Plk_Lesiak’s Shovelware Adventures: NewWestGames

Wondering what this series is about? What's with the "crappy" rating system? Find out all about it here​​​​​​​!

An amazingly contradictory example of both ambition and trashiness, this Canadian company managed to create some of the most memorably-bad games available within the Western VN market. While they definitely never showed the kind of contempt for their audience and lack of dignity that emanates from pretty much every new Winged Cloud title or the Steam asset flip/achievement spam VNs (yes, those are a thing – I will get to them one day), their utter failures and misguided elements in their projects are not something you see every day – and, as they belong to commercial products that ask money from their readers, they’re open even for the more cruel kinds of scrutiny. And that’s exactly what I’m going to deliver upon them today.

A Wild Catgirl Appears

Yuri Game Jam entries usually are published for free, even though some of them offer quite impressive production values and interesting stories. A Wild Catgirl Appears is a double exception in this regard, as, sadly, it's neither free nor in any way compelling to play through. With extremely basic and mostly nonsensical plot, clunky dialogue and a plethora of technical issues, it's one of the least competent commercial VNs available on Steam (at least among actual games and disregarding the aforementioned asset flips and achievement spams). It might also be the only VN in which I count the inclusion of catgirls as a negative, considering how superficial the reason behind their appearance is and how they take the focus from the only somewhat-interesting characters in the game. Even yuri romance couldn’t redeem this title to me, considering its generally miserable state – sadly not worth your time, and especially your money.

 
Final rating: Smelly Poo
 

Girl on the Train/Densha Girl

Originally another Yuri Game Jam entry with... Highly questionable art, it’s a title that definitely missed the memo reminding everyone a nukige shouldn't threaten to give you nightmares unless it's guro. The commercial version made some improvements in that department, but still rather minor ones, while other problems, especially the obnoxious protagonist claiming that becoming a cam girl is a legitimate career choice, stayed exactly where they were. Same goes to the game’s very short reading time and hentai segments that are not too pleasant to look at (which, once more, is not where you want your porn VNs to ever be). Questionable even as a free product, but definitely not worth paying for.

 
Final rating: Smelly Poo 

Sweet Volley High

A part "yuri", part "otome" romance VN (that is actually neither) with a long common route which perfected the forbidden martial art of boring its readers to death. That situation was not made any better by inclusion of some seriously annoying partial voice acting (even though the fully-voiced sections are actually of decent quality, voice cues appearing at random moments really don’t help the experience) and one of the least visually-appealing GUI's I've seen in VNs (devs, details matter, really!). The few interesting moments are mostly drawn in tons of dry dialogue and awful pacing, although the one well-written and genuinely emotional route (Nanami's) is nearly worth it. Nearly.

           Also, trigger warning: this is probably the only VN I know that includes two dead-end romance option, which means that half of the romanceable cast does not have a good ending, only some rather nasty negative ones. While I personally didn’t mind it that much, some people were genuinely disturbed by how the story was developed. If you think your heart might be broken, read a walkthrough on which characters don’t have good endings – read safe!

 

Final rating: Rabbit Poo

Ecchi Sketch: Draw Cute Girls Every Day!

One of the strangest yuri eroge I’ve read, Ecchi Sketch involves a lesbian mangaka protagonist, who after being from a boring graphical design job starts working as main artists in an aspiring yuri manga company. There, she can fall in love with one of three of her female coworkers, all closeted lesbians (lesbians in denial?). And while this might sounds standard enough, the details of this “romance” is something else entirely, as it involves, in all of the routes, tons of strange, borderline abusive sexual encounters (usually interpreted as “testing” scenarios for the smutty comics the whole team is working on). In every route, this VERY extensive (and no less explicit) sexual content transition into a brief episode of drama and then… It ends. Abruptly. The yuri porn, however, definitely is there and with quality and variety better than in any other NWG title – if that’s what you’re after, this one might just be very much worth it.

 

Final rating: Rabbit Poo 

 

In the end, I don’t enjoy shitting on NewWestGames’s projects the way I do enjoy making fun of studios like Winged Cloud, who engage in shady business practices and poison the EVN well for all of us. Katie, the person behind the NWG label, is not in any way a bad actor. She is, however, a developer that consistently produces questionable results and most of her games, as products sold to people on Steam and other platforms, do not warrant any other reaction than lighthearted ridicule. I hope these complaints and ones from people with a perspective similar to mine will help her improve in the future – after all, I’m not a person that would ever tell a yuri developer to stop doing their thing. :3

PS Again, my special thanks go to Bosskwar, who made this series possible (or at least much more enjoyable to make) with his let's play videos.

Analogue: A Hate Story Review & Retrospective (English Original Visual Novel)

This review was originally published on Fuwanovel Forums on December 1st 2017.

Analogue: A Hate Story is not a title that necessarily has to be „discovered” or that wasn’t properly appreciated in the time when it came out – among all the VNs developed in the West, it might as well be the one most highly regarded and popular within “proper” visual novel fandom, at least before the recent appearance of Doki Doki Literature Club. Still, it’s a very important game for me personally and for the idea behind this blog, for two reasons. First, Analogue was the first visual novel I’ve ever played and a piece of media that affected me emotionally and intellectually like few other before it or since. It was not only stuck in my head for a long time, as a vivid and emotionally striking memory, but maybe even left a lasting mark on my way of thinking and my moral stances. Second, it’s a perfect example of the power of VNs as a formula that even a single person, or a tiny team can use to create something remarkable and touching, given enough effort and talent. Before I go into details of the game, I have to mention a very good review by Meru that was already featured on Fuwa frontpage – I agree with most points there and encourage you to check it out, but beware, it’s somewhat spoiler-ish. As the game relies heavily on its plot twists, I myself will try to reveal as little of the story as possible.

The game does an amazing job of creating a unique climate and placing its UI and storytelling techniques within the setting – even explaining why you only use preset dialogue lines for communication.

 

So, what is Analogue about and why I find it so special? The game focuses on an unnamed protagonist, sent on a salvage mission to a derelict colony ship, which was lost in space many centuries earlier. On the ship, apparently devoid of any life, the player encounters two AIs and attempt to uncover the mystery behind the crew’s disappearance – mostly following a story of the Pale Bride, a terminally ill girl that was locked in a stasis pod by her parents, in hope that the future technology might bring a cure for her condition, only to be awakened in a time of dramatic social and technological regress. Everything is presented through minimalistic, but thematically fitting user interface – you spend most of your time going through computer terminals and databases, interacting from time to time with the AIs in charge of the ship, but mostly reading through various logs and messages. While this might not sound like the most exciting concept, it really fits the main premise of the story and let you immerse yourself in the role of an astronaut studying a space-travel disaster-site.

            Still, what truly makes this apparently-dull formula engaging, especially in the first playthrough, is the quality of the writing and the emotional impact of the stories told. The game’s author, Christine Love, is primarily a writer and the level of her craftsmanship shows in pretty much every piece of text available in the game. While it isn’t especially long (shouldn't take more than 6-7 hours to fully read through), Analogue manages to create a great main intrigue and a pretty significant cast of memorable characters, both in the historical records of the ship's databases and in the form of two AIs that the player interacts with. While the setting itself, extremely oppressive and patriarchal, might feel like a bit of a stretch – we are only told that it’s an effect of unknown disaster which led the whole ship out of its course and into endless drifting on a remote star system, not why its social order evolved in this direction – it works very well as a plot vehicle.

The "conformist" A.I., *Mute, while foul-mouthed and unsympathetic, is not simply a representation of patriarchy or a stock villain – she’s a deeply flawed, but interesting character, providing many meaningful insights and interactions.

 

Here there’s a need for a bit of an elaboration – the game isn’t shy about its ideological stance and the intent of being not only a story, but a piece of social commentary. Pale Bride’s story is one of a dramatic clash between modern values and lifestyle, and extremely patriarchal, feudal society styled after medieval/early modernity Korea. The values and common sense ideas of that era are presented through *Mute, a security AI which might use female form, but in her opinions and commentary shows the deeply rooted misogyny and oppressive nature of the ship’s regressed society. Still, just as most characters in the story, she isn’t simply a villain – she’s a product of a specific social order and not only can show sympathy and devotion to other people, but reacts in a humane way when confronted with information that defies her expectations. While some people try to reject Analogue as a propaganda piece, it doesn't show a black-and-white picture, but points out the tragedies connected to this kind of oppressive social order and the situation of those that don’t fit into its norms. It’s a feminist game through and through, but not an ideological pamphlet – it’s not made to hamfist certain ideas into your head, but to make you think and empathize with those put in similar situations as some of the characters in the story. And it wouldn't be effective at that if it didn't strive, and succeed, at being an impressive piece of literary fiction, that feels genuine and inspired in its storytelling.

The game manages to create a lot of emotional tension and occasionally shock the player – when the main mysteries are revealed,  it’s very hard to stay unaffected.

 

Of course, Analogue is far from being a perfect game. The database structure can be somewhat bothersome, often not giving any clear indications what you have to do to unlock additional logs and progress through the game (in my first playthrough, 3 years ago, I was stuck like that 2-3 times, frantically browsing the messages and looking for what interaction with the AI I’ve missed). There’s also one-timed puzzle-sequence, which for me felt extremely confusing and more or less unapproachable without a guide. Endings are very much a mixed bad, the primary ones (1&2) being in my opinion extremely impactful, while other ones often leave you without much to think about. Also as I’ve already mentioned, the visuals are fairly basic and music also rather serves as a background for your data-sorting activities than stands out in any way. One could say that Analogue prioritizes plain text over any other kind of storytelling technique available to VNs and to some extent I would have to agree.    

            Still, in my opinion it’s a remarkable and in many aspects unique experience, that every VN fan out there should try for him/herself. It will always stay as a “10” in my VNDB listings not because it is a “perfect game” (probably not even close to it), but because of the huge and lasting impressions it left me with – the kind of experience that makes it hard to sleep even after “refreshing” the game years later, but which you definitely don’t regret having.

Final verdict: 4,5/5

Pros:
+ A really engaging, impactful main story
+ Unique, well-crafted setting
+ Immersive UI and storytelling
 
Cons:
- (For some readers) a strong, easily identifiable ideological message
- Main database is sometimes hard to navigate and progress through
- Confusing timed sequence that catches you by surprise
- Limited replayability – only two marginally different story routes


VNDB page
Buy Analogue: A Hate Story on Steam

Loren the Amazon Princess Review (Visual Novel/RPG Hybrid)

Winter Wolves is one of the oldest continuously active OELVN studios, which since the mid-2000s became fairly well-known for their straight-up VNs and dating sims, such as Roommates, as well as for fairly unique RPG-VN hybrids. Among the latter, probably the best known is Loren the Amazon Princess. Published in 2012, it kickstarted a whole series of games set in the fantasy world of Aravorn (including even a BL title Heirs and Graces) and gathered mostly positive reactions from the Western VN community. It’s also, to this day, the studio’s best-selling title on Steam, with around 80k owners on the platform.

              Loren… also features a very rarely seen main premise – the player does not take the role of the titular heroine, but of a slave servant, whose role is to assist the Amazon princess in her quest to find her missing mother (and, of course, eventually save the world from a great and unexpected threat). This, along with the very explicit focus on romance, creates a pretty unique mixture, somewhat detached from both the typical RPG power fantasy and even most common fantasy VN tropes. Does it have any merits apart from being slightly different though?

The main cast might be impressing with its scale and variety, but leaves some characters underdeveloped and redundant within the RPG portion of the game

 

One of the first things that Loren… does unusually well is the protagonist gender choice – the game lets you play either as a male or a female character but doesn’t make it merely a cosmetic difference. Both the female (Elenor) and male (Saren) protagonist are actual characters, with their own backstories, personalities and different racial backgrounds (Saren is a human, while Elenor is an elf). This has a significant impact on how they’re perceived by various factions and characters, along with romance options available to them (even if there’s an abundance of bisexual love interests that might be interested in both of them). This, while very limiting in case of customisation (also for story reasons, you can only choose between warrior and thief classes), not only makes the game more immersive, but also rewards multiple playthroughs with unique interactions and story developments.

              The story itself, while it might rely on typical fantasy clichés quite a lot, is rather epic in scale and delivers impressive amounts of VN content, with fairly simple and quick turn-based RPG battles added on top of that. While at the beginning you’re controlling a party of two, consisting just of Loren and the protagonist, you quickly meet new characters and at the end of the second act can gather 12 companions, 9 of them (!) available as romance options. All those characters have their unique stories, which you both learn throughout the main plot and through talking to them in camp, between missions. With this party, you will go through 4 chapters of the game, with constantly rising stakes and abundance of dialogue to read through, while the RPG elements are kept strongly connected with the plot and mostly devoid of unreasonable grind. Also, after finishing the game once, you unlock the option to skip the combat, so you can focus on exploring other paths and choices within the story.

The clunky feel of the UI and the RPG game mechanics is the game’s biggest flaw, but thankfully they’re not broken or grindy enough to disqualify it completely

 

One of the game’s biggest focuses and selling point is romance and while it’s easy to see that the dev team took this aspect very seriously, the quantity pretty much won over the quality. It’s not that the character’s available as love interests are unappealing or completely lack depth, but the huge number of them simply made it impossible for Winter Wolves to give all major enough roles in the story and the right amount of meaningful interactions. This means that apart from the characters that are absolutely crucial to the main plot, like Loren herself and her mother Karen, the Queen of Amazons, the romance feels slightly tacked-on and underdeveloped. On the other hand, the variety of options is thorough enough that pretty much everyone should find something (or a few things) to their liking, with heterosexual, bisexual and homosexual characters of both genders, different races and allegiances to choose from. Also, the writing, while not perfect, is usually good enough to communicate clearly the unique traits of every member of the cast and make the rare, intimate moments between them and the protagonist appealing.
                Sounds pretty good so far? Sadly, the rest of the game deserves much less praise and that goes especially to the UI and the RPG battle segments. While the minimalistic battle system, with the very basic graphical interface, is something that mostly needs some adjusting on the part of the player (especially if you’re used to more advanced RPGs), there are some hardly justifiable problems with the core mechanics and implementation of gameplay. Horribly unbalanced classes, with mages having overwhelming firepower and thieves barely having a viable role on the battlefield are combined with very limited skill customization, redundant specializations between some characters and a weak sense of progression. Lack of interesting loot, unbalanced items available in stores and weird omissions in obtainable gear (such as lack of cloth belts in the game – mages have no items available to put in that slot whatsoever!) are somewhat hard to understand, especially when devs had multiple occasions to fix these problems, either through patches or with the Castle of N’Mar DLC. The general structure of game’s UI is similarly problematic, with malfunctioning autoplay, unintuitive implementation of some crucial functions (like the mouse wheel having the ability to rewind not just dialogue, but many other actions in the game, often leading to random cancellations of shop transaction or gear changes. If the role of combat in the game was more prominent, this could as well be a disqualifying issue – while it's not completely devoid of fun, it always falls short of that really satisfying status that could carry a less story-focused title.

The slightly unusual artstyle might not be to everyone’s liking, but the low resolution of the art assets is the real problem, taking much appeal from the game’s visuals when played on a modern, full-HD screen

 

Something that is also hard not to complain about is the visual quality of the game. It has a pretty distinct, partially non-anime artstyle and while I wouldn’t consider it especially pretty, it seems to appeal to many people and is definitely not bad enough to be counted as an objective flaw. The low resolution of most art assets is however quite painfully apparent on a modern HD screen. The sprites and backgrounds, and especially the UI elements and graphics used during combat simply do not look appropriate for a game released in the current decade. This is not completely unseen in indie titles like this, but might be heavily off-putting for those that expect high aesthetic values from their VNs. I should also mention that CGs, of similar quality as all other art in the game, are very few and far between, mostly showing at the conclusion of the romance routes. There's apparently some 18+ possible to unlock through a patch, but I was at no point tempted to look for it. The music consists of typical ambient tunes and while I didn’t have any issues with its tone of quality, it was also rather prone to bugging out, especially when rolling back dialogue.
                In the end, for me Loren the Amazon Princess was quite an interesting and satisfying game. It is, however, one that will only appeal to more patient and RPG-tolerant readers. Apart from the intriguing dynamic of the protagonist being a slave, earning his place as the worthy companion for the actual heroine of the story, and the fun romance subplots, it offers a very standard fantasy world and a rather predictable intrigue. It also, at least partially, falls flat as an RPG game, without the depth and polish necessary to become a really enjoyable experience in this aspect. If you think you might enjoy its story and romance elements, I still recommend it though – especially if you’re able to grab it on sale, as it still sits at a fairly high price of $20 (or $25 for the Delux Version, which includes the Castle of N'Mar DLC, adding significant amount of content to the game).

Final Score: 3/5

Pros:
+ Interesting premise (the protagonist is not the main hero)
+ Huge, varied cast of characters
+ Impressive number and variety of romance options
 
Cons: 

- Disappointing quality of art assets
- Poorly designed UI
- Unbalanced classes and poor customisation in the RPG portion of the game


VNDB page
Buy Loren the Amazon Princess on Steam

Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius Review (Visual Novel/Strategy Game Hybrid)

 
This review was originally published on Fuwanovel Forums on June 8th 2018

Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius is one of the best-known and probably most appreciated western visual novels. Developed by Love in Space and published for free by Sekai Project in July 2014, it was downloaded on Steam by around 600 thousand players and spawned a successful franchise, with its commercial sequel, Liberation Day and dating sim spin-off, Sunrider Academy, both reaching impressive sale numbers and mostly positive feedback from the community.

            What’s interesting, Mask of Arcadius is also a hybrid title, possibly more ambitious and refined with its strategy game elements than “pure” visual novel segments. Most likely, it is exactly that part of the game that gave it a much broader appeal than that of typical VNs and made its spectacular success on Steam possible. Does it, however, still have a similar entertainment value for dedicated VN readers, on a much more saturated, diverse market, as it had in 2014?

For the most part, the game only offers an illusion of choice but does a good job of getting the player emotionally involved

 

Sunrider’s story starts with a typical space opera setting: in a galaxy on brink of a total war, a neutral world of Cera is attacked without provocation by PACT, an expansive faction seemingly set on dominating all humanity. Quickly overwhelmed and terrorized by the PACTs flagship destroying the planet’s capital city, Cera’s military and government fall apart, but the most advanced warship in their fleet, Sunrider, miraculously escapes the carnage. As Kayto Shields, the young captain of Cera’s sole surviving battleship, you go on a quest to defeat PACT and liberate your world, facing many hardships and moral dilemmas on the way.

            The overarching plot and the way game builds its setting are among its best elements – the feeling of despair and fighting against overwhelming odds are nearly always present, while issues of galactic politics and tough choices that come with the merciless war takes a heavy toll on Shields and his closest allies. While some moral choices in the game feel forced and even morally “right” options don't necessarily save the protagonist from going through some nightmare-fuel scenarios and blaming himself for everything bad that happens to the universe, for the most part, the game succeeds in building tension and immersing you in this brutal scenario of galactic conflict.

The main cast of Sunrider feels pretty standard and the first game doesn’t have enough story content to develop them deeply – Ava, protagonist’s first officer and childhood friend, is more or less the sole exception

 

Fewer good things can be said about the Sunrider’s crew – that is, protagonist's quasi-harem, which, is not only filled with pretty boring stock characters, but also isn’t even romanceable until late in the second game. While most girls have some secrets and additional depth, most of them are simply either annoying or boring, not really fitting into the general climate of the story. The main exception is Ava, the ship’s overly-strict fist officer, who is also the captain’s childhood friend and while she never lets her personal feelings get in the way of the mission, definitely cares deeply about him. The emotional dynamic and interactions between the two were definitely my favourite thing about the main cast.

            Still, between-mission cutscenes and dating-sim-style conversations with the crew, as mentioned before, are only part of the game. Its second component (and for many definitely its core content) is a turn-based strategy, in which you lead the Sunrider and its squadron of mecha into a classic, hex-based tactical combat. With a roster of unique units, all of which have their own skills and functions in battle, decent enemy and mission variety and versatile upgrade system, it’s definitely much more than a minigame – especially if you play on any difficulty other than “Visual Novel mode”, making it possible to blast through most battles and focus on exploring the story. Even on “casual” level, you’ll need to utilize your team’s capabilities well and choose your upgrades wisely to succeed. On higher difficulties, it becomes a challenge even for experienced players and can provide you with many hours of demanding, deep gameplay.  

The strategy game elements in this game aren’t a tacked-on bonus feature – they offer deep, demanding gameplay, that should satisfy even more experienced players

 

All this is accompanied by decent production qualities. The artstyle is fairly generic, especially in VN segments and CGs connected to them, but works well enough, while space battle segments are really nice to look at, with pretty intricate sprites and visual effects. Also, unlike the story segments, battles have voice acting, with the cast (each girl piloting their own mecha and Ava at the helm of the Sunrider) reacting to your orders. Once again, I can’t say I’ve enjoyed the girls other than Ava (might be a completely subjective thing), but the execution of the lines was solid, both with them and the male voices of mercenary and allied ships you can hire later in the game. The music probably was there, but it definitely wasn’t memorable enough to catch my attention (which I’m usually embarrassed to admit, but if it’s like that after two playthroughs, I don’t even feel compelled to check the soundtrack).

            In the end though, Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius is a very solid, enjoyable game, for a free product still as impressive today as it was four years ago. If you’re not completely allergic to hybrid VNs and don’t get mad at cliff-hanger ending and lack of conclusive romance arcs, you should definitely play it and seriously consider looking into its sequel, Liberation Day, which gives a worthy conclusion to this story. That game is, however, a story for another post.

Final score: 4/5

Pros:
+ Great “space opera” climate and setting
+ Deep, compelling battle system
+ Well-paced, engaging storyline
 
Cons: 
- Some borderline-annoying, stock characters
- Mostly meaningless choices and forced moral dilemmas

 

VNDB page
Download Sunrider: Mark of Arcadius for free

About the Steam Creator Profiles and the EVN market

 

After the last two/three years of Steam storefront being flooded with shovelware and Valve’s attempts to remedy the over-saturation and drastic drop in quality on their service by algorithmically-generated recommendation and the (rather bare-bones and underutilized) Curator system, we’ve receive a new tool to find games actually interesting to us and shape our Steam experience. The developer and publisher profiles, with the possibility to follow them and be updated about new releases and announcements through Steam messages and/or E-mail is a very simple, but very welcomed addition, that will make it easier for both players and developers to reach their goals – for the latter, easily reaching their fans with information on their new products, for the former, being in touch with their favorite creators’ work without actively looking for such information on social media etc.

I’m personally very happy to see this feature and see it generally as a step in the right direction. It’s also, sadly, a very Valve-like move, coming extremely late and once more putting all the curation effort on the backs of the users, who are basically expected to already be well-informed and sure about their needs, before they can make any kind of sense of what Steam offers them. It also further limits the potential visibility of self-published indie games, more and more destined to obscurity be Steam’s overcrowded New Releases tab and absence of games without an arbitrary number of user reviews from the Discovery Queue.

This is most likely only the first of a number of customization features that Valve will introduce in the coming months and I expect them all to go in the same direction – working against “unproven” games and developers, which will effectively eliminate large portion of the lowest-quality and most exploitative releases, discouraging people from creating “games” such as Achievement Hunter, but might also bury a significant number of the small EVN projects. I also think that this evolution of the Steam platform is pretty much inevitable – with Valve not willing to take up on manually curating the Storefront, filters and more elaborate community-based features are the only way for the platform being useable for an average user. I also wouldn't expect any other service to be able to replace Steam in the foreseeable future – GoG might’ve opened to some of the strongest players on the VN market, such as Mangagamer and Sekai, but won’t anytime soon be an option for upstart developers. Platforms such as Itch.io or even FAKKU will keep their limited appeal, being useful, but hardly a valid option for fully-fledged, commercial EVN releases. What is my take from all this? I think it mostly proves my long-held opinion, that

even in the age when self-publishing seems like a viable option, the help of a good publishing company can be indispensable – and in a niche market, such as the OELVN scene, even more so.

The know-how, resources and brand name of the biggest VN publishers are not something an indie company can easily compete with. Also, while 3-4 years ago, when the EVN scene was barely forming as a proper game development industry, every decent-looking new project was a major event within the VN community and could hope at least for some attention and sales, even if it proved artistically bankrupt (just look at Dharker Studio’s early releases). Today, your game will compete with tens of other titles, many of them appealing enough to take your share of the precious attention and money. If you don’t know how to promote your game and don’t have an already-established brand, it will fail, unless some extremely lucky circumstances come to your help, no matter how good your product actually is. If a beautifully-looking game such as Ignis Avis Venatio (a successful Kickstarter project!) can sit on Steam for months without a single user review, there is no limit to how deep your project can sink without good marketing. If you can, reach out to experienced publishers with your projects – getting all the income from your game might not be that big of an advantage if no one buys it. And as I see it, selling as indie OELVN will only get harder and harder – as much as you might not love making a deal with bigger VN companies, their reach, knowledge of the market and the trust associated with their brand might be your best bet for succeeding.

 

------------------------------

 

And now, let’s do some shilling (no, I’m not compensated for any of this)! Many developers and publishers have already set up their pages in the beta version of the Steam Creators portal. Who is worth following, from an EVN fan’s perspective?

 

Sekai Project – while Sekai might be associated with translation projects above anything else, they had a huge role in introducing OELVNs to Steam in time when access to the platform was still limited. Today, they still act as a publisher for notable projects, such as Studio Élan’s Heart of the Woods and Love in Space’s Shining Song Starnova.

 

Hanako Games – one of the original powerhouses of the EVN scene, while Hanako’s projects are mostly within the yuri on otome niches, many of her games are among the best Western VNs to date, that can appeal to more than just fans of these particular sub-genres.

 

WinterWolves – the studio behind the ambitious VN RPGs (best known one being Loren: The Amazon Princess) and a large number of smaller romance VNs and dating sims is another well-established actor on the EVN scene. While their project varies in quality, they can always be expected to deliver varied and interesting romance scenarios and compelling gameplay elements.

 

Razzart Visual - author of some of the best yuri EVNs might've also delivered some less enthusiastically-received ecchi titles, but can always be relied on to offer artistically impressive and solidly-written games, while some of her upcoming yurige should prove once more to be real treats for all fans of the f/f romance.  

 

I will try to expand on this list, as the initiative develops and more companies set up their presence within it - be sure to check back in a few weeks! But for now, thank you all for reading. Do you agree with my perspective on the role of publishers in the EVN scene? What's your take on the changes Steam tries to implement? I would love to hear your thoughts.