It was only a few weeks ago that heartfelt game Hanako’s Flower Shop was announced with a release window of April, and today a specific launch date was pinned down for late this month. The game follows the titular character, a young woman at a crossroads in life. She decides to run her grandfather’s beloved flower shop. The gameplay resembles…
It’s nearly springtime in the Northern Hemisphere, and in a month nature will be well on its way from brown and muddy to green and blooming. What a great time to launch a game about flowers! Hanako’s Flower Shop is a shop management visual novel about running a flower shop,…
Horror is such a difficult genre for artists to work with. People…
If you’re being bullied, can the ability to read thoughts solve all…
One of the things I’ve learned in making my own visual novel is that scope can very easily blow out. Every new scene, character, idea, and story beat that you add in means more backgrounds, CGs, character costumes and music. Then it all becomes very expensive. And so, in most…
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Nearly a year after Agate launched Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story 2 to mixed reviews, the developer is trying its hand at bringing otome visual novel Celestia: Chain of Fate from story app Memories: My Story, My Choice to PC and Nintendo Switch. This isn’t something I’ve seen done a…
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During the past two years, a trilogy of titles have been released as part of the Pixel Pulps series developed by LCB Game Studio: Mothmen 1966, Varney Lake, and Bahnsen Knights. These games don’t fall into the common trap of “more content!” – instead, each is a perfectly reasonable length…
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There is massive money on the table for the first localisation outfit that can produce high-quality translations of Chinese-developed games for their Western release. Unfortunately, we don’t have that localisation infrastructure yet. It has only been in the last decade or so that games from Taiwan and/or China have started…
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When I think of Idea Factory otome games, much of what comes to mind is as cute and colourful as the upcoming Cupid Paradise: Sweet and Spicy Darling. Don’t get me wrong, those are wonderful and creative games – but what if an otome visual novel decides to go dark…
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I would describe Read Only Memories: Neurodiver as a cyberpunk psychic mystery visual novel with point-and-click adventure elements. Or is it the other way around? Either way, use the word psychic in any capacity describing a game and I’ll instantly be interested. (Or the word cryptid, kind of funny because…
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Those who have been reading DDNet for some time know that for a few years now I’ve been working on a visual novel that’s on a subject close to my heart: Ballroom dancing! Why has it taken so long? Because the scope of this project is just that significant, and…
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With the same creative team behind it as Olympia Soiree, Tengoku Struggle: Strayside was always going to be an interesting visual novel. As it turns out, it’s going to be particularly interesting for people that are students of Japanese historical figures and spirituality, and perhaps a little befuddling for those…
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Dating visual novel games often have somewhat unique stories, but generally tend to use the same formula: of one person meets a bunch of people, said one person likes said bunch of people, and said one person must choose one from the bunch of people to live with harmoniously forever.…
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The Rose & Camellia games first launched as one hit online Flash game in the 00s, gaining popularity as sequels were released. They are odd genre mash-up of visual novel and slap’em up (if that even counts as a genre). I only heard about the series last year during Limited…
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