Chronopolis

You know, for Futekikakasha I loved the characters' friendship with each other so much that it filled me up with happiness/admiration/adoration. Because the threat they faced wasn't developed, it didn't sink in as real just felt like a part of the plot to me. But it did surprise me near the end that made me dismay.
 
Konakana didn't really hit me emotionally, though it was interesting enough to experience the utsuge (it's kinda different).
 
Muramasa didn't strike home, but it still was depressing in parts. More noteworthy where the couple times were I found myself swallowing bile in horror/disgust.
 
As my first VN, Saya no Uta had me depressed for 2 weeks. Can say I wasn't ready for it and didn't even realize what was happening for a while. Just felt empty and like a veil of heavy gloom was always weighing down above my eyes.
 
Gin'iro still comes off as the best depressing work I have played: specifically the first story and it's special "pair" story you see near the end of the novel. The premise sets it up to utsuge-like at a high level already, and then the actual story is the right length (shortish), memorable in it's text, and has a number of lasting-impression scenes which convey the emotions well. ...And then the pair story. If the first was the tragic mournful moon, the god, this is a glimpse of its dark side.
 
There's also Gore Screaming Show, which has pretty damn heavy routes in ADDITION to a gloomy common route. I almost felt like crying in Kiika's route, I couldn't take it. Some of the depressingness comes from VN's down to earthness: the characters and the description both reference real life more than most stories).

To get into the true hype spirit...
 
... let's all jump on the hype train.
 

 
*continues exploding*
 
Funny enough, most of my hype stems from the quote "What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind." at 1:17 of the OP, which just so happens to be one of my favorite quotes of all time.

Hi Fuwanovel,
 
I would like to try something out with the Fuwanovel podcast that I hope will be received well by the community and facilitate more visual novel discussion here on the forums and outside of the website with friends. This idea was originally suggested by sanahtlig when he thought that The Major and I should make a few changes to the YouTube videos of the podcast to help traffic people into listening to older episodes. I wanted to take that a step further with this test thread. I apologize that it isn't as eye catchy or enthusiastic as some of my other work I have posted, but with all of the recent stuff that has occurred in the past couple of days on Fuwanovel, I am still extremely stressed about posting things I used to be comfortable with, so I am going straight to the point and trying to remain neutral.
 
Anyways, I just finished recording episode 12 of the podcast. The topic was about how newcomers should be exposed to VNs. 5 members gave their opinions about what they felt were good selections for them to play. Whether you are a veteran, newcomer, female, or nukige player, all sides of the matter were addressed. Using that topic from the most recent recording, I wanted to open up the discussion to the forums as well to see what you think.
 
Linked below is the podcast episode. You can either listen to it on my Mixcloud account or download it directly (in mp3 format) from my Google Drive.
 
Mixcloud: https://www.mixcloud.com/OriginalRen/test-test
 
Direct Download: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7ivNNDDfsj5cGFMTUFfcTY0enc/edit?pli=1
 
After listening to the podcast episode, feel free to share your own opinions about this topic in the thread. Listed below some of the questions that were asked in some way or another during the cast.
 
Some questions that were asked during the podcast:
What games do you recommend every newcomer checks out when it comes to playing visual novels? Which VNs do you think they should avoid? How important do you feel comedy is when introducing newcomers to a VN? How important are emotional situations? Major companies (Sekai Project, Mangagamer, etc.) are working hard to translate VNs for the world and bring the genre to many players, both old and new. What are you opinions on their style of business? Do you feel gaming platforms such as Steam are a good introductory way of showcasing visual novels? Would you recommend OELVNs or Japanese translated VNs for those who are just starting out? What are your opinions when comparing them? Name 1 visual novel that you absolutely think nobody should ever play ever. Why did you chose it?  
Feel free to answer any or all of these questions in the thread. If there is something in the podcast episode that you want to expand or comment on, feel free to do this as well. This area is meant for discussion about the episode and the overall theme of how we can expose new members to visual novels, regardless of what you like.
 

 
Why am I creating this thread?
 
I think this is a good idea for a few reasons. First, I think this is a good chance for people to share their opinions about the podcast if they were interested in volunteering but didn't get the chance to join. People who aren't comfortable with talking in person can also join the discussion and share their thoughts about the given topic.
 
Second, I was hoping that after this thread's discussion dies down in a week or 2, I could post older episodes of the cast using the same format and start a whole new discussion topic about something related to VNs. I will try to avoid the themed episodes from the previous recordings (Grisaia, Hoshizora) so spoilers don't become an issue, but the rest of the episodes might be interesting. By doing this, I hope more people will facilitate in visual novel discussion and actively want to suggest and volunteer for future episodes.
 
Finally, I think this is good for the moderating team on Fuwanovel. Instead of discussing threads that are cluttering the chatter section, they can focus their attention on something that will have a lot of varying opinions and be fun to participate in I hope.
 
Anyways, I hope this thread and others after it help spark some discussion in the visual novel section of the forums in the coming weeks. I also hope people become more interested in the podcast a little more as a result. Thanks again.

Episode 12 is now released. I hope you enjoy the cast.
 

 
Here are the respective links to the 12th episode of the podcast:
 
Direct Google Drive Download: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7ivNNDDfsj5cGFMTUFfcTY0enc&authuser=0
 
Mixcloud Upload: https://www.mixcloud.com/OriginalRen/test-test

Decently well. I haven't done any in a few months, so what I have isn't quite up to date, but here:
http://i.imgur.com/bgSX2f8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/4ZS8p2V.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/odm749e.jpg

I love sci-fi. I think I've gotten roped up with another project for now, but depending on the workload (as well as when exactly you decide to call upon me), I might be able to offer some help.
 
This goes for everyone else that's interested, too. I don't think I can help now, but if you have a project that you're looking to develop in the future but aren't working on right away, send a PM my way.

They'll go ahead and fuck someone right in the ass

Each medium of art comes with its own caveats and working methods and they all serve the purpose of expressing the story as best as possible through this medium. Thus, each medium has its advantages and disadvantages. A traditional book is usually strong in viewing the story through a highly personalized view and/or making statements that may break the strict confines of our perception of reality. A movie's strengths lie in its ability to directly replicate the world as we experience it and to stand outside of a particular character's viewpoint and watch him/her from the perspective we would have were we actually there.

So, I come to my main point. I enjoy visual novels quite a bit and I'm glad that I can be one of very few people to experience this niche medium but I wonder...why do I enjoy them? Is there something intrinsic to the medium which allows it to engage an audience in a way that no other medium can? Many of the aspects of visual novels are co-opted from previously existing mediums: voice-acting, painted images, music compositions, sound effects, etc. And, of course, since VISUAL novels are meant to be watched, would there be anything lost or gained if the same story was told with equal prowess as a episodic show e.g., an anime? Many movies based on books are disappointing not necessarily because they left out parts of the story (although that can certainly be the case) but because the makers of the movies couldn't find an artistic justification for converting this particular story to a seen format.
 
The visual novel is under-examined by those who know about it and most people aren't even aware of this medium's existence so there're no good references for me to review and I'm busy at the moment so I don't have the time to engage in a "shot-by-shot" analysis of a particular work. So I'd like to ask members of this community what their examinations might reveal. If you have any insights that can be backed up by example and reasoning, I'd be happy to hear them.
 
Cheers.

Obligatory gif
 

Yuri visual novels in English are hard to come by. I'm not saying this is the greatest masterpiece of all time or anything, but it's quite the treat for my eyes and it makes me happy some people would want to create a proper girls love visual novel here in the West. I haven't played the demo yet, but it seemed to have quite the production value.

The creator has worked on a yuri web comic before as well so it's nice to know they have some experience:
http://www.smackjeeves.com/comicprofile.php?id=79991

Some extra info i forgot to mention:
The game will be 9.99$ when released and it'll be all ages.
It's been in production for a couple years and the money is mostly to pay for original sound tracks and programming.

No, I mean am I the only one in this community who doesn't really enjoy moe? Or rather I treat moe like how sugar should be treated, a bit of it every now and then is nice. But too much of it is not so good (at least for me).

Here are the posts so far for the VNs I've played from March.  In order:  Anekouji Naoko to Gin'iro no Shinigami; 11gatsu no Arcadia; Valkyrie Runabout.
 
Enjoy!!!
 
http://forums.fuwanovel.net/index.php?/blog/blog-46/cat-64-giniro-no-shinigami
 
http://forums.fuwanovel.net/index.php?/blog/blog-46/cat-68-11gatsu
 
http://forums.fuwanovel.net/index.php?/blog/46/entry-420-valkyrie-runabout/

You should go read it . The routes were horribly rushed and obviously could be a lot more plotwise and there may be some other flaws, but imo it accomplished do what it tried to do. Mostly through the common route, but also through the branches that follow. The author is obviously a smart guy and there are no shortage of things to think about. It's to the point where the VN is not for people who don't like thinking on the side about ideas, rather than the plot/characters or even themes. It's not that the VN is particularly obtuse or dry either, it's that it passes directly through the town of Thought.

I'd just introduce the guy to Steve and never have to deal with him again. 

I prefer voices. But if it's a great vn, I am okay with no voices.

I promise to get to your piece tomorrow. I'm a bit burnt out from all the homework I have at the moment, so it wouldn't be wise to give a critique in this state.
 
For what it's worth, I have a Bachelor's in Creative Writing. Four years of writing workshops and a lot of essays is a nice way of getting experience, but I'm still a budding writer in many regards. I do whatever I can in order to better myself, even if that means going through other people's pieces, line by line. It's an arduous task, but I feel it will be pay off in the end. I'm not that experienced when it comes to grammar, instead I resort to analyzing the elements of craft. I've bought a few books on grammar, but for the life of me I'm unable to retain much of it XD Most of what I have to offer has been through internalizing what I've learned over the years. Simply put, instinct. Hopefully, I can better express myself in coming years and be able to identify everything by name.
 
I could go into a lot more depth with everyone's pieces, but time constraints prohibit that.

Week 41

Nagisa route translation complete.
All character route translation complete.
3P route remaining. 

Akatsuki no Goei



VNDB -> link

We are a group of people who have been working on Akatsuki no Goei for a few months now. Since we could use some help, we decided to make an announcement here. The game contains Akatsuki no Goei, its Fandisc and Sequel. We are only translating the first game, if we find more translators we might work on all three games.

Overall progress:
Translation: 65%
TLC: 11%
Editing: 0%
QC: 0%


I am not going to post detailed progress. Don’t expect me to update this often, either. If something significant happens, I’ll do so.

Recruitment:
We will not make you take any tests. You will be on a trial period after expressing an interest, I’ll send you a script and explain what and how needs to be done, then judge and let you know if we want you to continue or not. If you are interested in any of the positions send ma a PM, please.
Translation checker: you won’t have much to do - checking ~600 lines for now, but even 50 would be fine. We don’t expect you to work fast, but your Japanese must be good with some knowledge of trivia. Your English doesn’t have to be good, it’s probably enough if you can understand this message.
H-scenes translator: There are already a few scenes waiting to be translated, we skipped them. Also, no time pressure here.
Translators: We don’t really need them right now, but if you are interested I will surely find you something to translate J Your Japanese must be decent (don’t waste our time if you’re going to use machine translation) and English must be good, it’s okay if you make some errors, but your translation must be accurate and comprehensible.

Whether we will release any partial patches or not is still undetermined. It is possible, especially if we find a dedicated TLC soon.
Currently we have three fully translated, two to go. And, since you’ll probably ask, ETA: 2015.

Ezyo22 touches on the important point here. Steampunk is Victorian age, and England was the main driver of innovation throughout the steam/Victorian era. Thus it's only natural that a lot of Steampunk features London as a key part of that world. For example, Gail Carriger takes jaunts through other countries in her steampunk series but the main place it's set is England.
 

I think most people outside of the VN community study textbooks (as well as speaking, writing, listening practice) for a long while until they start getting into substantial native material. If anything, the only thing that matters is continuing to study grammar (keep going until at least n2).
 
Honestly, many questions can be answered through a playing more. If you have a place to ask questions that is incredible helpful.
 
The reason why it's not productive to try and understand everything is that :
a) some topics are too complex to understand for one's level
B) you might not have to means to find the answer to your question (be a person to as who has seen that usage, or can't find it through google)
 
当たる　doesn't have a similiar connotation (if you are talking about "good and bad" connotations). It doesn't really have a connotation. I think what you mean is that it is used in a bunch of ways, some which may seem like a spin-off of the base meaning.
 
Personally, I don't try and think too hard an justify the alternate meanings against a base one. It's too many mental hoops.
 
2 tips:
Use Jparser to provide a hint at the core meaning. Try to remember the context to remember *how" a word is used.
For example, some one could say　当たった！ when their guess turned out to be correct. Remember that situation, the fact that 当たる　can be used to refer to a guess or estimate being on the mark.　
 
I mean there have been words which I've been like "I know I've seen the word used here here and here with this sort of tone, but I don't really know what it means." That's ok. Note it down and ask someone when you get a chance.
 
For this example, don't remember "当たる　= to be called on by the teacher". Remember the situation you saw that meaning of 当たる used in.
 
There will be definitions where it's hard to tell what is doing what. Don't stress too much about words are unclear because of the english definition. Most Jparser definitions are helpful enough, for the ones that aren't you can ask about it, or just move on and wait until you can use a J-J dictionary or figure it out later.
 
Mm, this. Some lines can be solved if you are aware of what is happening (e.g. char A is mad at B because of this). Even if you don't, they provide context for you to gain a vague understanding of when the word is used, and with what tone.

Believe it or not, the forums are not the only part of Fuwanovel. This may surprise some of you, but there are plenty of us that do work for Fuwanovel, often without any help from the "Fuwa Staff". I feel that these people are just as much staff for the site as the Forum mods, and I would like to take a moment to recognize them. 
 
For starters, Zakamutt has almost single handily been carrying the Fuwa Gazette for a while now. He puts in a lot of effort to his Status posts and recruitment posts, aznd has been looking for a team fruitlessly for a while now. Not only does he work as the head of the blog, he also does a ton of the lifting on the official Fuwanovel twitter account, typically posting news at the same moment I do. He also just so happens to be the newest member of the Facebook team and has only screwed up one post to date. 
 
Next up is another blog staff member. JuicyYuuji just started today, but nothing caught fire and no deaths were reported. Indications are he will do just fine.
 
Down is considered one of the Fuwa Staff thanks to his moderation of the forums. He also does some off-forum work in the form of FuwaReviews and assisting in the Fuwanovel twitter account. I made him read School Days HQ, and he absolutely hated it. Despite that, he is moving on to the next review, like a trooper. A true survivor if I've ever seen one.
 
Ryechu reviews nukige and forced me to read ToS agreements to see if we could even post the reviews. Turns out we can. Fuck you censorship. He doesn't just review nukige for FuwaReviews though. He also took on Cho Dengeki Stryker and Magical Witch Diary or something. He also likes Raichu. 
 
No man insults Nohman, the third and final reviewer for the FuwaReviews team. He turns out some really good stuff and obeys my every command. You may also know him as Bill Murray, but I know his true name for those curious. 
 
Nayleen is next up here. Fuck if I know what he does, but sometimes he breaks things, other times he fixes them. Just depends how much he's been drinking. He does some of the coding for Fuwanovel, so if anything seems broken, you know who to blame. 
 
All hail the king of forum spam, Nosebleed. When he isn't posting 100 times a day on the forums, he makes Facebook posts for the page. Usually, he has to go in and answers questions that I reply super sarcastically to. We still await the day when Nico Nico Nii shows itself on the FB page. It will happen.
 
Ryouuuuu/Kyouuuuu might not be able to decide on what his name is, but thats alright. We forgive him anyway. Our resident Facebook Key specialist, if there is Key news about, he is on the case. 99% of my skype messages from him are usually along the lines of "Angel Beats hyyyppeeee!!!!!"
 
Beato is listed as a forum mod, but those pretty game download pages, thats her work. She is the one to usually get those pages up and running. We don't know much of her true nature, but as a Swede, I can only assume she controls Tay like a puppet. 
 
dale is the reason you can fap to a high amount of seeds when downloading games. As the owner of the seedbox we use, nothing gets seeded without his permission. A warning to all lolicons. 
 
For your podcast needs, look no farther than OriginalRen. Even if the episode count is out of order, rest assured you'll find plenty of interesting things in the episodes. Inner workings of the Fuwa staff, interviews with translators, and discussions with regular members all appear at one point or another. 
 
There you have it. Most of, if not all of the Fuwanovel Staff. These guys work off the forums on the real parts of Fuwanovel. Please give these people some thanks and support for what they do off the forums as I feel they are often overlooked on Fuwanovel. 
 
If I forgot anyone else, please let me know. As much as I try to keep up with the staff, sometimes someone will slip through the cracks, especially with all the new changes. 

For me, I've always assossiated green with Fuwanovel.

Well if the other two translators and TLC are qualified, well then *that* is fine. That's not the problem. If you admit (and he admits) that his Japanese is not up to stretch, then he shouldn't be translating. A TLC's job is to double check for the TL and to make sure the post-editor lines are still accurate; it's not to mark and correct a consistently spotty translation. Neither the TLC nor other TL's can prevent the hit to quality caused by an incompetent translator, short of translating the lines in question themselves.
 
Anyways, I think Rooke recognizes this as well, but he's like
1) The translation might have some merits (e.g. good writing), and there are quite a number people who will enjoy it.
 
I don't think multi-TLing is bad, only:
a ) you want to keep things consistent
b ) every TL has to be competent
 
Stawp that. The fact that someone is unable or unwilling to take on an task doesn't take away their freedom to criticize other people's attempts at that task.
 
Depending on your standards, it's also reasonable to believe that below a certain point, doing something that badly becomes unacceptable. It's not particularly friendly to tell someone to be grateful for something they find unacceptable.
 
-----
 
So I've seen the debate of allowing/supporting "bad translations/projects" versus criticizing and opposing them pop up from time to time, and have been wanting to take a stab at sorting this out.
 
Some people tolerate or support all translation projects, largely independent of the quality. I'll call this a laissez faire to translation projects (not particularly concerning oneself with the quality). On the flip side, you have people who would rather not have these poor quality translations occur. Of course, you can't physically stop the group from doing it, so the alternate options are:
a) criticizing the group, in a hope in convincing the project members or other community members;
b-) complaining about such groups (distinguished by a lack of significant purpose or an attempt to convince);
c) vitriol and slander (whether the original accusation is true or false);
or d) investigating and pointing out bad translation works.
{Note that B, C, D are 4chan's VNTL translation thread}
 
Now this post isn't about what people do on either sides of the stance, it's the reasoning behind the laissez faire stance or it's counterpart. From posts in this thread and elsewhere, I've picked up on 3 angles of debate.
 
1) Differing views of the Value of a Product: "Why would you spend so much time working on something to produce a product which I judge to be of little to no value (based on one or more factors). Based on my hand-wave reasoning/intuition, this is not really valid. People value things differently. Asking that is like asking "Why do you see things so differently?".
 
This is the primary reason for supporting laissez faire translations (not particularly concerning oneself with the quality). If people want to take on the translation (various reasons: e-fame, perceived contributing back to the community, wanting to utilize their Japanese or other skills), and other people want to play the game, then who is anyone to stop them?
 
2) Repercussions: A bad translation most likely *will* kill any possible chances for a good translation down the road. I think this is generally accepted as true. With that in mind:
"Even if you stop this translation from going ahead there's no guarantee that the next one will be any better (the previous one by Yandere looked pretty bad as well, for example.)"
This argument won't deter someone in the following (possible valid) mindset.  If only one release can happen and I see one that is unacceptable by my standards, I'll oppose it for sure and take my chances with the next one. If I think unacceptable = not worth doing = enough of a waste of time to be worse than not doing it at all, then the possibility of having the translation never be done doesn't deter me either. As a side note, the odds are probably pretty good that Eustia will get a translation within the next 5 years.
 
3) Literature integrity: First of all, I think it's safe to say that the majority of us believe that VN's have artistic or literary merit.
Here's one of the two stances: "I'm respecting the literature that the author put out. This is not a debate about intellectual property rights, it's a debate about respect for the arts."
Honestly, I haven't seen any one state their reason for an opposite stance on this front. There's probably not a whole lot of room to argue against on this one.
If the people releasing the a bad translation misrepresent it as "good" and representative of the original work, then that's unacceptable for most people, I think. As a side note, the people who would do bad translations are more prone to misjudging their capabilities. No group releases their patch calling it a bad translation. Even in the face of being pointed out, it's understandably difficult for the team members to acknowledge that, much less publicly renounce the fact. Overall it's not the most pleasant situation for both sides (this would fall under "repercussions"). If people for some don't learn that a certain translation they read was bad, and think the bad translation is representative of the original work, then that's definitely unfair to the original author. Whether this is unfairness is unacceptable or not, I don't know what people think about this. Note that people might discuss what they read and the popular (flawed) opinion might arise that is unfair to the original author. If most readers are aware of that the translation is bad (it should be widely known to fall under this case), then they know at least that the translation isn't representative of the original work, though they won't be people to know *where* the inaccuracies are. They might be less quick to judge the original author. However, I argue that people are still going to attach their perception of the translated work heavily to the original. Firstly, people are going to judge anyways because expressing one's opinion (on a work) is a pretty common thing to do, and you're not going to disclaimer everything you say or think with the the thought that sections could be wrong. It's easy to forget that a bad translation could possibly affect every part of the VN (you don't know as the reader). I think it's also disheartening to: feel that the game one has had the chance to read (and enjoyed) bears a bad translation, and is inferior because of it. confront the fact that the one's perception of the game is probably negatively impacted by the translation and any verdicts one makes is through that translucent screen. As a result, I think in practice people don't give relatively much thought regarding a bad translation they knowingly read and judge. So the end result is largely the same (unfair to the author). In conclusion, I believe that Angle 1) are the primary reason why people would support laissez faire translations (not particularly concerning oneself with the quality of every translation). Angle 2 and 3 are basically all demerits to this stance. Namely, one would believe that the enjoyment held by the persons involved outweighs the closing of that VN to a possible good translation or any literary injustice.
 
I think both stances are valid, but I get the feeling of inconsistencies creeping into some posts.
TLDR: If you support X, consider your stances and the logic that would finally arrive at you supporting X. Make sure you are clear on what you disagree with. That's my two cents, anyways.