Plk_Lesiak

So, as the all-ages version is confirmed, I've started wondering and I'm still not sure if I understand the premise of this: is the tentacle rape an optional game mechanic? Is there any consensual h-content in there (Eiyuu Senki - style) or a way to recruiting the goddesses without raping/mind-breaking them?

Can players get married to each other in the online mode? I think we're this close to Stardew Valley becoming the next Second Life, just less crappy. ;p

Ah, so it's an hRPG? When I first saw this news I thought it was just a nukige and wondered why people are so excited about it. Although even... [redacted: now I really want this game, 18+ or not]

Somehow, any kind of community organized solely around Nekopara sounds like a pretty scary concept to me. Am I the only one thinking that?

@Zander, I hope you don't mind me hijacking the thread, as you're done with your part? I actually also still have keys for Karakara, Fault milestone one, Highway Blossoms and Huniepop. If anyone wants any of those please write here or PM me. Thank you for your attention.

It's not, but many things we do in life aren't. Yup, definitely. At least as long as the limitations system presupposes work properly. Democracy is a fragile thing, only working as long as most actors are playing by the rules. I know it painfully well from my own coutry where the current goverment pretty much disregards the constutitional order whenever it becomes inconvienient for them. The president and many of the ruling party's top officials should be in prison for it, but who will do something about if they control the parliament and consistently tighten their grip on the judiciary? US system might be more mature and stable than Polish, but we can't be sure how much abuse it can take. Plus having someone you know is able and willing to do some horrible shit at the most powerful position in the government and hoping that institutional constraints will prevent him/her from going that way is still a pretty horrible situation (pretty much panic-worthy IMHO). After all, Trump doesn't have to go Pol Pot to do some lasting damage to the US and the World. Just look how much we're dealing with shit initiated by Goerge W. Bush (or even some poor desitions of Obama years like the intervention in Libya and supporting Syrian rebels) and he wasn't even a bad actor, just an easily-manipulated moron.

Really, polls weren't that wrong when it goes to Republican primaries and general elections, most of it was very close or even within the margin of error (especially if we look at the polls made just before the events - news sites sometimes reported aggregate values from longer periods of time and skewed the results in that way). Here the much more important part than the full accuracy of the final numbers is the relative values - these polls were done in the same way as polls about previous presidents and it shows that, even in his best moments, he's much less popular than previous presidents were (for example, he had a relative high point lately and was still 4-5% below the lowest-ever ratings for Obama - have that along with the fact that Obama started his term at the beginning of deep economic crash that nagtively affected millions upon millions of Americans and Trump took over in the moment when economy was steadily recovering). Plus good polls usually take in consideration the unequal representation of certain groups in their samples - if very conservative Republicans are hander to reach, they will weight their votes more - I'm pretty sure most of these polls actually give Trump more credit than what they actually hear from people.

You make one mistake in your argument, that is connecting why people love Trump with his actual policies after the election. The fact is, Trump now has a record-low approval rating for president in mid-term (consistently below or at 40%) and for example, the tax reform you mentioned has as an approval rating around 20-30% and it's positive effects are much more minor than what your post would suggest (the raises and companies that resigned from laying people off or hired more workers without already planning to do so are more anecdotes than any kind of overwhelming trend). I'm pretty sure that very little of what he actually does now have to do with how much support he got during the election - apart from things that have little to do with Trump himself and are basic elements of Republican agenda, such as the 2nd Amendment issues (he wasn't even really that outspoken about it, he just defends the status quo).

Emotionally unstable, egomaniac, con-artist, talented in nothing but marketing. Has no agenda and no values other than fueling his overblown ego and his pockets. People that support him are either cynical (not caring what his values are as long as he delivers on some core promises, such as cracking down on illegal immigration) or delusional (thinking that he cares about anything but himself and possibly his closest family and that his MAGA "ideology" is anything more than an empty slogan). He can make positive desitions when he thinks they will serve those interest, but egomaniacs are easily manipulated through flattery etc. And with more and more war hawks populating his cabinet I wonder whether even his positive role in Korea will last longer than a few weeks. If someone can ruin that peace process it's definitely Mark Pompeo as the Secretary of State. Also his economic policies are disastrous and their effects will haunt USA possibly for many decades, even if the next administration tries to clean it all up. Edit: Yup, this is all a horrible idea but I couldn't resist.

School Days The main premise is a love triangle, but with the "right" choices it has tons of cheating in various configurations, often with appropriately disturbing consequences. + you can check the appropriate VNDB tag

"Watered down Isekai Shokudou" sounds boring as hell though. It's not like that show had a lot of substance in the first place, mostly it was just nice to look at (I too liked it, but apart from Aletta's story there really was so little meaningful stuff in it)... Well, I think I'll avoid this new thing, I'm watching two bad shows already (Toji no Miko and Grancrest Senki), I'll rather focus my perpetually insufficient free time on catching up with Darling in the Franxx now. :]

See what you did, I've started looking for some cool art now I just want play the second chapter of Flowers... JAST, why are doing this to me??? Oh, and, congrats, I guess?

Hey, an otome/BL hybrid, that's a rare one! I do find the idea of it being otome most intriguing though, with a female protagonist having to assume authority as a royal tutor and navigate the political schemes in this setting. Do you plan to have any significant differences when it goes to dialogue and how the protagonist is treated depending on their gender?

Good luck, MMOs are really the worst of the worst, especially if you play them competitively or get highly involved with the endgame. I actually still play WoW but mostly because I share an account with my closest RL friend (please don't report me ) and it's basically the best excuse we have to chat regularly and generally stay in touch. I also always played it very casually, but I probably still wouldn't want to see how many hours I've spent with it over the years... :s

Aye, you made some good points, but still, the rhetoric used by Kim is quite shocking from my perspective. Going to CNN site I've quickly realized both sides just "pledged" to work towards a peace agreement, but if it's not a complete ruse on NK's side, it means they must truly be desperate... Or maybe even if it is a ruse, it's going much further than Kim would normally allow himself to go. When a state relied for the last 60 years on mass terror and the propaganda of perpetual war with the South it's hard to imagine it reforming in a way that would make a lasting peace feasible. But even talking about it seems like a revolutionary act. NK is more or less a giant concentration camp - if anything can change there for the good without the whole system collapsing, I will be just as shocked as I'd be happy for people living there...

Some of them. Not all MG titles go to Steam and it might depend on many things, like whether there already is a Japanese all-ages edition that can be easily used for Steam release or whether making one would be profitable enough. MML is pretty heavy on porn so I'm surprised seeing it 18+ only - there seem to be a JP mobile all-ages version but porting stuff from Android or iOS is usually additional challenge for a localization company.

Rather looks like it will stay exclusive to MG store, with no all-ages version available (so, no, I wouldn't expect a Steam release).

Or rather they can now invade Japan together and take over the eroge industry as war reparations for WW 2. Would be interesting, Korean VNs are pretty cool. It is super-interesting though and I absolutely don't understand where North Korea is going with this. I didn't think I would live to see a formal peace agreement in my life as long as the NK dictatorship is in place. We'll see whether it's anything more than an empty gesture to solicit economic concessions from the South Korea and the West. I have little hope in that regard, but let's not be overly pessimistic...

For a moment I've got scared that my whole life was a lie and I've been misspelling or misusing a very important word, but thankfully I did mean iterative there. The grammar was messy though, I hope the sentence makes more sense now. And yeah, I've seen some otome games with decent yuri routes, but probably not a real hybrid. Because this game is not a hybrid, it's just the Generic Romance VN incarnate, just with a (poorly done) female, bisexual lead.

Well, quite a lot has happened since I've last posted in this thread and I'm quite satisfied with how things are going. The content you've seen throughout April took quite a lot of work to make, but what's coming might be even more interesting. The yuri event is slowly coming to an end - for the next week I have a very neat, non-yuri-related interview ready and after that I wish to fit one more, very fresh game, which will give me an opportunity to discuss the rare romance VNs with protagonist gender choice. Later in May, the gameplay VN month(s) is coming, where I will cover things such as the whole Sunrider series. I think there will be some really fun reviews in there and I hope you'll join me on that journey to the world of VN and strategy game/RPG hybrids. Today, however, we have something pretty rare - another failed VN review, where I could share my grievances towards a title that I consider the worst commercial VN I've ever read - New West Game's Sweet Volley High. Apart from giving in to the sadistic part that is present in pretty much every reviewer's soul, I think it shares a few important notes on how NOT to make an OELVN - there are some things that are common issues with Western visual novels, but which this game made especially visible and easy to digest. It's a fairly short one, so I really encourage you to read it (and avoid the game it concerns like the plague): I've also written an impromptu rant yesterday to commemorate the Lesbian Visibility Day, sharing some of my thoughts about yuri OELVNs and their connection to the LGBT issues. It was more or less a stream of consciousness, created while being half-asleep, but after a few edits I'm actually pretty satisfied with how it turned out. If you haven't read it yet, you shouldn't regret doing so now: And that's all from me for now. Please look forward to the next week's interview - I think it's a really good one, even though the developer involved is a relative newcomer to the OELVN scene - and as always, have a great week everyone!

If there's no recommended/enforced route order, I will always go for the most appealing girl first. Although I would argue that you can't say which girl is the best one until you've finished all the routes that you're not absolutely sure you'll hate. A well-written game will always have some surprises.

Little Busters I guess? You can argue whether it's really about sports, but here the use of the theme is super-shallow too. And there's actually another volleyball OELVN on Kickstarter now, don't have time to look up the title now, but I wonder whether the curse will hold or that new one will be decent after all. ;p

Outside of new releases, I usually try to avoid reviewing bad OELVNs in-detail, unless they’re especially interesting or notable despite their failures – after all, in any semi-amateur game development scene, the poorly-made, misguided or horribly iterative titles will be far more numerous than those actually worthy of your attention. Writing that much about the former, especially when my goal is to promote OELVNs as a niche worth exploring, is arguably a waste of time and possibly even counter-productive. However, just like Carpe Diem: Reboot, today’s game is a great opportunity to look at some problems and tropes very characteristic of the Western VN scene, in a game that actually had the production values and traces of genuine effort that should at least make it an average, reasonably enjoyable product. And the sin that made it ultimately fail was not silly writing that plagued Carpe Diem, but something arguably even worse – boredom. Sweet Volley High, developed by New West Games and released on Steam in October 2016, was marketed as a “yuri/otome Visual Novel”, featuring a female protagonist and both female and male romance options. While some might already feel unease about such use of the terms "yuri" and "otome", both of which usually denotes a bit more than just romantic configurations available, it hints at a much deeper problems – game’s utter lack of personality and very poor use of the themes it tries to tackle. While trying to appeal to a broad audience, in reality, it wasn’t able to replicate the appeal of neither yuri nor otome games, just as it didn’t manage to create a satisfying alternative to those formulas. But, why exactly is that the case? Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

Then you've lost a lot, Sir. My condolences.

Hello there! It's not Friday, so it has to be an unusual post and it definitely is one... It will be a bit chaotic too - only now, late in the evening, after taking a day off and pursuing the only lesbian romance route in Tales of Aravorn: Seasons of the Wolf for most of it, I've realized that today is Lesbian Visibility Day. For me, both as a fan of yuri and as an appreciator of OELVNs it probably should be one important holiday - definitely worthy of a few moments/words of reflection. Visibility as something inherently positive is a curious idea. It's based on a very important and reasonable assumption, that to make something a public issue and fight for social change, you have to make people aware of that phenonenon's existence, scale and the consequences it might have for those most affected by it. To fight for the acceptance of gay people and systemic change that will give them equality before the law (and, hopefully, equality of opportunities), you cannot accept the conservative argument that sets sexual orientation as a purely "private" matter - the long-lived stance that wants people to visibly adhere to social "norm" and not "bother" others with the fact they're different. Most often, if you want your rights to be respected as a member of a minority group, you have to be loud, you have to be bold to the point of possibly being obnoxious and offensive to some people. You have to fight tooth-and-nail to make sure you won't be trampled by the majority's concepts of what's "normal" and "proper". In many Western countries, for lesbians that fight is to a large extent already "won" - the majority of people see them as a legitimate group worth respecting. Not everywhere though and it's not clear to what degree these gains are permanent. Hopefully? But is all visibility a good thing? Paraphrasing painfully accurate thought by @Fiddle, we don't really praise Adolf Hitler for bringing attention to Jewish issues in Mein Kampf. Yuri, is, obviously, not nazism. It's not in any inherent way a negative phenomenon for the lesbian cause. But it's also not automatically an ally of any progressive agenda. Japanese media is full of depictions of lesbian romance, which reaches a society that ignores LGBT issues in a way more persistent than pretty much any other highly developed country. For me, it's not especially surprising - just like the saturation of Pornhub with lesbian porn probably doesn't lead to people watching it going to their local Pride parade, fetishized, male-oriented yuri themes in anime and VNs do not have to translate into any kind of educated attitude towards RL queer women. And Japanese yuri, at least until recently, didn't really have an ambition of grounding its narrative into any kind of reality of homosexual romance. SonoHana series is the perfect example of completely isolated, imaginary "yuritopia" (to borrow a handy term from Yurirei), where a huge number of young females live in a world where males exists only in passing references, pretty much everyone's gay by default and there's no prejudice or social stigma connected to that fact - which, of course, make possible a gigantic number of voyeuristic porn scenes. Is it a bad thing by itself? Not really. Does it make people more aware of the situation of sexual minorities as a social issue? Hell no. Admittedly, some Japanese depictions of yuri romance are probably too lovely and heartwarming to say anything bad about them... Obviously, there's a lot of issues with representation of women in anime and VNs and I don't want to write a book here. I want to make a slightly different point and this goes to yuri romance in English VNs. This is also not a black and white picture - many EOLVNs directly copy the Japanese formula or give slight twists to it, while still keeping the "lesbian porn for guys" premise. However, for every Negligee and Sakura Fantasy our VN scene produces maybe even a couple of projects that are genuine expressions and/or appreciations of lesbian identity and realities of lesbian relationships. Throughout the various editions of Yuri Game Jam, NaNoRenO and in many commercial titles, I've seen lovely, touching, thought-provoking depictions of f/f romance that gave me huge pleasure as a reader, but also made me empathise with people different than me. Christine Love's work I think holds a special place here, with powerful and persuasive depictions of discrimination and her courage in exploring themes that commercial games rarely dare to go anywhere close to, from Analogue to Ladykiller in a Bind. Lately, Brianna Mei's Butterfly Soup gained similar notoriety, also through a genuine message and creative passion involved. But even small, cute and silly games such as those by Nami can have a genuinely positive role to play, confronting people with diversity in an approachable and lovely way. One other thing that OELVNs regularly prove to me is that some small, indie games can have more soul in them than many giant, high-budget productions... I, in all of this, have a pretty questionable position of a straight guy that finds lesbian romance lovely and, to a certain extent, hot. The more genuine the romance depicted is, the more I'm probably a bit of a creepy voyeur getting a high out of something that for other people is part of their identity. But no matter how we see that problem, this genuineness depicted above is something I absolutely love many yuri OELVNs for and a thing to be shared and appreciated. And that's my message for this day. Thank you for reading!