. Can't say how good of an adaptation it is, but it is definitely the most gentle and heart-warming power fantasy anime I've ever seen. Four episodes in it might lack depth a little bit and I'm not sure whether it can get much further without going stale if it doesn't introduce some kind of meaningful conflict... But it made me smile pretty much all the way through. I even like the way it introduces romantic tension, with the protagonist being a tiny bit clueless but quickly adapting to new situations/acting her age and being reasonably assertive. The stylistic in general is kind of on the line between shoujo and josei...? But above all, it's just so nicely produced and... Well, gentle. I'm repeating myself, but I don't think any other word can express its tone better. It moves at a very deliberate pace, which never really breaks either for comedy or for drama... It just wants to make you relax and feel good about what you're watching and for me very much succeeds in that task. Saw some reviews and I understand why people might hate it or justifiably call it out as shallow wish fulfilment typical for isekai, just for a female audience... But honestly, the way the anime utilizes the cliches so far is extremely inoffensive and even if I dug deep I cannot find a serious reason to complain about them. You probably need quite a lot of incel energy to get genuinely irritated by it. It's not a masterpiece by any metric, but if nothing spoils it for me... The sheer healing qualities will place it in 9/10 categories. :3

Aye, that was another thing I wanted to add. There are definitely tiers of "Not really, but I know why people would think that way/it's pretty close" in there. Another nice thing to look out for when I get the mental energy to check out people's answers properly.