When Nicky is done reading his newspaper, he likes to take a moment of his morning to do the word jumble. But this one seems to be about him…? How many Two Against The World related words can you find?

Sergio has been called to go back into the office - no more WFH attire for him . Personally, we think he looks rather dashing without his pants - what do you think?

By popular vote, here is your cast for Ghosted! Let us know if you agree with the rest of the community.

Photo credits: IMPACT ARTISTS GROUP, Getty Images, Ted Ely.

Solving your boyfriend’s murder can be exhausting… So take a break and help Jesse solve this word jumble instead!

Visual Novel The Divine Speaker Defies Destiny

Check out our review of #TheDivineSpeaker from @twoandahalfstudios!

“With beautiful art, delightful characters, voice acting, and a very intriguing story, I can’t wait for the game to release!”

Vampiric Visual Novel First Bite Is Memorable And Sublime

If you like vampires and visual novels, this LGBTQ dark comedy game is perfect for you!

My new Kickstarter is live! Check it out and spread the word:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/winterwolves/the-curse-of-mantras

428: Shibuya Scramble is an unequivocal, truly Japanese game, and one that nobody ever thought would come out in English–and the doubters were sort of right. The title was a Japan exclusive for many years since its original Wii release in 2008 but after a decade of being out of reach for the English market this cryptically Japanese exclusive was somehow able to be cracked and come September of 2018 made the journey to North American and European markets on PC through Steam and both physically and digitally on the Sony PS4. Honestly I still can’t believe it and I own the darn game! The journey to getting this game out is surely an interesting one, as localization director David Kracker recounted on the Playstation blog that he had to fight hard to get the game pushed forward for a worldwide release outside of Japan, but ultimately was able to do so by showing that appeal for niche games such as these have been increasing steadily since its original Wii release. 

For many people 428: Shibuya Scramble will be their first experience with a Chunsoft sound novel–especially since the localized Kamaitachi no Yoru (Banshee’s Last Cry) is downright almost impossible to play now. Last blog post I discussed in detail what the heck a sound novel even is, and went through a brief history of the visual novel market in general covering where Chunsoft falls in and how much they contributed to the genre. So because of that I won’t go into too much heavy details on sound novels today, but the short and simple answer I gave in my previous entry is that a sound novel is two things. The first of which was a dated term that Chunsoft used regularly (mostly on the Super Famicom and Sega Saturn) and has since fallen out of use in favor of adopting visual novel. The second of which is the more complicated answer that sound novels are both the aforementioned term that was used by Chunsoft for their brand of visual novels and also a certain style of visual novels that would follow years later by other companies that were heavily inspired by the early works of Chunsoft often aping their presentation and narrative style, with 07Expansion’s Higurashi - When They Cry being one of the most popular examples. 

If all that sounds like a bit much, or is just all greek to you, don’t worry–all you have to really take away from my rambling is that the Chunsoft seal of quality with 428 really means something, especially to fans of visual novels. You see, 428: Shibuya Scramble is actually a spiritual successor of sorts to Chunsoft’s earlier Machisound novel released in 1998 on the Sega Saturn and later Sony Playstation. Machi was a highly well regarded game for its time that was a big hit both critically and with gamers, but despite its constant praise still sold poorly. Over the years people started to discover the game through its solid word of mouth and old fans and new fans alike were always clamoring for a sequel. After many years of begging Chunsoft finally delivered just that, and this is where 428: Shibuya Scramble comes in. By no means a direct sequel (so don’t worry you definitely DO NOT need to play Machi to understand the story) 428 is set in the same city of Machi (aka both take place in the same fictional version of Shibuya), and super fans will be able to spot some references and cameos from Machi sneaking in. 

428: Shibuya Scramble is essentially a dream game to many hardcore fans in Japan that waited anxiously for a return to form from Chunsoft. When it came out the game even famously got a perfect score of 40 in the well known Famitsu gaming magazine–and this was back when you could still count perfect scores they gave out on your fingers, only 8 games prior made that list; nowadays the magazine is known for being far more forgiving with its reviews. So basically, what I am getting at is this is yet another game that was pretty huge back in Japan but sorely skipped over worldwide. 

You may be thinking to yourself then, that’s all well and good, but what about the game itself? Well let me get into that. 428: Shibuya Scramble is as its name implies, a game about Shibuya, while you do take control of characters in the game, at large the characters themselves all feel like a part of the city. Shibuya is a living, breathing entity in 428, and you really get to explore the entire city from multiple perspectives in this one long, crazy day. Shibuya’s story is your story. There are multiple characters you get to play as and each one has their own unique, individual story to tell, but each story is interwoven into the others and they begin to overlap in creative and fun ways. This is where a large part of the game play comes from; finding out how decisions you made with one character affects the fate of another character. 

Say for example if you are being chased in one character’s story and decide to run into a busy city street to escape your pursuers thus causing a traffic accident, in another story the character you are playing now is stuck in said traffic accident and cannot progress their story leading to a bad end. Everything you decide to do with one character not only affects that character’s fate but may even affect the entire city’s at large and change the outcome for every other character you play as too. Finding out how to best affect the story by jumping around the multiple characters and getting everything to play out just right is a lot of fun and no surprise was also a major feature in Machi prior. 

There are a bevy of characters to interact with in Shibuya but the multiple residents in this major Japanese metropolis you take direct control of are Shinya Kano, a rookie detective trying to make his way in the force and crack a kidnapping case, Achi Endo, an ex-gang leader with a heart of gold trying to make Shibuya a better place, Minoru Minorikawa, an investigative journalist on a mission to save a life, Kenji Osawa, a brooding genius that just wants to be left alone but is trapped inside a corporate scandal that goes beyond anyone’s imagination, and Tama, a poor soul trapped in a big furry cat mascot costume that just wants to be free from the hell that is a terrible part time job. Each character has their own unique flavor they bring to the table and their own individual plots range from comedic to serious, romantic to frightening, and everything else in-between. Kano’s scenario is a pretty straightforward crime drama, while Osawa’s plays like a physiological thriller where you don’t know who to trust, meanwhile Tama and Minorikawa’s scenarios will have you on the floor laughing at the insane hijinks they manage to get into somehow, and Achi is kicking ass beating up thugs and saving a lost girl. 

428 manages to combine all these different kinds of smaller stories into one large story seamlessly and it’s an incredible experience jumping between all these fun characters and seeing how they eventually interact with each other as the plot progresses. It’s hard for me to even pick a favorite character in the game as all of them are so well written, and so different from one each other. If I had to pick though, I would say Osawa is probably the protagonist I relate to the most and a lot of his big story moments left me teary eyed and really moved on a truly genuine personal level (I don’t think I’m a genius like him though). 

I can praise 428 to the high heavens, and really a large part of me writing about it today is to do just that, but there is an elephant in the room I probably should address at some point. Something truly horrendous, something that prevents the game from ever being a true masterpiece, something that scares everyone away, the horror of … real life actors! Yeah, as I am sure it’s obvious by this point 428 uses real life actors and was actually filmed on location in the city of Shibuya. A lot of people are put off by this and honestly that kind of bums me out that so many are so unwilling to even try different things. 

To go off on a bit of a tangent, my own personal opinion is that I freaking love the way 428 looks. I’m someone that quite enjoys campy FMV video games; stuff like Night Trap or any Tex Murphy adventure game is solidly right up my alley. I also enjoy unique mixtures of real life and animation, so I love rotoscoping a whole lot–I’m always ecstatic when I find a cool movie or animated series that is rotoscoped, and that’s a large draw to me for games that use it such as Hotel Dusk. So no, I really think 428 is a beautiful game visually that was made by real pros who had to use guerrilla film making in order to bring their vision to life because of laws that prevent filming on location in Shibuya. What the team was able to do here, while also hiding it from “the man” is incredible work! 

Contextly Chunsoft’s sound novels opted to not use the now established format that predominantly is how visual novel look. Originally with Otogirisōthis was because visual novels were still in their infancy and the now ubiquitous presentation where sprites are shown in front of background art had not yet taken off. Nobody really knew what visual novels at the time should look like. Otogirisō is actually commonly attributed as one of the earliest examples where a visual novel had background art to begin with and wasn’t just mostly text or sprites presented over a black void. Chunsoft kept their games pretty consistent visually from that point, and characters were often not seen on screen, usually just presented through the use of silhouette if needed. This really helped the “novel” aspect of their visual novels, since you had to imagine the characters’ appearances mostly through the narrative descriptions about them just like in literature. 

Over time this changed with the advent of CD hardware which meant the use of still image photography and Full-Motion-Video could really take off, and Machi ran with this new hardware looking much like how 428 does. You can say these games really have a more broad appeal to them too as they are not just “anime” games but games anyone can enjoy just like a good book. This while true in Japan does get a bit tricky for a localized title as a majority of the actors are Japanese which is off putting to a general public not used to watching Japanese cinema or TV dramas. For better or worse 428 is an unequivocal Japanese game, but I really implore anyone who is even the tiniest bit interested to try it out for themselves (especially since there is a free demo) and stay open minded about the game, because if you do, you will find one of the best written, and best localized games in a generation.

The truth is it will be very unlikely we will ever see a game like 428: Shibuya Scramble come out in English again. This was a very unlikely localization to happen in the first place, and a very risky one, but it sadly was not a runaway success. Anyone interested in the history of visual novels, sound novels, or seeing one of Chunsoft’s greatest titles definitely shouldn’t pass this game up though. And anyone willing, I really recommend 428: Shibuya Scramble hard. If you love good storytelling in gaming, there isn’t any better than what’s here. The story in 428 is so heart felt, and uplifting that I found myself crying a lot during my playthrough. I laughed, I cried, I found tons of inspiration for my own writing, 428 truly is a game that changes you. I think those are far too rare nowadays. This is a game that should be in any niche gamer’s PS4 or Steam collection. 

I remember when visual novels weren’t quite known as well as they are today. By no means are visual novels a mainstream genre of video games–in fact you won’t be hard pressed to find some “expert” try to argue with you over how they are not games at all–but their notoriety is far more than that of even just ten years prior. For the longest time visual novels were seen as just an anime fandom “thing” that mainstream gamers paid no mind to. Very few titles were discussed outside those that had animes be it a TV series or an erotic OVA, and even some of the earliest visual novels localized into English were done so by anime and manga translation companies and not actual video game publishers.

If I had to pinpoint a time in my own memory where the genre started to get noticed more it would be when the Nintendo DS took off. With the DS there was an increase amount of western releases for visual novels thanks in large part to its touch screen interface working well with adventure style games. This wasn’t just noticed by Japanese developers either as a fair share of American and European made adventure style games were developed for the console as well. It seems everybody was anxious to utilize the system’s unique features when the DS started soaring in popularity. The point ‘n click and visual novel genres really had a home on the DS, and because of that a lot of people outside of just the anime community got a taste of these kinds of games with beginner friendly titles such as Ace Attorney, Trauma Center, and Hotel Dusk.

However, despite the Nintendo DS (and later to a lesser extent the PSP and PS Vita) giving gamers a finely curated and easily digestible dose of the genre I’d say the sad thing is the push was pretty small and died out quickly. Instead what seems to be the biggest reason why most video game outlets nowadays talk about visual novels are because of the parody dating sims that started to grow in popularity. Hey, do you want to date some monster? Is your girlfriend a llama? Maybe all you need in your life is to date a pigeon. Don’t try to hide it, we all know you secretly wish you could go out with a YouTuber. Not into dorky millennials, well no problem, we got a game for you–that is if dating other people’s dads is a you thing. Yes, this is the era of the wacky, silly dating sims taking over in the English market. It wasn’t always like this however, and yes Japan has had a long history of doujin dating sim parodies themselves, but lately it feels like all people know are the parodies that make good YouTube videos to react to instead of what a large amount of the games in the genre can offer.

Don’t get me wrong however, I’m by no means saying parodies do not have a place nor should they stay out of the limelight, and I definitely love that this fad has ushered in a wave of indie made English titles–but simply put this wave lacks so much variety and has been stretched so thin by this point. For every one creative title that pushes boundaries and gets new people interested in visual novels there are ten bland titles spilled all over Steam that feel like they were made by people with barley a grasp on what a visual novel can be outside of either parody dating or “boobies are pretty awesome”. Some of these bland games are even really well made and have a lot of care and attention added to their interfaces and artwork, but when push comes to shove, they are still just a basic joke stretched to its thinnest level. Visual novels don’t have to be that however, and while most mainstream gaming outlets may still be joking about how great it is to date your kitchen appliances, you don’t have to (unless you want to, in which case I recommend dating the toaster for he is the bravest of all kitchen dwellers).

A lot of this misunderstanding can be tied into the nebulous relationship between visual novel and dating sim, two “genres” that many people debate are separate things entirely yet due to the overlapping nature of the two they are often confused for each other. There’s a great article by Brian Crimmins online that actually goes into heavy detail about how visual novels came to be as a genre and how over time both visual novels and dating sims affected and evolved each other. It’s a wonderful read that I really recommend it for anyone curious about games such as these, but either way, whether or not you think visual novels and dating sims are the same thing or should be counted as separate but similar genres of games; it certainly doesn’t seem to stop most western gaming outlets reporting solely on gag dating sims as visual novels and taking away a majority of people’s attention from so much more that these games can offer.

I take back all my complaints

I somewhat lost focus and started rambling today, so let’s move on now and finally discuss what I wanted to talk about–that being, despite there being well known visual novel developers to the tight knit community that follows games such as these–examples including but not limited to: Mages, Type Moon, or Nitroplus–my favorite developer often seems forgotten in the conversation. What company is that you ask? Well, it’s Chunsoft. So today I want to talk about why Chunsoft really should be talked about more in the western fandom and all their contributions to the genre.

Chunsoft is one of the many long standing Japanese developers that have been around for every major home console since the Famicom. Nowadays they are known as Spike Chunsoft after their merger with Spike Co. in April of 2012. For the sake of this blog post however I am mostly going to refer to them as Chunsoft still given everything I really want to talk about predates the merger. Chunsoft’s involvement with Japanese style adventure games and visual novels more or less are tied to the very beginning of the genre. There isn’t quite a de facto known “first” visual novel per se, but most fans put the starting line at around 1982 or ‘83 depending on which game they may be talking about and which source they want to use for the release date (remember release dates were not entirely clear back in these early days).

One of the earliest contenders for this honor is Yuji Horii’s adventure game The Portopia Serial Murder Case (Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken), a game that was based around Horii’s interest in western style adventure titles, much like Horii’s later known legendary game Dragon Quest was based around his fascination with Wizzardy and Ultima and how to replicate those games in an easier to understand interface for his home nation. It’s here we can see “visual novel” wasn’t even a blip on the radar yet, and there was no definitive understanding of what genres for games really were at the time. Portopia proved to be a major hit during its release however and lives on even to this day as a fondly remembered game (and also a Japanese internet meme). Chunsoft handled the porting of the title to the Famicom and this was the beginning of a long business relationship between Chunsoft president Koichi Nakamura and Enix’s own Yuji Horii as in the years to follow Chunsoft would develop the first five entries in the hit Dragon Quest franchise for Enix.

With the birth of the Super Famicom things began to change between both Enix and Chunsoft. Having developed games primarily for the publisher Enix Chunsoft felt they should move into their own publishing, and soon got certification from Nintendo to do so. After slaving away on four Dragon Quest titles on the Famicom, and also working on the fifth title for the Super Famicom, most of the employees at Chunsoft were burned out so they decided their first self published title should be a simple game. Koichi Nakamura wanted to help make gaming more accessible at the time and took both the team’s exhaustion and his desire for a more casual audience into consideration when they moved forward. 

The title Nakamura needed to make had to be simple; a game that anyone could be able to figure out to navigate–even those intimidated by a controller, but despite that also needed to take advantage of the more powerful hardware of the Super Famicom by using Kanji scripts which again would make the experience easier on casual players who had trouble getting into video games because game consoles prior could only display text entirely in Hiragana or Katakana making the reading experience poor and hard to enjoy for Japanese players (see Japanese writing systems for more details). To all these ends the team at Chunsoft decided to create a game entirely around reading to tackle this Hiragana issue and show off the hardware (or at least the hardware’s Kanji capabilities) while also being something anyone of any gaming skill level could enjoy. The game would mostly be text for the player to navigate through and present choices at key moments in the story to advance, cutting out any complicated aspects from western adventure style games that might intimidate the unfamiliar such as solving puzzles or finding hidden items. This is how Otogirisō was born.

Otogirisō (Japanese for St John Wort) was Chunsoft’s very first sound novel, a nomenclature which has since confused the hell out of everyone. But what exactly is a sound novel you may ask? Well, people get kind of convoluted about it. Looking at the definition currently found on Giant Bomb a sound novel can be defined by its heavy reliance on sound effects and music to create a game’s atmosphere. Usually sound novels will use minimalist visuals and choose to emphasize the text over the artwork presented on screen–most commonly covering the entire screen in said text instead of keeping text only contained in a dialogue box. Something among these lines is the definition usually seen online when you look into it. It’s not entirely wrong either, but it’s also missing something to it. The term sound novel is a creation of Chunsoft themselves, and something they own a copyright on, this is also often brought up when you search sound novel, but at the time of its creation sound novel was meant to be something really easily understood and not this tangled mess of “a certain kind of visual novel”. 

When Chunsoft first created Otogirisō the brand sound novel was added to its box in order to help potential customers understand what kind of game it was. At the time it was just a way to let people unfamiliar with adventure style games (more commonly found in the west) to understand that this title will largely feature reading. In fact when Otogirisō was originally shown to the press in a 1991 Nintendo Space World show the game looked radically different from its finished project. Otogirisō was presented mostly as a book that the player would read, pretty much just like modern e-readers are now, with the exception that it included some sound effects and music. The press at the time was underwhelmed by this so Chunsoft took the game back to the drawing board and created unique visual backgrounds to give the game more flair and in doing so set a certain precedence for future visual novels to follow in. 

An important factor to remember here is there was no clear cut way to define games such as these yet. The term visual novel had not yet been coined, and even gamers themselves were not very well aware of genres. As Nakamura admits in a Famitsu interview when asked about the creation of sound novels, “if you look back at the very beginning of video games, for me, the conception of “genre” didn’t exist. Take action games, for example: within that label you had shooting games [note: Shoot ‘em Ups], you had stuff like Pac Man and Dig Dug, and you had more puzzle-y games too. It was very diverse. On the same note, with adventure games, there were Ascii Magazine’s games like Ometesandou Adventure and Minamiseizan Adventure, which were pure text adventures… but you also had things like Mystery House, which had a few pictures, or war simulation games like Fleet Commander. I played all those, and while I recognized there were many different types of games, I never thought about it in terms of genres.” So basically, at the time sound novel was conceived it was just meant to be the most straightforward way to define this Japanese style of adventure gaming that Chunsoft was trying out on the Super Famicom.

But does it end there? Well no. That’s only the part of the answer. Otogirisō ended up being a modest sleeper hit upon its release and this lead to Chunsoft to making more sound novels, with their next title being a legendary game that has since eclipsed Otogirisō as the de facto sound novel; Kamaitachi no Yoru (Night of the Sickle Weasels). This game was a hit, there’s no easy way for me to describe just how big it really was back during its release–out of the pantheon of legendary Japanese games that people in the US and Europe know jack about Kamaitachi no Yoru is one of the highest. Kamaitachi no Yoru is a fantastic game and I talked about it ad nauseum a few years ago when I payed the localized version called Banshee’s Last Cry, check that out if you’d like to know more, and if you’re still somehow able to play it then you’re definitely in for a darn good time.

With the a string of successes in the visual novel marketplace after both Otogirisō and Kamaitachi no Yoru, Chunsoft kept churning out games over the years, many of which are highly respected by the fandom still such as Machi and 428: Shibuya Scramble. All these releases of theirs had a certain tone and atmosphere, not to mention a distinct presentation that didn’t change much over the years and because of that did not look like what visual novels typically look like now. There’s a certain charm and narrative style between all of Chunsoft’s sound novels that is a really strong defining link in their catalogue despite a lot of these games being stand alone–and because of that people come to expect certain things upon seeing the term sound novel. Many titles would eventually come out not made by Chunsoft that shared similarities to their brand–these games followed in the footsteps of Chunsoft’s tone, structure, style, and presentation–and people began to notice, the most famous of which being 07th Expansion’s Higurashi doujin series. This is where we begin to see that murky kind of convoluted aspect of sound novels, as they start to transcend a basic label put on a box almost three decades ago and turn into their own little sub genre or maybe better described as their own style of visual novel. 

So what the heck is a sound novel then? The simplest answer is a sound novel is a dated term that Chunsoft used regularly and has since fallen out of use for visual novel; the more complicated answer is that sound novels are both a term used by Chunsoft for their brand of visual novels back before the term visual novel existed and also a certain style of visual novel that is mostly inspired by the early Chunsoft games’ presentation and ambiance.

Top Left to Right: Otogirisō - Chunsoft ‘92, Kamaitachi no Yoru - Chunsoft '94, and Machi - Chunsoft '98
Bottom Left to Right: Higurashi When They Cry - 07Expansion 2002, Tsukihime - Type Moon 2000, and GeGeGe no Kitaro Maboroshi Fuyu Kaikitan - Bandai '96 

Over the years Chunsoft has expanded, changed, and moved beyond their sound novel brand. Despite this however, they have never really stopped putting out solid titles in the visual novel market, and it seems like each new generation of gaming is blessed with at least one visual novel of theirs. My personal favorite title out of all their work from this era would definitely have to be 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors on the Nintendo DS. It was because of this game in particular that my love of visual novels in general really started, and Kotaro Uchikoshi’s sharp writing–especially the incredible dialogue and thorough thought narration in protagonist’s Junpei’s head still stands at the peak in my mind. Throw in beautiful sprite work based around art from legendary Capcom (and now freelance) artist Kinu Nishimura, and a fantastic soundtrack from the man himself, Shinji Hosoe and you got yourself a meeting of some fantastic minds. I’ve written about 999 in the past, and you can read about it here, but I still want to write more about it in the future, especially tackling the latest release it got in 2017’s Zero Escape: The Nonary Games. 

Recent years have seen Spike Chunsoft make it big with their Dangan ronpa franchise, admittedly however the first Dangan ronpa title should be more attributed to Spike, as the game was released in 2010 two years before their merger. However the two companies together as one have since released three more Dangan ronpa games, and two (or is it three?) Dangan ronpa anime titles, and many, many rereleases and compilations. My own interest in the franchise isn’t nearly as strong as everyone else’s seem to be but I did however absolutely adore the last game, Dangan ronpa V3, with how many times it managed to jump the shark, upping the game, and constant plot twist after more ludicrous plot twist. If there was ever a way to end something like Dangan ronpa it was what that game did, and oh boy did I get a kick out of that. 

Finally moving past Dangan ronpa, 2019 will see Spike Chunsoft develop and publish Kotaro Uchikoshi’s newest game, AI: The Somnium Files, for the Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Steam which just got its newest trailer and release date announced earlier this week. I am very excited for it personally and love the intricate and complex alternate reality game type marketing the team has been using to build up to its release! This is some next level stuff, and has been tons of fun all on its own.

Then there’s of course one more game I simply cannot pass up mentioning, 428: Shibuya Scramble. Now I briefly spoke this title earlier mentioning later sound novels that have been highly acclaimed, and trust me 428 is definitely beloved; its perfect score in Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu really meant something back in 2008 on the Wii. But why mention this with recent Spike Chunsoft games? Well the answer is easy, 2018 saw the much beloved, super Japanese game finally get an American and European release! And much celebration was had! If anything in this whole blog post remotely sounded interesting to you I really implore you all to go check it out either on the PS4orSteam, and see what a Chunsoft sound novel is all about. And for the impatient, I will be writing about it next on blog! 

Despite Chunsoft changing over time and no longer using their sound novel brand, they have still put out many classic and fantastic games in the visual novel genre. Their later work may take a radically different presentation from their prior titles, but despite their moving away from that set style there are still other developers out there that keep up that mantle. Overall I think the effect Chunsoft has had on the genre is undeniable and anyone missing out on their catalogue of fantastic titles are really missing on some of the best titles visual novels have to offer. That’s why I really wanted to write this blog post about them and put into words my thoughts about this developer’s library that just seems so often overlooked by many others in the fandom, at least in my experience. I hope through all my grumbling, and “kids today” rant I was able to at least get somebody interested in trying out one of their games.

ao3skin:

thewritinghole:

madly-handsome:

theinvisiblespoon:

ask-the-egos:

star-the-weeb:

valenwood:

scripturient-manipulator:

becausedragonage:

pixel-cat-1:

ashidoodle:

elfwiz:

combinecremator:

k8katbloggity:

ihateyourfriends:

“I have all these OCs! But no story…”

bruh

make a fighting game

But what if half your ocs are softys and not made for fighting?

dating sim

this post changed the game

Hey btw if you don’t know how to program, you should check out [novelty], which is a free Visual Novel creation software. Absolutely no programming required, and it’s super easy to use, I played with it some when I was a teen but the only reason I didn’t do much with it is cuz I made my story complicated and had like 5000 different branching routes that kept spawning new routes and made myself confused LMAO

But yeah, it’s a WYSIWYG with a really straight-forward GUI, if I remember correctly.

It even comes with some free backgrounds and characters and stuff, and this is what it looks like:

Did I mention it’s super duper free? It hasn’t been updated since 2010, but it has basically all you’d need to make a simple visual novel.

Just make sure your DirectX runtime is updated, cuz it can act buggy if it’s outdated, but this program is so old that I doubt it’d even be an issue lol

holy shit

This is so cool? Can you imagine fanfic in this format?

YO

@becausedragonage@ashidoodle can I recommend Choice Script? It’s like a choose your own adventure coding program. The finished product looks like this, where every option sends you down a different path:

They are literally books you can play. You can even insert your own character’s name and pronouns and that would make writing reader inserts so much easier And as a writer who can not art, writing and making dating sims and games is more convenient.

The coding is also super simple and easy to learn and all it requires other than the program files is a text editor. And just like that you can start typing up like you would your own fanfics or stories. Plus it’s very versatile so you can make your game/book as simple or as complicated as you want, and even implement stats and inventory systems.

AND CHOICE SCRIPT IS ALSO SUPER DUPER FREE. THE COMPANY EVEN PUBLISHES YOUR FINISHED GAME FOR YOU AND GIVES YOU ROYALTIES IF YOU CHOOSE TO SELL IT. THE PROGRAM STILL GETS UPDATED AND  THE COMPANY PUBLISHES BOOKS EVERY MONTH INCLUDING THE FANMADE ONES. THERE’S ALSO A FORUMFOR PEOPLE TO POST WIPS AND TALK ABOUT CHOICE SCRIPT AND GET HELP.

And there’s Ren'py, also for visual novels!

@raimeyl@mexicanesecat

Holy shit

Ooooof I’m gonna use thessee

For any burgeoning digital storytellers/narrative game devs out there! :)

Also good ol’ Twine is incredibly easy to learn for text games with multiple choices! You don’t even need to deal with images if you don’t want to and it works in the browser (there’s also a downloadable version) and it generates html files that you can play in your browser.

Anyway if you want excuses/community for making visual novels NaNoRenO is about to start (March2022 for those reading this message in the future.) on itch.io (like nanowrimo, but about visual novels!)

Yuri Game Studio to Host LGBT+ Visual Novel Celebration Livestream

On April 30, Yuri game studio and publisher Studio Élan (Heart of the Woods, Highway Blossoms) announced that it will be hosting a live stream festival celebrating LGBT+ games.

The live stream, entitled Élan Festival, will be held on Saturday, May 14th at 4 PM Pacific /7 PM Eastern on the studio’s YouTube page.

The Livestream will feature updates on upcoming games from Studio Élan, announcements about new titles coming to the studio’s publishing wing, Bellhouse, and new merchandise.

Studio Élan is small yuri game development studio, formed by one of the creators of the visual novel Highway Blossoms. Élan was created with a specific vision of telling yuri love stories combined with magic and fantasy.

The studio’s latest full game, Heart of the Woods is available on PC, Nintendo Switch, and PS4/5. The game was celebrated by audiences and critics for its story and presentation. YuriMother gave the game a 9/10 score on a guest review on Okazu.

The studio has three major upcoming projects:

Lock and Key, a magical girl adventure:

Sherri and Kealey Cohen, now a married couple in their late 20s, left the title of magical girls behind them over a decade ago. Now on the verge of losing their powers and entering a life of true normalcy, a string of unexplainable murders forces them to come out of retirement for one last adventure. Together with Nina, their old friend, and Ruby, a new protege, Sherri and Kealey will have to face a mystery connected both to their past and future. In the world of Lock and Key, the player shapes their path…and more importantly, determines where that path will end.

Summer at the Edge of the Universe, a science fiction romance:

After drifting apart for several years, a chance encounter brings four best friends back together for the journey of a lifetime. For Summer Nansen (CV: Hikaru Station), this trip is not only a chance to rekindle old friendships, but also to discover what it is she wants out of life. Alongside a new robot friend named Curiosity, the four girls travel from planet to planet, exploring the natural wonders and diverse alien cultures that they come across. Their journey culminates at the borderline of existence itself: the very edge of the universe.

The game features three routes, each centered around one of Summer’s friends. Every route contains both romantic and platonic endings. More fantasy than sci-fi, Summer aims to be a positive and uplifting experience, with one of the core tenets for the game being “good vibes only.”

Please Be Happy, a slice of life game:

Born as a fox in the forest of Korea, Miho carries with her the memory of a traveler who showed her kindness and spoke of home. Now more human than fox, Miho has spent a long, long time searching for her person. She arrives by airship to Wellington Skyport, one of the jewels of the floating island of New Zealand.

Despite her years spent observing humans, she still has a lot to learn about their culture and society. She’s made a living so far as a thief, her heightened senses allowing her to easily take advantage of people. She’s also seen a lot of the worst of what mankind has to offer.

It’s only after meeting Juliet, the owner of a small library, and Aspen, an aspiring novelist, that Miho starts to understand what kindness is, and that there’s more than just the bad stuff when it comes to people.

A demo of Please Be Happy is now available on Steam and itch.io.

The studio has also published free visual novel projects from other developers under its publishing wing, Bellhouse. Bellhouse titles include First Snow by Salty Salty Studios and Without a Voice by L³.

Source: Press Release

Is there anyone out there on tumblr that loves Haccaworks’s visual novels (Hanakisou and Aka ya akashi ya ayakashi no)? Ever since I finished them I’ve been dying to discuss them with someone!