To All our Friends and Readers, Happy Holidays!

2012 has been a banner year for this blog and its community:  Readership has grown tremendously, Fuwanovel was launched, and ultimately hundreds of people have experienced visual novels for the first time.  For a blog/community whose central purpose is spreading a love for this art form, there is no higher success than this.  We thank all of you who have read, shared and commented on the blog content, and for those that have joined us at Fuwanovel.

To our friends — both new and old — and to the visual novel community at large, we wish the Happiest of Holidays.

by Tay

If you’re reading these words, chances are very good that you love visual novels. And if you love visual novels, chances are very good that you wish (desperately) that they were more accessible than they currently are.

In October I wrote a post about how to play tons of classic visual novels on your Android devices using VNDS.  I’ve been working through Fate/Stay Night on my android tablet and I’ve loved having this story at my fingertips, whether I’m at home, at work, or en route.  It seems natural, and it’s fun.  (It also leads to conversations where I get to explain VNs to strangers–a unique, but fun experience)  I love being able to choose where I play my VNs.

Well, please allow me to share a new vision: Playing English-patched VNs on your home TV from the couch.

Please allow me to explain: in March 2013 a little box of Android love called the Ouya ships out to consumers.  The Ouya is an open video game console built on the Android operating system.  It’s openly hackable, and is calling for both innovation and migration from the Android Google Play store to their own library.

Imagination Time:   It’s not a huge leap to imagine the VNDS android app I detailed in the post mentioned above being ported over to the Ouya.  According to Ouya developers’ guides, it should be a near-painless transition.  Should that migration happen, one would simply load up VNs onto SD cards, slip them into the console, and BOOM — instant VNs on the TV.  

So… I have to ask? Can you see my vision?  Do you want it as bad as I do?

If you do, please make your voice heard!  Head on over to the VNDS App creator’s website and send him a message!  Let him know that you’re interested in an Ouya port.  And, while your at it, let him know that you’d be willing to put a few dollars where your mouth is (you coughed it up for the Android app… let’s cough it up and make Ouya happen as well!).

by Tay

Are you freaking out? It’s true:  the Kotori, Chihaya, Lucia, Shizuru and Akane routes are now joining the common route in playable goodness.  Check out Amaterasu Translations’ download page for a download link.

How’s this for a fantastic holiday treat?  Thanks goes to Croos for bringing this to our attention.

by Tay

AXYPB blogged that the 6th and 8th game in the SonoHana series will be coming out (I think) on the 17th and 19th December respectively. Also I heard that the recently released A Kiss For The Petals – Maidens of Michael recycles most of the CGs from the previous games… is that true?

  Clannad – Hikari Mimamoru Sakamichi de is a 2010 game by Key (published in two discs), it is a PSP version of a collection of short stories for Clannad, first published as novels which also have drama CD version. [Click Here to See Review]

Would love to see this game get translated… a youtube translation, most likely. Both games can be finished in 6 hours.

They’re offering in a 5,000 yen set the following:
◆2013 Key Calendar

2013 January to 2014 March – featuring Komari in traditional dress and halloween costume, Kud in sailor uniform, Rin with nekomimi in casuals, and 7 other Little Busters illustrations.

◆KeyCLASSIC – live performances of major songs from these games:

01.Last regrets～Classic～ /『Kanon』より
02.鳥の詩～Classic～ /『AIR』より
03.青空～Classic～ /『AIR』挿入歌
04.メグメル～Classic～ /『CLANNAD』より
05.だんご大家族～Classic～ /『CLANNAD』より
06.時を刻む唄～Classic～ /『CLANNAD～AFTER STORY～』より
07.Little Busters!～Classic～ /『リトルバスターズ！』より
08.My Soul,Your Beats!～Classic～ /『Angel Beats!』より
09.一番の宝物～yui.ver Classic～ /『Angel Beats!』より
10.Philosophyz～Classic～ /『Rewrite』より
11.Harvest～Classic～ /『Rewrite Harvest festa!』より
12.リトルバスターズ！メドレー Classic

◆Rewrite ＆ Rewrite Hf! Arrange Album "dye mixture" –

MintJam’s rock re-arrangement of Rewrite songs.

◆And more, but unannounced for now. [Official Page]

And you can only get this if you attend C83. No mail order…
But you can check out Yahoo Auctions Japan after the event and pick them up from sellers at a premium price. Also they might open up mail orders after the event if they have spares. Use a proxy mailing service like Yokattaweb.jp or Japonicomarket.com.

]]> http://visualnovelaer.wordpress.com/2012/12/04/2013-key-calendar-bundle-for-5000yen-at-comiket-83/feed/ 0 aaerul http://visualnovelaer.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/little-busters-short-story-vol-01-02-only-available-on-the-android/ http://visualnovelaer.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/little-busters-short-story-vol-01-02-only-available-on-the-android/#comments Mon, 03 Dec 2012 13:01:24 +0000 Aaeru https://visualnovelaer.wordpress.com/?p=5214 ]]>

Visual Arts celebrates their one year anniversary of 「Visual Arts Motto SP」 by releasing two short stories for the Little Busters world. Apparently they were stories scattered throughout various magazines and pamphlets that have been collected and now compiled into a small game. Not voiced.  [4gamer.net]

■ リトルバスターズ！SS Vol.01 One day, fine day [play.google.com]
100 yen. Japanese.

■ リトルバスターズ！SS Vol.02 リトルバスターズ観察日記
[play.google.com] 170 yen. Japanese.

[Original Article Here]
You copied something. That’s all. You didn’t steal, you didn’t take false credit, you didn’t intercept money that belongs to someone else. All you did was copy something. You took part in a ritual as old as the human race: the act of sharing a piece of culture or information.

Some people may try to make you feel bad about what you did. They’ll tell you that by copying something, you took money out of the pocket of an artist (but you know you didn’t — in fact, you probably helped the artist by spreading their work). They’ll tell you that what you did is analogous to counterfeiting money (it’s not). They might claim to you that the whole purpose of copyright is to supposed to be to provide artists with a stable income, even though that’s not why copyright was invented, copyright is not how most artists earn their livings anyway, and overall it probably does more harm to artists than it does good.

When these people tell you you’ve done something wrong, they’re asking you to help support a myth, but you’re under no obligation to go along. In fact, we’d appreciate it if you’d point them to this page.

So don’t buy it.

We don’t mean "don’t buy the song", of course. You should absolutely buy the song (or movie, or CD or DVD) if you want to — though if you really want to support the artist, it’s often more efficient to just send them money, because that way there’s no monopoly-based organization in the middle skimming most of your support away (naturally, if you feel the intermediary is doing good work, then support them too; many publishers are providing a valuable service). It might be that the copying you did, or contemplated doing, is illegal in the country where you did it — a lot of countries have laws against copying. We encourage you to obey the laws in your jurisdiction. We just mean don’t buy the argument. Don’t give those laws authority over your emotions. If you’ve copied something, don’t feel guilty, because you didn’t do anything wrong.

There are many practical and philosophical reasons for obeying a law you don’t agree with, but there is never a reason to feel guilty about breaking a law you don’t agree with. If you broke a law against copying publicly-available data, and someone’s trying to make you feel bad about that, then send them here, or at least ask them to make a rigorous case for what they’re claiming. Can they justify the position that humans shouldn’t be allowed to share culture freely? If they’re saying that the economic concerns for artists are so great as to trump the serious civil liberties concerns with this position, do they have actual numbers to back that up? Have they talked to the artists who have been hurt by copyright restrictions? The translators who couldn’t translate because the law wouldn’t allow them to? The teachers who couldn’t teach the material they needed? The publishers and distributors who couldn’t bring great books and films to audiences?

Copying is not wrong, and you didn’t do anything wrong. So don’t feel bad — just spread the word.

The two translated vocaloid VNs:
1) Mirai no Kimi to, Subete no Uta ni (Miku only) and
2) Rin ga Utau, Mirai no Neiro (Miku and Rin).
Both translated by Zoom909. Actually, he’s still working on the third one!
Thanks to steverowland for helping me out with this.

  Found another visual novel engine, this one is called Almight AVG Platform, developed by Curious Factory [curiousfactory.com]. Looks like this one will be proprietary.

It says the engine is optimized for publishing on Browsers (Html5), Android, iOS and Windows. Particularly impressive is its ability to port Kirikiri engine games onto smartphone (and browser?). So this is very useful for eroge companies. The Kirikiri is significant, because if you visit the TLWiki script size page, you’ll see it occupies around half of all the visual novels recorded in that list.

The engine is still in development, the game that is packed in with the demo is Maid Tantei Dille & Elle, released in May this year. It’s also available on DLSite.

While this development doesn’t really affect fan translation or fan creations, it’s interesting to see the ideas for a multi-platform visual novel engine, simultaneously appearing all over the net.

The next kami-ge. Visit this page to download the OP. (uploaded by Red)

The Anime Da Capo III will air on January 5th, 2013.
It will air on Tokyo MX TV Station on a Saturday night at 10pm! (they secured a nice early time slot. What Powers Circus!… but no power to pull off a non-shit looking anime?)
A full listing of all the other anime running in the 2013 Winter Season at Gigazine.net
Source: [Animenewsnetwork.com]

Project Zetsubou: Official Homepage | Twitter | IRC

Project Zetsubou have been working on a translation project of Danganronpa since August of 2011 and they recently announced themselves on blog (via this post). The full name is Danganronpa: Hope’s Academy and Despair’s Students. Basically it is a murder mystery-esque visual novel with some gameplay in it (some shooting and some rhythm game). 15 elite students are trapped in a school and the only way they can leave is to kill another student without anyone else knowing that they did it. Amazingly, this project has got nothing to do with the Let’s Play series on the somethingawful forums. In fact, they didn’t even know about its existence until they were 50% done. The final output should be a patch to hack an .ISO which you use to play on your CFW PSP or JPCSP emulator.

The game is already fully translated!
They are in editing phase now and there is still a lot of image editing to do.

A demo of the game has been released!
You can get it here: [Download Demo]

They are looking for Helpers!
1) Urgently need an Artist/image editor(s)!
There are a large number of graphics in the game with Japanese text that are going to need to be edited. Basically the job is to photoshop the Japanese text out and replace it with English text. (Also they could use an artist to keep the style consistent, if possible.)
>>> Please click here to see full description! <<<

2) Also need a video editor, hacker, and some testers.
They need a hacker who knows their way around MIPS assembly to fix some bugs.
See here for full description.

.

*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:* Translation Staff･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*

BlackDragonHunt (cv. Maaya Sakamoto) Super Duper High School Translator & Hacker & Programmer
Website | Twitter

Ritobito (cv. Kana Hanazawa)
Super Duper High School Editor
Twitter

LordSilent (cv. Mamoru Miyano)
Super Duper High School Translation Checker
Twitter

.

Some screenshots
Looks awesome. I’m hoping they will find helpers very soon (they say they will finish it even if no one shows up). You can email enquiries to project.zetsubou@gmail.com

Looking forward to this release from BlackDragonHunt and his team!

Just heard from WtFrostyCakes, there is a mailing proxy called JaponicaMarket.com that’s offering 50% off until end of the year. That means 400 yen for one AUCTION item from Yahoo Auctions JP, which is very cheap. Basically it’s half as cheap as Yokattaweb.jp (they charge 700yen + 10%) and over 3 times cheaper than Tenso.com (they charge 1500 yen).

But there is more:
1st item is 400yen. 2nd item 200yen. 3rd item 100yen if from the same shop or same seller! Has to be same seller if using yahoo japan auctions.

  The reason why you would want to use Yahoo Auctions, is because that’s where all the Comiket-exclusive and Dream Party-exclusive stuff is being listed(short of attending these events yourself).

Also check out some tapestries and daki from Tsuki ni Yorisou Otome no Sahou, the new Navel game.
Mail Order Here: [project-navel.com]
Pretty sure you can pay Japonicamarket.com 400 yen to order one of these (600 for two and 700 for three.)

I got Clephas to select a few ‘classics’ in eroge and write about them. So here it is!

Classics (he divided into sub-genres)

Chuunibyou:
As a general genre, it includes any game with a strong sense of melodrama and action, where the protagonist is at the center of a seeming key point in the progression of great events on one scale or another. 

Examples:
[Type Moon] Fate/Stay Night- for those who have just begun with the translated games out there, this one has probably been recommended to you at least once.  Though its predecessor, Tsukihime defined the genre and served as the most popular template for story-focused games of this type, it was FSN to show what a truly well-designed setting with interesting characters and a well-written story could do.  In addition, this further solidified the tradition of a ‘protagonist with a serious psychological oddity’ as part of the genre’s main elements. [Translated copy at fuwanovel.org]

[Light] Dies Irae ~Acta est Fabula- Most of those who have played this one, when you talk to them about this game, will either hate it or love it.  If there is a game that signifies the extremes to which the genre can go in terms of melodrama, wordy spell chants, psychotic villains, and protagonists with a strong resolve and fire in their hearts… this is it.  The story is well-written… but it the language tends to be so… overdone that most people will give up trying to play the Japanese version after only a few dozen lines. [vndb.org]

[propeller] Ayakashibito- This was the first of the games by Will’s subsidiary, Propeller.  With a dark story, a compelling cast of characters, and strong enough humor to provide a necessary balance to its more serious portions, this game managed to escape the box that FSN created somewhat without falling into the extremes that defined Dies Irae.  The quality of the writing is very high, with good action scenes and a cast of characters – especially the villains – that left a really strong impression.  [vndb.org]

Moege:
A genre quite simply defined by ‘moe’, that concept that is so closely and incestuously blended in with fanservice that they might as well be an onii-chan and his beloved imouto falling into a taboo relationship…   This genre doesn’t generally try to create a strong setting or develop its characters too deeply, and by definition the characters rarely if ever escape the templates set for them to any significant degree.  Most non-nukige VNs fall into this category, though they tend to split off into the mainstream moege and chara-ge, which will be talked about as a separate type for the purposes of this article.

[Age] Muv-Luv Extra- This game pretty much represents everything that is wrong with moege as a genre.  It has your classic childhood friend heroine, a mysterious girl, a rich girl with no common sense, and a class president whose prim and proper personality is as straight-laced as they come.  Basically every overused trope that could be used, was used in this game… not that it is a truly terrible game.  It’s just an example of why moege feel so… familiar to those who have been playing visual novels for a while. [vndb.org]

  [Navel] Shuffle!- Where Muv-luv is an example of your average ‘mundane’ moege, Shuffle represents another side of the genre, when fantasy gets mixed in (in the form of a world of gods and a world of demons that have diplomatic relations with humanity formed relatively recently in their history). The setting is a bit whacked out and never quite explained properly… but the cute heroines (including your classic yandere, Kaede) tended to make up for it from the perspective of the reader.  There is a reason that – like Da Capo – the Shuffle series has become so well-used an IP.  Cute heroines that run the gamut of all the basic fantasy (or science-fantasy in the case of Primula) background types that you could imagine without crossing the line into serious development of the setting (such as was seen with the FSN universe). [vndb.org]

Chara-ge:
Closely related to moege, but with a focus on character development, interpersonal relationships (with more intense drama than the average moege) and intense personal stories for individual heroines and characters.

[Caramel Box] Toppara ~ Zashiki Warashi no Hanashi- This game focuses on a protagonist who lost his parents to an accident and his family’s wealth to greedy relatives after the zashiki warashi (a type of youkai – or Japanese spirit – in the form of a child that grants prosperity to the home it lives in) named Midori that lived in his home ran away.  At the beginning, he is melancholy and full of bitterness toward both humans and youkai (which he can see, unlike most people), not wanting to have anything to do with either.  However, the sudden intrusion of a kage-onna (a type of youkai that serves young unmarried men) and a yakubyougami into his life gradually forces him to reengage with the world around him.  This game has a large number of heroines, each with a relatively simple but well-written path.  Incidentally, of the heroines (of which there are six or seven) only one is human.  [vndb.org]

  [Pulltop] Haruka ni Aogi, Uruwashi no- This game is pretty famous amongst VN-lovers for the quality of its story-writing and characters.  The protagonist, Tsukasa is a young teacher with a troubled past and a passion for his work.  He goes to work in a school for rich girls placed out in a very isolated location, only to slowly realize that the school was designed as a place of exile for the children of rich people who were problematic for one reason or another.  The heroines are split into the ‘branch school’ and ‘main school’ heroines, whose stories are written by two different writers.  To be blunt, the quality of this game stands out from amongst all the other chara-ge and moege I’ve played.  The heroine paths tend to a level of complexity and drama unusual for the genre, with the emotional ups and downs you’d normally expect from a straight story-driven game.  Not only that, but each heroine’s path has an ending which will satisfy the player to a reasonable degree… unusual for games of this type, to say the least. [vndb.org]

Utsuge:
This type of game is definitely an acquired taste.  This game type tends to have melancholy themes, usually ending on a somewhat saddening note.

[F&C] Konata yori Kanata Made- As part of this game’s attraction becomes evident on its revelation of its protagonist’s situation, I will avoid spoilers on that issue as much as possible.  To be blunt, this story is unbelievably emotional.  If you don’t spend most of your time crying while playing this game, you are heartless.  The fact that the endings don’t completely destroy you is more a matter of the strength lent to you by the process the protagonist goes through than because they aren’t as depressing as the genre would indicate.  [vndb.org]

Nakige:
As the name would imply, this type of game’s purpose is to provide catharsis for the player. It’s difference from utsuge is in the fact that the endings are generally heart-warming and there is a definite sense of ‘chicken soup for the soul’ floating through the story of this type of game.  Clannad, Air, and Kanon (familiar to anyone?) are all of this type.

[Palette] Moshimo Ashita ga Harenaraba- This is about a young man whose girlfriend dies the day they confessed to one another.  The fact that her ghost is hanging around only makes things more poignant.  With a general sense of humor to the story and a wonderful set of characters, this game provides an emotional rollercoaster as powerful as any of the Key games, if not on as grand a scale.  The story is generally well-written and the characters developed well enough to engage the player’s emotions in their individual stories intimately. [vndb.org]

Story-driven:
Games driven by story rather than characters or moe elements (Chuunibyou are most often a part of this type).  This focus on story frequently means that there is a general theme that is an overriding driving force in each path, and there is a general sense of consistency in how the story is written.

  [Akabeisoft2] Sharin no Kuni- one of the most famous translated Visual Novels out there.  This game is based in a world where the punishment for a crime is crafted to fit it and special individuals oversee those who are undergoing the punishment to see if they have been rehabilitated or have broken the rules.  This game is very much a dystopian story, though it is peaceful on the surface.  There is very little more I can say about this game without ruining the story for those who haven’t played it, so I’ll avoid revealing any more details.  This game has a fascinating set of characters – including the protagonist and antagonist in addition to the heroines – that help to form the structure of the greater story.  While the general flow of the story is the same regardless of how you play it, the ending differs depending on which heroine you focused on, and it is generally a satisfying one that is consistent with the way the main story went.  The quality of writing in this game is some of the best out there, as is to be expected from Akabeisoft2 and its subsidiaries. [Translated copy from fuwanovel.org]

[Akatsuki Works] Rui wa Tomo wo Yobu- Ok… another famous classic for you all, this one untranslated.  When you say ‘Akatsuki Works’, most veteran visual novel players will think of this game.  From both a structural point of view and a writer’s point of view, this game’s story is excellent.  Not only that, but the setting – with an ancient curse and simple but effective abilities that come with it in exchange – makes for a powerful driving element moving events forward.  Since it isn’t really a spoiler, the protagonist is a trap, a man pretending to be a woman (incidentally, his curse is that he cannot reveal his true gender).  The coincidental meeting between him and those others who are cursed brings about an odd alliance of mutual protection, with all of the characters involved being somewhat out of sync if not outright outcasts from the rest of society.  [vndb.org]
]]> http://visualnovelaer.wordpress.com/2012/11/30/an-introduction-to-some-visual-novel-classics-by-clephas/feed/ 15 aaerul http://visualnovelaer.wordpress.com/2012/11/30/psp-3000-now-sells-for-99-on-amazon/ http://visualnovelaer.wordpress.com/2012/11/30/psp-3000-now-sells-for-99-on-amazon/#comments Fri, 30 Nov 2012 09:25:45 +0000 Aaeru https://visualnovelaer.wordpress.com/?p=5175 ]]>

The PSP 3000 just got discounted to USD$99 on Amazon! ($30 less than the recommended price). Unfortunately the UK Amazon is still selling them for £84.99 pounds (= 136.36 USD).

If you like visual novels, particularly if you like otome-games, it might be worth grabbing one now because there is a huge library of VNs on the machine. See this Guide to Visual Novels on the PSP. Most of the VN games are not in English. They are either Japanese or Chinese. There are some in English, like Hakuoki and Corpse Party.
Soon there will be Milky Holmes, Oreimo (work-in-progress) and Amagami (several years time). The latest machines are fully hackable and extremely easy to do so. wololo.net has a guide for dummies here (read: it’s as hard as copying some files to a USB stick).

Extract from Wololo.net:
“To me the 3000 has its weak points (the interlacing issues of the screen – that most people don’t seem to see… I see it), but for a similar price I’d say it beats the DroidX360. The PSP does not compare to the Vita in terms of horsepower, but it’s less than half the price, and technically has more games than the PSV (if you don’t count backwards compatibility… actually, maybe even if you do, since the Vita’s psp emulator does not support all psp games). Also, did I mention the PSP is fully hackable, which the Vita isn’t really? Could actually be a good time to buy an additional PSP, or to discover its library of games for a reasonable price.”

Thought I’d post this because it’s a port of an unusual eroge from 2006 onto PS Vita. It’s called "Tenshitsuki no Shoujo" 天使憑きの少女 for 1,800 yen. [dengeki.com] [vndb.org]. There’s a company called Daidai Inc. which does these ports. They have another game on the PS Vita called Present For You (also 1,800 yen).

Why is this significant? Well… it’s not. I actually want to see stuff like Suiheisen on the PS Vita. but Alchemist is just not interested right now in the PS Vita (and rightly so). I’ve seen random doujin VNs get ported to the PSP and they sell them for 1k yen. But this one dared to venture farther…

Some screenshots: Btw this game is also on the iOS for the same price (?).

According to Dengeki Online, they’re making a 2nd Toaru Majutsu no Index PSP game titled 『とある魔術と科学の群奏活劇（アンサンブル）』 (translates terribly as Toaru’s Magic and Science’s Group Live Performance: Ensemble). It’s basically meant to be a hybrid story between Index and Railgun. The game will be an ADV! (i.e. a visual novel) with four routes, similar to the previous railgun game.

Some screenshots:
There’s a trailer video that doesn’t show you much of anything.

It’s Eroge Release Day!!!
In fact, the last Friday of every month is always release day. (See Micchi’s November Roundup).

For the month of November, there are two games I am most interested in. They are, 倉野くんちのふたご事情 (The twins situation of the Kurano Family) by CUBE who previously did Ame no Natsu (good), and Your Diary (bad). The drawings are as pretty as ever. However… I bet’ya those girls have awful routes! The other game is Windmill’s Witch’s Garden which has 3d animated 2d sprites. It’s basically a Shufuku no Campanella redux, which is also their company’s best selling title.

There is also Yurinyurin’s first non-doujin debut, a full-sized Sonohana game featuring all of the SonoHana girls. I think I will play this now that it’s not a nukige. AXYPB and Co are almost definitely negotiating an official English release. I also heard that the negotiation will not delay the fan release of the 6th and 8th titles… which is an extremely good thing.

There’s also another Alcot Honeycomb game which I can hardly feel excited for anymore… because they come out too often.

In other news, I heard from Croos that there is a Muv-Luv Altered Fable Partial Translation Patch – By Wakarizurai Translations (blog page is completely blank).

More visual novel makers. This one is called Belle and it is an open-source VN maker for Linux, MacOS and Windows OS. [another link]

Found a visual novel where you play as a horse!

Shiei no Sona-Nyl: What a Beautiful Memories, being ported to PSP. [siliconera.com]

  Totori no Atelier on the PS Vita looks as awesome as ever! This one came out yesterday on the 29th. I loved this game, almost finished it even. The Vita version has new playable character, all DLC from PS3, and new outfits. [see 10minute footage]

Hanahira for the Android, 840 yen. [moedroid.jp]

Found an incomplete list of all PSP fan translations (both VNs and non-VNs). [akatranslations.wikispaces.com]

Hiiro no Kakera for smart phones (both iOS and Android) available for purchase here. [4gamer.net]

Also ilegend made a program called FuwanViewer which right now serves as an alternate way to access torrents on fuwan without visiting the main site. [Download FuwanViewer.zip] There’s a bug reporting function too.

Some serious news. Sony’s credit rating was downgraded to Junk this week. Forbes reports. The performance of Vita in Japan has been nothing short of atrocious. On the week ending November 11th, the unit volume in Japan was a shocking 4’021. [ps3hax.net] Really not sure if Sony has the funds to brute force their way by going pure red again, like they did with the PS3. It seems the bishoujo-ge genre will forever be stuck on the PSP. But even if they make no more games on the Vita, I guess I’ll still be able to use mine for PSP games (once it’s hacked). It’s still a shame really.

Haven’t done any translations in 2 weeks. Obstructed by real life.

  Yirba made a summary of the podcast [from UK Anime Network] on the mangagamer forums and Hevoluson reblogged it.

So here it is:
* Lots of people interested in VNs, but sales are considerably less (because of this imo)
* Hardcopy sales do about the same as online sales; hence, sales have doubled
* MangaGamer is focused on PC releases, not mobile releases
* Selecting titles to license is like a round-table discussion between staff who speak both English and Japanese, i.e. Kouryuu and one other (EvoSpace?)

* Higurashi sold fairly well. Hasn’t sold as well as Shuffle or Koihime.
* Kira Kira All-Ages: Online version sold hardly any copies. Hardcopy has done quite well
* Go Go Nippon has performed within their expectations
* Plans to do more with Go Go Nippon

* Shuffle sold very well
* Soul Link sold "not so well"
* Expect more Navel titles in the future (MangaGamer have been talking with them quite a bit recently)

* Japanese companies are "walking a tightrope"
* Japanese VN market is saturated
* One of the reason why they’re looking to the West

* "Nukige will never be a hit, but you will get a steady number of sales that you can rely on."
* Story games can be very hit-and-miss
* Da Capo, Kotori ExP didn’t do well at all
* Shuffle and Koihime sold "crazy amounts"
* Titles with anime tend to get more popularity, but not always

* ef sales have been disappointing
* People might be waiting for a hardcopy
* Hoping that Ef does well, so can get more titles from Minori

 
Also this tweet from @Nekotan_Yuuna who is the head of the parent company of minori, "revealed that the low sales of ef – the first tale. makes it difficult for them to consider further expansion outside of Japan… but that ef – the latter tale. is definitely coming out." [novelnews.net] 

 
Why not just hire the fan hackers to do their localizations? [forums.fuwanovel.org]

Ixrec put out in this blog post, the English translation patches for the Full Voice version of Sekien no Inganock and Shikkoku no Sharnoth! Basically last year at this time, Liar-soft re-released the Steampunk series full-voice reborn version that adds voiced lines for all lines from all characters (even side characters) and extra CG [which i blogged here].

  
Also the options menu has been improved: 

- "Silent Mode" lets you choose whether the VN will continue playing music or not 
when you deselect the window.         
- When you start a new game, you're given the option to skip the minigames (in 
both Inganock and Sharnoth) if you want. Though this is still a very bad idea for
first playthroughs, since parts of the story are in there, it should be handy 
for replays and anyone who has difficulty beating them.         
- You can change the font now too, but we can't guarantee the English text will 
be properly formatted in any font other than the default, so we don't recommend 
using this. [quoting from here]
    

You can download the game here:

[Shikkoku no Sharnoth Full Voice] [Sekien no Inganock Full Voice]

Note: recommend reading Sekien no Inganock before reading Shikkoku no Sharnoth, 
since they were written and take place in that order.

Here are some comparison images. Anime Ricca. (taken from Game OP) Game Ricca.
Anime Aoi & Sharuru Game Aoi. Anime Sara. Game Sara. Disgusting Promotional Image Click Here to see enlarged version. Then click this image from minori to heal your eyes.

D.C.III Fuwanovel Page: [fuwanovel.org]
Anime scheduled to air in January 2013.

VNDB page: [vndb.org]
English Patch: [vndb.org]
Download the Game: [fuwanovel.org]

Some Screenshots:
]]> http://visualnovelaer.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/widenyo-alicesoft-srpg-fully-fan-translated-download/feed/ 5 aaerul http://visualnovelaer.wordpress.com/2012/11/21/natsuzora-no-monologue-otome-game-web-trial/ http://visualnovelaer.wordpress.com/2012/11/21/natsuzora-no-monologue-otome-game-web-trial/#comments Wed, 21 Nov 2012 13:09:20 +0000 Aaeru https://visualnovelaer.wordpress.com/?p=5152 ]]>

This is an otome-game called 夏空のモノローグ [vndb.org], first came out for PS2 in 2010 and getting ported to PSP in 2013 (why so long). They put out a WEB-TRIAL where you get to sample a bit of the game on your browser (no voices). Official site is here. Looks absolutely gorgeous. Idea Factory Please Make This PSP→Web Browser thing Open Source!

Aiyoku no Eustia Fione Chapter English Patch Release
This patch will translate all in-game text and images up to the end of Fione’s portion of the story.  It installs on top of an installation of the original Japanese version of the game. Warning: Make sure you choose her route or else the game will make you suffer… 

Download English Patch: [Mediafire.com]
Original Post: [yandere.tindabox.net]
Download Game: [sukebei.nyaa][anime-sharing]
Fuwanovel Page: [fuwanovel.org/upcoming]

Staff Credits:
KurisuKun for translation
Marelt for editing
Vivio for masterful image editing
ArchDemon for engineering the patcher
Yohan-Kadmus, Zapper, Danielsan, Jonathanb9595, Savon, as6d, TheGuy, Angeldeath, and Arkard for beta testing the translation
Solve for making the tools
Nagato for working out repacking
Danielsan for assisting in beta report handing
Fluorite and Danielsan for testing the patcher

Witch’s Garden is a remarkable game by the company Windmill Oasis. Featuring beautiful bishoujos with none too subtle breasts. Now wait. That sounds like your average eroge doesn’t it? Well, there are outstanding differences that make this game unique.

The first thing that is noticeable is the artwork. They are fantastic. The heroines are drawn beautifully, and the backdrops look professional, which means they don’t clash with the appearances of the heroines. The second most noticeable thing will probably be the character animations, which look smooth and polished when they appear. On top of that, they did a great job on the secondary animations. This means that hair and clothes (and even breasts) sway (and bounce) as the character moves.

Finally, there is the E-mote system. This was designed to give emotions to the characters, so that they feel more alive than your usual eroge. This system was well done and is effective in giving the characters those extra feelings. This, coupled with the already top notch illustrations, and the well done animations, make for a game that looks gorgeous.

Look forward to the game’s release on the 30th of this month.

Screenshots for the road:

Their commentary is pretty funny~ I enjoyed watching Persona 4 marathon from these guys.

Now for the beef – have some screenshots of the alpha:
Who will be able to upload to Kii.re
We intend to only allow selected individuals to upload in order to avoid abuse. (And since ripping images from eroge, and processing it properly isn’t any where near an easy task.)

What content should we expect?
At the moment, we’re only uploading eroge and galge rips. Doujinshi games won’t be permitted. We currently don’t have any otome games in the queue due to none of us playing them – see two questions down if you want to share parts of your otome collection. In addition, we’ll prioritize established brands, companies, series, and artists. Unpopular content will take longer to show up than that which is well-known.

What can I do as a visitor of Kii.re?
Download stuff?

I want to help out! Can I do anything to help?
You can apply to be a mod, uploader, or a tagger. Each position requires different skills and more will be made known as we continue with the project. (Actually they need taggers a lot)

 [See original post at Anime-Sharing.com]

Image Processing (Before)   
A lot of these art files once they’ve been extracted from the game, they will look like this:

Image Processing (After)
The image processor’s job is to make them end up looking like this: (i.e. transparent background) 
 
Image Processing (How to do that?)
Use Photoshop Action, batch command: process alpha channel, remove/trim all other pixels, then save them as transparent .PNG, Or use XnView (faster).

Volunteer to be an Image Processor!
It seems Checkmate will only have a limited number of people to do the uploading. So the least we can do is help him rip and process some images! I put up this thread you can drop a reply there or here in the comments if you like. (my email: aaeru@fastmail.fm) Or even better, you can just apply to be an uploader at anime-sharing.com. If you 1) know how to rip CGs/Art Assets or 2) know how to use batch commands on photoshop, your skills are needed! Please help all you can!

Why this will change the world of VN creation?
Because the OELVN community were huge proponents of IP, and they (along with VN fans) despised anyone who did not respect these fictional property rights. Fans are particularly outraged at people who dare to use their own purchases in ways that are Not Approved By The-Original-Japanese-Authors! (to him be all glory). They see it as a form of sacrilege. And so it has resulted in a stunted growth for the Western VN development scene, because fan remixes were forbidden. You are not to tell your own stories using existing characters or else.

The problem is that all creative output is a derivative. All creation uses these three actions: Copying, Transforming, Combining. “Artistic creation is not born ex nihilo from the brains of individuals as a private language; it has always been a social practice. Ideas are not original, they are built upon layers of knowledge accumulated throughout history. Out of these common layers, artists create works that have their unmistakable specificities and innovations. All creative works reassemble ideas, words and images from history in their contemporary context.” [Anna Nimus]

“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants” – Isaac Newton

“Only those with no memory insist on their originality.” — attributed to Coco Chanel

“Originality is the art of concealing your sources.” — attributed to Franklin P. Jones

Please see Everything is a Remix—by Kirby Ferguson
Also see Steal Like An Artist—by Austin Kleon 

See my write-up on IP.

What will change? 
Once we have all the art assets in place, people will create VN skits using existing character sprites. And that is a huge departure from the previous OELVN scene.

Free Culture, means the freedom to take published pieces of information and mold them into your own creations. The current form of copyright is the opposite of that, it is invented by publishers to keep you a couch potato. Don’t create anything so that you don’t compete against theirs. Of course, if you know copyright history you will know that derivative works were only banned almost 200 years after copyright was originally invented.

Html5 Browser Based VN Engine
I know some people who are interested in creating an HTML5 browser-based VN engine. Particularly Zotya (who is busy until 2013). If you’d be interested in doing something like this, please email me too. It’s a VN engine that lets you create VNs in a browser and play them back in a browser. This will go awesomely with Kii.re

Love☆Tora is actually their first venture outside of the PSP. It’s basically a very budget looking Idolmaster. Funny thing is, they even cloned the business model, they’re splitting the game into three, each copy has 4 of the girls (12 in total). For each copy they’re charging you 7,140yen for the normal edition. The gameplay footage just looks badddddddddd. This is not even close to Idolmaster 2 level.

Some screenshots:  

There is a new upcoming visual novel engine called 0m3ga by Qberty. It aims to do two things. Firstly it will be used to port existing translated PC-based VNs to Multiple Platforms (Windows XP/7/8, Mac OSX, Linux, Android). The other aim is to allow easy scripting of scenes when creating your own visual novel. [vnengine.com] 

"Wouldn’t it be cool if we could play all the old classics we love on our smartphone or tablet on the go? With the 0m3ga Visual Novel Engine, you don’t need to learn an entire programming language to get started and any game you make or translate will seamlessly work across all supported platforms with NO extra configuration needed from you."

There is a demo of an old version of the engine successfully porting Yume Miru Kusuri (eng version) onto Android. [See qberty.com] Actually not sure if this is the latest one available.

I am most excited for the porting function. Put fan translated titles onto Android. The visual novel development side is going to face tough competition, seeing as Ren’Py already has Android support and then there is the DarkVN too from darkwater247. Anyways, all the best for Qberty as he finishes the program up for release.

Found this visual novel engine for creating VNs for VNDS. Called DarkVN, by Kitsune/Darkwater247.

This is for making visual novels. It’s main feature is the cross-platform compatibility. (Would it work for iOS?). It would be neat if it can play on a browser as well. But that would mean you have the stream the voice files in real time which would eat up all your bandwidth? Not sure how it would work. But it’s the start of a neat idea.

See more at GameMaker Community DarkVN forums thread.

Do you rock a PS Vita?  Do you love it as much as I do?  Do you show your love for a favorite Visual Novel/Anime by sporting a matching wallpaper on one of your Vita screens?

If you answered no to any of these questions (okay, maybe just the last one), Fuwanovel’s forums are here to help :).  Pick up the template PNG to use over your favorite VN/Anime image, or try one of the pre-made wallapers found here in the Fuwanovel forums.

Note! These images are NOT the wallpapers/templates themselves! They’re smaller versions for use in the blog.  Please follow the forums link to find the actual images!

G Senjou no Maou

Fate/Stay Night

Sharin no Kuni

AND MORE!

Find them in this topic @ Fuwanovel Forums!

by Tay

KamiPara which is Nippon Ichi’s flagship title is delayed to 24th January, 2013.

I think there is a good chance that it will get a VITA release. It’s just a matter of WHEN. Character designs by Noizi Ito (ALL MY LOVEEEEE!). Music is outsourced to a group called Yōsei Teikoku (妖精帝國). The story is about a guy who became God suddenly, and now he has to run around with seven angels to fulfil people’s dreams. Also see Gameplay Footage.

I pasted a HUGE number of Screenshots.
Click Read More to see the catastrophe.


Note: If images are not loading, you can see the same screenshots here.