/ot/ - Off-Topic

Omg that Riki is adorable…

>>10386
HE LOOKS SO CUTE!! KYOURI!!!
I know crossdressing is his gag and there's the Kaginado joke of him being the heroine but I do wish he could have been a butler too…
Aaahh, I just know I'll be on the hunt for theirs and Misuzu's merch from this collab. I hope they get acrylic stands!

I thought I'd share this post from Fata Morgana's scenario writer and see what everyone thought about it. I know there have been plenty of discussions online about the state of the VN industry, but I hope Novect's upcoming project is successful. Do you all think Hundred Line's success was more due to name recognition, the incorporation of gameplay, or something else?

>>10524
>something else?
I honestly think there is a jrpg vacuum and people were chomping at the bit to try anything that even remotely falls under that umbrella. Some people picked Clair Obscur and don't talk about it anymore, some picked Hundred Line and are still playing! It's the fujobait that gives it staying power obviously.

>>10524
People really want another experience like danganronpa so it doesn't surprise me that not-dangan4-lite did well. Honestly, it really was kind of like brand recognition desu

>>10529
>It's the fujobait that gives it staying power obviously.
I haven't bought it yet because my current backlog is too big to add more to it but I am definitely intrigued by all the art I've seen floating around of red guy and white guy. I was going to eventually buy it anyway due to already liking danganronpa but the fanart makes me bump it up the priority list.

>>10524
Sometimes I feel like people are so conditioned into playing gachaslop that they don't want to touch standalone games anymore since they have to spend $60 right away and get maybe 40 hours of gameplay instead of spending $150 every two months to get a new character and play 20 hours of a new patch. They're held hostage because they can't quit due to the sunk cost fallacy and all their friends are still playing so they don't want to miss out. It's sad.

>>10534
This makes me sad, but it does feel like a lot of the audience of VNs has moved on to gacha and vtubers, doesn't it? I think it's impossible for a medium with such a significant time investment to compete with gacha. It also kind of sucks because even if a specific gacha game is just like a visual novel with microtransactions, it can't last forever. Obviously, people will archive the stories of the big ones, but it's just sad to know a game could have the greatest story ever and have the plug pulled on it prematurely.

>>10567
Based on how popular gacha games for waifufags are in Comiket and how the ones for women are in Comic City events I'd say yes, they most replaced VNs in terms of popularity and target audiences.

>>10534
>conditioned
They are!!! I hate to get all WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY about it but the average attention span has been eroded by short form content over the years and unless people actively make a stand against it by choosing long form and meatier media the markets are going to reflect this. They have essentially been groomed to find gacha and other live service games' "10 hours of new content every few months" shtick acceptable.

I've seen some (mostly western) VNs do the "episodic" thing and I'm not sure I like it as a compromise but also understand we no longer live in a world where you can work part time to support yourself while you pursue your creative passions.

Still playing through everything tagged with Male x Male on VNDB but this one is so light on that I'm just going to post it here instead of the main BL game thread. VN of the day is "Case 00: The Cannibal Boy"
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1391450/Case_00_The_Cannibal_Boy/
Short kinetic novel, definitely designed to be read in one sitting and is only a half hour. Has a namable MC but the default is Brucie which I find funny.

This one is centered around the framing device of friends telling each other urban legends instead of working on homework and is divided into three chapters with each being a different story. It's a bit 2edgy4me, but I think the second one "Doppelgangers" is the best. It focuses on two siblings Hans and Grete (like Hansel and Gretel, do you get it!?) as it deals with Grete crushing on a boy who is in love with someone else only for that someone else to be her twin brother who she proceeds to kill and feed to his boyfriend unknowingly again very edgy. I'd give it probably a 3.5/5 and it'd appeal to people who are fans of games like Corpse Party and works with those high-school sensibilities.

I'm afraid stuff like Sweet Pool may be the last of its kind.
>Itch.io releases strict new content rules banning depictions of rape, incest, bestiality, and related themes. The language is vague—terms like “pseudo-incest” and “implications” raise concerns about subjective enforcement.
>Devs are biting their nails over a new Steam rule that prohibits—in painfully vague terms—certain kinds of content on its platform. The new rule (seemingly introduced incredibly recently, and definitely introduced since the Wayback Machine's last Steam rules snapshot from April 14 this year) forbids "Content that may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam’s payment processors and related card networks and banks, or internet network providers."
>In other words: keep Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal happy or sling your hook. How do you do that? Valve doesn't say, only noting that particular care should be taken with "certain kinds of adult only content." No elaboration is offered as to what kinds of adult-only content that means, leaving NSFW devs groping in the dark to appease payments processors.
>https://www.pcgamer.com/software/platforms/steam-introduces-new-rule-prohibiting-certain-kinds-of-adult-content-that-might-make-visa-or-mastercard-unhappy-financial-deplatforming-in-action/
>https://www.gamingamigos.com/post/timeline-steam-itch-io-adult-game-bans

>>10652
>Case 00: The Cannibal Boy is a half-hour visual novel partly based on a true story, written by a writer with a background in psychology. It is a psychological horror story with an urban legend theme.
At least they know how to advertise it…

>>10665
So far it's only steam and itch that have been affected. As long as it stays that way, nsfw games will still be available for purchase on other sites like gog, fakku, jast, mangagamer, dlsite, and booth. And even if mastercard/visa stop payments to these sites, the sites will likely just find a way around it like dlsite did (not sure what gog would do though). Also while dlsite and I'm pretty sure booth both require genitalia censors, decensor patches are easy to distribute elsewhere for indie devs. But I really don't like that mastercard/visa are being allowed to dictate what adults are allowed to buy with their credit cards.

>>10652
>Male x Male
I had no idea this one had any BL elements at all. How was the translation? The store page doesn't look promising…

>>10670
These are also some good CGs. My favorite is the 3rd one.

>>10669
It's fine, it gets the story delivered, there are a few jokes that feel clunky and might have struggled to be adapted but without knowing Chinese I have no idea how faithful it is.

>>10670
>>10671
I love Nazi shota.

>>10668
For how long? They'll be going after them one-by-one, just like they've been already doing with Japanese companies (DLsite, Melonbooks, NicoNico, Manga Library Z, Tora, Fantia, some otaku dating site - https://automaton-media.com/en/nongaming-news/visa-payment-suspended-on-legal-dating-site-for-otaku-prompting-response-from-japanese-politician ).
Japan was their trial run (it succeeded) - they will come after American companies next.

>Ofcom’s Whitehead spoke about the importance of ‘harmonizing’ legislation, not just between different laws, like the European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA) and the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA), but also between government agencies and industry. “We say [the DSA and OSA] are regulatory cousins, they’re not twins. But they do share some things in common.” Whitehead said. “We don’t have powers to instruct folks to take content down, we’re not there to surveil and censor, we're there to improve governance, improve standards, improve safety by design,” she noted. “I think the onus is on us to explain what they have in common and also what the differences are.”
>The FTC’s Slaughter picked up on this thread, explaining how harmony and directional convergence among international regulators is good not only for regulators but for industry, too. “It is how you foster coherent innovation, development, business growth, and opportunity, and we really want to see that,” she said. “The US hasn't had new legislation in this area recently, but there have been really important developments, many of which are consistent with some of the things that we're seeing across the ocean and around the country,” Slaughter added.
>The two panelists also spoke about the importance of different jurisdictions being as aligned as possible on privacy and safety regulations, and how to help industry navigate areas where they differ.
>One of Slaughter’s frustrations is that there’s still no comprehensive federal privacy bill in the US.
>While Ruane thinks much of the DSA wouldn’t pass constitutional muster in the US, such as requirements to audit speech moderation decisions or measurements of systemic risk, what platform policies and decisions are made in the European Union could soon be applied in the US, too. “To some extent, what I think the government's involvement in content moderation should or shouldn't be, doesn't matter, even though I wish it did. It's already happening. We are already seeing governments involving themselves in content moderation in the EU. We’ve got some good safeguards, but there are also some significant concerns,” Ruane said.
https://www.techpolicy.press/regulators-industry-ponder-how-to-integrate-online-safety-laws/

JAST to the rescue.

>>10684
Their localizations aren't always my favorite, but I appreciate them trying to hold the line.

Unrelated, after watching a bit of the Umineko stage plays I've been thinking about playing the VN. I never bothered with it before since it lacked any real shippable pairs to me (unlike something like Fate or Dies Irae), but Battler is surprisingly charming.

Am I the only one who hated Umineko? I've literally only seen praise of it in the EN fanbase. I've never seen any other VN get glazed as much and I don't think it deserves it

>>10703
I like Ange more than Battler actually kek
>>10704
I like Umineko but I also totally get why someone would hate it, it's one of those VNs that's more popular overseas like zero escape while Japan doesn't really like Umi.

>>10709
>>10704

The women in the game definitely have much more going for them. I've always liked murder mystery plots, and the magic portions give me chuuni middle-school nostalgia in a fun way.

kek at the copyright infringement

>>10704
I also disliked Umineko. I've mellowed out about it over the years, but I still dislike it. I wasn't disappointed by the ending because I hated it long before that. I am a huge fan of mystery novels, and it was such a huge disappointment coming from those books to Umineko. I think the strongest elements were the human characters' writing (I love Ange and Eva; I also thought Erika was pretty great even if she's not 'real'), and I unironically think it would've worked better as a family drama than as a mystery. I was spoiled on the solution to the mystery long before I read it, and while this can often enhance a good mystery novel, it just made Umineko more frustrating because there were more contradictions within the text that became obvious if you knew the solution ahead of time. I really think Ryukishi07 didn't know how he wanted the VN to end when he wrote Episode 1, or his friend who died had a bunch of information he wanted to include, but didn't write it down. I won't write out all of my grievances, as Umineko fans often don't respond too well to criticism, and it's kind of pointless to try to explain it, but you're not alone. I suspect most people who hated it did not make it through all 8 episodes, which is why you don't see many people shitting on it. I did read all 8. I kept waiting for it to "get good," and it never did.

>>10849
Erika's real, she's just a girl who got into a plane crash and probably drowned near rokkenjima.

>>10850
My bad it was actually her falling overboard on a boat, more or less the same thing though.

>>10850
Sorry, I meant Erika as she appears in the story. As in, the Erika whose personality is depicted within the text. The character herself, like you said, died before the plot, so the Erika we see within the story isn't "real." I don't know how else I can explain it, but hopefully you understand what I mean.

Male protagonists from masochism VNs targeted at guys are so cute…

>>11409
As someone who played Monster girl quest to see a cute boy suffer I feel this.

>>11409
this isn't from a yaoi VN?

>>11429
I've had a couple of friends who did this kek
>>11430
Nope, masochism VN for guys, he gets forced to fuck his mom too.
There was actually a pretty fair amount of these made in the 2000s but I can't think of any that were translated (that and a lot of the fetishes in them are way too intense for me)

I'm the one embarking on the challenge to play every VN tagged with BL on VNDB and I've been stuck on a 30 hour furry game for weeks that I just do not have the motivation to read. Like outside of it just not appealing to me it's so visually bland and poorly written I want to give up. Blah. It feels like quiting/cheating though so I at least want to power through one route.

When do you consider a VN "finished?" Just a single route, main story, all the routes?

>>11444
>When do you consider a VN "finished?" Just a single route, main story, all the routes?
All of the routes makes the most sense to me. Especially cause some games have a true route that contains the most story resolution hidden behind completion of all the other routes. That being said I don't think you should have to play through something that doesn't appeal to you. I couldn't get further than one route of Hadaka Shitsuji cause I found it a miserable experience and I understand it just wasn't for me.

>>11444
I'm morbidly curious as to why the gay furry VN scene is so big, especially in China for some reason.
I also find it really funny when the furries are specifically Pokemon and they just look like idk Squirtle's head pasted on a buff guy Chuck Tingle-style. I don't know how anyone finds that appealing.

>>11444
> 30 hour furry game
Is it Echo? I've been wanting to read it despite hating furry shit with a burning passion because it's tagged as Denpa. I'm curious to hear what's so bad about the writing!
>When do you consider a VN "finished?" Just a single route, main story, all the routes?
For me, it's not done until I've read all the routes. This is just a personal thing because I've read VNs where the ending either elevated or completely ruined the VN. However, if I'm reading a review, I expect the reviewer to have read the true ending. I think this is reasonable because I see reviewers comment on things that get resolved in another part of the plot that they refused to read, and it makes me mad. I can empathize with being stuck collecting all the endings of a VN you hate, though. I say just drop it once you finish the main plot, but state which endings you completed.

>>11447
The gay/bi male slice makes up a huge number of furries, right? Maybe that's why?

>>11450
Yes actually! It's just a bunch of unlikable characters interacting with each other in ways that aren't particularly compelling. Like one character is a shitty ex boyfriend and that's the extent of our interactions with him, or another is a stoner that no one likes and I have no reason to care beyond that. I haven't even played far enough to get to the real supernatural/horror elements yet but I just find the characters interactions tiresome. It's very frustrating because I saw someone compare it to denpa novels as well as Higurashi and I'm just stuck thing that while Higurashi had a slow burn opening it was way more captivating from at atmosphic angle. Doesn't help that this game just has photo filter backgrounds of the desert which is like the flattest possible location.
I keep asking myself "Would I like this more if it was in an art style I enjoy?" And right now the answer is no. But it's one I've been reading in half hour sessions, so again not far at all.

>>11445
>>11450
True, a good true ending can completely elevate a work and recontextualize prior routes that might have been lesser, at the same time it kind of feels like a "completion" as opposed to just a "finish" there are definitely VNs where if you haven't read the true ending or every route I don't think you've finished it. Largely depends on if there are unlockable routes and whatnot imo, but I was curious what the general opinion was.

>>11447
Yeah I've played a few for my personal challenge which I haven't talked about here because I think it's just not the topic of the site but two of them were Chinese and that's a bit off-putting. I noticed they're more likely to have furry characters in gacha as well like Arknights and ZZZ. Kind of weird considering outside of monster characters and fringe bara works you don't see it much in Japanese media.

>>11452
I know that, but how did it result in such a big VN niche specifically? I feel like I've seen more furry bara than regular bara VNs on vndb. And are non gay furry VNs comparably common? I thought furries mostly just commissioned horny art of their OCs.
>>11454
What do you do when you come across obscure/old games that you can't download, nonna? And are you playing fan games too? Because you would stumble on my own shitpost of a game eventually kek

I have 11 visual novels in my backlog now that I finished all the BL visual novels I have. They're mostly otome games, and there's also Fate/Stay Night and Stein;Gate. I already started one otome game and I find it a bit boring right now so I often take breaks. I'll still force myself to finish at least one route in each of them before buying more visual novels on Steam, I need to force myself to do that or I'll buy one million games and VN during the next Steam sales and my backlog will get even worse.

>>11454
>I have no reason to care beyond that
There's a 1-hour-long video essay I've seen in my recommendations, and while I haven't watched it, it's made me wonder how much of the praise is because it's one of the only plot-focused furry VNs out there (as far as I'm aware), so it's a bit of a novelty. I've seen a lot of reviews praising it to high heavens, too. I also wonder if part of its high rating is because the art style filters most people who would criticize it for its writing (there's a reason I've had it downloaded for years and have never made a move to actually read it kek). I'd like to see your negative perspective on it when you finish reading; I always enjoy reading opinions on stories that go against the consensus. It's much more interesting than seeing the 500th "this visual novel BROKE ME" review.
>Higurashi had a slow burn opening it was way more captivating from at atmosphic angle
While it's not my favorite denpa VN, I feel like the rural setting and sound design really helped Higurashi. If Echo has a boring setting, ugly characters, and bad writing, it doesn't leave you much to enjoy. The VNs I've hated the most were ones I just found boring as opposed to those I found aggressively bad. It's sad that it sounds like Echo is in that category. I hope it at least becomes funny-bad for you instead of boring-bad.
>you don't see it much in Japanese media
Don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure the most popular Japanese gay furry VN was left eternally unfinished, which probably says something about its popularity there.
>>11458
>started one otome game and I find it a bit boring right now so I often take breaks
Which one?

>>11460
>most popular Japanese gay furry VN was left eternally unfinished
do you mean morenatsu? iirc there was a big divide of bara vs kemono stuff in the community at the time, and the game was already in development hell.

>>11457
>What do you do when you come across obscure/old games that you can't download, nonna? And are you playing fan games too? Because you would stumble on my own shitpost of a game eventually kek

I haven't yet, but that's probably because I've really curated my list. Though there are games that I didn't complete because I finished the demo and didn't want to buy the whole thing. One of them was one of those ugly 3DCGI porno VNs on steam for instance, I ain't paying 9.99 for another hour of sex scenes.

Basically the criteria is: BL/Yaoi, in English or has a translation, and it doesn't have the excluded tags like Trans and Nonbinary… and Fanfiction. Which I didn't initially exclude but then I read a Genshin one that I was so lost in I decided to exclude them.

Anyway here's the parameters I think I shared it in the BLVN thread but I've streamlined it a bit. Here's also a small showcase of what I'm doing. Green means completed, all routes done. Orange means I'll get back to it at some point "stalled." Red means dropped, I did one or more routes but didn't complete it for whatever reason (probably bad). I also have a blacklist which I add the sequels of games I finished but didn't enjoy to. For instance I hated Ambition Plot, so I just went ahead and added Ambition Plot 2 to it and removed it from the challenge. AI games also get blacklisted if I see them.

I'm going in alphabetical order except for jumping ahead to games which are a sequel to the one I'm on, in which case I read that and then return to the game which was next. It's a bit of a Sisyphean task, in the time I've been procrastinating on Echo three more games have been added.

Sorry if that a bit detail than you were asking lol. I wonder though if the Itch.io purge will mean a lot of ENVNs will just be lost media or hard to find, I played one where the Itch page was missing when I went to share it here. I guess in that case if I run into one I'll need to make an MIA tag for them to remind me to periodically look for reposts by the creator later.


>>11460
> I've seen a lot of reviews praising it to high heavens, too. I also wonder if part of its high rating is because the art style filters most people who would criticize it for its writing
This reminds me of the fact that people often complain about BLVNs and Otome games regularly scoring high on VNDB and other sites for this exact reason. Like the fact that it's targeting a smaller demographic somehow means they automatically go easier on the game. Which to an extent might be true. NitroChrial games are so big primarily because they were the only ones available over here on top of also being good. There was also discussion a while back here about Enzai only being popular because it was the first one translated. But I still maintain that the games that score high like ADELTA titles are mainly because of the production value, unlike whatever Echo is doing.

>>11466
> wonder though if the Itch.io purge will mean a lot of ENVNs will just be lost media or hard to find
TBH most itch.io games are probably excluded from your list considering the excluded trans tags

>>11460
>it's made me wonder how much of the praise is because it's one of the only plot-focused furry VNs out there (as far as I'm aware)
I could see that. I remember some time ago I read a let's play critique of a VN by a furry dev named Klace and if I look at another game he made from 2019 it seems to have good reviews but at a glance the reviewers all seem to be furries so who knows what non-furries would think.

>>11466
>I wonder though if the Itch.io purge will mean a lot of ENVNs will just be lost media or hard to find
Last I heard, they relisted or were in the process of relisting all the purged adult games but forcing them to be free. Or maybe it was dependent on the dev opting in? I'm not sure. Hope nothing of value was actually lost. I hope some alternative pops up by the time I actually complete some shit of my own.

>>11450
I'm not as anal with furshit compared to other people but I always found the way furries did anthropomorphism to be very "yea only an autistic gay dude would like this". And when you do find that rare unicorn that doesn't make everyone look balloon animals, you're not sure if you ever gonna find one like it again. I guess it's the case for bara too since in theory, guys who aren't just skinny twinks would be nice for variety sake but they're always drawn so weird. I dropped a couple of FVNs because the art just wasn't hooking me as much or felt gross about it until much later learning the guy behind it did some freaky shit behind the scenes.

>>11465
Yeah, I did. I don't know if it's the actual most popular or even what the circumstances were, but it's the only one I've seen discussed in places you don't normally see that kind of thing. I have no idea why it was left unfinished, but it's always seemed odd to me. You'd think something would come along to dethrone it.
>>11472
For me, I just can't stand the art style, and I hate the community. Plus, I'm always left wondering why they were animals in the first place. Like, nothing is ever done with the fact that it's a tiger man and a sheep man or whatever. They're basically just humans in fursuits.

>>11470
The issue is with payment processors, so devs are listing demos/free versions as a way to get around it for the visibility.