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[frostshotgg]

Well no. age has little to do with getting this licensed. What likely happened behind the scenes was "Please, let us do this" "No" "Please, we'll pay you" "Why are you worth our time?" "Okay we'll do a kickstarter to show you". And then they realized that they didn't actually know if there'd be enough support for a kickstarter so they did the prefundia first and when that was successful they went for it. The most that'll happen from this point, if the stories told by the other companies that do translation are true, is either A, the company will okay whatever they see because they don't know what they're looking at, or B, the company will demand something unreasonable or just plain bad because they don't know what they're looking at.

[ToonyMan]

goodbye $300

[Tellemurius]

Well no. age has little to do with getting this licensed. What likely happened behind the scenes was "Please, let us do this" "No" "Please, we'll pay you" "Why are you worth our time?" "Okay we'll do a kickstarter to show you". And then they realized that they didn't actually know if there'd be enough support for a kickstarter so they did the prefundia first and when that was successful they went for it. The most that'll happen from this point, if the stories told by the other companies that do translation are true, is either A, the company will okay whatever they see because they don't know what they're looking at, or B, the company will demand something unreasonable or just plain bad because they don't know what they're looking at.

Considering that Sekai was able to convince Key to not have disc DRM im going to say its both A and B. Dub licensing has got to be a bitch to manage.

[Leafsnail]

There would be no game to license if they didn't make it.

[Krevsin]

So I just finished the Muv-Luv trilogy.
It wasn't easy to get the games running and a glitch prevented me from properly finishing Extra (the game would crash when going into ending credits, thereby locking me out of Unlimited) so I just downloaded a save.

I certainly did not expect the characters would grow so much on me.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Very few games or other pieces of media manage to make me care about fictional people. Muv-Luv Alternative was one of them. I felt genuine sadness when I saw the characters I've seen grown and change, whom I've managed to care about meet their demise.

But boy is Takeru a thicko.

[Cruxador]

Goddamn, I've been playing Lucid9 lately and it is amazing. Got through a particularly tense part last night and it has stuck with me.

Trigger warning: It's mostly about mental health, so if you have problems there it could really fuck you up.

[frostshotgg]

Since I'm reminded that this thread exists, there's some very interesting things going on industry side right now. Mangagamer is pushing super hard for Steam recently. Ozmafia has been surprisingly successful, although the number of people naming the player character "Slut Queen" is far too few. Additionally, Gakthun made it on, apparently ESRB rated it M despite the pretty explicit sex scenes. With stuff like Witcher 3 making it, that's fair, but it's still interesting to see the double standard there dissolve.

Meanwhile, JAST finally managed to actually push Seinarukana out. That shit was haunted, I'm surprised they didn't mothball it after it went on a hard drive killing spree. JAST also put out a mindbogglingly horrid demo of Flowers, much to everybody's horror/grim amusement.

In Sekai land, they licensed Hoshimemo, according to Insem, they haven't contacted him about using his translation at all so presumably they're doing it from scratch. I think a lot of people will be genuinely surprised at how different it comes out when it's straight Japanese > English, rather than going through a middle language. 

[Cruxador]

industry side

I know people generally prefer JVNs to EVNs, but the development side seems a lot more interesting from a market perspective to me, and there's more narrative innovation. Of course, since there isn't the situation that weak content doesn't get translated, it can be harder to find the really good stuff. But there's still a ton of interesting stuff going on to keep an eye on, even if a lot of it is marked by drama and incompetence that would never reach your ears from the Japanese market.

Mangagamer is pushing super hard for Steam recently.

Well, yeah. Steam is great. It has the biggest gaming audience out there, and is also convenient to use. Even if your game is free, a lot of people go for it to reach the bigger audience. If you're trying to turn a profit, it's a no-brainer.

[frostshotgg]

The thing about development side is it's much harder to discuss. Either there's no information or it's all the Japanese side of things with a lot more surrounding context needed to frame. The ongoings at Alicesoft are actually pretty spooky for fans of their stuff, with all the important people leaving but hanging on for Rance X, or the total radio silence about the same. TADA's said some really concerning stuff about feeling like they're headed for a waterfall in a wooden canoe in the dev commentary in Rance IX.

On the English side of things, the only dev I even recognize is Winged Cloud and they're pretty much silent to my ears. The most interesting thing I have to discuss about them is the flip flopping between Sekai and Mangagamer as a publisher, but I have no context for that.

[Cruxador]

Alicesoft seems to be dying. It happens though, I think they had a good run.

In EVN news, the tie-in game for The Huntsman is an EVN, which might draw interest to the market.

Also, Selenon Rising launched on the 29th and now, four days later, has one (negative) review. This is a bit of an embarrassment for Sekai, who published it, and triggered some people in a certain anonymous industry hangout to complain about how proactive Sekai isn't. This is second-hand, but it seems that they won't do jack shit unless you specifically ask them, which is annoying their clients a bit. It's a typical workplace gripe, and not necessarily a major point against them, but if the folks doing Selenon, I guess, weren't assertive about getting things done and now they're paying a percentage without reaping a whole lot of benefits. It's a shame for a game that doubtless was a labor of love.

[Drakale]

What are some good recommendation for a visual novel that isn't a dating simulator?

[Sirus]

9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors. Phoenix Wright. Both have a bunch of elements of visual novels and none of them involve dating IIRC.

[Drakale]

I actually played those series already though, very good games. I was hoping for some less known titles.

[Cruxador]

isn't a dating simulator?

Does this mean "doesn't focus on romance" or "doesn't include any aspects of romance"? Lucid9 comes to mind immediately for the former, since that's the one I've just been playing (and it's free on Steam or itch.io). It doesn't satisfy the latter more stringent requirement, though.

[frostshotgg]

Are you qualifying "dating simulator" as anything with any sort of relationship at all? It'll help us make suggestions you may not have read if you give us a clearer boundary.