Kickstarters

Three interesting Kickstarters.

SC2VN - The Esports Visual Novel

Destiny Fails Us - Otome Game

HuniePop: A Dating Puzzle RPG

My Little Dictator: A Battle-Visual Novel.

A romantic-comedy battle visual novel set in fictional WW 2 Europe. Featuring RPG battles, map systems and plenty of light-hearted fun.

Voices from the Sea by Zeiva Inc

Posting every few weeks with no replies can be frustrating. Thanks for keeping this thread alive.

Does The Best Podcast Story Ever have a chance? This project is apparently some sort of visual novel and audio book hybrid. There's not a lot of information about it.

I don't know how the Kickstarter project Umichan Maiko Classroom Cheaters will do in the next couple weeks. It looks like a simulation game which will have optional adult content. I don't find the art so far to be appealing. And while I understand that comparisons to HuniePop might be unfair, I have to admit that I like its art more than what Umichan has posted so far.

There is a Kickstarter meant to resume work on Dysfunctional Systems. It seems to be doing several things right: lots of images, lots of information, and several updates. I think they will succeed.

Hunie Pop doesn't look like something that would normally attract my attention much, but having read Blaster Nation, I have a lot of respect for the lead writer's abilities. If the game is up to the standards of the comic, I think it'll probably be worth checking out.

Huh, Exogenesis seems interesting.

I think I know one of the developers there. I used to contact with him regarding some storyline ideas, but he didn't reply for some months after I submitted my last idea. Maybe this project is what's currently preoccupying him.

Ruler by Default has met its funding goal, and currently has just a few hours left. It's apparently half life simulation, and half fantasy romance story with at least four heroines. I've seen it compared to Long Live The Queen, though I don't think it's meant to be as bleak or as political.

It doesn't look like Hurricane Paisley is having much success. There's nothing wrong with creating a story with various RPG Maker programs. After all, the indie game To The Moon is basically a visual novel presented through RPG Maker. I think the crowdfunding effort is struggling due to a lack of self-promotion... though I could be wrong.

edited 12th May '14 6:32:47 PM by dorkatlarge

Wrapping up on Kickstarter:

• Fault Milestone One: An indie VN that will be translated by Sekai Project. It's had a ton of success (555% funded right now), and has three days left to go. On a related note, Sekai Project had about as much success crowd funding the last two parts of the World End Economica translation.

• Starlight Drifter: Sci-fi story with some gameplay, from the people who are also working on Swords of Edo. Sounds kinda like Sunrider... I should check again later and make sure I know what will make the two projects different.

New on Indiegogo: crowdfunding "the final stretches" of The Time Stones. The creator has been working on this project on Lemma Soft for over two years. Looks like the project has a distinct art style. I think it would be a shame if its new campaign died just because Indiegogo isn't especially popular.

edited 15th Jul '14 3:36:11 AM by dorkatlarge

Kodoku Chronicles is currently struggling on Kickstarter. Five days left, and only 35% funded. I'm intrigued by the distinct horror style.

Change! started a few days ago. It's an otome game about current life in Vietnam, written by a person who lives there. Some gender bending is involved.

Sekai Project has been using Prefundia lately. They are apparently preparing to crowdfund official translations of the entire "Grisaia" trilogy and a recent visual novel called "WAS –The Hourglass of Lepidoptera".

Lovely Little Thieves went up a few days ago. It's an 80s-themed horror story about six teenagers who get trapped inside a murderous haunted house and have to survive for 72 hours, that touts nine possible endings and a ton of choices. Every single choice you make, no matter how major or minor it seems at the time, will help shape your heroine's overall personality and effect what happens.

There's a free demo there for anyone who's interested in checking it out first. See what you think!

Change: currently 28% funded with twelve days to go. The most recent update promises that they will have a proofreader.

Lovely Little Thieves is 65% funded with nineteen days to go, and they are posting regular updates.

Asagao Academy recently started on Kickstarter. It's a reverse harem story loosely based on the Youtube channel Normal Boots, created with their permission.

Magical School Lovers was added to Indiegogo. As far as I know, the company Koyonplete has released all its products in English. I don't know how much of a reputation they have, or if their crowdfunding effort will get noticed.

Uirusu Shoujo: Ebola-chan sounds like an absurd comedy. The funding goal is relatively low.

Finally, the WAS - The Hourglass of Lepidoptera Kickstarter is already a huge success. I wonder how well Sekai Project will do with their plans to crowdfund the Grisaia No Kajitsu trilogy in the near future...

edited 1st Nov '14 5:56:53 AM by dorkatlarge

Sekai Project is already running C Lannad on Kickstarter:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sekaiproject/clannad-official-english-release

it's not even a whole day old(and the campaign will last two full months!) and look at how much money it got,that's insane. Then again,we are talking about one of the most acclaimed V Ns of all time that also got an anime that is one of the highest-rated anime in major sites,so I guess that was a bit expected.

EDIT:and goal reached less than 24 hours.Damn...

edited 11th Nov '14 12:42:38 AM by johnnysasaki

Clannad's Kickstarter is certainly going along well. It definitely helps that its animated adaptation is currently level two on the Sliding Scale Of Anime Obscurity, and that translation patches have been available since 2012. As of this writing, stretch goals are still being discussed, and it's not clear if there will be a DRM-free English version.

Stained with Magic started on November 11, and has a detailed Indiegogo... but it's barely been noticed. I think they will benefit from some self-promotion and at least one update.

Dragon Dating Simulator has useful information as well as a couple updates, but again, it's been almost ignored. Do the creators need to emphasize their amusing premise? Do they need to make it seem more sincere?

Lovely Little Thieves got funded.

Asagao Academy has about nine days left and just a couple thousand dollars to go.

Magical School Lovers has been mostly unnoticed.

Uirusu Shoujo is about halfway to its goal with over a month left. It's perhaps the only current VN project on Indiegogo that seems to be succeeding.

...What *does* it take in order to have a visual novel funded on Indiegogo? I don't know. But looking at the example of DNA Twister Extreme from early 2013, I think that it helps to advertise to people who are not involved in boy x girl Romance Game fandom.

It's tough to be optimistic for Second Chance. The following aspects are worrying...

• Promises to be a free game, but with nine major characters and endings. There are few commercial or indie visual novels which have that many important characters.
• The writing for this Indiegogo campaign currently has grammar errors and typos.
• It's not clear why the creators need 1000 EUR, or how they will use it.
• It sounds like they plan to create a story with choices, but they use the term "date sim," which implies complex simulation gameplay.

If the creators can clearly state their goals in English, and if they can sell it to Furry Fandom, then they might still succeed.

Not really. The term is much more frequently used to describe any game in which the goal is the court a love interest out of a selection. More often than not, they are just regular visual novels with simple choice based gameplay.

Wow, those spelling errors...

For Yandere fans out there, take a look at this.

That character art... *scrolls down*

Ah! I thought I recognized him. A pity he's not also doing the background art, because it's currently looking awful.

I assume the people creating But I Love You are promoting their work somewhere, because otherwise I don't think it would have passed three stretch goals. That said, I'm surprised that they're including minigames. The optional ones in Thousand Arms weren't bad, but having to learn mandatory ones in other video games in order to succeed can be annoying. Also, I'm wondering what they will do with their premise. It's kinda familiar. If the story has "Seemingly nice girls are revealed to be yandere" as part of its first act, what will happen from there on?

I don't know what to make of Echo Tokyo. The headline makes it sound like a visual novel as well as a Romance Game. However, the team is clearly making a comic, and it sounds like they're also creating a Wide-Open Sandbox game.

Animal Lover is a planned Indie Game and Romance Game. Sometime before the story, the heroes were all turned into animals. The girl protagonist needs to figure out why they were cursed. For what it's worth, the creators are choosing not to use an Animesque art style. It might be accurate to call the drawings Disneyesque and not a parody.

I'm kind of worried about But I Love You hitting the full voice acting stretch goal. I mean, if it gets a full complement of really good voice actors, then great, but honestly I think it's more often than not that I find myself wishing games with voice acting didn't have it, and games which I feel are substantially improved by it are few and far between.

It's not even necessarily a matter of how good the voice actors are, really. Sometimes it's just that having the lines spoken aloud highlights whatever flaws there are in the dialogue writing. A line that seems just a little bit off when read can sound jarringly wrong when spoken aloud.

What Desertopa said makes sense. Voiced dialogue can enhance a video game. But it can also come across as canned or unconvincing. Sturgeon's Law dictates that maybe ten percent of voiced video game dialogue will be compelling.

As of February 1 2015, here's what's going on:

• The Grisaia trilogy Kickstarter was a huge success. It's not yet clear if there will be an English version on Playstation Vita... but it seems plausible. In the recent past, Steins Gate was approved for official English release on Playstation 3 and Vita, and both Hakuouki and Sweet Fuse had professional translations for Sony platforms.
• Animal Lover passed its funding goal. With five days left, it might reach one or more stretch goals.
• Irathian Chronicles: On Golden Wings has $856 pledged, with over $8000 to go in the next twenty six days. It's described as a mystery adventure story that will take place in a fictional country. The creators have clearly stated how they will use funds. But it's not clear if the final product will be freeware or an indie game.
• Lapis Azurai is a planned business management game / visual novel hybrid. It will definitely be a free game. Content ratings are also clear — they intend to create versions that would merit PG-13 and R movie ratings if they were reviewed by the MPAA. The Kickstarter could benefit from some images, and at least one update in the near future.
• Millia: The Ending is a work in progress fantasy story. The creators have sample images and character profiles. They have stated a goal of recruiting doujin music group Stellatram to create songs. Right now, it looks like they'll easily get their modest funding goal. I believe they will benefit by revising their Kickstarter for grammar, and adding details about the story.

edited 1st Feb '15 6:44:27 PM by dorkatlarge

Searched Indiegogo this morning for "visual novel," but didn't have much success getting accurate results. I found an Italian language project called Wired Memory. The team might be using placeholder art. Even so, it's a little worrying to see the first screenshot and think, "That's a free-to-use character sprite that I recognize from other freeware visual novels made with Ren'py."

A vaguely relevant Indiegogo campaign is Gaming Against Teen Dating Violence. It's not specific to visual novels at all, though it does mention the freeware visual novel and previous competition entry Grace's Diary at least once.

Koreans, being neighbors of Japan, have cultivated their own breed of visual novels.

And it's time to fund them.