phantomJS

General Information
VNDB : https://vndb.org/v28160
 
Hoshi Ori Yume Mirai - Rikka to Anata no 1-Shuunen Kinen, Icha Love Birthday is a very short fandisc that takes place between Rikka's school route and after route in Hoshi Ori Yume Mirai. The fandisc unfortunately does not come with voice acting. Despite that, I think it captures the essence of Hoshi Ori Yume Mirai perfectly given it's short length.
 
For such a popular VN, I'm surprised that barely anyone noticed that it has this small fandisc accompanying it. Even when restricted with language barriers, the work is free, extremely short, but the VNDB vote count is extremely low (7 votes at the time of writing). I thought that I could give something back to it, after being completely engrossed by Hoshi Ori Yume Mirai. And so, a small passion project was born.
 
This will be the first time that I have done any translation for fictional works, much less in digital form. A programmer I am not, there are some things that I just can't be bothered to fix in this release (removing the character limit when rewriting names). With this limited experience, there will be the possibility of unnoticed errors or shortcomings in this release. Any pointers or constructive criticisms regarding the release would be appreciated. 
 
I also have added the SD art for all the 6 girls extracted from Hoshi Ori as a little extra bonus. With that said, I have to humbly disagree with any opinion that does not think 0003 is the best girl.
 
Also thank you to Tsurezure Scans for giving the permission to use their assets. 
 
You can download the .zip file here. It requires AlphaROMdiE to run (included in the .zip). Drag SiglusEngine.exe to AlphaROMdiE.exe and you're good to go. The system locale should be set into Japanese; I cannot guarantee that it would work without having this setting.

@aetherol
 
Maybe you can try this this version instead. Been using it fine with textractor for the past >6 months or so

Hello everyone,
this is Tanbo Nakai, from Italy and I'm a new amateur Visual Novel developer.
I love so much the fantastic world of VN, even if I started two years ago to read them! My nick name is a proof of my truly love for thoose game.
Tanbo = is surname of Doctor Ryoko Tanbo, an amazing character of "Saya no Uta", very famous horror Visual Novel.
Nakai = is from Hisao Nakai, main character of Katawa Shoujo, another beloved Visual Novel.
So, I'm here to met you and discuss about visual novel.
I'm developing my own project: "One Day to Disappear" a short psychologichal story. A first demo can be downloaded here: https://onedaytodisappear.itch.io/one-day-to-disappear
Well, I thank you for your attention and see you later! ;D
Tanbo Nakai.

Hello my fellow brethren! I've been stumbling into this forums from time to time when searching for VN news, recommendations, tools.. The time to come out is here.
I'm Skraal, and I'm from Spain. I've been into VNs for a while now (10~ years). Feel free to look at my VNDB profile https://vndb.org/u6087/votes?c=all;o=d;s=vote and call me a sick man with lewd and bad taste.
Also I'm about 20%~ progress on translating a certain visual novel, and I might publish the project here in the future.
So there's that, it's a pleasure to join you

KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK this bug is very funny...
Man, using the KrKr folder select window, Cut the folder, open the desktop (out of the krkr folder) and paste, then you can get access to the files...

https://mobile.twitter.com/Denpasoft_pr/status/1122971689585823744
 
I was emailed by them. Really long list that includes a ton of classics as well.
 
If there was a title you want from Sekai Project, guess it's time to grab it now (chances are it is on sale)

Hi there! I'm not sure if there is any sort of demand for this kind of post, but I thought since there's so many people interested in Japanese media on this forum, maybe some of you would be interested in knowing what it's like living in Japan as a foreigner. So, that's what this thread is for. If you have any questions about the topic, ask away!
For those of you who don't know, my name is Andreas, I've been studying Japanese for about four years or so now, and I'm a freelance translator. I spent about half a year in Japan studying the language at a Japanese university, (Josai International University in Togane,) which was honestly one of the most fun experiences of my life. I am going back to Japan again soon to live there for a year this time, (starting August this year,) and I just came back from a short vacation in Japan around a week ago. Needless to say, I like it there. I haven't decided quite yet, but I think me moving there permanently down the line is a very likely scenario.
 
Anyways, I'm not sure what, if anything, people would be interested in hearing about the topic, so I picked one thing my foreign friends have asked me quite a lot. So yeah, do ask if you want to know something else!
 
Are Japanese people generally cold and distant towards westerners?
Short answer, they might seem that way at first, but honestly, no!
The thing is, Japanese people are generally just very quiet and closed off in public spaces, as they do not want to bother strangers in public. Get a Japanese person a couple of drinks at an izakaya or a karaoke bar, and you won't be able to shut them up, haha. While there might be some Japanese people who are "racist," / cold towards westerners, most people aren't like that at all, and will open up to you quite easily once you get to know them a little bit! Of course, you have to actually get to know them a bit at first for this, and sure, as a foreigner, it might be a little bit harder to get through that first stage. But, it's honestly not that hard, especially if you have some kind of icebreaker/ meet the person in some setting where it would be natural to start up a conversation, like a university, at your job, or out in a club/ bar etc. Of course, not knowing any Japanese will make this a little harder, as Japanese people generally do not speak English very well.
(International universities are gold mines if you're looking for Japanese people interested in foreigners, heh. We had trouble eating at times during lunch, as we were swarmed by groups of Japanese students wanting to talk to us, lol.)
One tip I'd give western people trying to get to know Japanese people in Japan, try to not be too loud and "pushy". Like I said, Japanese people are often a bit guarded towards strangers, and first impressions are quite important. If you come off as "scary" and loud, it might be harder to get someone to open up to you. Remember, westerners are pretty scary to Japanese people, haha. We're generally a lot taller, they won't know if we speak a word Japanese or not just by looking at us, (and they probably won't know much English,) and we tend to just act quite differently compared to Japanese people in general. The unknown can be pretty scary! So, all these factors can make us quite intimidating. Therefore, try to dial it down a bit, and you'll have a much easier time getting a Japanese person to open up to you.
 
Anyways, that's what I could think of, so hit me with some questions if you want to know more!

It's an interesting post but there's a few false equivalents. Such as, this company is successful, so it means that their marketing/business strategy is the recipe for success. Well, without sales figures it's quite difficult to tell for certain, but I'd say these games are sucessful for different reasons.
For example, Neptunia was poignant at the time for its meta-commentary on RPGs, overused tropes and videogames in general. In reality, the gameplay is quite lacking, even on the remake, and the story gets old pretty fast, becoming a victim of the tropes it parodies. Although, it is important to note that the remake was rewritten, while the original had a more interesting and fresh story.
Nekopara's success has a lot to owe to its short length, cheap price, beautiful art by Sayori and most of all, the E-mote system (whatever you may call it). That is, having the characters move and breathe, as if they were really alive inside our very screens.
 
But beautiful art, a cool story and characters...blah, blah, blah, none of that matters. What matters is memes.
No matter how good or bad Neptunia was at the time, it became popular because of its almost cult following in communities like 4chan, where many gamers for the first time felt that they were playing a game made for them specifically, as people, through the use of constant forth wall breaks. They felt that the characters resembled them in certain ways and it helped strengthen this bond between them. Over time, I'd say that Neptunia de-evolved into mere yuri bait, but I risk triggering the anger of many fans.
Nekopara instantly became known as "the game where you can fuck cute catgirls". To those people who weren't deep enough into otaku culture to know about the existence of bishoujo games, Nekopara might've been their first contact with the genre. And what can I say, it helps that it doesn't beat around the bush with an overcomplicated plot, to the point where it can almost be labeled a "moenukige". Above all, this game is important because it is an escapism fantasy for us humans, who live in a world ruled by cats, giving us the illusion that for once we can rule over the cats.
What these games have in common is being poignant at the time, offering something fresh or never-before-seen...but it's difficult to predict that a game will or not spread like wildfire on social media. An example would DDLC, which is innovating in a way because of how it messes with your game files, but it got popular thanks to its shock factor. It also helps that it's short and a free-to-play game.
 
So, the idea of releasing a translation on as many languages as possible isn't exactly worthwhile especially since most people can speak English and most eroge aren't exactly Shakespearan novels either...and while it is important for Japanese developers to take in account the foreign audiences when making their game, they run the risk of adapting the game to fit certain standards or values, robbing them of what made us like them in the first place.

What's the point of editing it though? You'd just make the thread even more confusing. You should just properly respond to what other people wrote (other than Kiri, that is).
I agree with most points others made here BTW. While Yuzusoft is definitely a company creating top-quality VNs and winning over audiences with just how memorable and fun their games are, Nekopara and HDN are meme factories that appealed to a more mainstream crowd and managed to go viral. If there are lessons in them that could help VNs be more successful... I'm not sure if they should be learned. It's not like those games don't have their appeal points (I've recently played the first Neptunia game and it was extremely cute, while Nekopara, while I find it intensely creepy, is undeniably stunning visually), but I wouldn't want most of my VNs to be like them. :< And from these companies, only NEKO WORKs did the "unusual" thing by releasing Japanese and English versions simultaneously from the very beginning. It worked out for them amazingly, but I don't think many companies would be able to repeat this kind of success and good-quality translation is still a large investment.

Denpasoft started stocking some OSTs in their catalogue (very limited selection though, obviously)

I remember Tsugumi's route in Ever17 being incredibly impactful and memorable for me especially the moment when I got to find out why was the way she was.
Honestly, I thought it was much more shocking than the revelation at the end but maybe that's because I hadn't encountered a character like that before.
 
Tomoyo's ending during her route in Clannad is still the best endings to a route that I have seen and man, oh, man did it get the waterworks going. (Happy tears but tears nonetheless)
I also picked the perfect song for it which really elevated the ending still further
 

There's a lot of hardcore sexual content (like this) in the VN. You need to make sure you can handle it first before you go into this (you said you disliked rape, so I'm assuming you dislike more extreme sexual content in general)
It's worth it to bear through those in my opinion. The twisted story line is pretty unique among TL-ed VNs (I don't think there's another EN one like it as of now); it's deep and interesting (kinda like the twist on the true route although not the ending itself) and thought-provoking (at least for me for Nemu and Kanae's routes).
If you can handle those sexual stuff (note: some of it do play a part in the plot and the development of it in some routes) and a plot which is darker and more twisted than most stories you will read, then you should definitely read this VN  

You forgot Nastuki. According to trip, Natsuki is the shortest route. 
I don't remember my exact times, but Marika is a tad longer than Misa and Sora would be in the middle overall. Touko is apparently long, but I haven't finished that one yet. 

There's a lot of hardcore sexual content (like this) in the VN. You need to make sure you can handle it first before you go into this (you said you disliked rape, so I'm assuming you dislike more extreme sexual content in general)
It's worth it to bear through those in my opinion. The twisted story line is pretty unique among TL-ed VNs (I don't think there's another EN one like it as of now); it's deep and interesting (kinda like the twist on the true route although not the ending itself) and thought-provoking (at least for me for Nemu and Kanae's routes).
If you can handle those sexual stuff (note: some of it do play a part in the plot and the development of it in some routes) and a plot which is darker and more twisted than most stories you will read, then you should definitely read this VN  

Coming from a fellow Japanese learner / Clephas-level of JP proficiency wannabe who has started and stopped twice (most recent - 2 months ago) in learning JP, I would say first of all you should ask yourself whether or not you have the endurance and motivation to succeed.
Japanese is a complex language (duh at myself) with thousands of letters (katakana, hiragana, and most common kanjis used combined) and misc stuff (particles, grammer etc) to memorize (a lot of them like the particles have multiple meaning/usage too). By my estimation, you will need to invest at least a year of constant studying (attending classes or not) to read the average VN comfortably (may take you, I dun know, 6 months if you feel you can study and practice everyday though).
This post isn't meant to scare you, but rather to mentally prepare you for it (I think most people gets overwhelmed by the language because they did not know what to expect). Come in only when you feel you can go through  with it, otherwise you will be wasting your time. Of course, you should think of the reward: you will gain access to comprehensibility to not only Visual Novels, but everything else in Japan
(FYI, the reason I lost motivation to JPN leaning isn't mainly due to the difficulty to it, but rather I can read CN and there was a skew of CN TL releases which I don't have the self discipline to put aside for the sake for learning Japanese as I started learning it mainly to read JPN VNs anyway. If that's wasn't the case, I would probably be able to comfortably read JPN Vns by now   )

I don't know how TexasDice timed it, but there are several ways to do that. One would be by installing Playnite. You can use it to keep track of your entire game collection, or just do what I do and use it for all the stuff (mostly VNs) that you don't have on Steam or other store platforms. Here's what it looks like for me:

No. This must be done inside the BIOS, though if you were able to play Skyrim or Fallout before on this laptop, then I don't think the video memory is the issue (despite what the error message tells you) and the age of the VN is the culprit
 
Compatibility mode in Windows has always been wonky; I could never get it to run VNs requiring older Windows version.
One simple method (and is the solution I am using now) is to download a Virtual Machine Emulator like VMware Player, install an older Windows OS in it, and run your VN via that OS. Works like a charm for me
 

Hello!
I'm a new member of Italy, there are any italians here?
My favourite VN is Katawa Shoujo, do you know it? ♥
I'm writing my personal VN project, in italian, but I need a musician and other members. I'm so excited, it's a very important stuff for me.
Thank you for reading!
GIATA

@vizualfan
https://www.cnet.com/products/lenovo-g500-15-6-core-i5-3230m-4-gb-ram-500-gb-hdd/
Your laptop should be that model.
Spam delete or F12 upon bootup of your laptop. There should be an option to change how much video memory the iGPU will share with the RAM

@Stormwolf
I did with A5 (Only Takae's route though). Horrible experience. You can only understand about 75% of all dialogues by my estimation, and out of those you have to guess what the dialogue text means more than half the time.
My time with MTR (more specially, Translation Aggregator + ITHVNR combo) is negative. A full Visual Novel experience is more than just understanding, or trying to / guessing, what the dialogue is trying to say. Spending most of your time trying to guess the text is frankly very tiring and while you may get a idea of what's happening, you can't get what the VN is trying to convey. Ultimately it's a very disjointed experience and  I would rather not read it at all as opposed MTL-ing it. The only positive thing I can think of is that it serves it's purpose very well when trying to experience a fap-ge
Actually I feel so strongly about it now that I would encourage anyone who has an notion to MTL VNs to give it a try. I believe most will come to the same conclusion as I did.

@Stormwolf
I did with A5 (Only Takae's route though). Horrible experience. You can only understand about 75% of all dialogues by my estimation, and out of those you have to guess what the dialogue text means more than half the time.
My time with MTR (more specially, Translation Aggregator + ITHVNR combo) is negative. A full Visual Novel experience is more than just understanding, or trying to / guessing, what the dialogue is trying to say. Spending most of your time trying to guess the text is frankly very tiring and while you may get a idea of what's happening, you can't get what the VN is trying to convey. Ultimately it's a very disjointed experience and  I would rather not read it at all as opposed MTL-ing it. The only positive thing I can think of is that it serves it's purpose very well when trying to experience a fap-ge
Actually I feel so strongly about it now that I would encourage anyone who has an notion to MTL VNs to give it a try. I believe most will come to the same conclusion as I did.

@Stormwolf
I did with A5 (Only Takae's route though). Horrible experience. You can only understand about 75% of all dialogues by my estimation, and out of those you have to guess what the dialogue text means more than half the time.
My time with MTR (more specially, Translation Aggregator + ITHVNR combo) is negative. A full Visual Novel experience is more than just understanding, or trying to / guessing, what the dialogue is trying to say. Spending most of your time trying to guess the text is frankly very tiring and while you may get a idea of what's happening, you can't get what the VN is trying to convey. Ultimately it's a very disjointed experience and  I would rather not read it at all as opposed MTL-ing it. The only positive thing I can think of is that it serves it's purpose very well when trying to experience a fap-ge
Actually I feel so strongly about it now that I would encourage anyone who has an notion to MTL VNs to give it a try. I believe most will come to the same conclusion as I did.

Try (re)installing .NET framework and/or Visual C++

(Technically my fuwaversary was yesterday,)
Damn, it’s been a whole year since I joined Fuwanovel because of a bad experience I had r/VNs. Which is funny, because I joined fuwa right around my spring break and it’s my spring break again. 
 
Anyway, quite a few things happened to me since I joined Fuwa, I mainly wanted to contribute more the fuwa community because this one of the few bastions of intellectual discussion regarding EVNs. Most people on reddit think EVNs are shit, because all they read over there are JVNs. I wanted to help more here at Fuwanovel. I even throw some money at this website. (Hence I am a backer) After I learned that Fuwanovel is basically at a stand still because @Tay is really busy. I decided to help around in the EVN scene.
 
Some of the things I am working on right now. I am an EVN dev for the most part. I am working on getting a visual novel out in the summer. It’s my first one actually. I put it on hiatus because life, and thanks to VN conference, I got super motivated to further my career in this very very niche market within the otaku realm. So, look forward to that. I will post an update on that soon enough because I have my voice actors and a background artist. That audition was fun. 
 
Right now, I am at Watercress Studios as a new programmer. I joined the team back on February 18th.  So far, this is my first time making an EVN as part of a jam. If you are familiar with Watercress Studios, we are making a “very watercress” EVN. This photo should give you a hint. 
This is a EVN for NaNoReNo, so obviously it’s coming out after march. I would love for all of you guys to try it out and write some reviews on it.
#ThisWasForYou
https://twitter.com/TeamWatercress
Make sure you follow us on twitter because we’ve just been spilling all kinds of stuff on this visual novel. 
A watercress member founded a new studio called Colorless and I am an assistant writer for an EVN called Gilded Gamers. There is no expected release date, so it’s going to be a while. 
 
So basically, I am working on three visual novels at the current moment. If you’re still reading this long post, Thank you.  Let me tell I you why I like developing EVNs. I’ve said this before on Fuwanovel. But I believe that visual novels are art. Maybe because I am young and I am not jaded as the older otakus in this fandom. But I truly believe that the EVN medium is on the cusp of a revolution. I can see it. I can imagine it. I know it’s going to happen. 
 
 
I sincerely don’t want this to be the case anymore. Visual novels need to be a starter medium, and the best way to accomplish that is to create EVNs. EVNs that normies  will wanna read. EVNs that will break what I call the Otaku Barrier where @Clephas talks about how VNs snatch otaku form other mediums. 
 
I wanna thank everyone here from @Plk_Lesiak, @tymmur, @Clephas, and everyone else for all the knowledge you have given me. Regarding the visual novel medium. I want to thank @Tay for helping maintain fuwa after all the drama during the great pirate era. I want to thank @solidbatman for being cool. I want to thank @Kiriririri for all the 
You don’t know how happy I am to be part of such a great community. Thank you.
 
Now, you guys can ask me any question. Nothing is off-limits. 
 
Oh yeah here’s my twitter: https://twitter.com/Happine27386045
 
 

Fuwanovel circa 2022

 
(try this)