Making VNs Portable

[harry_kinomoto]

I was wondering what options there were for people who wanted to play VNs on the move - eg with your phone/iPad/tablet/laptop/etc? I know there has been some discussion about this already - for eg I think Sakamoto was creating an Android app?? I would love if someone could give a quick summary of what headway has been made here thus far. Indeed, considering how nowadays everyone seems to emphasize mobility and convenience, I think offering people ways to get into VNs that DOESN'T involve them being chained to their desk for hours on end could help a great deal~

What also got me into thinking about this was an ad campaign for the HP Envy x2 - which sells itself as a tablet with windows functionality. If I recall correctly, one of the main problems surrounding this is getting an OS to run a VN engine, which is typically optimised for Windows. This makes most app-dependent devices, such as the iPad and most other smartphones, ill-suited for the task unless someone goes and does some major hacking.

That said, the video review of the Envy x2 above showcases how it can indeed run a Windows desktop as a standalone tablet (skip to 12:12) - so to me it seems like it might overcome the OS problem with ease. That said though, I am not particularly knowledgeable on technology, so I was wondering if anyone more-so could confirm this or shed some light on the matter? Or, does anyone know of different devices or ways to do this job??

[Steve]

I am quite surprised that people actually want these mobile devices for other stuff than quick activities.

I would understand that the current phones and tablets have something to kill a while such as angry birds and quick games like that that take 5 minutes and then you can move on, so it is great for a public transport, toilet or whatever.

In Japan the net coffees are big so I would even understand multiplayer grind games like Monster Hunter and such.

But do people really want to watch a 2h movie in public with all the immersion broken or in this case read VN with immersion broken or even with H scenes in public areas like subway or bus?

And for longer travels such as flight or a ride in a train in a coupé isn't a laptop much better choice as it works just as a normal PC so you can get any player you want, any software you want, any game you want (as long as the specs are good). And since you have lot of space in these long time transports, you don't need smaller device.

And transports that don't have enough space such as subway or bus will usually take at max 30 minutes, filled with people right and left and no personal space - would you in that time bring your phone to read a story driven VN or sex focused VN?

The Envy thing looks interesting idea as you can have both netbook and tablet and switch between the 2 but then comes the question, is it worth the money? For a higher price you get a normal tablet which you can if needed change for long time netbook - but very shitty. For that price you can get a laptop that will even able to run the newest Metro on highest settings - like this you won't run it at all and you won't run most of the games or high demanding software.

And if you split the price and buy the 2 devices separately, you can get normal tablet and not that bad netbook which will both work better as they are focused on one thing and don't try to be both.

So if you really want to pay much more for not so good specs just because it can transform between 2 devices instead of buying those 2 devices separately for the same price or buying only one of the devices (depending on how you want to use it) for half the price or 1000x more powerful than this for this price, it is your choice.

I myself prefer to only have a specific device for specific thing as if I need only that, I can leave the rest home. For example If I only want phone now, I have to carry giant phones with 100 functions that I don't currently want, I would much rather carry only the thing that can call and text and have it ultra small than how it currently is. If I want mp3 player I have much smaller player (its big like flash drive) and I don't have to have a giant phone in a pocket.

Sometimes when I see the new "technology advancements" like this I imagine the ads for some other products like "Buy this fridge - that is also an OVEN!" - really? I just want to have both separately and work perfectly than having these half assed mixtures of both that don't do anything 100% well.

If I focus the devices only one one thing, it can do the job better (see how Kindle is much better for reading than a tablet - that's because its designed to do one thing and not 1000).

So just my rant, basically do what you like and if you like all in one devices than you can get this but to have the best possible experience you should consider having specific device for specific things. So for VNs I would recommend laptop (which you can take to bed or train or plane and also use for work/school stuff) or some home desktop setup in bed like I have if you only read VN at home.

For reading books Kindle is very good, friend has one and it works very well.

[Rairu-kun]

Many VNs are for the PSP. Only problem is that they're all in jap. I believe Fuwanovel is working on one VN in particular. The Oriemo one for PSP.

As for getting VNs that are specifically made to run on a PC OS, there's...mmm...well I don't know of any ways around it. For now if you want to play VN's guess you'll have to use whatever PC you have. I have a small netbook in which I carry around. It's pretty small and light weight. I keep all my VN's in a usb and just thrust it in there when I want to play. There are some Apps in the appstore that can run OS emulators, however they are quite pricey, require wifi, a program for your pc, your pc has to be on at all times, it's basically like team view. I guess you could play VNs that way. imo that's too much hassle. So I guess for now we can just wait for those OS tablets to become the new hype so the price can lower and medium class folk like myself can get a hand on them.

Tbh I like the wait and anticipation that builds up in me after schol, wanting to sit down with a cup of coffee and really focus on playing the VN. If I played a VN anywhere else I'd probably find myself rereading things because I got distracted or didn't read the lines with full focus.

[Zakamutt]

Well, if it can play VNs will depend on what CPU architecture they are using. If it's ARM, it's prolly not gonna work for various reasons (essentially, the ARM cpu can't understand normal PC binary instructions). If it's x86, well those tablets have shitty battery life usually so enjoy .

As for the whole multi-device thing: I imagine it might be partly a cost thing, beside the convenience of owning just one device. COnvenience, though... well, consider the plight of the tech-tard who has to operate 5 different devices

[Guest]

i play all my eroge on a windows 8 tablet now: http://visualnovelaer.fuwanovel.net/2013/02/photos-of-my-1000-eroge-tablet-running-windows-8/

doesnt really have any problems running most eroge, the only one so far i havent been able to run was Ushinawareta Mirai wo Motomete,

i not sure what's coming up on the market, but i know if you get one now, you must wait for the next Atom which has double the power but retains the long battery life (and also weight is the most important).

the ones they have on the market atm are netbook speeds , which i think will lag trying to play some of the modern VNs (cause they can be pretty badly coded)

[Guest]

or three times higher performance

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20130506160854_Intel_Introduces_Silvermont_Low_Power_Micro_Architecture_for_Next_Gen_Atom_Processors.html

is what it claims

[Tay]

This is a great topic idea. Some people don't know this, but I'm actually the one tasked with building a Fuwanovel Android repository! The work is ongoing, but here are some of my old sub-projects which I published on the VisualNovelAer blog. More updates are coming!

For those with Android OR iOS devices:

You can stream your desktop monitor to iOS and Android devices by using apps like Splashtop 2. Here's how to do it: Play ANY VN on your Android/iOS Devices (!).

For those with Android devices:

Check out a series of articles I wrote for VisualNovelAer: Android Sundays:

• The VNDS app can play LOTS of Visual Novels, like Fate/Stay Night, Tsukihime, Cross Channel, Higurashi, Ever 17, Narcissu, KiraKira and more! See my Quick Guide to Playing Dozens of Amazing VNs on your Android Device.

[Sakamoto]

I know there has been some discussion about this already - for eg I think Sakamoto was creating an Android app??

LOL, since when did I make an Android app before? I only did some conversions to apk for some Ren'py visual novels before, nothing fancy.

Anyways, I'd like to make a comparison between the portable devices that you can run ENGLISH visual novels on:

NDS / 3DS:

- Needs a flashcart to run VNDS and Fatal Relations (homebrew)

- Has 999, Love Plus, Tokimeki Memorial Girls' Side (Otome)

- Really good battery life, good use of double-screen

- Cheap price

PSP / Vita:

- Has homebrew conversions for Yume Miru Kusuri and Divi-Dead

- Translations for Hakuouki (Otome), Milky Holmes, Corpse Party series, Ore no Imouto (upcoming)

- Reasonable battery life, but screen sometimes makes it hard to read VNs

- Cheap price

Android:

- Emulators to run a lot of older visual novels (DosBox, PSX)

- Google Play market has plenty of visual novels

- Has VNDS, Onscripter, Ren'py and xClannad apps

- Reasonable battery life, best read with a 7.0" tablet minimum

- Price varies, but a cheap Chinese-brand tablet would suffice for playing VNs

iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad:

- Emulators to run a lot of older visual novels (DosBox, PSX)

- Translations for Steins;Gate and Chaos;Head Noah (upcoming)

- Has xClannad, and upcoming VNDS support

- Plenty of English VNs on Apple Store, including MangaGamer's Kira-Kira

- Good battery life, recommended to use iPad for reading

- Expensive

Windows-based tablet/UMPC:

- Can run just about any Windows VN, or emulators

- Weight may be an issue for portability

- Battery life moderate

- Expensive

This is the basic gist of it. I know I'm missing a lot of points (just woke up and typing this atm, lol).

[harry_kinomoto]

Thanks for the replies everyone!! Definitely some good food for thought and possible alternatives for me here. Also apologies to Tay for not crediting him properly

@Steve, on mutitasking devices:

I feel you man. But what I notice recently is that nowadays, devices that do only one thing tend not to do it any better than another device that does that AND something else. mp3 players are my pet peeve in this. See, I tend to like to create and keep special playlists that, I would like to think, be with me for life. And because we tend to change phones like every 2 years nowadays, phones are NOT my ideal primary mp3 player function. However, all modern phones nowadays have a built in mp3 player function. They actually also do it surprisingly well, and are comparable in performance to any mp3 player on the market out there. That is also to say, mp3 players nowadays are basicallly phones without the phone function attached to them! You'd think they offer extra music-related features, but unfortunately, they don't. It particularly irks me that there is little customisation available to album art - it's a small detail, and probably overlooked by many, but myself, I like the idea of pictures that represent each song, and not being able to have that option rather annoys me >.<

But RE the portable VN issue, basically I do already have a laptop, but it's a pretty hefty piece and not necessarily portable. While I definitely agree that 10mins on a overfull commuter tube is not the best place to enjoy a VN, I like the idea of having something that I can take around with me and open up to do/play stuff on on a whim. The programs I run on it are usually limited to old games, VNs, and other low-spec things. Thus if for the same price I can either get an ultra-portable, low-spec machine VS an average-sized, high-spec machine, I feel that the ultra-portable one is where my money's best spent ^^;

[Kuu]

To those people that complain about how much a tablet weighs: get over it.

Something like an Atom based tablet would be perfect for VNs IMO, provided you can get some external storage via SD card. I want a surface pro but expensive :v

[Guest]

i was scared that the current atom wont run all the VNs bcuz some of them are quite chompy...

thats y i gave advice to someone to wait for the new atom

[sanahtlig]

i play all my eroge on a windows 8 tablet now: http://visualnovelaer.fuwanovel.net/2013/02/photos-of-my-1000-eroge-tablet-running-windows-8/

...

i not sure what's coming up on the market, but i know if you get one now, you must wait for the next Atom which has double the power but retains the long battery life (and also weight is the most important).

Basically this. Get a Windows 8 tablet, but wait until the next generation of Intel x86 architecture (Silvermont) comes out that's super optimized for energy efficiency. Then you'll be able to play most VNs that don't have gameplay without strange workarounds. These tablets should be available starting the end of 2013.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6936/intels-silvermont-architecture-revealed-getting-serious-about-mobile/8