Chronopolis

When it comes to the left wing stuff I think the reason a lot of people blame them is that you have companies like Sony mentioning things like Me too (which I think is a good movement, though in some cases like this seems to be missused) as a reason for censoring games in japan as well as people using 3rd wave femanist agenda to prevent games like dead or alive extreeme 3 to get a western release. When it comes to consoles the left and SJW generally are considered the bad guys causing censorship. As for steam I think it is different as they there use child exploitation as a reason to ban something, ofc they lack consistancy but the important thing is that from what I have seen the steam ban thing doesn't seem to do with the left wing or SJWs.
 
As for what I think actually is going on is just that a lot of prudish people use whatever excuse they can to get things they don't like, 3rd wave femenism is a thing that is supported by the main stream media therefore it is easy to just try to draw some bullshit from there and use it to ban something you don't like. People hate pedophilia therefore lets try to equate anime games with pedophilia because we don't like anime games etc. I don't really think these things are that political I think people just use the politics they see has the best effect to ban what they want banned. You want something banned because you are religious and think it is sinfull, well most people won't listen to you if you are honest in the western part of the world so just twist some talking points from something more sociably accepted to further your censorship goal.
 
A clear example of this is that one organisation that claimed to be responsible for steam censorship (don't remember their name) even though they weren't. They were clearly motivated by religion, if you digged into their arguments on their main site and looked at the people involved this is quite clear, however on twitter they used generally rhetoric about exploitation as well as things that could fit into the SJW category if I remember correctly. So pretty much their public stance which most people saw was ban all porn ficitional and live action because it exploits people, human traficing etc. while on their site they had articles about how bad it is that soft core porn is becoming available in some muslim countries and BS about how it negativly effects marriage, which if you read a bit of it you see there is no real science behind it.

DOWNLOAD: https://djnostyle.itch.io/nothing-is-beautiful
VNDB: https://vndb.org/v26715
This is the story of a girl who loves whales and a boy who eats too much candy.
"What will happen to us in the summer?"
A simple question from a simple girl -- but one that Yuu is unable to answer. 
Cursed with a severe case of psychosis at birth, Yuu sees and hears things that no one else can.  
These delusions, which come in waves brought on by the weight of God and past traumas, turn his daily life into an endless struggle toward normalcy. 
The game takes place over a two-week period at the end of high school. 
Please live a beautiful life.
God is watching.
Amen.
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Hey, everyone! Please check out Nothing is Beautiful.
It's a psychological drama I'm writing and producing entirely on my own.
Every asset in this game is royalty-free and, as such, the full game will be free as well upon release.
Right now, the demo covers the first day of a two-week period.
Please be advised, this game does have several dark themes and deals heavily with the impact of religion on the human psyche.
If you have an issue with that, I completely understand and hold nothing against you.
I do, however, hope that those of you who aren't put off by this enjoy the world I have created.
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HEROINES: (All designed by Liah)
Saki

Your childhood friend and source of free food and laundry.
She is very kind and loves whales.
Please be nice to her. She is very sad.
Reina

Your classmate.
You used to be close, but you stopped hanging out with her for some reason.
You don't know why.
Her three sizes are 89/61/88 and she loves horror movies.
Miu

Your kouhai.
She will act brave. She is lying.
Do not love her until she learns to love herself.
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There is no planned release date for the full project as of yet, but I'll continue working hard to 
deliver a very memorable experience. Thanks for reading!

Lucky you enjoy it. Whilst the romantic overtones were nice they were too few and I struggled with Takagi and just wanted to throttle the fucking bitch and gave up a few episodes into season 2.

No one's given you the most important advice of all - be prepared to be disappointed. By the nature of the difficulty and size of the projects, very few random people in their first translation project stick around to the end.

5)
related to 1) but should be made clearer: start small. A 2000 line project, or even a 10,000 line one, is much more doable than a 40k line monster. I guess if you legitimately can't find a short VN you're interested in that's a problem, but if your translator is reading VNs in Japanese - as they should be able to - then might have some decent recommendations.
If you can use your illustration skills to edit UI/text images, that'd be a useful outlet for your skills. Many projects need image editing.

@Asonn I do agree it is difficult for someone other than the main translator to be a leader... but not every translator has leadership or organization skills.  Hell, I know for a fact that I  make a horrible project leader, because I don't have the patience to multitask when that multitasking requires me to be social, lol.
The main reason that we translators end up as the leaders is because a lot of us are on an ego trip that results in control freak obsessions.  To be blunt, most translators aren't good writers, which is why all those stages (editor, proofreader, translation-checker) are needed to clean things up. 
Ideally, you should find the most realistic and down to earth person in the group that has social skills and actually cares about the project to run things.  When a translator feels he has to run things from beginning to end, it almost inevitably results in poor atmosphere, fights over little things, the project slowing then stalling, and eventually disbandment.  There are probably translators who can keep an even keel and don't go on ego trips when running a group... but so far, I haven't met any, including myself.  That's why I don't run any sort of translation project anymore. 
Edit: In the end, this is just my opinion.  In any field, there are talented individuals who can do everything with a certain level of proficiency.  Generally speaking, the main translator should usually be the one who picks the project (or suggest several projects and lets the group decide as a whole, depending on the situation), because no translator is going to stick around for a project he isn't interested in.  It's too much work.

Started playing Otome ga Tsumugi Koi no Canvas . I'm playing for the icha icha to come, lol.
It's a nice heartful charage. For a jousou vn the protagonist is sometimes impossibly good at being a maid, and there are overly kira kira sappy moments which kind of makes me roll my eyes.
The art and voice acting is really great though. The characters outfits is quite good. My favourite voicing is Akie, who has the same VA as Irene from Eustia.

Whew, finished Mashiro Iro Symphony. It was definitely the best moege I've played so far (I read it two times in a row, first PC, then PSP version, and had great fun both times )
I liked almost everything about it - likeable characters, nice comedy parts, just right amount of drama for things to not become stale, pretty good stories in routes, beautiful art and music...
BTW I feel that Princess Evangile was quite inspired by this title.
The highlight is without a doubt Airi's route, and it was the first one I've read.

Airi is tsundere, but a lovely one And her route features great character development. It was quite heartwarming to watch how she changes and opens up to others. I also loved how the relationship between her and Shingo progresses naturally, without sudden jumps (this applies to most of other routes as well). The H content was also handled exceptionally well I'd say. (The only part that felt shoehorned-in was obbligatory classroom scene Same in Sakuno's route). The scenes were focused mainly on the bond between characters, and generally had that "sex as expression of love" approach. They weren't rushed, there was proper relationship build-up before. The characters mostly retain their personalities and don't turn instantly into pornstars (at least, as far as eroge constraints allow...).
Next one, Sakuno's route, would be a treat for all imouto-lovers

I have to say, she's my favourite character of this VN, together with Airi. Her comments are pure gold Also, I love her friendship with Airi, really heartwarming. The story in this route itself is nothing special, maybe a bit weird due to setting, but the characters make up for it - finally I liked it very much.
The third one that I've played was Angie's route.

This one is for maid fans I think it was my least favourite route (but it's still good), but had very nice ending. Also, this route shows us again the importance of Multi's route in first To Heart - it turns out that she, being maid-robot, inspired not only other "robot-girls" routes, but also some of the maid ones. Just compare those two scenes below
Fourth, and last, route in PC version is Miu's.

Miu is lovely(loli) senpai, almost always seen with mysterious cat-like pet, Pannya. Main theme of Miu's route is her unofficial school club ("Nuko club") that consist of her and Sana and together they take care of wounded animals. The route features many emotional moments, and would be great, but there was one thing hindering it. It is the only route where I felt H-scenes were overwhelming, rushed, out-of-character and disrupting the flow of the story. It was really disappointing, since all other routes seemed to handle this stuff very well (above the eroge average). But, OTOH, there were three different writers - one for Airi and Ange, one for Sakuno, and one for Miu - so maybe the other two were just better at this.
However, the story doesn't end here. Sana, who in other routes serves mostly as a comic (or hitting) relief, is very prominent character in Miu's route.

So (see spoiler above), after Miu's route I felt really sorry for Sana, despite her many flaws, and felt like she deserved a route too. So I got PSP version, where there is one

Sana's route branches off from the Miu's. It was very good - it shows different, and sometimes surprising, sides of Sana, and gives pretty satisfying conclusion to her story.
Then I played Yutsuki's route - who is completely new character, present only in PSP version.

So, common route has been expanded a bit, to acommodate for the new character. It went quite smoothly. Yutsuki's initial appearrance is kind of playful subversion of "Onee-sama" trope. She's adored by many girls in school, but, as Sakuno put it in one of her brilliant comments, she's "Onee-nii-sama" She's more "cool" and "handsome" than "cute", and always plays male roles in drama-club. Her route is most light-hearted one in whole VN, and revolves around her struggle to be more feminine. Pretty good I'd say - I enjoyed it.
Afterwards I started to reread other routes, to compare them with PC version. I've reread Airi, Sakuno and Miu. Since console version has "C" rating (+15), obviously the routes were toned down and rewritten a bit, to exclude H-content. In exchange, we got some additional "normal" scenes. Also, in kissing scenes most of the sound effects were replaced with narration.
All in all, console versions of PC routes are all very good - the writers took care to rewrite them properly, not just cut things here and there. I'd say, that for Airi's route I slightly prefer +18 version, and for Sakuno's route it's a tie. However, Miu's route in console version is waaaay superior - it flows better, and additional scenes are very good. Actually I feel that some of them should be in original version as well, since they give some important background info.
Also, we got one quite hot new CG, especially for +15 title , that was used as replacement for H-scenes (since in Miu's route some of the sex scenes have been replaced by general making out in Miu's bed)
New New Year party scene was hilarious
 
This VN, despite being romance-focused, does also the "group of friends" thing surprisingly well. Other heroines (and Shingo's buddy Hayata) don't disappear once you enter the route, but become great supporting cast. The only exception is Yutsuki in PSP version, who disappears after common route, since probably it would be too much hassle to rewrite all routes to acommodate her. But the other side still stands - whole cast is important in her route as well. I loved this aspect.
To sum it up - I totally understand those who say, that it's kamige among moege. It certainly worked for me. Also, this VN was my initial reason to start learning Japanese, so being able to read it feels absolutely great and fulfilling.
Considering that I feel like it surpasses both Princess Evangile and Koichoco, who got 8.5 from me, I have no other choice, but to give it 9/10 score.
Now I think I'll take a breather by reading something translated Probably Farther than a blue sky.

I know it’s a bit overrated, but when I played Katawa Shoujo, I got emotionally attached to it for several reasons.
First, because I have a developmental disability which forced me to take medication every day. At first I was sad that this will destroy my already scarce interactions with people, but after I saw the protagonist managing to bond with the girls, I realized that this is by no means the worst thing that could happen to me, and I begun to have faith in humanity.
Second, I wasn’t interested into mainstream media, and this gave me an escape to the norms I was supposed to follow.
And I know this will sound weird, but even though this is an American VN, I was sick of most mainstream movies, since I found most of them are extremely violent (when I started the game), so KS showed that there is an alternative to the “American way of life” of becoming happy. As my mother said when we where in a cultural festival, “you see most American movies filled with death and violence, whereas you enjoy something that is more peaceful”.
Sorry for not bringing anything else, university and a severe block stopped me from actualy enjoying another VN, let alone try an untranslated one.

Character creation sequence.

Lots and lots and lots of updates! First, a few links!
Steam  ♦  Discord  ♦  Newsletter
And now some new screenshots a fair amount has changed, namely the sprites have gotten updates and GUI has drastically changed!




 
And here's a character intro trailer!
 

Hi fellas, Chronopolis here. I want to rollout to you guys this new videos series I'm testing: The VN Guided Tour Project.   The idea is that I'll do a read-through of VN prologues, reading aloud the unvoiced text, and explaining the vocab and grammar.   Reading VN's is very difficult when you first start out. One of the challenges, is that there are a lot of expressions and grammar patterns (out-of-my-ass number, like 33%-40%) which aren't covered by JLPT, but which show up commonly in novels. You can find a lot of grammar guides on the web, so I want to offer something which is dead focused on reading Visual Novels.
This series is for people who have down some reading in Japanese, but who still maybe struggle on tackling different titles. If you've haven't or have just started reading VN's in Japanese, it might be difficult to follow, but you could try anyways. I explain almost all of it. So far, I've recorded two videos.       Thoughts on this format, anyone? I'd especially like to hear your feedback if you are someone who might use this series.   Edit: Started adding some grammar notes for the lessons. Edit 2: Link to the full folder. I'm going to add some longer guides for JP grammars that need full explanations. Not going to cover everything, just a few select topics. So far there is just one super-guide on conditionals.  
 

Lol nice avatar, its the "mission accomplished finally can die in peace" face.
Grats on finishing

I did suffer from the same thing, I have a chronic disease that made me, until a few months ago, unable to leave my house alone or play on a park, so I don't have ANY friends at all, well, I had one, but that's in the past, even nowadays I still feel the loneliness grappling down my body, wasted time passing through. My life was hard, and still is, but things change and so do I, I found a passion, Cooking, I'm aiming to become a Chef, I went to a doctor to check if I could join a Gym, if that would be bad for my health, and he said it would actually be great, and so I joined it, built for me a better and healthier body, I started to learn other languages, which is something I really love, like, talking to foreign people, breaking this sort of "Language Barrier", it's great and all. So, pretty much, I found something to live for, and so i hope for you, brother.
 
About the heavy feeling you said, well, I feel it whenever I finish a VN, a Book or any history at all, it's a feeling of sadness but also accomplishment for completing such a great art (I don't feel it with bad VNs). However, most of the times, I feel both happiness and sadness, sadness because I wont ever be able to feel the same feeling I had when I read it for the first time, and I'll never see the characters how I once did, and happiness because I also feel growth, a person is made by thoughts and beliefs, and you will only evolve when you learn.
The moment you meet a situation that makes you uneasy or uncomfortable, that's the place you will think the most, and thinking will make you learn, so, at least for me, when I feel it, I try not to avoid it nor think of something else, I try to take the most from it, otherwise I would be just lying to myself.
As a writer (I've worked on a few games), I can confirm to you that a Writer always tries to make the person reading learn something, they'll always try to pass a tought, a belief or a way of thinking or viewing things through words, and in MY opinion, avoiding it will only dishonor the writer and all the time they took to make it, so, as a reader, I try to take/learn the most from it, and even if I don't learn anything, it'll at least makes me realize how right my own thoughts are, and thus, it itself is a way of learning.
But, even if knowing it you still want to simply get rid of this feeling, which I will not judge you for, try to play something else, watch an anime or a series or maybe even trying out a new book you've seen on a store.
Hope i could be of help.

Acquired some more Japanese books!

Titles, some explanations & better pictures:
 

When my head is full of the last VN I read, I find it helps to write all my thoughts down. Once I've written it down, I feel its easier to put it aside, I think because I know I've recorded it somewhere, and also the processing of writing stuff down helps to sort out jumbled feelings.
If the VN was long enough, I usually find it satisfying enough remembering the journey that happened.
If I'm really home-sick after finishing a VN, I might rewatch parts of it, to kind of ease off it. In rare cases I felt like I was thinking TOO much about the series. But it was not that hard to gradually get back to the normal life.
If I finish a great route and have trouble playing the others cause I get stuck, I'll usually put the VN on hold. I don't think you can enjoy a story or route for what it is when you're mainly thinking about a different one.
One of the worst things is when the VN is great, but its too short and leaves you craving more.
 

When my head is full of the last VN I read, I find it helps to write all my thoughts down. Once I've written it down, I feel its easier to put it aside, I think because I know I've recorded it somewhere, and also the processing of writing stuff down helps to sort out jumbled feelings.
If the VN was long enough, I usually find it satisfying enough remembering the journey that happened.
If I'm really home-sick after finishing a VN, I might rewatch parts of it, to kind of ease off it. In rare cases I felt like I was thinking TOO much about the series. But it was not that hard to gradually get back to the normal life.
If I finish a great route and have trouble playing the others cause I get stuck, I'll usually put the VN on hold. I don't think you can enjoy a story or route for what it is when you're mainly thinking about a different one.
One of the worst things is when the VN is great, but its too short and leaves you craving more.
 

I just try to move on and read something else. Though I can't say it always works very well. Sometimes my impression over the previous VN I finished might affect my enjoyment of the next one. That's why I usually prefer to focus on the shorter stuff after finishing a VN I really like, or maybe even to try to focus on different media.

G-senjou no Maou I like to hate on this VN because it's a little bit plot holed, but it is a strong mix of thriller and emotion, the main route is quite the ride, and something about the ending.
It was nice reading your comments on your VNDB list. I mostly play untranslated games, so it's hard for me to pick... you've played many of the quality, intriguing games with a translation.
Since you've read quite a few experimental works, perhaps SeaBed? It is a sort of unique work, is a lot about the mundane living and coming to terms with the past. It seems to be have been cherished by many who have read it.

Ciel nosurge has a english patch for modded Vita users or/and playlist on youtube with all the story and a lot of interactions translated.
Ion is a really sweet and lonely girl who interacts directly with the player via the Ps Vita. She is super cute and warm, growing closer with you the more time you spend with her.
 
And... Um... I really need to play more games with cute girls just being lovely with the player as I am out of other recommendations like these.

Do not worry, it is perfectly natural to not realise it when you die.

Erogamescape suffers from the results of being directly exposed to the much larger (currently and past, though who knows about the future?) VN market that is Japan.  To be blunt, you get people down-voting stuff for kicks, company-owned or hired bots in the hundreds voting others up, and no real effort on the part of the site administrators to rein it in.  The troll voting is worse on vndb, to be honest... percentage-wise, there are a significant number of fake players who vote games down or up without even playing them, based on the fact that their votes predate the games' releases (shouldn't it be relatively easy to fix that?  oh well).  That said, the real issue with Erogamescape is that you can't trust the ratings on anything that is hyped (in other words, by one of the big names before they went down) by a relatively 'big name' company... or anything mainstream, really, if you aren't a huge charage fan. 
In other words, Erogamescape requires too much filtering and preexisting knowledge from the viewer/reader/observer to even get what the real ratings of a given game are...  whereas vndb is a bit simpler.  Anything translated, cut off 90% of the ten, 9, and 1-3 ratings (since people either way overrate or way underrate depending on their prejudices and experience), then recalculate the average.  The rest, subtract all votes prior to two days after the initial release. 
That's if you are paying attention to voting scores.
VNDB is relatively simple to figure out... just find the tags you have an interest in, then set the list so the highest rated ones (usually translated) come up first, and browse.  The primary virtue of the site is the huge amount of basic info it holds on most of the VNs released since VNs came into existence.  Also, another way to figure things out is to find a member of Fuwa who shares your tastes, take a look at his vndb profile, then figure out what you want to play from that. 
The issue with vndb for the whipper-snappers (AKA, 'you young people') is that it is a PC-specialized site.  It is meant to be navigated via PC browsers with a keyboard and mouse, not finger-swipes and tapping, so it is extremely unwieldy when done from smaller tablets and smartphones.  VNDB's secondary utility lies in the fact that most Japanese games have the Japanese-language (kanji and kana) available to copy to a search engine in order to discover walkthroughs, websites that sell the games by download, and other stuff.  Searching a game by the romanized name is generally a dead end for that kind of thing, and remembering the precise kanji for the whole title can often be annoying, so that is seriously convenient, at least for me.
Honestly, if you can't navigate vndb, I dunno what to tell you... of all the otaku database sites I've navigated over the years, it is the easiest, at least for me.  Myanimelist is a pain in the rear to navigate, as are most of the other anime database sites.  VNDB is a breeze in comparison, since it doesn't present you with a dozen similar titles or barely related titles even if you put the exact one in the search box...
What is lacking on vndb is decent summaries/intros of most games, since most are poorly-translated translations of the Getchu or official pages, lol. 
Edit: oops forgot to answer your question in my urge to rave, no, it isn't illegal, since most games have pics on their official sites.  What is illegal is ripping the cgs and posting them online for profit...

Hi fellas, Chronopolis here. I want to rollout to you guys this new videos series I'm testing: The VN Guided Tour Project.   The idea is that I'll do a read-through of VN prologues, reading aloud the unvoiced text, and explaining the vocab and grammar.   Reading VN's is very difficult when you first start out. One of the challenges, is that there are a lot of expressions and grammar patterns (out-of-my-ass number, like 33%-40%) which aren't covered by JLPT, but which show up commonly in novels. You can find a lot of grammar guides on the web, so I want to offer something which is dead focused on reading Visual Novels.
This series is for people who have down some reading in Japanese, but who still maybe struggle on tackling different titles. If you've haven't or have just started reading VN's in Japanese, it might be difficult to follow, but you could try anyways. I explain almost all of it. So far, I've recorded two videos.       Thoughts on this format, anyone? I'd especially like to hear your feedback if you are someone who might use this series.   Edit: Started adding some grammar notes for the lessons. Edit 2: Link to the full folder. I'm going to add some longer guides for JP grammars that need full explanations. Not going to cover everything, just a few select topics. So far there is just one super-guide on conditionals.  
 

I'd love to see some more in-depth critique and analysis of VNs in general, be it about themes in certain titles, storytelling techniques, common tropes and genres, and so on. 

Hi fellas, Chronopolis here. I want to rollout to you guys this new videos series I'm testing: The VN Guided Tour Project.   The idea is that I'll do a read-through of VN prologues, reading aloud the unvoiced text, and explaining the vocab and grammar.   Reading VN's is very difficult when you first start out. One of the challenges, is that there are a lot of expressions and grammar patterns (out-of-my-ass number, like 33%-40%) which aren't covered by JLPT, but which show up commonly in novels. You can find a lot of grammar guides on the web, so I want to offer something which is dead focused on reading Visual Novels.
This series is for people who have down some reading in Japanese, but who still maybe struggle on tackling different titles. If you've haven't or have just started reading VN's in Japanese, it might be difficult to follow, but you could try anyways. I explain almost all of it. So far, I've recorded two videos.       Thoughts on this format, anyone? I'd especially like to hear your feedback if you are someone who might use this series.   Edit: Started adding some grammar notes for the lessons. Edit 2: Link to the full folder. I'm going to add some longer guides for JP grammars that need full explanations. Not going to cover everything, just a few select topics. So far there is just one super-guide on conditionals.