Diamon

Alpha demo of day 1 is finally here!! You can play it on our site :
 
http://lucid9.weebly.com/play-the-demo.html
 
 
Please don' hesitate to comment on the thread! And please share the word if you enjoyed reading this demo! x)
If you have any technical problem, please post it here and we'll try our best to solve it as soon as possible.
 
Also it would be awesome if you could provide us feedback by answering these little questions!
 
1. Logistically speaking, was the experience seamless? (Did the engine run smoothly, text legible, proportion of sprites to bgs, etc)
2. What were your first impressions on the VN?
3. Which character is the most appealing? (As an interesting character, not necessarily romantic interest)
4. What was especially well done in the game?
5. What could be improved?
6. Feel free to include any other comments/questions and we will try to answer them to the best of our ability

A little announcement, thanks to the new people we've been recruiting during august concerning the different assets creation, we might be able to release some playable content (ie a very short demo) relatively soon! I can't promise for sure, but you can expect it for second half of September if everything goes well (well, everything goes well only in an ideal world, so there might be some delay).
Content will be Day 1 of common route, and there should be around 20 minutes of reading content.
 
Hopefully day 1 will be a good introduction to our world setting, to the story and to some of the characters! 
Get hyped (or not)! 
 
Also, we just made some new blog posts :
One about writing, an interesting explanation about "method writing" from our lead writer Megan : http://lucid9.weebly.com/blog/off-the-record-method-writing
And another post with a Rui presentation, and a new OST from Greg! http://lucid9.weebly.com/blog/when-it-rains-it-pours

Today, we are celebrating the 6 months anniversary of Fallen Snow Studios! I think everyone deserves a little something for supporting us during all this time!

Chibi Rui, so cuuuuuuuute~ (made by our chibi artist, Nina)
 
So much progress made since when we first started... You can read a bit of the story of the studios in our blog : http://lucid9.weebly.com/blog/fallen-snow-studios-already-6-months-part-1
And anyway, here are some news and some teasers about the demo release!
 
First, I'm proud to  announce that Lucid9 will be partnering with Joilly in order to release the Lucid9 demo, but also the whole VN! the demo will be playable only on our website and on Joilly's site unfortunately for the moment, because the feature the download feature is not available for the moment (we do plan on having this possible in the future, don't worry!).
You can get more information about Joilly on this thread  : https://forums.fuwanovel.net/index.php?/topic/6525-joilly-a-visual-novel-creator/
 
Now, what interests everyone I'm sure, the demo! I guess showing you some assets is better than a hundred speeches^^

Here is the textbox we're planning to have!
 

Yahiko's lineart + Basic Colors, courtesy of our new male artist : Elphaze!
 
And now, the main menu theme we will be using for Lucid9! Composed by Wolfie!
https://soundcloud.com/bluewolfie/lucid-9-main-menu-theme-v2
 
As for the demo, we should be able to release it at the very end of September hopefully, maybe I'll be able to come up with a precise date soon!
Again, thanks for your support everyone, we wouldn't be as half motivated as we are if you weren't rooting for us guys!

Today, we are celebrating the 6 months anniversary of Fallen Snow Studios! I think everyone deserves a little something for supporting us during all this time!

Chibi Rui, so cuuuuuuuute~ (made by our chibi artist, Nina)
 
So much progress made since when we first started... You can read a bit of the story of the studios in our blog : http://lucid9.weebly.com/blog/fallen-snow-studios-already-6-months-part-1
And anyway, here are some news and some teasers about the demo release!
 
First, I'm proud to  announce that Lucid9 will be partnering with Joilly in order to release the Lucid9 demo, but also the whole VN! the demo will be playable only on our website and on Joilly's site unfortunately for the moment, because the feature the download feature is not available for the moment (we do plan on having this possible in the future, don't worry!).
You can get more information about Joilly on this thread  : https://forums.fuwanovel.net/index.php?/topic/6525-joilly-a-visual-novel-creator/
 
Now, what interests everyone I'm sure, the demo! I guess showing you some assets is better than a hundred speeches^^

Here is the textbox we're planning to have!
 

Yahiko's lineart + Basic Colors, courtesy of our new male artist : Elphaze!
 
And now, the main menu theme we will be using for Lucid9! Composed by Wolfie!
https://soundcloud.com/bluewolfie/lucid-9-main-menu-theme-v2
 
As for the demo, we should be able to release it at the very end of September hopefully, maybe I'll be able to come up with a precise date soon!
Again, thanks for your support everyone, we wouldn't be as half motivated as we are if you weren't rooting for us guys!

(I had a hard time figuring out where I should post this, so if I ever posted it in the wrong place, forgive me! ><)   Hello everyone! Today, I'm not here to talk to you as a representative of the Lucid9 Staff, but as a representative of Joilly.     What is Joilly?   Joilly is a mix of 3 different things :   1°) It's first of all a Visual Novel builder / engine which goal is to enable people with 0 programming knowledge to create their own Visual Novels, through the use of a very intuitive and very user-friendly interface (basically, very similar to a video editor). This engine has distinctive features :   - It's a javascript + html5 based engine.   - It's an online engine, meaning that you don't need to download any software, and that all the progress of the conception of your Visual Novel is saved online.   - The scene editor is where you can edit the scenes of your VN, and scroll the pages of your script. You will be able to create, edit, and test in real time your visual novel in the scenes or pages of the timeline, where you can add characters, backgrounds, CGs, music, and handle animations for your assets. (screenshot inside the spoiler)

  - It uses a flowchart diagram system to manage the different scenes scripted, the order of the scenes and the branching (screenshot inside the spoiler).  

  - The Asset manager library is your dumping ground/library for all your visual novel assets, including images, sounds, and video. Inside your library, you can also create folders and subfolders to organize all your assets, whether they are characters, CGs, visual novel soundtracks, or the OP video of your visual novel. We are limited with dropbox and amazon file storage for the moment since we don't have any money yet to get our own storage space.

  - Once the game is completed and is ready to be played, it will automatically be displayed on the Joilly site where other people will instantly be able to play.   Here is a live demo that might give you a better understanding of all the stuff I listed previously : - Scene editor : http://demo.joilly.com/editor.html - Flowchart : http://demo.joilly.com/scenes.html - Assets Manager : http://demo.joilly.com/assetmanager.html Don't hesitate to play it and give us feedback!     2°) The logical step that basically comes next is that we want Joilly to become as well a distribution platform for Visual Novels, where you'd be able to play directly and online all the Joilly Visual Novels, and where would be featured all the Visual Novels created / ported on Joilly. I guess you could compare it to a steam for Visual Novels (made on Joilly), or a Youtube for Visual Novels.    But not only be will it be a distribution platform, the Joilly site will also be the place where you'll be able to play the Visual Novels released in streaming. That means no downloading (only very fast loadings between scenes), and the possibility to play a VN on different supports without losing the save.   We already have a Joilly website ofc, but it's very far from being finished, and all our ideas, improvements and their possible implementation are still in development for the moment.     3°) Finally, we want Joilly to become a community for English Visual Novels, through the use of a forum system split between :   - A sub forum for the readers and the fans, where they will be able to discuss about their favorite VN on each specific thread for each VN, but also discuss about Visual Novels more generally. - A sub forum for creators where people would try to help each other regarding the engine, it will be the place where you can ask help to the developers of Joilly for technical issues, and our goal is to gather a little community of creators (writers, musicians, artists) willing to offer their skill for the creation of VN on Joilly.   Our aim is basically to create an ecosystem between English Visual Novel creation, distribution and community, and hopefully make it the easiest as possible for anyone who is interested in creating a Visual Novel to make it happen! And in the long term, get an active community of fan that we draw creators, and vice versa.     For who is Joilly?   Joilly is for EVERYONE to use, whether it is to play VN on the site, or whether it is to create your own VN. Whether you're a total amateur wanting to try VN creation for the first time, a studio that needs an engine to release your game, whether you want to make a free or maybe commercial VN in future, everyone is welcomed!   - We're planning on having free access for the readers, meaning that they will be able to access Joilly without any subscription. The commercial or freeware status of the VN that will be featured on Joilly will be dependent on the will of the studio (meaning that the user will have to pay to get access to the commercial VNs, which seems kinda logical I guess^^). - Creators will have free access as well. However, if Joilly ever gain in popularity, we might put a one time "pay-wall" for a symbolic sum of money (let's say 5 dollars for example?) in order to discourage trolls / unmotivated people / not serious enough people. That's the only payment we will implement for the creators, meaning that once this little sum is paid, they will be granted unlimited use of the engine to create their VN.     What is our current state?   For the moment, Joilly is still on alpha phase. What is available is : - The scene editor is nearly completely functional and needs beta testers. - The flowchart system is being worked on atm and should be finished soon. - Our developer is also working on the UI maker (that will enable the creators to customize their VN GUI) - Flag system is in the works   So, what do we need? 1°) We need creators that would act as beta-tester. 2°) We need a php programmer and a website designer (if possible one same person) for our site and our forums.     FAQ   1°) I want to help / participate in Joilly, what can I do? If you're a creator, you can try to help us by trying to create a Visual Novel on Joilly. We'd want (in order of priority) - A team that is lacking a programmer or isn't set on an engine to use. - A writer and artist that have art assets and a script. - A writer willing to write a short VN with the default available assets we can provide.   We would prioritize people that have assets already ready to be ported on the the engine. Those people would basically be testers for us so that we can find bugs, and also the testers is a way for us to get feedback for engine improvements. If you're ever interested in participating, just message me, and we'll discuss about it!   If you're a programmer and you know php, we're looking for a programmer to take care of the site and the forums. We want to work someone we can trust and form a partnership eventually, so if you're interested, same as before, just message me!     2°) Are you doing all of this for free? Do you plan to not get money at all? We haven't settled on an economical model yet, so we can't tell you for the moment. We will probably need some money at some point, if only to get our own servers and storage, so we will probably try to get money in some way (whether it is with ads, donation, ...). We will try to do this in a way where it won't restrict any creator in creating their VN, and where it wouldn't change anything for readers that wants to read VN on Joilly.     3°) What kind of Visual Novels will Joilly be supporting? - Joilly's primary goal is to support games focused on storytelling. - For content : any content is allowed, whether it is Otome-game, Bishoujo-game... as long as it respects our Terms of Service. (that means for example no heinous encouragement of any sort). H content is permitted as long as it's not the main goal of the VN (understand here : no nukige). - I would like to say that we want to encourage as well VN with gameplay elements, but honestly, the engine is not made for complex gameplay elements. The best you could do would probably be make a simple dating sim. Stats raising are not possible for example (so no RPG VN).     4°) Will Joilly ever become commercial? Well, I guess I'd need to go into the details to answer properly. First, you need to consider that we'd like to get our own storage space and servers, and that we need money for this. Also, even though we want to encourage people to become creators even if they don't have any funds, we do feel that it's fair for us to gain some sort of commission if ever someone wants to create a commercial VN with our engine. Also : - We don't plan on making the readers pay to access Joilly. Ever. - There will be most likely a payment system for creators that want to get some more features on the site (get a save slot, get some exposure on the site through our home page...). Those features will be accessible for the VN that manages to reach a certain number a view (some sort of milestones system) - We do plan on getting some money with "clean" advertisement on the site.     5°) So what are the possibilities I will have if I ever want to create and release a VN on Joilly? There are basically 3 possibilities :  - You want to make a free VN without wanting to get any income? Sure, no problems! We won't put any ads on your VN page. - You want to make a free VN and still get incomes? Sure, we will help you with advertisement on your VN page, and we'll get a little percentage of what you earned. - You want to make a commercial VN and get income? Sure, we will force the user to pay once if he ever wants to play your VN on Joilly, and we'll take a little percentage (probably through the use of Paypal).   This will also be the order of implementation, meaning that at the moment, we can only handle and publish free VN that won't get you any income. Later on, when we implement our clean advertisement system, we will be able to propose the second option to creators. And lastly, we will try to implement a system with paypal where the user has to unlock the content of the VN by paying with paypal, and where we'll take a little percentage.     6°) And what if I don't want to play to my VN online? We are planning to make it possible to download an executable to install the Joilly's VN on your computer, but it's not a priority for the moment. It will eventually get done. We want it to be a standalone executable, and not simply you being able to play it on your browser even when not connected.       7°) I don't trust cloud storage!  I think / heard that it's not safe! It's true that cloud storage is not totally safe, especially for small cloud storage companies. But, you have to consider two things : - The global progression of the creation of the VN on Joilly will be saved on the cloud, but also locally on the user's computer, and finally we do regular backups of the data. - The assets (sprites, music, CGs, BGs) have to be uploaded by the user on cloud storage (dropbox or amazon storage both works with Joilly). We are planning to implement as well a system of auxiliary cloud storage links in case that the first cloud storage link provided for the asset manager fails (so basically, you can upload your assets on both dropbox and amazon, and if the dropbox link ever fails, the asset manager will check the amazon link). We do want to get our own storage space and our own servers at some point, but that will be when we manage to get some money with Joilly.     8°) I feel it is really restrictive to be only able to work on Joilly if i'm connected to the Internet. Are you really not going to make it accessible offline? Okay, so far, it's clear that not being able to work on your VN offline is somehow a hindrance. I guess I'm talking from my own experience as a user of the engine for my own project, but I really believe there are both pro and con :
 
Pros :
- It's accessible on any device that can connect to internet, so if ever you're on another computer than your principal one, or even on your touchpad, or your smartphone, you can still work on your VN. (It's not optimized yet for smartphones though, but hopefully it will one day be)
- If ever you have a hard drive failure, you won't lose any of your work.
- If you ever need / want to split the work (I agree with you that this is more useful for bigger projects where there is a lot of script), it's totally possible to share the workload, granted that all the people working on this follow a detailed enough script concerning animations and such. And the simplicity of the engine make it so that anyone can actually work on the engine without any specific knowledge required about programming.
- It's way easier to submit to every other member some preview of what you created on the engine to see if they are happy with it.
 
Cons :
- You cannot access your work if you don't have access to the internet. I can't argue with that, but we have some reasons for actually preferring this for the moment over offline access to the engine.
  Of course, all of this is still debatable, and in the end it still comes down to the sensibility of the user and about what he values the most when doing a project like this.
But coming back as to why it's really preferable for us to have a solely online accessible engine (for the moment), this is mostly because we don't want Joilly to be only an engine (as, let's say, ren'py). As I explained previously, we want Joilly to be 3 things : an engine easy of use for creators, a catalog of VN directly playable on the site, and a community for English Visual Novels. If we offer the possibility for the user to work on the engine offline, we have no way to control if the creator will release his VN on Joilly, (and at the beginning, most creators won't actually have any interest to release their work on Joilly) which will prevent us from getting a consequent catalog of VN, and which will prevent us from getting a community.
 
 
9°) So there are actually restrictions for the use of Joilly's engine?
So, yeah, we are offering our engine for free for the creators. But we do want to get something out of it, and the only restriction we have is that you need to publish your VN on Joilly in order to help it grow. We cannot control this if we offer the possibility for the creators to work offline on it. However, that doesn't mean we will never consider it, we do realize that it's both safer and more pratical for the user to be able to work offline AND online. But it would have to be when Joilly is already popular and attractive enough so that creators will want to publish their VN on Joilly in order to get exposure (so basically when we have a sufficient enough community).
    So that's all for the moment! Don't hesitate to play the demo, and to give us any feedback on it by posting on this thread!   And thanks for your time reading this!      

(I had a hard time figuring out where I should post this, so if I ever posted it in the wrong place, forgive me! ><)   Hello everyone! Today, I'm not here to talk to you as a representative of the Lucid9 Staff, but as a representative of Joilly.     What is Joilly?   Joilly is a mix of 3 different things :   1°) It's first of all a Visual Novel builder / engine which goal is to enable people with 0 programming knowledge to create their own Visual Novels, through the use of a very intuitive and very user-friendly interface (basically, very similar to a video editor). This engine has distinctive features :   - It's a javascript + html5 based engine.   - It's an online engine, meaning that you don't need to download any software, and that all the progress of the conception of your Visual Novel is saved online.   - The scene editor is where you can edit the scenes of your VN, and scroll the pages of your script. You will be able to create, edit, and test in real time your visual novel in the scenes or pages of the timeline, where you can add characters, backgrounds, CGs, music, and handle animations for your assets. (screenshot inside the spoiler)

  - It uses a flowchart diagram system to manage the different scenes scripted, the order of the scenes and the branching (screenshot inside the spoiler).  

  - The Asset manager library is your dumping ground/library for all your visual novel assets, including images, sounds, and video. Inside your library, you can also create folders and subfolders to organize all your assets, whether they are characters, CGs, visual novel soundtracks, or the OP video of your visual novel. We are limited with dropbox and amazon file storage for the moment since we don't have any money yet to get our own storage space.

  - Once the game is completed and is ready to be played, it will automatically be displayed on the Joilly site where other people will instantly be able to play.   Here is a live demo that might give you a better understanding of all the stuff I listed previously : - Scene editor : http://demo.joilly.com/editor.html - Flowchart : http://demo.joilly.com/scenes.html - Assets Manager : http://demo.joilly.com/assetmanager.html Don't hesitate to play it and give us feedback!     2°) The logical step that basically comes next is that we want Joilly to become as well a distribution platform for Visual Novels, where you'd be able to play directly and online all the Joilly Visual Novels, and where would be featured all the Visual Novels created / ported on Joilly. I guess you could compare it to a steam for Visual Novels (made on Joilly), or a Youtube for Visual Novels.    But not only be will it be a distribution platform, the Joilly site will also be the place where you'll be able to play the Visual Novels released in streaming. That means no downloading (only very fast loadings between scenes), and the possibility to play a VN on different supports without losing the save.   We already have a Joilly website ofc, but it's very far from being finished, and all our ideas, improvements and their possible implementation are still in development for the moment.     3°) Finally, we want Joilly to become a community for English Visual Novels, through the use of a forum system split between :   - A sub forum for the readers and the fans, where they will be able to discuss about their favorite VN on each specific thread for each VN, but also discuss about Visual Novels more generally. - A sub forum for creators where people would try to help each other regarding the engine, it will be the place where you can ask help to the developers of Joilly for technical issues, and our goal is to gather a little community of creators (writers, musicians, artists) willing to offer their skill for the creation of VN on Joilly.   Our aim is basically to create an ecosystem between English Visual Novel creation, distribution and community, and hopefully make it the easiest as possible for anyone who is interested in creating a Visual Novel to make it happen! And in the long term, get an active community of fan that we draw creators, and vice versa.     For who is Joilly?   Joilly is for EVERYONE to use, whether it is to play VN on the site, or whether it is to create your own VN. Whether you're a total amateur wanting to try VN creation for the first time, a studio that needs an engine to release your game, whether you want to make a free or maybe commercial VN in future, everyone is welcomed!   - We're planning on having free access for the readers, meaning that they will be able to access Joilly without any subscription. The commercial or freeware status of the VN that will be featured on Joilly will be dependent on the will of the studio (meaning that the user will have to pay to get access to the commercial VNs, which seems kinda logical I guess^^). - Creators will have free access as well. However, if Joilly ever gain in popularity, we might put a one time "pay-wall" for a symbolic sum of money (let's say 5 dollars for example?) in order to discourage trolls / unmotivated people / not serious enough people. That's the only payment we will implement for the creators, meaning that once this little sum is paid, they will be granted unlimited use of the engine to create their VN.     What is our current state?   For the moment, Joilly is still on alpha phase. What is available is : - The scene editor is nearly completely functional and needs beta testers. - The flowchart system is being worked on atm and should be finished soon. - Our developer is also working on the UI maker (that will enable the creators to customize their VN GUI) - Flag system is in the works   So, what do we need? 1°) We need creators that would act as beta-tester. 2°) We need a php programmer and a website designer (if possible one same person) for our site and our forums.     FAQ   1°) I want to help / participate in Joilly, what can I do? If you're a creator, you can try to help us by trying to create a Visual Novel on Joilly. We'd want (in order of priority) - A team that is lacking a programmer or isn't set on an engine to use. - A writer and artist that have art assets and a script. - A writer willing to write a short VN with the default available assets we can provide.   We would prioritize people that have assets already ready to be ported on the the engine. Those people would basically be testers for us so that we can find bugs, and also the testers is a way for us to get feedback for engine improvements. If you're ever interested in participating, just message me, and we'll discuss about it!   If you're a programmer and you know php, we're looking for a programmer to take care of the site and the forums. We want to work someone we can trust and form a partnership eventually, so if you're interested, same as before, just message me!     2°) Are you doing all of this for free? Do you plan to not get money at all? We haven't settled on an economical model yet, so we can't tell you for the moment. We will probably need some money at some point, if only to get our own servers and storage, so we will probably try to get money in some way (whether it is with ads, donation, ...). We will try to do this in a way where it won't restrict any creator in creating their VN, and where it wouldn't change anything for readers that wants to read VN on Joilly.     3°) What kind of Visual Novels will Joilly be supporting? - Joilly's primary goal is to support games focused on storytelling. - For content : any content is allowed, whether it is Otome-game, Bishoujo-game... as long as it respects our Terms of Service. (that means for example no heinous encouragement of any sort). H content is permitted as long as it's not the main goal of the VN (understand here : no nukige). - I would like to say that we want to encourage as well VN with gameplay elements, but honestly, the engine is not made for complex gameplay elements. The best you could do would probably be make a simple dating sim. Stats raising are not possible for example (so no RPG VN).     4°) Will Joilly ever become commercial? Well, I guess I'd need to go into the details to answer properly. First, you need to consider that we'd like to get our own storage space and servers, and that we need money for this. Also, even though we want to encourage people to become creators even if they don't have any funds, we do feel that it's fair for us to gain some sort of commission if ever someone wants to create a commercial VN with our engine. Also : - We don't plan on making the readers pay to access Joilly. Ever. - There will be most likely a payment system for creators that want to get some more features on the site (get a save slot, get some exposure on the site through our home page...). Those features will be accessible for the VN that manages to reach a certain number a view (some sort of milestones system) - We do plan on getting some money with "clean" advertisement on the site.     5°) So what are the possibilities I will have if I ever want to create and release a VN on Joilly? There are basically 3 possibilities :  - You want to make a free VN without wanting to get any income? Sure, no problems! We won't put any ads on your VN page. - You want to make a free VN and still get incomes? Sure, we will help you with advertisement on your VN page, and we'll get a little percentage of what you earned. - You want to make a commercial VN and get income? Sure, we will force the user to pay once if he ever wants to play your VN on Joilly, and we'll take a little percentage (probably through the use of Paypal).   This will also be the order of implementation, meaning that at the moment, we can only handle and publish free VN that won't get you any income. Later on, when we implement our clean advertisement system, we will be able to propose the second option to creators. And lastly, we will try to implement a system with paypal where the user has to unlock the content of the VN by paying with paypal, and where we'll take a little percentage.     6°) And what if I don't want to play to my VN online? We are planning to make it possible to download an executable to install the Joilly's VN on your computer, but it's not a priority for the moment. It will eventually get done. We want it to be a standalone executable, and not simply you being able to play it on your browser even when not connected.       7°) I don't trust cloud storage!  I think / heard that it's not safe! It's true that cloud storage is not totally safe, especially for small cloud storage companies. But, you have to consider two things : - The global progression of the creation of the VN on Joilly will be saved on the cloud, but also locally on the user's computer, and finally we do regular backups of the data. - The assets (sprites, music, CGs, BGs) have to be uploaded by the user on cloud storage (dropbox or amazon storage both works with Joilly). We are planning to implement as well a system of auxiliary cloud storage links in case that the first cloud storage link provided for the asset manager fails (so basically, you can upload your assets on both dropbox and amazon, and if the dropbox link ever fails, the asset manager will check the amazon link). We do want to get our own storage space and our own servers at some point, but that will be when we manage to get some money with Joilly.     8°) I feel it is really restrictive to be only able to work on Joilly if i'm connected to the Internet. Are you really not going to make it accessible offline? Okay, so far, it's clear that not being able to work on your VN offline is somehow a hindrance. I guess I'm talking from my own experience as a user of the engine for my own project, but I really believe there are both pro and con :
 
Pros :
- It's accessible on any device that can connect to internet, so if ever you're on another computer than your principal one, or even on your touchpad, or your smartphone, you can still work on your VN. (It's not optimized yet for smartphones though, but hopefully it will one day be)
- If ever you have a hard drive failure, you won't lose any of your work.
- If you ever need / want to split the work (I agree with you that this is more useful for bigger projects where there is a lot of script), it's totally possible to share the workload, granted that all the people working on this follow a detailed enough script concerning animations and such. And the simplicity of the engine make it so that anyone can actually work on the engine without any specific knowledge required about programming.
- It's way easier to submit to every other member some preview of what you created on the engine to see if they are happy with it.
 
Cons :
- You cannot access your work if you don't have access to the internet. I can't argue with that, but we have some reasons for actually preferring this for the moment over offline access to the engine.
  Of course, all of this is still debatable, and in the end it still comes down to the sensibility of the user and about what he values the most when doing a project like this.
But coming back as to why it's really preferable for us to have a solely online accessible engine (for the moment), this is mostly because we don't want Joilly to be only an engine (as, let's say, ren'py). As I explained previously, we want Joilly to be 3 things : an engine easy of use for creators, a catalog of VN directly playable on the site, and a community for English Visual Novels. If we offer the possibility for the user to work on the engine offline, we have no way to control if the creator will release his VN on Joilly, (and at the beginning, most creators won't actually have any interest to release their work on Joilly) which will prevent us from getting a consequent catalog of VN, and which will prevent us from getting a community.
 
 
9°) So there are actually restrictions for the use of Joilly's engine?
So, yeah, we are offering our engine for free for the creators. But we do want to get something out of it, and the only restriction we have is that you need to publish your VN on Joilly in order to help it grow. We cannot control this if we offer the possibility for the creators to work offline on it. However, that doesn't mean we will never consider it, we do realize that it's both safer and more pratical for the user to be able to work offline AND online. But it would have to be when Joilly is already popular and attractive enough so that creators will want to publish their VN on Joilly in order to get exposure (so basically when we have a sufficient enough community).
    So that's all for the moment! Don't hesitate to play the demo, and to give us any feedback on it by posting on this thread!   And thanks for your time reading this!      

We are also planning to have local storage for the save of the progress on the editor. Basically, the save data will be stored locally as well on your computer. This coupled with cloud storage (I guess the engine would use directly the most recent save when loading between the cloud one and the local one if ever the dates are different).
 
It's true that one of the inconvenient is that you can't work on your VN offline. But does someone that has very unstable internet would even be interested in trying to create a VN in this day and age (I'm assuming that most people playing VN are very connected people here though)? Also, if you have someone you can trust, you can just ask him to import and create the VN for you when you can't, it's really not that much work given how simple it is.
 
As for cloud storage more generally, we do want to switch into Amazon storage when we get enough money, so this way cloud storage with a big company would actually become safer than local storage (you have several hard drives instead of only yours after all), and in the meanwhile, we're doing daily backups just in case (and again, we do want to include local storage as well).
 
If you're talking about readers however, we do plan to have an option to play offline with an executable at some point.
 
And anyway, thanks for your support!

Oh, that's great!! Finally a new demo! i'm really looking forward to it! (Looks like September will be the month of demo release! XD)

(I had a hard time figuring out where I should post this, so if I ever posted it in the wrong place, forgive me! ><)   Hello everyone! Today, I'm not here to talk to you as a representative of the Lucid9 Staff, but as a representative of Joilly.     What is Joilly?   Joilly is a mix of 3 different things :   1°) It's first of all a Visual Novel builder / engine which goal is to enable people with 0 programming knowledge to create their own Visual Novels, through the use of a very intuitive and very user-friendly interface (basically, very similar to a video editor). This engine has distinctive features :   - It's a javascript + html5 based engine.   - It's an online engine, meaning that you don't need to download any software, and that all the progress of the conception of your Visual Novel is saved online.   - The scene editor is where you can edit the scenes of your VN, and scroll the pages of your script. You will be able to create, edit, and test in real time your visual novel in the scenes or pages of the timeline, where you can add characters, backgrounds, CGs, music, and handle animations for your assets. (screenshot inside the spoiler)

  - It uses a flowchart diagram system to manage the different scenes scripted, the order of the scenes and the branching (screenshot inside the spoiler).  

  - The Asset manager library is your dumping ground/library for all your visual novel assets, including images, sounds, and video. Inside your library, you can also create folders and subfolders to organize all your assets, whether they are characters, CGs, visual novel soundtracks, or the OP video of your visual novel. We are limited with dropbox and amazon file storage for the moment since we don't have any money yet to get our own storage space.

  - Once the game is completed and is ready to be played, it will automatically be displayed on the Joilly site where other people will instantly be able to play.   Here is a live demo that might give you a better understanding of all the stuff I listed previously : - Scene editor : http://demo.joilly.com/editor.html - Flowchart : http://demo.joilly.com/scenes.html - Assets Manager : http://demo.joilly.com/assetmanager.html Don't hesitate to play it and give us feedback!     2°) The logical step that basically comes next is that we want Joilly to become as well a distribution platform for Visual Novels, where you'd be able to play directly and online all the Joilly Visual Novels, and where would be featured all the Visual Novels created / ported on Joilly. I guess you could compare it to a steam for Visual Novels (made on Joilly), or a Youtube for Visual Novels.    But not only be will it be a distribution platform, the Joilly site will also be the place where you'll be able to play the Visual Novels released in streaming. That means no downloading (only very fast loadings between scenes), and the possibility to play a VN on different supports without losing the save.   We already have a Joilly website ofc, but it's very far from being finished, and all our ideas, improvements and their possible implementation are still in development for the moment.     3°) Finally, we want Joilly to become a community for English Visual Novels, through the use of a forum system split between :   - A sub forum for the readers and the fans, where they will be able to discuss about their favorite VN on each specific thread for each VN, but also discuss about Visual Novels more generally. - A sub forum for creators where people would try to help each other regarding the engine, it will be the place where you can ask help to the developers of Joilly for technical issues, and our goal is to gather a little community of creators (writers, musicians, artists) willing to offer their skill for the creation of VN on Joilly.   Our aim is basically to create an ecosystem between English Visual Novel creation, distribution and community, and hopefully make it the easiest as possible for anyone who is interested in creating a Visual Novel to make it happen! And in the long term, get an active community of fan that we draw creators, and vice versa.     For who is Joilly?   Joilly is for EVERYONE to use, whether it is to play VN on the site, or whether it is to create your own VN. Whether you're a total amateur wanting to try VN creation for the first time, a studio that needs an engine to release your game, whether you want to make a free or maybe commercial VN in future, everyone is welcomed!   - We're planning on having free access for the readers, meaning that they will be able to access Joilly without any subscription. The commercial or freeware status of the VN that will be featured on Joilly will be dependent on the will of the studio (meaning that the user will have to pay to get access to the commercial VNs, which seems kinda logical I guess^^). - Creators will have free access as well. However, if Joilly ever gain in popularity, we might put a one time "pay-wall" for a symbolic sum of money (let's say 5 dollars for example?) in order to discourage trolls / unmotivated people / not serious enough people. That's the only payment we will implement for the creators, meaning that once this little sum is paid, they will be granted unlimited use of the engine to create their VN.     What is our current state?   For the moment, Joilly is still on alpha phase. What is available is : - The scene editor is nearly completely functional and needs beta testers. - The flowchart system is being worked on atm and should be finished soon. - Our developer is also working on the UI maker (that will enable the creators to customize their VN GUI) - Flag system is in the works   So, what do we need? 1°) We need creators that would act as beta-tester. 2°) We need a php programmer and a website designer (if possible one same person) for our site and our forums.     FAQ   1°) I want to help / participate in Joilly, what can I do? If you're a creator, you can try to help us by trying to create a Visual Novel on Joilly. We'd want (in order of priority) - A team that is lacking a programmer or isn't set on an engine to use. - A writer and artist that have art assets and a script. - A writer willing to write a short VN with the default available assets we can provide.   We would prioritize people that have assets already ready to be ported on the the engine. Those people would basically be testers for us so that we can find bugs, and also the testers is a way for us to get feedback for engine improvements. If you're ever interested in participating, just message me, and we'll discuss about it!   If you're a programmer and you know php, we're looking for a programmer to take care of the site and the forums. We want to work someone we can trust and form a partnership eventually, so if you're interested, same as before, just message me!     2°) Are you doing all of this for free? Do you plan to not get money at all? We haven't settled on an economical model yet, so we can't tell you for the moment. We will probably need some money at some point, if only to get our own servers and storage, so we will probably try to get money in some way (whether it is with ads, donation, ...). We will try to do this in a way where it won't restrict any creator in creating their VN, and where it wouldn't change anything for readers that wants to read VN on Joilly.     3°) What kind of Visual Novels will Joilly be supporting? - Joilly's primary goal is to support games focused on storytelling. - For content : any content is allowed, whether it is Otome-game, Bishoujo-game... as long as it respects our Terms of Service. (that means for example no heinous encouragement of any sort). H content is permitted as long as it's not the main goal of the VN (understand here : no nukige). - I would like to say that we want to encourage as well VN with gameplay elements, but honestly, the engine is not made for complex gameplay elements. The best you could do would probably be make a simple dating sim. Stats raising are not possible for example (so no RPG VN).     4°) Will Joilly ever become commercial? Well, I guess I'd need to go into the details to answer properly. First, you need to consider that we'd like to get our own storage space and servers, and that we need money for this. Also, even though we want to encourage people to become creators even if they don't have any funds, we do feel that it's fair for us to gain some sort of commission if ever someone wants to create a commercial VN with our engine. Also : - We don't plan on making the readers pay to access Joilly. Ever. - There will be most likely a payment system for creators that want to get some more features on the site (get a save slot, get some exposure on the site through our home page...). Those features will be accessible for the VN that manages to reach a certain number a view (some sort of milestones system) - We do plan on getting some money with "clean" advertisement on the site.     5°) So what are the possibilities I will have if I ever want to create and release a VN on Joilly? There are basically 3 possibilities :  - You want to make a free VN without wanting to get any income? Sure, no problems! We won't put any ads on your VN page. - You want to make a free VN and still get incomes? Sure, we will help you with advertisement on your VN page, and we'll get a little percentage of what you earned. - You want to make a commercial VN and get income? Sure, we will force the user to pay once if he ever wants to play your VN on Joilly, and we'll take a little percentage (probably through the use of Paypal).   This will also be the order of implementation, meaning that at the moment, we can only handle and publish free VN that won't get you any income. Later on, when we implement our clean advertisement system, we will be able to propose the second option to creators. And lastly, we will try to implement a system with paypal where the user has to unlock the content of the VN by paying with paypal, and where we'll take a little percentage.     6°) And what if I don't want to play to my VN online? We are planning to make it possible to download an executable to install the Joilly's VN on your computer, but it's not a priority for the moment. It will eventually get done. We want it to be a standalone executable, and not simply you being able to play it on your browser even when not connected.       7°) I don't trust cloud storage!  I think / heard that it's not safe! It's true that cloud storage is not totally safe, especially for small cloud storage companies. But, you have to consider two things : - The global progression of the creation of the VN on Joilly will be saved on the cloud, but also locally on the user's computer, and finally we do regular backups of the data. - The assets (sprites, music, CGs, BGs) have to be uploaded by the user on cloud storage (dropbox or amazon storage both works with Joilly). We are planning to implement as well a system of auxiliary cloud storage links in case that the first cloud storage link provided for the asset manager fails (so basically, you can upload your assets on both dropbox and amazon, and if the dropbox link ever fails, the asset manager will check the amazon link). We do want to get our own storage space and our own servers at some point, but that will be when we manage to get some money with Joilly.     8°) I feel it is really restrictive to be only able to work on Joilly if i'm connected to the Internet. Are you really not going to make it accessible offline? Okay, so far, it's clear that not being able to work on your VN offline is somehow a hindrance. I guess I'm talking from my own experience as a user of the engine for my own project, but I really believe there are both pro and con :
 
Pros :
- It's accessible on any device that can connect to internet, so if ever you're on another computer than your principal one, or even on your touchpad, or your smartphone, you can still work on your VN. (It's not optimized yet for smartphones though, but hopefully it will one day be)
- If ever you have a hard drive failure, you won't lose any of your work.
- If you ever need / want to split the work (I agree with you that this is more useful for bigger projects where there is a lot of script), it's totally possible to share the workload, granted that all the people working on this follow a detailed enough script concerning animations and such. And the simplicity of the engine make it so that anyone can actually work on the engine without any specific knowledge required about programming.
- It's way easier to submit to every other member some preview of what you created on the engine to see if they are happy with it.
 
Cons :
- You cannot access your work if you don't have access to the internet. I can't argue with that, but we have some reasons for actually preferring this for the moment over offline access to the engine.
  Of course, all of this is still debatable, and in the end it still comes down to the sensibility of the user and about what he values the most when doing a project like this.
But coming back as to why it's really preferable for us to have a solely online accessible engine (for the moment), this is mostly because we don't want Joilly to be only an engine (as, let's say, ren'py). As I explained previously, we want Joilly to be 3 things : an engine easy of use for creators, a catalog of VN directly playable on the site, and a community for English Visual Novels. If we offer the possibility for the user to work on the engine offline, we have no way to control if the creator will release his VN on Joilly, (and at the beginning, most creators won't actually have any interest to release their work on Joilly) which will prevent us from getting a consequent catalog of VN, and which will prevent us from getting a community.
 
 
9°) So there are actually restrictions for the use of Joilly's engine?
So, yeah, we are offering our engine for free for the creators. But we do want to get something out of it, and the only restriction we have is that you need to publish your VN on Joilly in order to help it grow. We cannot control this if we offer the possibility for the creators to work offline on it. However, that doesn't mean we will never consider it, we do realize that it's both safer and more pratical for the user to be able to work offline AND online. But it would have to be when Joilly is already popular and attractive enough so that creators will want to publish their VN on Joilly in order to get exposure (so basically when we have a sufficient enough community).
    So that's all for the moment! Don't hesitate to play the demo, and to give us any feedback on it by posting on this thread!   And thanks for your time reading this!      

(I had a hard time figuring out where I should post this, so if I ever posted it in the wrong place, forgive me! ><)   Hello everyone! Today, I'm not here to talk to you as a representative of the Lucid9 Staff, but as a representative of Joilly.     What is Joilly?   Joilly is a mix of 3 different things :   1°) It's first of all a Visual Novel builder / engine which goal is to enable people with 0 programming knowledge to create their own Visual Novels, through the use of a very intuitive and very user-friendly interface (basically, very similar to a video editor). This engine has distinctive features :   - It's a javascript + html5 based engine.   - It's an online engine, meaning that you don't need to download any software, and that all the progress of the conception of your Visual Novel is saved online.   - The scene editor is where you can edit the scenes of your VN, and scroll the pages of your script. You will be able to create, edit, and test in real time your visual novel in the scenes or pages of the timeline, where you can add characters, backgrounds, CGs, music, and handle animations for your assets. (screenshot inside the spoiler)

  - It uses a flowchart diagram system to manage the different scenes scripted, the order of the scenes and the branching (screenshot inside the spoiler).  

  - The Asset manager library is your dumping ground/library for all your visual novel assets, including images, sounds, and video. Inside your library, you can also create folders and subfolders to organize all your assets, whether they are characters, CGs, visual novel soundtracks, or the OP video of your visual novel. We are limited with dropbox and amazon file storage for the moment since we don't have any money yet to get our own storage space.

  - Once the game is completed and is ready to be played, it will automatically be displayed on the Joilly site where other people will instantly be able to play.   Here is a live demo that might give you a better understanding of all the stuff I listed previously : - Scene editor : http://demo.joilly.com/editor.html - Flowchart : http://demo.joilly.com/scenes.html - Assets Manager : http://demo.joilly.com/assetmanager.html Don't hesitate to play it and give us feedback!     2°) The logical step that basically comes next is that we want Joilly to become as well a distribution platform for Visual Novels, where you'd be able to play directly and online all the Joilly Visual Novels, and where would be featured all the Visual Novels created / ported on Joilly. I guess you could compare it to a steam for Visual Novels (made on Joilly), or a Youtube for Visual Novels.    But not only be will it be a distribution platform, the Joilly site will also be the place where you'll be able to play the Visual Novels released in streaming. That means no downloading (only very fast loadings between scenes), and the possibility to play a VN on different supports without losing the save.   We already have a Joilly website ofc, but it's very far from being finished, and all our ideas, improvements and their possible implementation are still in development for the moment.     3°) Finally, we want Joilly to become a community for English Visual Novels, through the use of a forum system split between :   - A sub forum for the readers and the fans, where they will be able to discuss about their favorite VN on each specific thread for each VN, but also discuss about Visual Novels more generally. - A sub forum for creators where people would try to help each other regarding the engine, it will be the place where you can ask help to the developers of Joilly for technical issues, and our goal is to gather a little community of creators (writers, musicians, artists) willing to offer their skill for the creation of VN on Joilly.   Our aim is basically to create an ecosystem between English Visual Novel creation, distribution and community, and hopefully make it the easiest as possible for anyone who is interested in creating a Visual Novel to make it happen! And in the long term, get an active community of fan that we draw creators, and vice versa.     For who is Joilly?   Joilly is for EVERYONE to use, whether it is to play VN on the site, or whether it is to create your own VN. Whether you're a total amateur wanting to try VN creation for the first time, a studio that needs an engine to release your game, whether you want to make a free or maybe commercial VN in future, everyone is welcomed!   - We're planning on having free access for the readers, meaning that they will be able to access Joilly without any subscription. The commercial or freeware status of the VN that will be featured on Joilly will be dependent on the will of the studio (meaning that the user will have to pay to get access to the commercial VNs, which seems kinda logical I guess^^). - Creators will have free access as well. However, if Joilly ever gain in popularity, we might put a one time "pay-wall" for a symbolic sum of money (let's say 5 dollars for example?) in order to discourage trolls / unmotivated people / not serious enough people. That's the only payment we will implement for the creators, meaning that once this little sum is paid, they will be granted unlimited use of the engine to create their VN.     What is our current state?   For the moment, Joilly is still on alpha phase. What is available is : - The scene editor is nearly completely functional and needs beta testers. - The flowchart system is being worked on atm and should be finished soon. - Our developer is also working on the UI maker (that will enable the creators to customize their VN GUI) - Flag system is in the works   So, what do we need? 1°) We need creators that would act as beta-tester. 2°) We need a php programmer and a website designer (if possible one same person) for our site and our forums.     FAQ   1°) I want to help / participate in Joilly, what can I do? If you're a creator, you can try to help us by trying to create a Visual Novel on Joilly. We'd want (in order of priority) - A team that is lacking a programmer or isn't set on an engine to use. - A writer and artist that have art assets and a script. - A writer willing to write a short VN with the default available assets we can provide.   We would prioritize people that have assets already ready to be ported on the the engine. Those people would basically be testers for us so that we can find bugs, and also the testers is a way for us to get feedback for engine improvements. If you're ever interested in participating, just message me, and we'll discuss about it!   If you're a programmer and you know php, we're looking for a programmer to take care of the site and the forums. We want to work someone we can trust and form a partnership eventually, so if you're interested, same as before, just message me!     2°) Are you doing all of this for free? Do you plan to not get money at all? We haven't settled on an economical model yet, so we can't tell you for the moment. We will probably need some money at some point, if only to get our own servers and storage, so we will probably try to get money in some way (whether it is with ads, donation, ...). We will try to do this in a way where it won't restrict any creator in creating their VN, and where it wouldn't change anything for readers that wants to read VN on Joilly.     3°) What kind of Visual Novels will Joilly be supporting? - Joilly's primary goal is to support games focused on storytelling. - For content : any content is allowed, whether it is Otome-game, Bishoujo-game... as long as it respects our Terms of Service. (that means for example no heinous encouragement of any sort). H content is permitted as long as it's not the main goal of the VN (understand here : no nukige). - I would like to say that we want to encourage as well VN with gameplay elements, but honestly, the engine is not made for complex gameplay elements. The best you could do would probably be make a simple dating sim. Stats raising are not possible for example (so no RPG VN).     4°) Will Joilly ever become commercial? Well, I guess I'd need to go into the details to answer properly. First, you need to consider that we'd like to get our own storage space and servers, and that we need money for this. Also, even though we want to encourage people to become creators even if they don't have any funds, we do feel that it's fair for us to gain some sort of commission if ever someone wants to create a commercial VN with our engine. Also : - We don't plan on making the readers pay to access Joilly. Ever. - There will be most likely a payment system for creators that want to get some more features on the site (get a save slot, get some exposure on the site through our home page...). Those features will be accessible for the VN that manages to reach a certain number a view (some sort of milestones system) - We do plan on getting some money with "clean" advertisement on the site.     5°) So what are the possibilities I will have if I ever want to create and release a VN on Joilly? There are basically 3 possibilities :  - You want to make a free VN without wanting to get any income? Sure, no problems! We won't put any ads on your VN page. - You want to make a free VN and still get incomes? Sure, we will help you with advertisement on your VN page, and we'll get a little percentage of what you earned. - You want to make a commercial VN and get income? Sure, we will force the user to pay once if he ever wants to play your VN on Joilly, and we'll take a little percentage (probably through the use of Paypal).   This will also be the order of implementation, meaning that at the moment, we can only handle and publish free VN that won't get you any income. Later on, when we implement our clean advertisement system, we will be able to propose the second option to creators. And lastly, we will try to implement a system with paypal where the user has to unlock the content of the VN by paying with paypal, and where we'll take a little percentage.     6°) And what if I don't want to play to my VN online? We are planning to make it possible to download an executable to install the Joilly's VN on your computer, but it's not a priority for the moment. It will eventually get done. We want it to be a standalone executable, and not simply you being able to play it on your browser even when not connected.       7°) I don't trust cloud storage!  I think / heard that it's not safe! It's true that cloud storage is not totally safe, especially for small cloud storage companies. But, you have to consider two things : - The global progression of the creation of the VN on Joilly will be saved on the cloud, but also locally on the user's computer, and finally we do regular backups of the data. - The assets (sprites, music, CGs, BGs) have to be uploaded by the user on cloud storage (dropbox or amazon storage both works with Joilly). We are planning to implement as well a system of auxiliary cloud storage links in case that the first cloud storage link provided for the asset manager fails (so basically, you can upload your assets on both dropbox and amazon, and if the dropbox link ever fails, the asset manager will check the amazon link). We do want to get our own storage space and our own servers at some point, but that will be when we manage to get some money with Joilly.     8°) I feel it is really restrictive to be only able to work on Joilly if i'm connected to the Internet. Are you really not going to make it accessible offline? Okay, so far, it's clear that not being able to work on your VN offline is somehow a hindrance. I guess I'm talking from my own experience as a user of the engine for my own project, but I really believe there are both pro and con :
 
Pros :
- It's accessible on any device that can connect to internet, so if ever you're on another computer than your principal one, or even on your touchpad, or your smartphone, you can still work on your VN. (It's not optimized yet for smartphones though, but hopefully it will one day be)
- If ever you have a hard drive failure, you won't lose any of your work.
- If you ever need / want to split the work (I agree with you that this is more useful for bigger projects where there is a lot of script), it's totally possible to share the workload, granted that all the people working on this follow a detailed enough script concerning animations and such. And the simplicity of the engine make it so that anyone can actually work on the engine without any specific knowledge required about programming.
- It's way easier to submit to every other member some preview of what you created on the engine to see if they are happy with it.
 
Cons :
- You cannot access your work if you don't have access to the internet. I can't argue with that, but we have some reasons for actually preferring this for the moment over offline access to the engine.
  Of course, all of this is still debatable, and in the end it still comes down to the sensibility of the user and about what he values the most when doing a project like this.
But coming back as to why it's really preferable for us to have a solely online accessible engine (for the moment), this is mostly because we don't want Joilly to be only an engine (as, let's say, ren'py). As I explained previously, we want Joilly to be 3 things : an engine easy of use for creators, a catalog of VN directly playable on the site, and a community for English Visual Novels. If we offer the possibility for the user to work on the engine offline, we have no way to control if the creator will release his VN on Joilly, (and at the beginning, most creators won't actually have any interest to release their work on Joilly) which will prevent us from getting a consequent catalog of VN, and which will prevent us from getting a community.
 
 
9°) So there are actually restrictions for the use of Joilly's engine?
So, yeah, we are offering our engine for free for the creators. But we do want to get something out of it, and the only restriction we have is that you need to publish your VN on Joilly in order to help it grow. We cannot control this if we offer the possibility for the creators to work offline on it. However, that doesn't mean we will never consider it, we do realize that it's both safer and more pratical for the user to be able to work offline AND online. But it would have to be when Joilly is already popular and attractive enough so that creators will want to publish their VN on Joilly in order to get exposure (so basically when we have a sufficient enough community).
    So that's all for the moment! Don't hesitate to play the demo, and to give us any feedback on it by posting on this thread!   And thanks for your time reading this!      

Welcome to the fuwa forums!
Hope you'll enjoy yourself and that we'll get along! ^^

Ha, a fellow guitarist!
Welcome to the forums! Hope you'll enjoy your time here!

Hello there! Welcome to the fuwa forums!
Hope you'll enjoy yourself here!

Yeah, I was going to just let that statement go, but I must say I had the same thought. Folks like Daimon and I would obviously take those words very seriously. We are all in different situations that have nothing to do with skills. A lot of people are still in school or college, so they might have less life experience to draw upon, and they have less money compared to those of us with jobs. Others just happen to have rich parents etc and can throw out a lot of money to make pretty things. Life was never known to be fair. Those in tougher positions still have a lot of heart, though. There needs to be respect for that.
 
I have come across someone whose profile said she was the most successful VN so and so developer. The profile was later changed, but unfortunately, I will always remember that description. These things are important. Love for others is not assumed but it is very much appreciated .

A little announcement, thanks to the new people we've been recruiting during august concerning the different assets creation, we might be able to release some playable content (ie a very short demo) relatively soon! I can't promise for sure, but you can expect it for second half of September if everything goes well (well, everything goes well only in an ideal world, so there might be some delay).
Content will be Day 1 of common route, and there should be around 20 minutes of reading content.
 
Hopefully day 1 will be a good introduction to our world setting, to the story and to some of the characters! 
Get hyped (or not)! 
 
Also, we just made some new blog posts :
One about writing, an interesting explanation about "method writing" from our lead writer Megan : http://lucid9.weebly.com/blog/off-the-record-method-writing
And another post with a Rui presentation, and a new OST from Greg! http://lucid9.weebly.com/blog/when-it-rains-it-pours

Last updated : January 20th 2016
 
 
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Staff list
Active members :
Diamonit : Project lead, Plot supervisor, Character design
 
Luna Chai : Writer (Common route), Graphics, GUI
DavidA. : Writer (Heroine route)
Clestae : Writer (Heroine route), Beta, editor
AnotherPlayer : Writer (Heroine route)
Suna : Writer (Heroine route)
 
Mac : Character design, PR
Sean : Side writer, Character design, PR
 
Reika : Editor
Rains : Proof-reader
 
Dizzyworld2 : Lead artist, Female Sprites, CGs
Elphaze: Male sprites, CGs
Yuuko : Backgrounds, GUI
 
Breeze : Composer
Ziassan : Composer
UltraKitsune : Composer, SFX
Yunyunsae : Composer
 
Zander : SFX
 
Zuka : GUI programmer
Jbonesy : Narrative scripting programmer
Ian : Narrative scripting progralmmer
 
 
Former members / Inactive members :
 
Blue wolfie : Composer , Arranger
danpc :  Project Lead, programmer, composer, idea bouncer
Hooves : Character design, idea boucer
 
 
    We, at Fallen Snow Studios, are all very motivated and excited to take part in this great adventure that is the creation of a Visual Novel, and we hope we'll be able to create something you will enjoy reading! Thanks for your time reading this, and don't hesitate to reply to this thread if you have any question, or if you just want to show your support! It means a lot to us!

Project's abandoned.

Alright, so its time to begin pushing my plan forward a little bit here. The purpose of this thread is to lay out my plans for the Fuwanovel Social Media department and what I would like to see moving forward from it. 
 
Right now, I am in control of 3 out of the 4 Fuwanovel social media outlets. These are, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. The fourth, VisualNovelAer is in flux right now. So for the moment, there is nothing I can do about that until I know what the plans are for the blog (be it reconstruction or simply adding more writers). 
 
So here are the current teams.
 
Facebook: solidbatman, Nosebleed, ryouuuuu, Kaguya (inactive), Tay (doesnt use but access if needed), unnamed (inactive)
Twitter: solidbatman, zakamutt, Tay (doesn't use, but has access if needed)
Youtube: solidbatman
Blog: Tay, zakamutt, god knows who else
 
 
The Facebook continues to grow at a healthy pace and we will pass 13000 likes within the next month. 
 
The Twitter is close to 400 followers. With a bit of work, we can likely surpass the original twitter account. 
 
Youtube is still being planned out, but work should begin within the week. What I have planned for the Youtube channel, is to record about 30 minutes of every Visual Novel we have offered. These videos can then be embedded on the download page for the visual novel as a sort of trailer for those who might have limited bandwith, or would like to see the VN in action before downloading. Choices will be done through annotations and unlisted videos to keep from having spoilers. Also possibly being hosted are official Fuwanovel Let's Plays and the Official Fuwanovel Podcast. Both of these are still under consideration and I will await feedback before deciding. 
 
The blog is I don't even know. 
 
 
Some needs:
 
Facebook: We need someone able to assist users in tech support questions. I don't have time to go through each comment and post and even less to investigate every issue that pops up. Nosebleed has been doing this as much as he can, but recently everyone has become busy. We do the best we can, but could really use some help.
 
Twitter: Zaka and myself tend to hit all the news we need to on this front. That said, having someone who can TL tweets from VN companies overseas would be a god send. We also need to remove the old twitter account from the front page and replace it with the new one. It won't take any effort to actually do. Just needs someone who has access to the front page. 
 
Youtube: TBA
 
Blog: TBA
 
 
The end goal for all of this is to make Fuwanovel the go to outlet for VN information and news. We've focused so much on hosting VNs, I think its time to actually educate about VNs now and make it easier for people to support their favorite VNs and developers. In the end, I want Fuwanovel to actually be a part of the official western VN community by removing all licensed games, having information pages for licensed VNs (these pages also having a 30 minute demo video), and providing links to purchase licensed VNs instead of a download. I would also like to see Fuwanovel put together instructions for those looking to import physical copies of JP only titles (titles that have been Fan TL'd) and having a purchase link alongside those download links. By using social media to educate and inform, we can perhaps make Fuwanovel a friend to localization companies, and become a resource that isn't hated by those companies. 
 
If you have any questions, want to offer any feedback, or want to give us a hand, feel free to PM me or post in this thread. Thank you for reading!

Community Spotlight Video Series Information
 
I have finally begun work on my spotlight video series, and much like I did with the Fuwanovel podcast, I thought it would be best to consolidate all of this project's information into a single official thread. As you may have been aware, I am not the only one on this site that does projects for the community; there are plenty of translation groups and fun activities that are hosted around Fuwanovel. That being said, I wanted to make a video series showcasing some of the awesome stuff people do around here and give everyone credit where I believe credit is well deserved.
 
Being completely separate from the podcast and the "Get to Know your Community" series, these videos are meant to showcase Fuwanovel and the countless hours put into it everyday. Rather than talking about who we are, the goal of the series is to talk about what we do. That being said, I plan to showcase many threads and translation groups from around the community in my videos. Because there are so many different things I am able to highlight however, these videos will not be episodic and simply be put into a playlist on my YouTube channel in the order they are released. That said, this thread is designed to discuss things you as members want to see highlighted around the site. If you have any suggestions for what I should spotlight, please don't hesitate to let me know. Below is a link where all current and future episodes are located on my YouTube channel.
 
Community Spotlight Video Series YouTube Channel Playlist
 
Anyways, I hope you enjoy the series and check out some of the other threads and activities around Fuwanovel as a result.

Hello, welcome to fuwa!
Rewrite is a very nice VN to read (it's my personal favorite), but it might be a bit lengthy(easily over 50 hours of reading).
Anyway, hope you'll enjoy your time here!

BG artists are generally very hard to find (I talk from experience), since very few artists dedicate their time to drawing only backgrounds.
You might want to take a look on deviantart, but unless you're very, very, very lucky, the artists will ask for payment.
 
As for promotion more generally, a blog is a good thing to have at the beginning, as I feel that Twitter and Facebook are a bit limiting in terms of customization (facebook should fit the bill if it's for basic updates though).
 
Try to make a good impression on the communities you want to appeal, especially Lemmasoft and Fuwanovel since they are the biggest communities that will support you.
When I say leave a good impression, it means :
- Take care of your public relationships, and treat every people interested in your project with due respect (even if they are only criticizing you, and there will be people like that), that's especially true if your VN involves money (either a kickstarter or a commercial VN)
- Stay humble and keep a low profile until you have some assets / teasers to show. It's better to keep your energy to work on your project and improve it before trying to make the buzz and appeal to the masses, real and heavy advertisement should wait until you have a demo before you can really focus on it.
 
As for your kickstarter, I can't emphasize enough on how much you need to take care of the design of your presentation page. A video is mandatory, if possible a teaser video (or an opening) would be great, but might be hard to do without the resources. Also, keep in mind that a kickstarter is a double edged sword. If things go wrong (and I hope it won't, but it can happen), you will have to make sure to fund back those who tried to support you. Basically, I'm saying that if you're doing a kickstarter, you must be sure of the direction where you're going, and that you took some precautions so that you can reach your goal even if things go wrong (for example, you'll have to make sure that your artists will stay through the end, because changing artists midway is difficult. Same goes for your writers).
 
Anyway, creating a visual novel is a long road ahead, but it's definitely worth it, especially if you're having fun while doing it. After 6 months spending creating a Visual Novel, I had lot of hardship, but also met a lot of amazing and skilled people that I can now call my friends, even despite the language barrier, and it's motivating to work with such wonderful people. If you manage to create such bonds among the members of your team, then no doubts that your VN will come to completion!

A little announcement, thanks to the new people we've been recruiting during august concerning the different assets creation, we might be able to release some playable content (ie a very short demo) relatively soon! I can't promise for sure, but you can expect it for second half of September if everything goes well (well, everything goes well only in an ideal world, so there might be some delay).
Content will be Day 1 of common route, and there should be around 20 minutes of reading content.
 
Hopefully day 1 will be a good introduction to our world setting, to the story and to some of the characters! 
Get hyped (or not)! 
 
Also, we just made some new blog posts :
One about writing, an interesting explanation about "method writing" from our lead writer Megan : http://lucid9.weebly.com/blog/off-the-record-method-writing
And another post with a Rui presentation, and a new OST from Greg! http://lucid9.weebly.com/blog/when-it-rains-it-pours

Last updated : January 20th 2016
 
 
NOW AVAILABLE ON STEAM FOR FREE!
 
 
 
 

 
 
 

 

 
 
Staff list
Active members :
Diamonit : Project lead, Plot supervisor, Character design
 
Luna Chai : Writer (Common route), Graphics, GUI
DavidA. : Writer (Heroine route)
Clestae : Writer (Heroine route), Beta, editor
AnotherPlayer : Writer (Heroine route)
Suna : Writer (Heroine route)
 
Mac : Character design, PR
Sean : Side writer, Character design, PR
 
Reika : Editor
Rains : Proof-reader
 
Dizzyworld2 : Lead artist, Female Sprites, CGs
Elphaze: Male sprites, CGs
Yuuko : Backgrounds, GUI
 
Breeze : Composer
Ziassan : Composer
UltraKitsune : Composer, SFX
Yunyunsae : Composer
 
Zander : SFX
 
Zuka : GUI programmer
Jbonesy : Narrative scripting programmer
Ian : Narrative scripting progralmmer
 
 
Former members / Inactive members :
 
Blue wolfie : Composer , Arranger
danpc :  Project Lead, programmer, composer, idea bouncer
Hooves : Character design, idea boucer
 
 
    We, at Fallen Snow Studios, are all very motivated and excited to take part in this great adventure that is the creation of a Visual Novel, and we hope we'll be able to create something you will enjoy reading! Thanks for your time reading this, and don't hesitate to reply to this thread if you have any question, or if you just want to show your support! It means a lot to us!

A little announcement, thanks to the new people we've been recruiting during august concerning the different assets creation, we might be able to release some playable content (ie a very short demo) relatively soon! I can't promise for sure, but you can expect it for second half of September if everything goes well (well, everything goes well only in an ideal world, so there might be some delay).
Content will be Day 1 of common route, and there should be around 20 minutes of reading content.
 
Hopefully day 1 will be a good introduction to our world setting, to the story and to some of the characters! 
Get hyped (or not)! 
 
Also, we just made some new blog posts :
One about writing, an interesting explanation about "method writing" from our lead writer Megan : http://lucid9.weebly.com/blog/off-the-record-method-writing
And another post with a Rui presentation, and a new OST from Greg! http://lucid9.weebly.com/blog/when-it-rains-it-pours

A little announcement, thanks to the new people we've been recruiting during august concerning the different assets creation, we might be able to release some playable content (ie a very short demo) relatively soon! I can't promise for sure, but you can expect it for second half of September if everything goes well (well, everything goes well only in an ideal world, so there might be some delay).
Content will be Day 1 of common route, and there should be around 20 minutes of reading content.
 
Hopefully day 1 will be a good introduction to our world setting, to the story and to some of the characters! 
Get hyped (or not)! 
 
Also, we just made some new blog posts :
One about writing, an interesting explanation about "method writing" from our lead writer Megan : http://lucid9.weebly.com/blog/off-the-record-method-writing
And another post with a Rui presentation, and a new OST from Greg! http://lucid9.weebly.com/blog/when-it-rains-it-pours