adamstan

Yukikoi Melt has been just released on Steam, and there's freeware +18 patch downloadable from JAST. Steam release seems to be dual-language (EN+JP) which is nice bonus

Yukikoi Melt has been just released on Steam, and there's freeware +18 patch downloadable from JAST. Steam release seems to be dual-language (EN+JP) which is nice bonus

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.

I think it's a good place for another progress report. I just reached the end of Chapter 8. That means I crossed the 10k lines mark, and it brings the progress counter to the 66%.

I think it's a good place for another progress report. I just reached the end of Chapter 8. That means I crossed the 10k lines mark, and it brings the progress counter to the 66%.

Yeah, really. Very nice, chilled feel indeed.
Yeah. Maybe it's because often they try too hard to be... how to say... edgy? Not sure if it's the right word, but what I mean is, that I feel like when it comes to the current (and by "current" I mean last 20 or 30 years ) Western popular music, anything that sounds nice and harmonious is easily being labelled as cheesy, fake etc etc - basically unworthy of attention. Or to put it in other words - Western musicians and listeners seem to value different things in music than Japanese.

Maybe she'll make a big label debut one day and get this stuff made in mass, let's have hope. I won't comment on your multi-instrumentalist cover cause that makes me aware of my lack of musical talent too much.
In other news, I'm recently getting more and more enamoured with the Japanese alt. rock scene. There's such an awesome chill factor to this music, they really work well as ambient music when I'm working of doing random stuff on the net. I kind of feel that Western rock rarely goes for this kind of harmonious feel.
 

So now it's my turn
I heard this song on a japanese local radio today, and for some reasons it really moved me:
The girl who made this song, Youko Matsuura, seems to be rather unknown, she doesn't have any records released, just couple YT vids with a few hundred viewers. And now she seems to be doing similar thing to me, namely recording cover songs in her home and posting them on YT
And I'm really tempted to do a cover of the above song...
Speaking of which, a few weeks ago I did a cover of Anri Kumaki's song. It was my first attempt at singing in Japanese. Please forgive me for posting it here as well, but maybe someone will find it nice
 

Today I found a funny one. It turns out that there was a Captain Tsubasa reference during the sports festival in chapter 8
Of course I'm putting that reference back in

Today I found a funny one. It turns out that there was a Captain Tsubasa reference during the sports festival in chapter 8
Of course I'm putting that reference back in

Today I found a funny one. It turns out that there was a Captain Tsubasa reference during the sports festival in chapter 8
Of course I'm putting that reference back in

I tried it - I forced antialiasing to be off, and I think it made it a bit more bearable, though it might be just an illusion.

Well, it took muuuuch longer, but today I found a bit of time again, and managed to do another few lines, bringing the progress counter to the 51% So I'm happy to report, that the project still isn't dead (it just smells funny )

Well, it took muuuuch longer, but today I found a bit of time again, and managed to do another few lines, bringing the progress counter to the 51% So I'm happy to report, that the project still isn't dead (it just smells funny )

My vision actually sucks! I need glasses as I have astigmatism and a bit of myopia.
Yeah, I opened the game again and the font really is kind of blurry. My memory was faulty.
Making * Lovers is supposed to run at 1280x720 or lower. Anything higher, and the text gets distorted.
You're running windowed mode, right?
It looks sharper at that resolution, but still not 100%. I don't know if there's anything you can do about that.
Changing text box transparency could help... I don't know.
There may be a way to override this by messing with your graphics card's options.
Sadly, mine is integrated and the Intel control panel isn't working as it should...
Good luck.
And in regards to the blinking sprites, yeah, I think they're really cool. I found out that The Most Forbidden Love In The World has some animation too.
(At least the 2018 re-release and the MangaGamer translation.)

Maybe your eyes are better than mine I mean, I can read it, but I feel like I'm straining my eyes. The problem I have is with the border/shade around the letters. It should be black and crisp/sharp, but somehow it always looks like there was some kind of interpolation/scaling applied to it, even though I'm playing the game in the window mode in its native resolution. The edges are somewhat blurry and the contrast is poor. The rest of the screen (background, sprites, menu text) looks okay. I'll post screenshot once I get back to it.
I have a really soft spot for those - a VN gets easy bonus points from me for that

I just randomly reminded myself that Kana Hanazawa is a proper singer outside of her Seiyuu work and discovered most of her stuff is on Spotify... With like 0 replays, so probably uploaded recently. Pretty cool songs, if you can get over her cutesy style of singing. :3
 

Yeah, apparently in original version
 

Yeah, it sounds great. I'd prefer slightly different drums style, but songwriting is brilliant.

Best song, dumbest title & lyrics, just as it should be in eurobeat. 
 

Still, the OP question stays. The English-speaking VN fandom migrated mostly to Reddit and Discord communities, what would be the equivalent for Japan, if there is one? 

Depending on the type of VN it could have been any other bodily fluid, so I'm glad they clarified.

http://imageshack.com/a/img923/28/ys2vPY.png

Good thing they're being specific, or else I might have thought it was miso soup or something.

The game is out!

Yeah, I agree - in a main game Ruriko is a heroine without a route. It feels a bit like they used her to sell a fandisc...