Chronopolis

Thank me later  
 

I'm able to read a VN without problems (2,5 years self-study, 10.000 individual words learned), but I wouldn't be able to hold a simple conversation, simply because I never practiced it. You can have a near-fluent passive language-ability (reading, hearing), but that doesn't guarantee a sufficient active language-ability (speaking, writing). That's nothing surprising. It's the basic difference between recall and creation.
Your course of action should depend on your goal. I never intended to actually speak a lot Japanese, so I focused my study on learning vocabs and a skimming through some grammar. If you just want to read VNs, a good spaced repetition system (Anki), a good grammar guide (imabi.net), exposition to the language (Anime subbed or even jap-subbed) and willpower (continuing to read untranslated even though it's a hassle in the beginning; doing your daily reviews) is all you need. I've never even done a single school-like exercise.
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On a sidenote: I don't recommend Memrise as a SRS anymore. The devs have no clue what they are doing with their site.
 
 

http://mangagamer.org/gahkthun/
Woot! I thought for sure that this would slip into 2016, but MangaGamer is managing to squeeze it in just before the year's end, getting it out there December 23rd! For those who don't know, this is the latest entry in Liarsoft's acclaimed Steampunk franchise, which also contains the popular fan translated titles Sekien no Inganock and Shikkoku no Sharnoth. They're a unique setting in VNs. Some of the games are set in fictional locations within the world, but some like Gahkthun, are set in early 20th century Europe, fusing together steampunk, fantasy, and science fiction themes with a hint of lovecraftian horror. The sky overhead is under a permanent blanket of smog, while the seas have been dyed black by pollution. Gahkthun takes place in Marseille, France in 1908, starring one Nikola Tesla. This shit couldn't possibly be more nerdy and I love it. Each game in the series is written by Sakurai Hikaru, notable for her poetic prose. This prose is something that was pretty much lost entirely in the Amaterasu translations of Inganock and Sharnoth, but Gahkthun's translation is being handled by Koestl instead. Koestl, known for his absolutely excellent Grisaia translation, is trying to preserve as much of the feel of the original work as possible. 
In case you can't tell, I'm super excited for this. I was a fan of the previous games and this one looks awesome. I really want it to do well so MangaGamer and Liar-soft wants to release the rest of the series and possibly other Liar-soft VNs as well. Anyone else excited for this?

I know the feel. Have fun!

Minami from Soshite Ashita no Sekai Yori (Not sure if it was that much character development, but she goes from carefree to crushed to overcoming that which was a cool drama to watch)
Caim's development in Aiyoku no Eustia (particularly in the chapters other than the last).
Maimi (the MC) from Mugen Renkan ~Chijoku ni Mamireshi Fushiki no Rinbu~ . Just a staggering amount of character growth. The whole VN is centered around her story, after all.

JUST FUCKING PLAY IT ITS FUCKING DISGUSTING IN THE BEST WAY EVER!
seriously, the more I play through the trial, the more I love it.
Also the BGM tries to be faithful to the style of the OP in the combat scenes which is extremely rare in VNs and it works beautifully. the soundtrack overall is basically 9/10 close to the best OST I have ever heard.

One Last Time
Protag and a few friends (3~4?) wake up to find themselves in another world, where they must work together to survive and overcome hardships while searching for a way to return to their own world. With their teamwork, they easily surmount the various challenges presented against them, finally reaching their destination. However, they are told only one of them can return at a time. The rest will have to do it again from the start. You choose one of the characters to send back.
Protag and a few friends (minus the one sent back last time) wake up in the same world, with no knowledge of the previous loop. Once again, they work through the same hardships, though a little more difficult this time, and reach their destination once again. There, they're met with the same decision: choose a character to send back.
This keeps on going, with each loop becoming more difficult than the last as their numbers dwindle. In the end, with only two left, they barely make it to their destination. Both the protag and the remaining characters know that neither will be able to complete the quest on their next loop. The protag sends the last remaining friend home.
The protagonist wakes up alone, with no knowledge of past loops. He must brave the hardships one last time, but this time, there is no one to help him along the way.

It's made by GSC so yeah it's pretty highly detailed.
 
Also that VN you have looks beautiful.

There are things that feel urgent but actually aren't important in the long run. There likely is time you're spending each day doing stuff you actually don't care about. For me it's browsing reddit and facebook (when I'm unmotivated) or playing random games. You can make an effort to pull time from there.
If after that you still have a list of things that are kinda important to you, it's up to you to decide which ones are more important to you. If VN's are your "me time" then by all means take some.
You could also try and look for ways to keep doing both activities, but trying to get the most out of the time.
 

There are things that feel urgent but actually aren't important in the long run. There likely is time you're spending each day doing stuff you actually don't care about. For me it's browsing reddit and facebook (when I'm unmotivated) or playing random games. You can make an effort to pull time from there.
If after that you still have a list of things that are kinda important to you, it's up to you to decide which ones are more important to you. If VN's are your "me time" then by all means take some.
You could also try and look for ways to keep doing both activities, but trying to get the most out of the time.
 

There are things that feel urgent but actually aren't important in the long run. There likely is time you're spending each day doing stuff you actually don't care about. For me it's browsing reddit and facebook (when I'm unmotivated) or playing random games. You can make an effort to pull time from there.
If after that you still have a list of things that are kinda important to you, it's up to you to decide which ones are more important to you. If VN's are your "me time" then by all means take some.
You could also try and look for ways to keep doing both activities, but trying to get the most out of the time.
 

There are things that feel urgent but actually aren't important in the long run. There likely is time you're spending each day doing stuff you actually don't care about. For me it's browsing reddit and facebook (when I'm unmotivated) or playing random games. You can make an effort to pull time from there.
If after that you still have a list of things that are kinda important to you, it's up to you to decide which ones are more important to you. If VN's are your "me time" then by all means take some.
You could also try and look for ways to keep doing both activities, but trying to get the most out of the time.
 

There are things that feel urgent but actually aren't important in the long run. There likely is time you're spending each day doing stuff you actually don't care about. For me it's browsing reddit and facebook (when I'm unmotivated) or playing random games. You can make an effort to pull time from there.
If after that you still have a list of things that are kinda important to you, it's up to you to decide which ones are more important to you. If VN's are your "me time" then by all means take some.
You could also try and look for ways to keep doing both activities, but trying to get the most out of the time.
 

There are things that feel urgent but actually aren't important in the long run. There likely is time you're spending each day doing stuff you actually don't care about. For me it's browsing reddit and facebook (when I'm unmotivated) or playing random games. You can make an effort to pull time from there.
If after that you still have a list of things that are kinda important to you, it's up to you to decide which ones are more important to you. If VN's are your "me time" then by all means take some.
You could also try and look for ways to keep doing both activities, but trying to get the most out of the time.
 

VN arrived in the mail: 

Wow, that's really cool. It's pretty cool when steps you take turn out to be rewarding ones.
I can also attest to having gotten interested in 'story writing/structure' from VN's, to try and answer the question: "What are VN's? What the heck is this medium I like so much?". It doesn't exactly work to write a text story modeled after VN's, since they also got graphics (creates/demands a scene in of itself), audio (creates the atmosphere instantly), and voice acting working for them. But at the core, if not presentation, the storytelling and characters are shared between VN's and novels, which makes writing the latter perfectly good enough for me. But there are some areas where it might be hard to match the experience of a VN's.
I'm wondering, what do you like about VN's? Did you have the idea of wanting to make a VN from the get go, or did you feel the story you come up with was made to be presented as VN?
Good luck on your project. Hope it keeps going well for your project, looking forward to the demo. Welcome to Fuwa, btw!

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From the spoilers I've read, the cutscenes sound (unintentionally) hilarious and I'm ready to fully embrace Starcraft's transformation into Dragon Ball Z.
That said, I haven't even played Heart of the Swarm yet, lol. I should get on that because the campaigns do sound fun. I played SC2:WoL multiplayer for a short spell but I don't think that's something I could keep up, and I don't feel like paying for additional campaigns until they're real cheap.

I'm the kind of guy that loves discovery and researching stuff. With EVE, I spend about as much time studying this game as I do actually playing it. I appreciate the change in pace from the usual 'go in and blow stuff up' that most other MMOs go for. With EVE, you're given a lot of freedom in what you do and the direction you want to go in. You start off building yourself up with your career of choice, and you invest time, effort, and finances into improving yourself at it. It's realistic in a sense that you benefit more from long-term planning than just simply winging it. There's also a pretty solid learning curve that not only serves to develop your career proficiency, but also comes with a great feeling of accomplishment whenever you complete difficult tasks. The steepness of that learning curve will mostly depend on your patience and attention to detail. If you can pick up on most things during your operations, and don't mind waiting a while for the big ships, you should be able to progress in the game smoothly. If not, think of this as a good opportunity for personal development. There are many aspects of life, and even gaming, that can be enhanced by these qualities.
I'm pretty much sold on EVE. It's the first time in a while I've felt this level of immersion in an MMO. My first self-imposed challenge is to buy a plex before my trial runs out. Kinda have to anyways since I'm broke this month, and it'll be good practice to play this game with limitations. So far, I've managed to complete the Sisters of EVE Epic Arc with an Algos (Dagan was so hard to beat with 109 dps), and I'm currently running lvl 1 missions in preparation for when I have the skills to efficiently use a Vexor. Not sure if I'll reach 1B before my trial ends, but I'll keep trying!

Picked up some things at a con I went to:
A cute Reset figure~
 
And some doujins which I would post the pics of if I knew I were allowed to, so I'll just do some links instead:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CSvQ06LVEAAUV-k.jpg 
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CSvQ1VLUEAASOd9.jpg 
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CSvQ1v_UcAAGFSw.jpg 
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CSvQ2J8U8AAhxtd.jpg 
 
 
Finally, I went to a movie called "Anthem of the Heart" and got their little theater bonus. Such an amazing film, might be my fave ever:

 

A homemade Hanako Dakimakura that was a commission for me!  Here is the actual drawing for it.  :3
http://tk8305.deviantart.com/art/Dakimakura-Commission-TK8305-Hanako-531684149

So this the next VN to be released by Clock Up on November 27th.
OP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNK7WZRVZtQ
Trial version http://clockup.net/maggotbaits/download.html or http://www.getchu.com/soft.phtml?id=867581
Story http://clockup.net/maggotbaits/story.html
A bit more stuff about the VN http://clockup.net/staff/date/2015/09/
Seems like it might pick up where euphoria left off in terms of "might be a nukige, but definitely worth playing for the story, anyway".
Also, the OP is pretty cool.

Nope.
Nope.
Not only wrong, but approaching the level of 'you couldn't be more wrong'.
Nope, and not for you to say.
Nope.
Nope.
This debate is starting to descend into remarkable levels of retardness.

I just created a new "All translated VNs years chart" so I thought about sheering it with all on Fuwa.
Note that Nugike are excluded from a chart and only a first fully translated release is counted.

 

I agree and can confirm many of these points. I've talked to a few anime fans I know and they have the most unpredictable of reactions when I tell them about VNs. Some think it's just for fapping, others hate the concept even though they call themselves otakus and the funniest example of all: The people that introduced me to anime loved Fate/Zero. I went and read F/SN before watching that. When I told them what the source material of the Fate franchise was and showed them F/SN, they literally told me: "You fucking ruined the show for me." Because logic. I have also tried to present VNs to friends of mine who enjoy literature, and VNs with similar themes to the books they love. Most of the replies I get are snide comments about how "that is for dumbasses and horny teens", that it is "dumbed down trash for people who can't enjoy literature", etc...
Anyway, there are still some great games to TL, but their themes might not be the best for the West in general. For example, most Nitro+ titles are like crack for me, but their themes such as pedophillia in Saya no Uta, the ending of Kikokugai, the rape scene in Hanachirasu, those are all themes that this market frowns upon. Honestly, the only franchise I've seen get away with having sex in it is The Witcher and even then it's finicky for some. Many VNs are good and could be TLed (I won't speak of the untranslatable problem since I don't know moonspeak), but what assures us that entities such as Fox News and over-zealous religious people won't immediately rip them to shreds with their narrow mindedness and sense of "decency and morals"? I can already smell the smoke from the torches and imagine the pitchforks that would claim that "this is what's ruining our youths and oh please, will anyone think of the poor children!".
Am I blowing this out of proportion? Mayhaps, but I prefer to remain pessimistic rather than have my hopes shattered, as much as I'd like VNs to be more recognised and acknowledged in the West.