#visualnovels — Public Fediverse posts

Steins;Gate Re:Boot Digital Deluxe Edition Announced https://popgeeks.com/steinsgate-reboot-digital-deluxe-edition-announced/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #SteinsGate #VisualNovels #GamingNews #IndieGames #AnimeGames

ChoiceBeat 17 is out!! The premier magazine of intfic and visual novels!

https://choicebeat.wordpress.com/2026/06/23/choicebeat-17/

#intfiction #VisualNovels #InteractiveFiction

I'll soon have enough CGs for DayRise, to put a proper demo onto Steam

#dayrise #visualnovels #chichester #comedy #drama #wtc21

Teaching early teens how to create their own game assets for #VisualNovels (and #GameDev in general) and today we were talking about using layers to speed up art creation (alpha locking, filters on layer groups), to give characters different expressions, or even create variations with multiple colours without having to redraw the whole image every time. In talking about expressions we discussed icons and why adding two diagonal lines to an orcs face immediately makes them an angry orc.

We also talked about how you always want clear visual separation between your visual focus (the orc) and the background (the corridor), lowering saturation and making sure that there's a contrast between the edge of the focus object and the background even if it isn't "realistic" - i.e. why it wouldn't work to have the corridor fade to black if we want to use filled line art with black lines.

All after doing some thumbnail sketches to work out what the problems were in the first place. Not bad for an hours work! #krita #VisualDesign #IterativeImprovements

The demo for AENIGMA is now available on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4210100/AENIGMA/

#visualnovel #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame #indie #game #games #vn #adv #steam #gaming #aenigma #visualnovels #steamnextfest

The demo for AENIGMA is now available on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4210100/AENIGMA/

#visualnovel #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame #indie #game #games #vn #adv #steam #gaming #aenigma #visualnovels #steamnextfest

Pook-Emu Bee: Links For 06-11-26

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/pook-emu-bee-links-for-06-11-26/

Pook-Emu Bee: Links For 06-11-26

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/pook-emu-bee-links-for-06-11-26/

Elevate Your Game with Emotional Piano Music #Pianomusic #Videogamemusic #Cinematics #Visualnovels #Menus #Ingamebackgrounds #Adventuregames #Rpg #Roleplayinggames #Royaltyfreemusic #AssetStore

https://u3dn.com/packages/elevate-your-game-with-emotional-piano-music-240026

Pook-Emu Bee: Links For 05-20-26

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/pook-emu-bee-links-for-05-20-26/

I like seeing #SkillUp getting flack for his #Mixtape review.

Nobody in their right mind would recommend a boastful visual-novel as "videogame".

In the visual novel space, there are masterpieces and this is not one of them, by far. The only thing it's going to influence is my despise for woke media.

#Videogames #Gaming #Games #VisualNovel #VisualNovels #Woke

Fantasy Character Portraits for Unity #Fantasy #Characterportraits #Unity #Gamedevelopment #Roleplayinggames #Visualnovels #AssetStore

https://u3dn.com/packages/fantasy-character-portraits-for-unity-254119

Pook-Emu Bee: Links For 04-30-26

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/pook-emu-bee-links-for-04-30-26/

Anime Comedy Sound Effects Pack 2 #Anime #Comedy #Soundeffects #Gamedevelopment #Animation #Visualnovels #Synthesizersounds #Percussioninstruments #AssetStore

https://u3dn.com/packages/anime-comedy-sound-effects-pack-2-224094

Cute Casual Gaming Music Pack #Casualgames #Musicpack #Loopabletracks #Sliceofliferpgs #Visualnovels #Cutemusic #Lightheartedatmosphere #AssetStore

https://u3dn.com/packages/cute-casual-gaming-music-pack-277870

Some shameless self-promotion for my #otomegame #visualnovel blog here.

https://otome-lycoris.com

I want to implement content warning lists for audience with triggers, considering it’s a very niche hobby and lists like those aren’t really readily accessible. (Fortunately I do enjoy darker content so I use this shitty super power to help others, I guess.)

Apart from that I’ll also be doing reviews of mainly Japanese Otome titles I’ve played and I’m trying to focus on those that have been picked up for localisation into english, so people can get a feeling for the games before making a decision to buy.

If that sounds like something you enjoy, please pay me a visit. My husband also worked hard on some polling and rating plugins considering the Wordpress landscape is a lot of subscriptions … if you like the plug-ins stay tuned because my dear 3D husband plans on making them public in the future. ♥️

#gaming #reading #visualnovels #otome #shoujo #NintendoSwitch #blogging #wordpress

Some shameless self-promotion for my #otomegame #visualnovel blog here.

https://otome-lycoris.com

I want to implement content warning lists for audience with triggers, considering it’s a very niche hobby and lists like those aren’t really readily accessible. (Fortunately I do enjoy darker content so I use this shitty super power to help others, I guess.)

Apart from that I’ll also be doing reviews of mainly Japanese Otome titles I’ve played and I’m trying to focus on those that have been picked up for localisation into english, so people can get a feeling for the games before making a decision to buy.

If that sounds like something you enjoy, please pay me a visit. My husband also worked hard on some polling and rating plugins considering the Wordpress landscape is a lot of subscriptions … if you like the plug-ins stay tuned because my dear 3D husband plans on making them public in the future. ♥️

#gaming #reading #visualnovels #otome #shoujo #NintendoSwitch #blogging #wordpress

youtube.com/playlist?list=PL...

We have some bite sized introduction to #ink posts for writing #interactivefiction / #visualnovels up on YouTube and I’m hoping to do a few more next week. I’ll definitely be doing a follow on about conditions (the different comparison operators and “switch” statements) and I’ll probably also do a video version of this blog post.

If you’ve got requests or ideas for other focused mini-videos let me know commenting here or over at the IntFiction forums (intfiction.org/t/ink-introdu...)

Ampere Analysis makes speculation on female gamers, not hard data

Ampere Analysis presented a study earlier this year where they concluded that women make up 48% of the gaming community. We can say that’s effectively half. That’s approximately 922 million people across 21 countries. Big numbers for sure. Supposedly, the gaming industry is largely ignoring this major possible market segment, as there is a serious lack of games for women who would like to play story-driven single-player games with a social aspect and romance. They came to this conclusion by looking at what kind of media outside games these women consume and made a beeline assumption that women want the same thing from their games. What their data seems to indicate is that there is a large section of women who are interested in playing games but don’t. Either they don’t know how to play games or don’t know what kind of game content exists.

Let’s pause here and point out that Ampere showcases data in a biased manner. That 48% includes any woman who has played a game, be it Candy Crush or FarmVille. If you’re a woman who has played a game of any kind, you’re counted in this number. The quality of these stats is messy, as that equates players who spend about ten minutes with games per week with people who spend most of their waking hours gaming. This is an important point, as any person wanting to sell something realizes that these two kinds of customers are completely different and need to be valued in a different manner.

The inquiry had 52 video and computer games listed. Only three titles had more women playing than men: Animal Crossing: New Horizons, The Sims 4, and Roblox. From a list of 50 mobile games, some 13 titles had more women players. This would indicate, then, that the higher concentration of women in gaming can be found outside the usual big sellers, and on mobile devices rather than consoles and computers.

The market is functioning as you’d expect; nothing has really changed in behavioural differences between the two sexes. Early on in this blog’s life, I wrote about girl games as part of a series where I illustrated how video and computer games aren’t a special phenomenon in and of themselves, but a continuation of a long play culture. Gaming in general mostly adheres to boys’ play culture, as it builds on competition and readily set rules. It’s much easier to make a soccer or a tennis video game because these rules exist and are set in stone. Playing house is something classically part of girls’ play culture, as playing with dolls and other miniature house equipment readies them for motherhood. It’s much harder to make a simulacrum of playing house because it has no readily set rules. Here’s mother, dad, kid, and maybe a dog. Here’s the house. Now play house. I’ve used The Sims as an example of this being successfully adapted, and I’m not surprised The Sims 4 is on the above list.

Making girl games is hard because historically they’ve been misunderstood and misapplied by powers that be in the gaming industry. You might have a good memory of some Barbie game out there, but none of them would win any prizes. What most of these girl games lacked in the 1980s and 1990s was holding power, or the way a game keeps attracting the player back to itself to maintain their attention span and immerse them in its world. Because gaming is largely based on boys’ play culture, its holding power over girls is less due to the different schema the two have classically worked under. In a manner, girls and women as gamers were treated like some sort of invalids because of this. Girl games were colourful, with horses and puppies galore, with about as much gameplay as a wet towel on a wall.

However, as demand grew for games specifically catering to girls and women, a few began to understand that the differences in play cultures were a possibility rather than a ball and chain. Brenda Laurel founded Purple Moon in 1999 to make, as she called it in 2009, a cultural intervention. Purple Moon’s games targeted girls between 8 and 14, and rather than making games about competition and confrontation, their games were more like interactive story worlds the players could explore. However, as we can see from Ampere’s data, games-for-all are more popular among modern women and girls than games directly aimed at girls.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu2kZwk1Ym4?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=863&h=486]

Purple Moon games were criticized for doing the same gender stereotyping they wanted to intervene

In a way, girl games dried out early in the millennium because games in general had already begun to emphasize story framing and expanded world-building in mainstream titles. I would hazard a guess that World of Warcraft offered much of the very same story-driven exploration and interactivity, not just with the game but with other players as well.

Barbie Fashion Designer may have sold well and left an unwanted mark, but a game like New Style Boutique 3 found itself with a cult following from the opposite sex. The game didn’t just require players to design new clothing combinations, but had a framing narrative of the player needing to run a clothes boutique, making the game deep enough to have holding power over both boys and men as well as girls and women. Unlike the Barbie game, this 3DS game had some depth to it. The lack of a license probably hurt the game’s sales, but its cult status shows that games stemming from girl play culture can have universal acceptance, even if it’s marginal. Of course, The Sims is the titan in this.

Girl game as a term has become rare, as it became associated with terrible shovelware. They were represented as the opposite of boys’ games, which frankly is just the de facto standard for the game industry. That’s not to say girls and women were ignored, as Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda games still make big sales and are more or less equally popular between the sexes. As gaming has moved away from public places and now solely resides at home, there is no longer any pressure for girls and women to give whatever games they might fancy a go. Why did more females play Tetris than Pac-Man? Because the physical placement of the game had moved away from arcades to home computers and consoles.

This study seems to ignore a few genres that have an overwhelming female audience, and they even make the whole girl game concept sound good: otome games and romance video games. Otome games have been specifically designed to cater to the sensibilities girls and women have, so it’s not surprising that over 90% of otome game players are women. We can argue whether or not visual novels count, but some fantasy otome games also have elements like running a kingdom, meaning they’re not just text but have meaningful gameplay elements that impact the social aspect.

As games have gotten heavier on delivering framing and allowing players to wander the world, we’ve seen a sort of coming together between the two play cultures. Especially with RPGs like Dragon Age series or The Witcher 3, we see that social aspect becoming a major component, with the ability to romance characters and that being an essential part of the story. However, the bulk of the play is still dictated by rules and regulations that largely stem from boys’ play culture. Acknowledging this, we can see how the two complement each other in a manner where they couldn’t exist separately. You get action gameplay with whatever character you choose to make, and then engage in extensive dialogue options between NPCs that might affect anything from what coloured shoes they wear to who stabs you in the back.

I see that if gaming would take its interactivity into account more, allowing players to dynamically change framing directions as much as systems could, and not stick to linear storytelling as seen in films and literature, we could find ourselves in places where games combine the two play cultures in a more holistic manner and embrace the medium’s inherent properties rather than stick with ready-made stories.

However, that wouldn’t automatically mean more women would want to play such a game. The number of hardcore male gamers who put more money into gaming is larger than females, and that is a lifestyle choice. The linkage between visual novels and women reading books is easy to understand; they’re almost the same thing in different packaging. However, there is no hard proof or individual linkage showcasing cross-media consumption. Anecdotes and niche demographics do suggest an overlap, but a large number of romance book readers don’t play games, even when there are already options that cater to them.

Even when we ignore romance as a genre, there are no studies that link cross-media consumption. Ampere is making the argument that because women consume X kind of content in media Y, then they should also be interested in X content in media Z. While this seems like a no-brainer at surface value, it’s a pretty big leap from opening a book and reading what’s on the page to installing a 50GB game on your computer and learning system mechanics that enable a similar story to that of a Harlequin book. That’s why girl games had that bad reputation; they tried to meet a supposedly invalid audience by cutting away gameplay to match a level where other media offered a more enjoyable pastime. The claims Ampere makes are circumstantial at best. We would first need studies showcasing that people, especially women, actually consume the same kinds of genres and styles across all media. Ampere’s conclusion about what women would look for in a game based on what they watch and read is no less than harmful stereotyping.

The argument of women needing an easier entry point for gaming is petty at best and sexist at worst. It’s the whole notion of girl games and females being seen as gaming invalids raising its head again. There has never been a better time in history to get into gaming than now. Endless amounts of YouTube tutorials and guides exist, games quite literally hold the player’s hand to pass even the slightest obstacle, no-failure states exist across the board, and even gameplay can be skipped in some cases. Saying that there’s a subset of female non-gamers who are interested in gaming but lack the knowledge of how to play these games and what content is out there, and then demanding entry-level content, is misguided. If women are interested in something and want to give it a shot, they are just as capable of finding things out themselves. They need the same thing as men: motivation and reason.

We have more games than ever before, from small indie developers to large AAA studios, and they’re all easy to find as long as your search skills are decent. However, if there is no reason to take up gaming as a hobby or lifestyle, then that person is not as valuable a customer as someone who already is. You can’t force people to become something, just like you can’t force men and women to choose a certain kind of career path simply because statistics look off. The same applies to hobbies. It might be cultural or biological; it doesn’t matter.

When you have people who are not interested in your product and are aware it exists, they’re not even untapped customers. You would have to fundamentally change their perceptions to turn them into customers. Ampere disregards its own results: 47% of female non-gamers say they would never consider playing. That’s 10% less than non-gaming males. If there are more boys and men willing to give gaming a shot than girls and women, then wouldn’t that be the more viable market segment to pursue?

We should, of course, question Ampere’s data, as it’s all done via surveys. Ampere gave out a generalised survey that doesn’t really go into detail, nor did they conduct any behavioural study over time. 46,000 respondents self-reported their preferences and habits. This is probably one of the worst ways to gather consumer information, as customers don’t always know what they want. I often use the example of why there are so many different kinds of tomato pasta on store shelves. Consumers think they know what they want, but often don’t. It’s not because they’re unintelligent, but because we are creatures of habit and environment.

Everything in this study is just speculation. There are no strong scientific grounds presented.

No industry would take a study like this and its recommendations seriously. You can’t turn someone who doesn’t want mustard into a mustard customer. It simply won’t happen.

The approach is also flawed. Rather than directly asking what games women play or what media they consume elsewhere, a study examining what kinds of games and play current girls engage in would yield more valid data. Similarly, researching past play habits of adult women and their current non-digital hobbies could provide valuable insights. This would be difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. It would also require researchers who understand differences in play cultures across various societies if conducted globally.

However, there’s still one thorn in my side I need to pick: games for general audiences. I mentioned Mario and Zelda earlier, and the reason they attract both sexes is because they are well-designed, high-quality games. Data over decades suggests that boys and girls, men and women, gravitate toward games that are enjoyable and have strong holding power. The more explicitly gendered a game is, the worse its design tends to be, and the less successful it becomes.

Pook-Emu Bee: Links For 04-17-26

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/pook-emu-bee-links-for-04-17-26/

Pook-Emu Bee: Links For 04-16-26

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/pook-emu-bee-links-for-04-16-26/

Pook-Emu Bee: Links For 04-16-26

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/pook-emu-bee-links-for-04-16-26/

Pook-Emu Bee: Links For 04-14-26

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/pook-emu-bee-links-for-04-14-26/

Pook-Emu Bee: Links For 04-14-26

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/pook-emu-bee-links-for-04-14-26/

Pook-Emu Bee: Links For 04-14-26

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/pook-emu-bee-links-for-04-14-26/

Pook-Emu Bee: Links For 04-14-26

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/pook-emu-bee-links-for-04-14-26/

Pook-Emu Bee: Links For 04-14-26

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/pook-emu-bee-links-for-04-14-26/

Pook-Emu Bee: Links For 04-13-26

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/pook-emu-bee-links-for-04-13-26/

Pook-Emu Bee: Links For 04-13-26

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/pook-emu-bee-links-for-04-13-26/

Screen Rant: Iconic Horror Game Suddenly Banned From Google Play Store. “According to a BlueSky post by publisher Serenity Forge, 2021 visual novel Doki Doki Literature Club has been removed from the Google Play Store as of April 9, with Google citing sensitive content as the reason behind the ban. Players can no longer purchase or download the game from the storefront, although if they already […]

"Experiencing Womanhood in A Year of Springs"

https://share.transistor.fm/s/eb8369c9

#visualnovels #games #gender

Google elimina la novel·la visual Doki Doki Literature Club (PEGI +18) de Google Play per representar “temes sensibles”.

No passarà res ja que és una novel·la visual. Qualsevol dia ho comencen a fer amb llibres convencionals.

(i aprofito per afegir que si bé és innegable que banalitza i explota aquests “temes sensibles”, també té uns punts de desestigmatització que m'atreviria a defensar)

#VisualNovels

Urban Civilian Portraits Pack #Urban #Civilian #Portraits #Handpainted #4k #Gameready #Prefabs #Psb #Rts #Rpg #Quests #Casinos #Slots #Visualnovels #AssetStore

https://u3dn.com/packages/urban-civilian-portraits-pack-267548

Please Eat This! is out!! Play our mix-and-match cooking visual novel and get your friend something to eat :A_BlobCat_Hungry:

PLAY HERE :blobfoxnomstrawberry: 🍱 https://aiainaine.itch.io/please-eat-this

I did the character/CG art for this game :yay_cheer: Excited to have worked on this lovely game with such a GOATed team for #NaNoRenO2026 :artaww: I also find that the theme hits close to home... Guess it's time to go eat!

#VNdev #indiedev #visualnovels #kemonomimi

Pook-Emu Bee: Links For 03-28-26

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/pook-emu-bee-links-for-03-28-26/

Pook-Emu Bee: Links For 03-28-26

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/pook-emu-bee-links-for-03-28-26/

Pixel Ruin Backgrounds #Pixelart #Ruinbackgrounds #Visualnovels #Characterbackgrounds #Storytelling #Gamebackgrounds #Pixelgames #Boardgames #Rpggames #Adventuregames #AssetStore

https://u3dn.com/packages/pixel-ruin-backgrounds-277634

Cat Character Sprite Pack #Catcharacter #Spritepack #2Dcharacter #Childrensgames #Visualnovels #Cardgames #Staticsprites #Customizable #AssetStore

https://u3dn.com/packages/cat-character-sprite-pack-245234

I... haven't been very active on here today, have I? Well, we got like a foot an a half of snow here today (that's about 45 cm for people using a sensible measurement system), so there's been a lot of shoveling.

Also, I'm tired and grumpy. But not too grumpy to do my game recommendation early tonight!

So, the Owlbear isn't really that into #VisualNovels. I had a lot of fun with Doki Doki Literature Club of course (who didn't?) but it's an anomaly in a couple different ways, not least of which that it's an actual game.

But that doesn't stop me from absolutely loving one with adorable clean art, wonderful characters, and charming stories... which brings us to A Year of Hot Springs.

Actually a collection of three short VNs about friends spending time at a hot spring resort, these tales have charm to spare, and hold a special place in my heart.

Love 'em all. Two Paws Up from the Owlbear.

#QueerGames #TransGames #VN #VideoGame #GameRecommendations

https://npckc.itch.io/a-year-of-springs

https://social.emucafe.org/naferrell/white-album-vibes-in-tokyo-mirage-sessions/

I have been writing about my play-through of Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE: Encore (see prologue, chapter 1, and first intermisson takes). I am in the middle of chapter two. While playing chapter 2, I completed a side quest for Kiria Kurono. I played White Album back in 2023 (after having watched the peculiar anime adaptation of White Album and the very good adaptation of White Album 2). Kiria and Tsubasa Oribe are starting to remind me just a little bit of White Album’s Yuki and Rina (even more so given that Tsubasa looks a bit like Yuki). Just waiting to meet Yuki’s cousin and Rina’s brother. Things could get interesting here.I will submit for the record that I made an accurate character survival prediction in Danganronpa 3 based on having read the unrelated Umineko: When They Cry. (Note I do not actually think this will turn into a White Album situation).

#tokyoMirageSessions #visualNovels #whiteAlbum

Okay, I'm here… IS ANYONE IN FANDOMS HERE OR DO I GOTTA BE A PIONEER?

Interesting participation info on jams that include #VisualNovel submissions from the folks at #vndb: Visual Novel Jam Statistics

For any jam, click "View more detailed stats" to get visualizations.

For example, here's the Yuri Jam graphs.

#VisualNovelDev #VisualNovels #GameJams #Itchio

Interesting participation info on jams that include #VisualNovel submissions from the folks at #vndb: Visual Novel Jam Statistics

For any jam, click "View more detailed stats" to get visualizations.

For example, here's the Yuri Jam graphs.

#VisualNovelDev #VisualNovels #GameJams #Itchio

Interesting participation info on jams that include #VisualNovel submissions from the folks at #vndb: Visual Novel Jam Statistics

For any jam, click "View more detailed stats" to get visualizations.

For example, here's the Yuri Jam graphs.

#VisualNovelDev #VisualNovels #GameJams #Itchio

Interesting participation info on jams that include #VisualNovel submissions from the folks at #vndb: Visual Novel Jam Statistics

For any jam, click "View more detailed stats" to get visualizations.

For example, here's the Yuri Jam graphs.

#VisualNovelDev #VisualNovels #GameJams #Itchio

Interesting participation info on jams that include #VisualNovel submissions from the folks at #vndb: Visual Novel Jam Statistics

For any jam, click "View more detailed stats" to get visualizations.

For example, here's the Yuri Jam graphs.

#VisualNovelDev #VisualNovels #GameJams #Itchio

Chaos;Head was first released in 2008 for PC, followed by an expanded version with new endings in 2009 called Chaos;Head Noah. A double pack – Chaos;Head Noah and Chaos;Child – was released for the Nintendo Switch in 2022 with a nice steelbook and game case inside a card sleeve. It also comes with a digital code for the soundtrack. Chaos;Head was released before Steins;Gate by 5pb and Nitroplus, a fact I was unaware of. I thought that Steins;Gate was the visual novel that started the entire Science Adventure series. I think, however, that it isn’t a bad place to start. I enjoyed both Steins;Gate and the crazy alternative story Steins;Gate 0, about which I haven’t written anything yet. I still have my extensive notes on Steam, so maybe someday!

Chaos;Head Noah stars a male otaku called Takumi Nishijou living in Shibuya. He is on the verge of being a hikikomori. He’s also a hero inside a MMORPG called Empire Sweeper Online or ESO, having built his beloved avatar KnightHeart with unwavering dedication. Inside his closed online community and guild he’s the max levelled, better equipped, most skilled player everyone looks up to, whereas outside he’s a self-hating, anti-social, misogynistic loser. He also collects action figures from his favourite anime shows – his waifus. Since this blog serves as a tribute to my waifu, I can relate. I just happen to be very faithful to a character of which there aren’t any collectibles made because she’s evil as all hell. Takumi’s waifu is not overdressed, conflicted and overly serious like mine, she’s a cute pink-haired anime girl called Seira and a part of his delusions as all waifus seem to be.

Takumi is an asshole, a whiny teenager, irritating, socially awkward, scared of the air he breathes, but also terribly relatable. I personally don’t like him because I was a bit like that in my teenage years and young adulthood. I wasn’t perfect, I never strove for perfection. If I wasn’t playing video games or reading, I’d still prefer the company of my own thoughts than of people around me. I may not have been as socially awkward as Taku, but I had my idols, I was superstitious, I had little rituals. Now I’m over all of it, but characters like Taku aren’t unfamiliar, even when I skipped his exaggerated meltdowns and frowned at his lack of courage, I would have reacted in the same way, maybe. Taku’s destiny in the game is twofold – he is both himself and a delusion of his own making. Haven’t we all been there?

Whether he wanted it or not, Taku had to at least engage in some dialogue with a school mate and, as the story developed, meet the mysterious female characters carrying beautiful swords across Shibuya. The action is set at the heart of a series of murders called the “New Generation Madness” (New Gen) and the impact the murders had in the media, online and in the society at large is well represented in the mass hysteria building around the case. While the police investigated the murders they eventually interrogated a very scared Taku as he was getting unwillingly more involved and absorbed in the paranoia surrounding him and his delusions.

He was approached online by a certain Shogun who left creepy messages in the chat and then disappeared. A supposedly close online contact – Grimm, who also played ESO – was also strangely invested in the murders. Taku would hallucinate about one of the murders and meet Rimi Sakihata at a crime scene before the actual crime happened; a girl for whom he developed feelings he didn’t seem to be able to process. He would be stalked and confronted by Yua Kosunoki, an older student who was also working with the police. He was approached by Ayase Kishimoto who told him he should get a Di-Sword about which he would learn more with the help of Sena Aoi, Kozue Orihara and Shogun himself. The story is long and all these characters have their backstories, told through small bits of fiction mixed with reality, of self-made delusion born from past traumatic events.

Soon everyone will be on the same page about the big conspiracy behind the New Gen killings and the tech company Nozomi Group’s true intentions behind the creation of Project Noah II. In a nutshell it’s a machine with the power to create illusions which, through shared recognition, become real in the eyes of those it can reach. At a certain point in the game, the player is invited to do an optical illusion test. There’s a dot and a circumference on the screen and with our eyes focused on the dot, we should bring the screen closer to us and see that the circumference disappears and reappears at times. By making use of these blind spots the accumulation of energy generates impulses leading to reality recognised as true by shared experience, that is, when a delusion is “real booted” in the real world. Delusions with no “real booting” are just errors perceived only by Gigalomaniacs like Taku and the aforementioned girls. They have the ability to boot delusions into the world without the influence of Noah II.

This part of the story reminded me of an X Files episode where a creature moved with recourse to these blind spots. No one could see it passing through a crowd because it had the ability to identify the blind spots of everyone it came across, and move only in those. If someone knows which episode it is, please tell me because I’d love to see it again! 

Even though the game plays as a visual novel with minimal player input, at least in the common route, there’s moments where we can choose to see a positive, neutral or negative delusion from Taku’s perspective. Any of the delusions can unlock tips for our collection and new CGs so it’s recommended to watch them all. Tips are also featured in Steins;Gate and are excellent to learn interesting scientific concepts related with the main theme which in that case was time travelling and in the case of Chaos;Head is the perception and manipulation of reality. After I finish the common route I’ll do all the others with the help of a guide, as I usually do with traditional visual novels.

https://swordofseiros.wordpress.com/2024/10/09/playing-chaoshead-noah-nintendo-switch/

#5pb #blindSpots #chaosChild #chaosHeadNoah #delusions #gaming #japaneseGames #nintendoSwitch #nitroplus #reality #scienceAdventureSeries #steinsGate #videoGames #VisualNovels #waifus

My last post was at the start of the month and in the meantime I’ve been “here and there,” as a beloved colleague often says. Here and there means not here, mostly, because I’m somewhere else for an indefinite period of time. This is obvious, but I may be here sometimes, in the video game world, but at the same time I’m somewhere else inside my History books where I usually feel more confused than usual, but also a bit more accomplished. This could be a prologue to The Sekimeiya that I left unfinished, but no. Even though I’m always time travelling, I don’t need an egg to do it. I can open a book or install Baldur’s Gate 3 (BG3) instead, and travel to another world, one very reminiscent of what we associate with the Middle Ages in pop-culture. 

I think my journey in BG3 went very well at first. I was totally immersed in the game, loved the story, the characters, and my companions. The game was extremely beautiful and ran perfectly on my PC, or so I thought. No stutters, no frame drops, detailed textures, beautiful light leaks, everything felt so real and alive in that fantasy world. The graphics were so sharp and the world almost bled into my own. I managed to play for five or six hours at first with no problems. In my second session I started getting constant Direct X crashes. It happened at camp, during combat, in the course of an autosave, never with cutscenes, at least so far. I pressed on and tried to run the game with Vulcan. It was way worse. Back to Direct X, sometimes I was able to play for about an hour with no issues. I changed some graphics settings and got myself an extra thirty minutes. 

Next day rolled around and my crashes got worse. Now it wasn’t only the Direct X crash, but also a BSoD. I got it about three times. Not only did the game crash, it completely shut down my PC. Worldly problems seemed to be bleeding into the game. I looked it up online and wouldn’t you know it, I wasn’t the only one. A lot of people have been having the same issue. People tried to help each other with solutions to the problem, some I tried myself with no good results. Many attempts and many tweaks later and I was back to square one. I contacted support and they suggested a number of ways to fix it. I did half of it, still no results, and when I felt ready to continue trying, I stopped. I tried to analyse what I was feeling in the midst of all the frustration and I think the most likely answer is that I got bored. I was immensely bored. Every time I started the game I knew I’d only have the pleasure to play it for one hour tops and then the rest of my free time would be used to solve my issue. I don’t know if it’s wrong or not, but I didn’t have time for it, at least it felt that way. I have a list of things that I could still try, I just didn’t have the energy to do it then and needed some consolation. And where do I find consolation in the gaming world? On Nintendo Switch, of course. The most perfect little device ever made. 

There’s this game called Emio – The Smiling Man (Famicom Detective Club) that I was very eager to start and I decided to jump right in. I still don’t know if there’s branches but it plays like an interactive visual novel. So far it has been a very straightforward investigative story about a string of murders, some old and some new, apparently connected to the urban legend of the smiling man. We play from the perspective of two young detectives from the Utsugi Detective Agency – our own character, to whom we can give a name of our choice, and our partner Ayumi. We interact with the environment and people via a menu displaying different actions: call/engage, ask/listen, look/examine, take or show (in some situations), use phone, think and open notebook.

While questioning someone, we can mention a given subject from a sub-menu. When the character answers back there’s highlighted text which can be used to expand on a specific element of the conversation. Using the option ‘observations’ we’re able to extract more knowledge about a line of questioning. Recourse to the option ‘think’ is used to ruminate on some loose ends and initiate dialogue as a reaction to any new information. At the end of a chapter we do a wrapup of the new findings so far. At this point we have to answer multiple-choice questions and complete some sentences by typing the right words. These words can be Japanese proper names and are hard to type because we can’t go back to check how the name is properly written. We can, however, check the internet. I only had to do it once, when we met Mama Shoko at her bar. We had to figure out her real name, which we did, but when the prompt to write it came up, we couldn’t go back to see how it was written.

At first, I didn’t know if there were consequences if we failed some of these quizzes in the deduction phase. I reloaded and confirmed that the feedback from our fellow detectives changed according to our reasoning, but didn’t notice any particular changes anywhere else. Maybe it could affect our relationship with Ayumi for whom our character had a special fondness. However, it took me so long to publish this post that I eventually finished the game. I can confirm that this is a straightforward interactive visual novel. Whether we get choices or not, the narration forces the player to follow the plot. So, why are there any choices at all? After finishing the main story we unlock an epilogue chapter. 

The extra chapter tells the story of the smiling man and ties some loose ends. It was surprising that a big part of it is a short anime movie. It’s equal parts beautiful and tragic. After we reach the end, an ‘extras’ section is unlocked and there’s an option called Mr. Fukuyama’s Report Card. Fukuyama is the teacher extraordinaire. In the card we get information about our performance in the quizzes and other choices through the game. I don’t think he was very pleased with my performance and he told me that my favourite drink was green tea. False. He also told me that I was very serious. Maybe he’s right, because I often think I’m not serious enough. Anyway, I think the game’s replayability could be tied to his assessment, and if that’s the case, it’s very lacking in new elements to even consider. The advantage of it being a short game is that I’ll eventually pick it up again to replay the story. I enjoyed how the story developed, even though it had an unnecessarily big cast of characters registered in the notebook.

I think it was a game that came at the right time to help me focus on other things and forget about my PC problems, but I can’t hide a certain disappointment because of its short duration. I’d really love to play cat-and-mouse with the smiling man for a bit longer and maybe have more screen time with some of the characters in my notebook. The absence of the usual visual novel tropes made me want more than what I got – this is a compliment, by the way. What I really wanted was more stories like this, touching what we call “mature themes” in a respectful way, where things don’t necessarily get happy endings, they’re the result of violence patterns leaving nothing but trauma, confusion and more violence. Emio made an excellent portrait of that nuance, beyond the criminal investigation, the interrogations, and the horror bits.

https://swordofseiros.wordpress.com/2024/09/29/emio-the-smiling-man-nintendo-switch/

#baldurSGate3 #bg3Crashes #crime #detective #emioTheSmilingMan #famicomDetectiveClub #gaming #murder #nintendoSwitch #pcGaming #VideoGames #VisualNovels

#Ukrainian #VideoGame developers have assembled a free set of #VisualNovels with #true stories of #civilians in the crossfire.

#Steam has it available during their Ukrainian Games Festival, as well as many other games by Ukrainian devs.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1985510/Ukraine_War_Stories/

#StandWithUkraine #UkrainianGamesFestival

#Ukrainian #VideoGame developers have assembled a free set of #VisualNovels with #true stories of #civilians in the crossfire.

#Steam has it available during their Ukrainian Games Festival, as well as many other games by Ukrainian devs.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1985510/Ukraine_War_Stories/

#StandWithUkraine #UkrainianGamesFestival