Gibberish

As for Katawa Shoujo, I remember that my roommate play this at around 2009 in that back then it's just a trial version of it. Obviously back then I didn't expect that there'll be full version, only to have 4chan manage to release the full version of it at January 4th of 2012 (I remember the date because that date was happen to be one of the important date for my family). Well Katawa Shoujo here is definitely not my starter VN (The title goes to Shuffle and Kira Kira), although I won't deny the fact that it's the first VN for a lot of people though along with one of the most popular VN on VNDB which really says a lot if we remember that this is just merely an OELVN (In fact had Katawa Shoujo is not OELVN I would add this on my list in regard of best rated translated VNs in 2012).
PS - Oh yes Katawa Shoujo here is very popular, so much that JAST add this to their own storefront in which as far as I remember it's only for Japanese VNs (I may be remember it wrong though) and with this it might be the first free VN on JAST storefront there. The tweet for the proof below.
By the way you can also download the artbook along with the soundtrack at JAST as well.

The creation and release of Katawa Shoujo is still I think one of the proudest moments of the Western VN scene so I think it deserves a topic celebrating it's 10th anniversary. I also know that a lot of people who eventually became active on here got their start with Katawa Shoujo (I could be wrong, but I believe our esteemed Admin @Tay even falls into this category). In any case, it's definitely among my favorite VNs and I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts and memories of it. On that note, years ago @Palas made an excellent post about it and I'd like to share that here: Katawa Shoujo Analysis – A Hurricane and a Mountain 

Hey there developers, and potential developers, of Fuwanovel. I have been interested in visual novels for quite some time and have come across so many posts by people who are saying that they want to develop a visual novel but can't due to their lack of ability in programming.
Therefore I thought it might be interesting to have a programming-free solution for it and looked into it and found quite a few engines which allow creating Visual Novels without code. But almost all of them cost money, which most starting developers do not want to pay, or they are heavily outdated/abandoned.
I have been working with Unity for quite some time and was looking into making a package for Unity that would allow you to create visual novels without coding. Of course I want to create it in a way that you can add on to it if you do have the ability to code in C#.
Long story short, my actual question is the following:
How much interest would there actually be in a FREE Unity package that would allow you to make a visual novel without coding?
One of the main reasons I feel that Unity is a great choice is due to the sheer amount of resources out there for it. So if you wanted to add anything to your project or the framework, there would most likely be a tutorial or code snippet for it somewhere.
Anyways, I just wanted to know if there would be any interest in it. I have already started working on a prototype and already have most of the initial dialogue system setup.
If there would be any interest, feel free to reply post your opinion and questions.
PS, I hope this was the right thread to post this question in. If not, feel free to move it mods.
Regards
VNX

Feel free to skip this if you are not interested in the history. I won't be offended lol.
There's a sequence of sound changes that made the "c" character sound like an /s/ in the word Narcissus and other Latin borrowed words. The gist of it is that before a front vowel, namely /e/ and /i/, the /k/ became palatalized into a /t͡ʃ/ (sounding like the "ch" in church), which later became simply /ʃ/ (sounding like the "sh" in sharp) and then lost its palatalization again to become /s/. Since this didn't happen with all vowels but front vowels only, we get that weird alternation where sometimes the "c" sounds like "k" and sometimes like "s". English borrowed the problems along with Latin and especially French loanwords.
I had read the VN and for some reason that never occurred to me! That answers the question then, thank you!
Since I'm not a native English speaker I wouldn't dare suggest a most "natural" pronunciation, so I just tried to offer you some options with their corresponding justifications. But for what it's worth, I agree, it's probably best to not overcomplicate things. If everyone seems to pronounce it like you did in your 3rd recording, Narsissu, and considering the -su stands for "suicide" and those sounds are preserved very clearly in that pronunciation, I'd definitely be leaning towards this one.

I believe pronouncing it like it's supposed to be pronounced in English is a safe bet. So,  /nɑɹˈsɪsəs/.
I'm not sure where the japanese pronunciation might come from, but if I had to take a guess, it's either from Latin, where the "c" is /k/, or from the original Greek "νάρκισσος"  /ˈnar.kis.sos/.
Taking the guess a bit further, it might be the case that they took the Latin nominative "narcissus" and removed the final -s, thinking that would get rid of the plural even if the plural of the second declension doesn't end in -s but in -ī, narcissī. It seems like a plausible misunderstanding to me, what do you think?
TL;DR:
The options seems to be either /nɑɹˈsɪsəs/ or /nɑɹˈsɪsə/ for the English pronunciation (introducing an /s/ for the heck of it in the first case), or if you don't mind stepping out of English's phonology, then you can go with the -incorrect- Latin /nar.ˈkis.su/.
In the end it's a made up word so whatever floats your boat I guess!
EDIT:
You can hear how the Latin word is supposed to be pronounced here: https://forvo.com/word/narcissus/#la
I decided to use IPA for this reply because trying to convey phonetic information without it, even more so when I'm not a native English speaker seems sketchy to say the least. I apologize if you are not familiar with it.

Darbury presents Darbury’s Old Visual Novels for Old People Named Darbury
Will anybody care about this TL other than me? Probably not. So let’s just agree to call it a micro-niche release, okay?
Anyway, there’s this doujin VN called Hitokata. It’s old. Came out 20 years ago, in fact. A one-person labor of love released at the turn of the century. It’s also well-regarded in the Japanese freeware VN community. Start poking around people’s top 10 lists of free VNs and you’ll be surprised how often it turns up. I mean, not Narcissu often… but enough.
Why? Nostalgia maybe. Back in the day, a 100% free VN that clocked in at 10+ hours was something of a rarity. And one that was sorta good? Doubly so. The game was also surprisingly influential, picking up the time-loop ball from YU-NO and running with it before that trope became a total cliche. Even now, you’ll often see Hitokata referenced in reviews and discussions of doujin VNs with timey-wimey narratives.
Great. So what the hell is it about, Darbury?
Glad you asked. Here’s a little write-up:
Ancient demons, teenage angst, fresh fish… What more could you want, right?
Hitokata never made it to the West for a variety of reasons: a graphically bare-bones first release; an over-reliance on repetition; and an odd mix of cornball humor and existential dread. (Plus, if I’m being honest, the narrative can be slightly clunky at times.) It was popular enough in Japan, however, to merit a commercial remake for mobile — first for feature phones, then Android/iOS. And with that came a whole new generation of fans.

A very stupid localization
Everyone had a COVID hobby to keep them sane over the past year, and working on Hitokata was one of mine. It started as a simple translation of the NScripter original, but when I was done, I was visited by a series of increasingly stupid thoughts:
Stupid Thought #1: Hey, this VN isn’t very pretty. Maybe I can just add the backgrounds from the mobile release. Stupid Thought #2: Heyy, now that I’ve added the backgrounds, it probably won’t be much more work to add the sprites. Stupid Thought #3: Heyyy, now that I’ve added the sprites, it probably won’t be much more work to add the sounds and music. Stupid Thought #4: Heyyyy, now that I’ve added the sounds and music, it probably won’t be much more work to add the UI. Stupid Thought #5: Heyyyyy, now that I’ve added the UI, why don’t I just port this whole thing to Ponscripter. By the time the stupidity stopped, I’d more or less done a ground-up rebuild of the game. Whoops! On the bright side, it means there are now two distinct versions of the TL patch: Hitokata Classic, a straight TL of the original game; and Hitokata Enhanced, with all the added bells and whistles. Here’s a side-by-side comparison of an early screen to show how those two versions stack up.
Screenshots:
CLASSIC | ENHANCED
So, if your name is Darbury and you like old doujin VNs, you can find more info on the patch here. (You're also incredibly handsome. Good on ya.) If you’re anyone else, just go play Musicus! already.

I have been wondering about this issue for a long time. As the number of Black otaku continues to rise every year, there are bound to be an increasing number of Black nerds that want the same ability as their Japanese and White counterparts in being able to consume media featuring main characters that look like them, in terms of skin color, hair or implied ethnicity.
Since Japanese people too are very open and unapologetic in wanting to enjoy mediums with relatable self-insert protagonists that share their ethnicity and skin color as evidenced by the sheer number of blank-state or bland Japanese MCs in Isekai and Narou stories, it would be foolish to assume that Black nerds won't think the same with regards to wanting to see relatable MCs in the media they love.
Therefore, I'd like to ask a simple question. How open are you to the idea of playing a VN with a Black Protagonist ?
There are some that says that the race or color of the MC doesn't matter as long as the story and Heroines are interesting enough. If that is really true, then they wouldn't mind if the protagonist is Black, right ?
It doesn't have to be NTR crap for such MCs to be introduced. Black MCs can appear as a normal hero too in a straightforward pure love VN or Eroge, as evidenced in the Netflix anime "Yasuke". I hope that the idea of Black Protagonists would be normalized in VNs, especially ones made in the West. They're human too just like you and me. Besides, there is no law that says you can't make a fictional work with a protagonist that has a different appearance, skin tone, background or ethnicity from your own.
Creators should be able to explore boundless limits in storytelling and be more adventurous to prevent cliched stagnation of overused elements in character relationship dynamics. I think multiracial countries like America and some Southeast Asian countries like Singapore can really lead the way in making games with diverse protagonists and interracial or intercultural romance, especially in the Visual Novel medium.
What do you guys think ?   

Originally I didn't have much to say about this, other than that tastes are somewhat subjective and after strong evaluation I standby most of my writing decisions (even if some disapprove). But, I do appreciate all the effort you spent into pointing out all the parts you had problems with. So if nothing else, thank you for the constructive feedback and giving it a try. 
EDIT: I should add, when I say I standby the writing I don't mean to imply that I think the writing is free from fault. But personally, I'm done modifying this work and ready to move on with my life to other things. Most of the remaining flaws regarding the writing are either very pedantic technical details, or simply subjective disagreements.

Well, I don't want to go too deep into this either, but you wrote mostly about hating tropes it uses which is a lot more in the personal taste/cultural sensitivities category. Just like the complaints @Dreamysyu mentioned, that's kind of a whole another layer of discussion. Plus with production quality... Sure, people may dislike the artstyle or it might age poorly... The same might even happen to storytelling, with VNs as a medium and culture people live in changing. But you can both acknowledge something representing high quality in its original context and it not standing the test of time – but honestly, 2D games suffer from this way less than many other forms of media.
Well, I'll have to retreat to the intersubjectivity term that Palas was so nice to introduce to the discussion. Obviously no standards can be truly objective because objectivity arguably doesn't exist at all. But that doesn't mean things like consistent writing or technical prowess are completely up to one's feelings – it's grounded in the societally-created rules on what is considered positive, or sometimes the internal logic of the text itself. I, once more, argue that quality assessment and overall judgment on whether a piece of media is good/enjoyable are interconnected, but separate. Pointing out plotholes and poorly directed shots that make everything into blurry mess – these are as close to factual statements as you can ever get in media criticism. You can use the word "valid", "grounded" or whatever to avoid the misleading framing, but it's still the same principle. Like, the only possible riposte you would have for the asshats you mentioned above would be "these things don't matter as much as you make them seem", which is a fair opinion, but in no way invalidates their complaints. People freak out about the "culture of nitpicking" nowadays but if you don't have a counterargument against the nitpick, it means it pointed out a flaw. And small flaws can combine into a deeply flawed experience – which might still be very much worthwhile or effective, but that doesn't mean those are not worth discussing or can't ruin the experience for some. That final assessment, of course, is a lot more subjective and requires a lot more elaboration than sheer quality assessment can ever provide. That's why a review which tries to be as objective as possible will not only fail to achieve that goal, but will likely also be a very crappy thing to read. Or is, indeed, a pose assumed in bad faith/to mask one's opinions.

The best judge of quality is time. Fads come and go, which is why popularity is a poor judge. Think of all the anime that gets discussed every season. Some of which is very popular and then gets forgotten about within a year or 2. On the other hand, there are cases where something went unnoticed for a while, and eventually it gets dug up and finally appreciated. I realize its a frustrating answer, to say that the only way to really determine quality is to wait. But I think its the only consistent method that is relatively free of bias. 

1. People mix up quality and their personal enjoyment all the time which makes the discussion about it very loaded. Quality is somewhat quantifiable, while enjoyment is purely personal. It's utter snobbishness to claim you only enjoy good-quality things, or to not be able to appreciate the quality of something you personally despise. At the same time, it's easy to understand why many people do not have that kind of distance towards media they consume – they affect our emotions and can become so important that we see every critique of our favourites as personal attacks against us.
2. Quality isn't objective, as Palas nicely explained, but I also hate the perspective that it's 100% reliant on context. We get to something like claiming that Twilight is a quality series because bland self-insert protagonists and shitty, sappy writing are not considered negative traits for a teenage romance novel (and I've seen a writer that I semi-respect spewing that). I think that the "does it do its job?" question is important, but shouldn't be the end of the discussion. Otherwise, once more, we lose all difference between something being of good quality and just being popular.
3. And as the same time, the pedantic approach of overanalysing pieces of media by some (even well-developed) set of technical standards, and creating some kind of "mean score" assessment is absolute nonsense too. A piece of media is never just a sum of its parts, so to say something meaningful about it you need to include contextual knowledge and subjective impressions about its effectiveness in whatever it tried to achieve.
So, to sum it all up... I'd argue that quality, if the word is meant to have any meaning at all, is a bit more objective than some people make it out to be – arts that develop over decades and centuries create their canons of good practices and techniques that are worth utilizing, and should be used as points of reference. But it's also not as important as some make it out to be – both because something doesn't have to be high-quality to provide entertainment and because high quality by itself doesn't create meaning. And that's good, because otherwise art and popculture would be awfully dull.

I only read like the initial 20 mins before RL interrupted me, but I have to say, the visual style and music are spot-on. I love how thematic all the screams are, along with the ambience and sampled visuals and voices it really transports you to this eerie hikikomori world. I will comment more on the story when I get further into it.
One technical comment I have is the flickering screen in the blog sections... I know it's for authenticity's sake, but it low-key gave me a headache and I'm usually not very susceptible to such stuff. I wonder if it would be complicated to create an option to toggle it off? It might just be me overdosing on coffee or something though. 

Update: Version 1.20. is now out. @Zakamutt was the editor for this version and he helped a lot. This will likely be the final update to the VN. And if not the final, it is certainly the most significant update. The script has been thoroughly examined and polished of any errors. If any errors do remain they were either intentionally left in as a design decision, or my subconscious just really wants them there lol. 

UPDATE: Just updated all the files, lets call this version 1.10. Zakamutt kindly did some work as a proofreader, and I've fixed various typos for this version. There may still be some typos that stubbornly escaped attention, but at least the majority of them should have been taken care of in this release.  

I would like to say before anything else, that this project is first and foremost an open love-letter to the visual novel medium. I've officially been reading visual novels (granted, on an on-and-off basis) for 10 years now. Hell, I've been posting on these forums for over 7 years. It's safe to say that visual novels are an ingrained part of me at this point. Whether across discussion threads here or blog posts, I've written a lot about my thoughts on visual novels, especially about those that I like. However, even with blog posts that I took lots of time to carefully write up and polish, I never felt like I was able to truly convey my genuine love for the medium. I think with this visual novel, Digital Seclusion, I've finally been able to do that to some respect.

 
Plot Synopsis: Isolated in a room repurposed into a personal shrine to esoteric Japanese media. Our nameless protagonist has dedicated himself to a collection of retro Japanese computer games, with a particular fondness for early visual novels. Although decaying in a slovenly existence to the untrained eye, his retreat into digital life is enriched by the scripted interactions with various charming 2D girls. His one purpose in life is to chronicle his thoughts and reflections on each of the digital worlds he immerses himself in. However, one day while pulling out another visual novel to review, a girl leaps straight out of the cover art and begins interacting with him, face to face. But perhaps most shocking of all, in a completely unscripted manner.
Information: Digital Seclusion is completely free. In terms of its length, I would estimate it to be between 1.5 ~ 2 hours long. The current and most likely final version of this VN is version 1.20.
Download: https://thezalor.itch.io/digital-seclusion

Steam 
■ About This Game ■
Walking through the forest, Reimu meets a stranger in the forest, now she needs to understand where he came from, and how he got through the barrier.
This is a short story about what difficulties await a person who got into Gensokyo.
■ Game Information ■
．Franchise: Touhou 東方
．Language and Ratings: Japanese, English, Russian, Chinese
．Game Length: 2 to 4 hours
．All characters are animated.
■Other■
Developer: 69Gate

Hey everybody,
 
I spent some time on this forum like 5-6 years ago and I wanted to spend some free time here again so I'm making  a very brief introduction.
Because if I don't write even a little, I feel like i'm gonna wait another years before deciding to post something 😛
Back then I used Visual Novels to try and learn Japanese, I was also taking lessons at the time and managed pass the N4 exam, yay!
I haven't read any VNs since 2017, where I stopped working on my Japanese to focus on other things and now I'm trying to get back into it.
I'm 23, male and from Germany. My online times might vary from yours but feel free to send me a message to have a nice chat
 
Nice to meet you all I hope the community has flourished and gained lots of new members over the last years!

All best wishes to @Palas!

Happy 27th birthday to our @Palas, and I hope that you'll have a good birthday.

Hmm, maybe distributor wasn't quite the right word to use, but I don't know what would be a better word to describe it with. VN publishing platform, maybe? Fuwanovel as far as I can tell is the only VN site where the EVN crowd and the JVN crowd mix even a little bit. And the Original VN Projects board sees a decent amount of threads of EVN creators marketing their stuff here. Why not take that a step further and let them upload their projects to Fuwanovel itself. Similar to how Steam is a platform where indie game devs can easily publish their stuff, and gamers can easily find and discover new content. I know that Steam already has a category for VNs, but I think VNs as a medium would benefit if they had their own version of that for just VNs. A place where creators can upload their projects directly to a site where a prospective audience is. And likewise, a site where users can easily download/purchase said uploaded VNs. Certainly it would emphasize that VNs are a medium itself and not just a genre.
Furthermore, I think it would be very beneficial for both the EVN scene, and for casual VN readers. Having all of this in one site might encourage some people to make more EVNs that caters more to the tastes of JVN fans, and JVN fans by getting more exposure to EVNs might become more adventurous with their own tastes. 
Realistically, I realize there would be serious hurdles to overcome. Affording the server space alone is a realistic concern. But theoretically, I don't know... I think its an idea with decent potential.  

They no longer do that (that annoying and completely unnecessary popup is gone when rating a 10 or 1) and I always ignored it anyways as it is the users choice what they rate not VNDB choice.

I seem to have joined (or, activated) at a great time 😊
Wish all the best for Tay, this site and community.

Test this stuff and tell me how bad I broke things
===========================
Avatars. Shape and size okay on your theme? Resizing windows on your favorite theme Sidebars look okay? Fixed Google+ for Fiddle Deleted Rooke's theme with extreme prejudice If you use the dark-dark theme (Infinite Stomach v7) how badly do you hate the animated header? And how much do you hate its height? Would you prefer it be skinnier and static?
New Features I Care About Enough to Mention
===========================
Admin CP notifications Email fixes SEO improvements Lazy loading of images to speed up page rendering More email preferences options Clubs are now fixed. Are we even using clubs? I meant to, but I don't think it ever too off.
Possible Features I don't plan on activating
===========================
Post Before Registering Gif Button   
Things I need to Activate But Might Forget
===========================
Giphy key > com enhance in acp (but only if you guys want giphy) New SEO features
Bugs Fixed
===========================
Lots And Lots  
 
Note to anyone with access to ACP: haven't purged the old themes, yet, because I want to check some CSS stuff. But don't re-activate them or enable their use, it'll break stuff.

Hi everybody. My name is Tay. I’m the site admin, and I’m writing this post to share a few thoughts and to apologize for what has been a very difficult period for the site (and many of us in the real world, myself included). Please note that I am actively working on the site today (01:26 update: currently waiting on Nayleen’s help on a mysql issue that I don’t know how to solve) and will be available in this thread and on Discord throughout the day.
 
Why did you disappear?
I was overwhelmed by real-world responsibilities and the real-world issues affecting the site. I feel deeply that it’s my responsibility to keep an appropriate baseline amount of support (server, forums fees, forums UI theme subscriptions, front site plugin subscriptions), and have mostly done so, but not being here in a full, active manner means that I was unaware of even large issues, such as Invision losing my auto-pay details. I feel really bad, guys. I'm sorry.
 
Why didn’t you more proactively pass along the keys to other community members instead of just ghosting us?
Dropping torrents caused hundreds of real-world issues that made a site hand-off – even partially – unconscionable until resolved. It makes me happy that they feel like an ancient memory to most of you, but they have been my lived reality for a long time. Only this summer did that chapter fully come to a close. Fuwa is in the clear, for what it’s worth, and for the first time I feel like I have options.
 
What the &$% is going on with site/forums updates?
I’m working to fix some issues in how I access the various databases on the server. Once that’s fixed everything will be updated and troubleshooted. It’s going to be another Fuwapocalypse. But it’s gotta be done. I give you my word that, so long as I can get @Nayleen’s help, this will be done by week’s end.
As regards the forms, specifically, Invision, the software company who made our forums software, deleted the auto-pay credentials I’d given them and the software license lapsed for several months. It’s been renewed and everything will be updated as soon as I get Nay’s assistance and make a bunch of meticulous backups.
 
What is your plan for Fuwanovel going forward?
It may not be appropriate for that to be my call. I need to touch base with all the core users still active and sort out what’s best. I love Fuwanovel. It’s been a work of love spanning more than ten thousand hours (and much more than that in dollars). But my focus and passion -- help bring visual novels into the wider gaming community – has been realized.  I’ve been fortunate enough to facilitate or be part of some major, tectonic shifts in the industry. It’s a different world and I am likely not the best equipped to pick a direction. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think so.
What I’m confident about, however, is that the way I went about building Fuwa, while successful, is unsustainable. Palas put it incredibly well last month:
 
“It’s like running a business, but without, well, the business.” Perfectly said. For better or worse, I’m wholly or largely responsible for the projects he highlights: enormous and technical VNTS posts which took two people 5 or so hours to do every Friday night, an ambitious reviews hub scouring VN reviews from across the net, a VN reviews team, forums projects, etc.
A lot of what I did on Fuwa amounted to spending ungodly amounts of time watching trends in both the industry and site traffic and building ideas around what I thought would bring interest to the community and the VN player base. It worked well: we had huge traffic and played an important role in bringing VNs out of obscurity. But the lived reality was often me researching, designing and proposing these projects, and asking others to step up and either run or contribute to them without compensation. We’d have people putting in 20 hours a week, some weeks, on top of core admin staff working 30-40 hours weekly, and it STILL wasn’t enough. Most pitched in because we liked the cause, and liked hanging out with each other, and liked the dopamine rush of user engagement. Some did it because I asked them. And some did it because they felt like they had to. I’m still working on pulling apart my feelings on this issue.
I don’t know how to fix this part of being a fan site. I do know that it is wrong to ask so much of members without paying them. Fuwa has never made money and I was never able to pay for help. This isn’t going to change anytime soon, so any new site reality is going to have to take into account the need for a lessened human cost.
 
Anything else you want to say?
Tons. But that’s good for now. I’m spamming Nayleen on all the usual channels and mostly just want to get the site fully updated. We can chew on the site’s existential questions in the meantime.