Plk_Lesiak

Sorry I'm late, but maybe you'll still have a use for it another time. This is one of my favorites.

@Shikomizue, your heroic sacrifice will be remembered. Great read, Dergonu, hope you'll not overwork yourself producing these. ^^

Well, probably because they're love stories and not moralistic tales of child abuse and psychological manipulation? Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware of the realities of most cases of incest, but the way I've seen it portrayed in non-nukige VNs was romance between consenting adults/adolescents that were more or less equals - a fairly pure "forbidden love" fantasies that don't have to relate to how things look IRL. Obviously, there's a risk of romanticizing incest to the point people lose the sight of the obvious problems related to it, but I don't think many people take these fantasies that seriously. On the other hand, being a bit open-minded and not automatically condemning every incestuous relationship in the world as abuse is not necessarily a bad thing. Laws against incest as such make little sense, as child abuse, coercing other into sex etc. etc. is already covered by other legal measures, while prohibiting relationships between consenting adults because of their blood ties, without any regard for their personal histories just feels superficial.

My timezone is -8 hours from PST, so US morning is afternoon here, and US evening is deep into night. 8 PM PST would be pretty harsh. US morning/noon would be the most comfortable I guess.

Hahaha, beautiful accent it is not, but thank you nonetheless. ^^ And it would be a good opportunity to work on my irrational fear of voice chats. So consider me motivated to join the fun, maybe not the first event, but some other one, especially if it starts closer to 5/6 PM US time (that is closer to midnight here in Poland, I'm a bit of a night owl, so I don't mind early night hours).

Well, this sounds quite cool, although it would be super-late in Poland and I'm not sure if I can pledge to be available during that weekend (looming deadlines). If you go forward with another round I'd be very interested in joining though. If my shy nature and horrible accent aren't an issue.

Over 100 h-scenes? Holly shit. Well, definitely not for me, but still looks impressive and very nice, detailed review you made there.

^ How freakin' violent and prejudiced they are. I want a world from those chill SoL anime, when everyone is just nice to each other. :'( < I'm in this kind of useless, unproductive mood for the third day now... v How do you motivate yourself to work when the whole world just screams that nothing you do is worth the effort?

Eeeehm... Have you switched the artwork to free assets yet? It would be really weird playing a VN with all that Umineko stuff still in there.

Welcome to Fuwa! First question: Why are you a chair?

I would say... Personality? I don't know how to say it better, but for me a great VN has to combine its elements in a way that feel unique and immersive. Flowers felt like that thanks to the breathtaking art and carefully crafted characters. Analogue did it through clever introduction sequence and embedding its game mechanics within the story and setting. I don't think there's any one recipe, or set of elements that have to be amazing (apart from maybe the general quality of the writing - awkward sentences and obvious holes in logic won't get you very far). It's easier to say what a great VN can't have. For me it will be: - Flat characters - Boring characters without any an ounce of mystery - Obvious cliches without any spin to them - Painfully obvious plotholes Anything else I can live with, if the structure of the game and its main story/intrigue are rewarding enough. Even when its goes to art, I have to like it to get really immersed, but it doesn't have to be amazing - and I think what is considered pleasant to look at is quite dependent on personal taste.

Well, graphics are graphics, but you also have things like the UI and just game mechanics being refined over time. I know some games that felt pretty impressive at their time but now seem clunky to the point of being barely aproachable, just because you expect better. It's less of an issue with adventure/story-driven games, but still...

This is slightly beside the point, but I consider any OELVN published before 2014 as pretty much "prehistoric". It was around that year, with Sekai going official and games such as Sunrider and Sakura Spirit coming out that the western VN scene become something more than just a small circle of fan-producers. With VN in general, I guess I always thought of stuff from before 2010 as "old stuff". After all, it was Key in early 2000s that cemented the formula with Kanon and Air, so everything from before 1999/2000 would be basically a proto-VN, and I think those games from the 90s are often heavily dated, while those made between 2000 and 2010 just have different feel to them.

Welcome to Fuwa! ^^ Have fun posting and if you ever feel like expanding your VN horizons we'll have tons if weird recommendations just for you! :3

I wouldn't be surprised if it was limited to KS-funded ones. KS = big projects + more pressure to deliver the game on time. With those small, cheap licences, I don't think they feel much pressure either internally or from the developers, so they can release the game "when it's done" and the projects themselves don't require coordinating large teams (which, as we all know by now, is something Sekai can never do properly).

Oh, another hRPG? Interesting to see more of those on Steam. But I guess it makes sense, nothing sells quite like Ecchi. Well, and maybe i-5 is a bit high (but, what i-5 exactly, modern one, 5-years old one?), but considering that these 2D games don't utilize your graphics card much, all the workload in on the CPU. If the RPG parts are more flashy, maybe it needs that power to run super-smoothly. And it's Sekai, so honestly, I wouldn't worry that much about translation, with all their big blunders lately they seem to be able to manage these smaller projects just fine.

Yeah, these are not high requirements, my cheap Lenovo smartphone has more power than that. The game itself... I actually dig the art (can't be too moe for me ), but I'm surprised it even has a VNDB entry, considering Huniepop doesn't. It must have a decent amount of VN content then?

Sweet Volley High by NewWestGames. So boring. So uninspired. Such an ugly UI. Such a shit protagonist. SO BOOOOORING. Boredom is the one sin that I can't ever tolerate in a VN - I can have fun with something absurdly bad or disgusting, but not with something completely bland - for this reason I don't think even Creature Romance could topple this one on my worst-ever list, no matter how traumatized it would leave me, at least it does something somewhat unique.

I'm not sure if discovering a previously-repressed grasshopper fetish is something you should wish to other people... But nontheless, I hope you'll find that read enjoyable in some way!

Your nickname is (possibly) inspired by Hate+? I think we'll get along! Welcome to Fuwa, I hope you'll have fun around here.

Oh, yeah, it should be a perfect therapy after reading Creature Romance. I have to admit, that kiss CG haunts me just after seeing it in your post, I don't think I'd be strong enough to play through the whole thing - though maybe that mention of alcohol explains it? Anyways... I'm definitely in the same camp and OELVN scene is pretty interesting in this regard. There's quite a few creators that try to escape porn tropes when approaching sexual themes - whether they succeed in creating something worthwhile is a whole another topic though. ;p

Sooo... I guess I've reviewed a nukige? And liked it? Well... Not really. At least when it goes to nukige part. But both playing through and writing about Cute Demon Crashers was pure joy, I hope it's at least somewhat visible in the quality of the blog post. Next week, there's more interesting stuff coming: my first developer interview, along with the concluding "Otome Month" review, while starting March 23th, we're entering the world of yuri - and it should be a fun one, considering this niche is pretty much one of the pillars of OELVN community. :3 Also, if some of you missed that development, I've started using Twitter regularly to announce blog updates (and various, more or less related stuff). Feel free to follow me there, if you feel like it, I'll try to keep it pretty on-topic and won't spam dank memes (unless they're really good ones). So, that's pretty much all for now, I hope you'll find my newest review amusing and please check out the blog next week - if you're curious about the OELVN market and development, you should find the upcoming content interesting.

Wait… A nukige review? On this anti-porn blog? Well, I should probably start with saying a few things about my view on porn in VNs, to avoid potential misunderstanding – this will be a bit of an essay, so be sure you don’t mind a (small) wall of text not completely related to the game itself. My actual stance on pornography in games is very… Ambivalent. I deal with porn extensively in my university studies, wrote a whole thesis on fan-made erotica and I’m on principle anti-censorship. I’m also very disillusioned with porn and personally don’t really enjoy hentai animation – and while I try being open-minded, I have yet to encounter a piece of Japanese 18+ media that would seriously undermine this stance. What do I mean exactly by “disillusioned”? Porn, including that in the cartoon form, is oriented purely towards the sexual pleasure of viewer – the uncomfortable, voyeuristic sexual positions, extreme close-ups, unrealistic variety and length of the scenes have little to do both with how actual people have sex and with any kind of meaningful storytelling. The theme of sex and even explicit sex scenes, when used well, can add to realism and depth of a story, but porn as a formula is essentially hollow, apart from its purely “pragmatic” functions. Expecting it to be anything more, in my opinion, is delusional, both because it goes against its most basic principles and because people that actually want more from it are in minority and porn creators most often don’t see them as a viable target group. Hentai adds to this already problematic mixture a significant amount of cultural and genre tropes I personally can’t stand – including fetishizing virginity, the abundance of loli characters etc. Why do I even bother approaching a porn VN then? Well, Cute Demon Crashers, a free game created for the 2015 NaNoRen0 contest, is not a typical eroge – more than that, it’s more or less an anti-nukige, promising a focus on consent and intimacy that’s lacking in many Japanese erotic games (and, obviously, many Western ones as well). It also reverses the typical setup, with a female protagonist and predominantly male romance options. But, does it really succeed in delivering something significantly different? Read the full article at evnchronicles.blogspot.com

I guess I'm late too, but all best wishes to You @EastCoastDrifter! Hope you'll stick arounf for a while.

The one thing I dislike is indeed heroine romance routes being effectively restricted by the need to follow the right playing order. I know that, for example, the only route I really care about in Dies Irae is the second or third one story-wise, so when I finally get to that game I won't be able to start with it, without risking confusion and maybe even ruining my experience to some extent. It's only a slight annoyance though and not something I would even get mad about - while I might prefer having more freedom when choosing my playing order, but I know why this is done and can appreciate the intricate storytelling techniques that go into building these epic intrigues. If it's done well enough, I can forgive not completely bending to my waifu-related wishes.