#i play console otomes too (that's a much longer list)

[rosemaze-reveries]

which games do you play?

-🍁

oh this is a fun one 😳 my biggest love is identity v (womp womp) but other than that, i mainly stick to joseimuke VN-style games. i liked these the most:

Path to Nowhere

Twisted Wonderland

Yumekuro (this one is very love/hate)

Akuneko

Lovebrush Chronicles

Ken ga Toki

Reverse 1999 (recently started!!)

Black Star Theater Starless

im def a story>gameplay person so usually I speedrun the stories then drop them 💀 really not a fan of the gacha model or grindy battle games,, but it is what it is

[quietdaysco]

The Process: Research

Ever wanted to make something, but didn’t know where to start? We too. In this second installment of The Process, we’ve finished forming our idea and now it’s time to inform it. 

2. Research 

Mind you, this isn’t a “step two” per se. Here’s the big kicker on what we soon discovered about this part of development:

Research is an active, ongoing process, whose goals change throughout pre- to post-production.

We may have created the idea of Primrose Path but our research didn’t stop at the end of pre-production, as if to say we’ve got everything we need and now it’s time to dive into making it. During production, we still had questions. Research is the only reason that, if you stopped us on the side of the street, the topics of future biomaterials and methods, dynamic UI design, and historic architectural eras could all pop up in the same conversation.  

And all of that is valuable information to us, because researching is relevant in every area of the process!��But what kind of information did we look for? 

Our five categories are Community Canvassing, Story & Character Development, Team Management, Game Design, and Marketing. 

Let’s break it down:

A. Community Canvassing

Identifying and learning our target audience.

Identify personal wants from our game.

We have to stop and think: what kind of game do we want to play? If you want something, chances are, there’s a group of people out there who want the same thing. They are our audience.

Identify the type of media and genres relevant to our game.

Our video game is a visual novel, and its market genres are predominantly adult, drama, and romance. Because the medium of visual novels originated and is popular in Japan, we use the term otome (Japanese for “maiden” or “girl”) or otoge (portmanteau of “otome” and “game”) in our genre list. So, our game is an adult, drama, romance, otome—or focused on a female main character who deals with a cast of potential male partners.

Case any census data and statistics on target and related communities’ research blogs.

This one was important to us because we like considering quantifiable data that gives us the bigger picture. Statistics blogs and databases helped us get a clearer view of different demographic subsets of the visual novel community. It’s also important that we read material about sister media like the general interactive fiction community, as both deal with reader input and resultant story-branching.

Inquire fans in those genres for game recommendations and any opinions.

Community hubs are a click away. We connected with others via forums like Reddit and instant messenger servers like Discord that specifically revolve around fans and game developers of the visual novel medium.

Read game reviews in those genres by other fans and critics.

The most interesting thing for us when we read these reviews is not so much what someone did or didn’t like, but what aspects of the game they focused on, and what other topics they decided to connect to their original answer. You may be surprised how people decide to expand on their answer and where tangents lead, which is very telling, valuable associations.

Connect with other developers for support and networking.

The Western visual novel community is a small community, but commercial success is not confined to said community. Building a rapport with other hardworking devs is important, as it follows us in such a small space—for better or worse. There’s a lot to learn from the wider indie development community, too.

B. Story & Character Development

Creating an organic experience.

Real-world parallels to inspire for or reference in game direction.

Whether we take a trip to the city with a camera and sketchbook, rent and buy books from libraries and bookstores, or visit Google Maps in satellite view, we are pulling up everything we need to inform our game’s locations, people, and events.

Observe and converse with people.

The behaviors, quirks, appearances, opinions, and feelings of people are abundant, and it’s not until we observe and sometimes familiarize ourselves with others that we catch some of the concerted expressions that create a nuanced individual. 

Interacting with others is first-hand experience, and listening to or reading others’ experiences is second-hand. If we can't write from first or second-hand experience, we must inform ourselves with other sources, as it’s crucial in writing characters with whom we may not directly or easily identify. We often defer to interviews and documentaries to start.

Psychology and sociology research.

Sometimes reading from experts about general trends and triggers of the human condition makes it easier for us to understand, verify, and better portray things like addictions, behavioral disorders and mental illnesses, fetishes, and cultural stigmas for our character development and world-building. Though this isn’t limited to negative or abnormal things we cannot identify. It can also be in what ways the values of a person or society evolve, or how players interact with video game avatars!

Read and deconstruct critically-acclaimed novels in our genres

It’s understood that if people want to become better writers, they have to become better readers. Being able to settle down with some traditionally-published, well-received books relevant to our interests will help us build on our knowledge of suitable writing conventions, as well as analyzing broader narrative elements, like plot pacing. We even have a list of writing resources saved to help us break it all down!

C. Team Management

Standardizing ways to increase workflow efficiency.

Pipeline development.

Know a general end-date to keep in mind for the finished product. Setting a scope for our project and a timeline for production challenges us to keep on task as we work towards that date. We’ve set ours up by month and refer to that document for phase estimation.

Time management, task delegation, task tracking, and work logs.

Whether your team is me, myself, and I, or made of employees and contractors, it’s important to stay synchronized and keep record of that progress. Quiet Days has our own GitScrum board to help us with assigning tasks, timing how long a task takes us versus the amount of time we expected it to take, and streamlining the process from start to finish. It also keeps track of percentage of overall project completion and key performance indicators (KIP), or the metrics of a user’s personal contribution and work ethic over a period of time. There are a plethora of other task management sites and apps available to use too.

Style guides to standardize writing and art.

Between the two of us at Quiet Days, we both work on the 2D art and writing, and we both default to different visual and writing styles. So, we’ve set up and continue to add to our respective guides, keeping the art style and narration and character portrayals consistent. This is especially helpful should we take up other artists or writers, so that they can easily assimilate into our workflow. 

Account delegation for social media and company correspondence.

Understanding who does what for cohesion under a company brand is important for its image. We share all accounts under the company name, so technically both of us have access, which works well for our team of two. It’s early, but so far “delegation” seems to have taken on a natural division between Coda and Elm—the former taking to micro-blogging, and the latter to streaming and forum correspondence. While this dynamic may change in the future, we both refer back to each other under the Quiet Days brand.

Potential for contracting help.

We’ve considered that there may be a time in production where a helping hand is needed. Additional considerations like the freelancing market and pricing are kept in mind for the future. 

D. Game design 

Scrutinizing game elements from a developer’s lens.

Consider for which platform to design.

PC? Mobile? Console? Cross-platform? While we are primarily designing our game to be played on PC, should we want to capitalize on popular handheld consoles like the Nintendo Switch, for example, things like game engines and builds, game optimization, resolution, encryption, touch capabilities, and content guidelines for their private company platform all need to be considered. These things change between platforms.

Consider designing globally.

There are people different from us who would like to enjoy our game too. We consider the user experience (UX) for things like the possibility of game translations and using fonts types that read well for different language characters like Chinese or Russian. We also consider how to customize the experience to accommodate for players with different cognitive abilities, which falls under accessibility features.

Play what’s commercially un/successful and community-recommended.

We can learn a lot from both good and bad game design, and what the community mostly consumes. We engage with these games and take notes on graphics, accessibility features, user interface (UI) designs, game mechanics, soundtracks, and overall presentation and aesthetic. What did we like and what would we have preferred?

Stay updated on game design development tips from industry heads

There are people who have been doing it much longer than we have, and a number of them are setting industry standards. We can learn a thing or two in how they handle a problem and find solutions.

E. Marketing 

Methods for optimizing outreach and return of investment.

Social media strategies for engaging and involving our audience.

We’ve laid the groundwork for character accounts on social media to launch as a way for our audience to interact with characters from our game. While role-playing is a fun marketing and meta world-building device, we’re exploring other cool avenues like exploitable images and audience challenges to drum up future participation. 

Types of advertising and promotional materials.

There may come a time when word-of-mouth may not be enough. Would we consider purchasing ad space on different sites for greater visibility, or spend money on “promoting” features on social media? Would we commission or create and sell promotional merchandising for our audience?

Crowdfunding platforms and prospects.

Popular ones like Patreon, Kickstarter, and Indiegogo all have their draws and their drawbacks for creators and supporters alike. For what expenses would we crowdfund? What additional rewards would we provide for the financial support, if any? Do we want financial support for our project, or continual financial support as a company creating content? Some developers don’t actually use these platforms to request funding, but as another way of advertising their game. Would we do that?

Cross-exposure with other devs.

Interviews, public events, and collaborations with other game developers is a win-win situation with everyone involved. We want to be able to not just network, but allow each other to introduce our products and skills to a greater audience, creating and sharing a unique, dedicated fanbase in the overlap.

The Takeaway

At the time of this post, we’re still in the production phase, so some of this information isn’t applicable right now, but no knowledge is wasted: these things will always be handy to know and consider for later. We’re making our decisions in lieu of—and even despite some of—our research, in order to create a game that we’ll love and hope others will too. It’s important that as a game developer, you too keep yourself informed!

Speaking of ongoing research, Western otome is a largely indie market with many small, tenacious teams and hardly any corporate studios. If you are a Western otome developer, please contact us! We’d love to interview you in a Q&A, get your input on your process, and feature your story on our blog! 

[thekuroiookami]

Otome Mania

This is no longer a secret, I have played, do play and will play a fair number of otome games. I’m weak to cliched romantic plotlines, okay?

Since I did promise @lethesomething a list, here it is. The summary is...I’ve played a lot of games.

Games organized by console, arranged from meh to great.

PS Vita

I pretty much got a Vita so I could play otomes. Don’t judge me too harshly. And while a lot of these are incomplete (i.e. I haven’t played through every route), I feel like I can give an opinion.

Norn 9: Var Commons - Admittedly I haven’t gotten far into this, but lord is the plot confusing. Like, what is happening? What is happening? So many pretty people, though...

Sweet Fuse - Cute, fun, though not high on replay value. The characters are really weird, but don’t let that stop you. They have charm, and the parody elements are worth it. Plus blowing your top has never been so satisfying.

Collar x Malice - I almost finished one route and I’m really enjoying it. The heroine has so much personality and she chews out the dude whose route I was doing, and the mystery is so intriguing, if a tad weirdly investigated...

Code Realize: Guardian of Rebirth - By far the best otome game I’ve played on anything. A beautifully built world, excellent artwork, a heroine with backbone, massively diverging plotlines, and just about every love interest is actually interesting. I’d encourage everyone to play this when it comes out on PC. The Suwabe character is just the icing on the cake for once.

PS3

Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom - Hugely overrated, I think, though not many games can match the artwork. Incredibly long, painful storylines that made me yawn. Heroine has zero presence. I do love Saito though.

Mobile

Mystic Messenger - Is entertaining, but every love interest needs immediate help from a psychologist. The format works to the game’s advantage, and the voice acting is good, I spent a ton of money on it. But the romance doesn’t always feel like a romance.

Liar: Uncover the Truth - This is a surprisingly fun game, but I didn’t have the patience to wait for tickets, or spend money on the black hole. Sad but true.

PC

Games you should definitely never play:

Amnesia: Memories - out and out horror, that one. I don’t know why player character has a sprite, because her personality is non-existent.

Ozmafia - Theoretically very interesting, but in practice, suffers from a spineless heroine. I have a knack for finding the yandere route the second time I play any game, and...let’s say if you play the doctor’s route you’re in for some surprises. Yeah.

Men of Yoshiwara: Sigh. Terrible translation, first off, backed up by terrible writing. Just don’t.

Games that are okay to pass the time:

Seduce Me and Seduce Me 2: Demon War - It’s not like this one is bad, just not amazing. It’s decently voice acted, and the first one is a cute rom-com. The second game gets a lot more complex and weird, and it’s super easy to die. The first game is free.

The Lady’s Choice - A Regency romance otome game with only two choices, but it’s nice how much you can shape the MC’s personality. Free on itch.io.

Dandelion and Nameless - Both of these are Korean-origin, produced by the same company that did Mystic Messenger, and while they do have strong writing plus original concepts, somehow the games never keep my attention for long. Nameless is a bit dark in tone, if that appeals to you. Dandelion is a stat-raising sim, which I hate with a passion.

Loren the Amazon Princess - I think this was one of the first ones I played, and it was pretty ahead in the range of LGBTQ characters, but now that I think back on it, the RPG/romance combination was a tad strange. But I do recommend it.

Days of the Divine - Another of those free itch.io ones, I can barely remember this. It was passable.

How to Take Off Your Mask - Cute, but I can’t remember what the point was.

Games that are super cute and definitely need to be played at least once:

Cute Demon Crashers - It’s a pretty short game, but utterly wonderful in its simplicity and earnestness. An R-18 novel that is very high on sex positivity, I’d recommend this one a lot. Free on itch.io.

The Blind Griffin - An odd but good work set in the age of flapper dresses and speakeasies, following a Chinese heroine who accidentally stumbles upon a secret magician’s guild and trains as an apprentice. Great art, comes with a slang dictionary, and makes up for its abruptness with cuteness. Free on itch.io.

Heartbaked - Lots of aggressive pastry references in this one, and one guy who is? a sheep? Or something? I dunno, it’s adorable. Free on itch.io.

Hustle Cat - A cat cafe, only the staff are the cats. Light hearted fun, though it is easy to mess the game up and get a bad ending.

Autumn’s Journey - So cute. So much fluff. Dragon boys. A girl knight. Enough said. Free on itch.io.

Magical Otoge Ciel - If you want to simultaneously have your soul uplifted and go “WTF is this meta”, play this. It’s so irreverent and sweet, and the art grows on you. @batensan‘s Magical Otoge Anholly is a good read as well, though it is technically a linear novel. Free on itch.io.

Taarradhin - A beautiful fantasy short, but incredibly hard to figure out. The high probability of getting it wrong kind of put me off. Free on itch.io.

Lads in Distress - Exactly what it says on the tin. Overly competent princess with pink hair takes matters into her own hands and saves the princes. I only wish we also had the option to date the childhood fried cum fairy advisor.  Free on itch.io.

Re: Alistair - This one is really good, and honestly would have been included in the best games list if it had more LIs. There’s a cute mystery to sort of solve, and I don’t even mind the stat-raising elements. Free on itch.io.

Ristorante Amore - Gorgeous art, and a major plot twist once the story really gets started. I can’t give away anything for fear of ruining it, so just go play it.  Free on itch.io.

Yo-Jin-Bo - One of my guilty pleasures, honestly. Yes the MC is a wimp, but the absolute comedy that passes for dialogue is worth it.

Games that sink their claws in and don’t let go:

Cinders - I cannot recommend this enough. Sublime story-telling, the option to be Machiavellian, naively sweet or something in between. The LI’s are good, of course (guess who’s my favourite), but the real star of the show is female relationships - Cinders and her stepsisters, the daughters and the mother, the godmother in disguise. There’s so many possible outcomes as well. I wish the original fairytale were half as interesting.

Cinderella Phenomenon - A free game I backed on Kickstarter, and it’s looking pretty good. The heroine is unapologetically bitchy, but goes through some satisfying character development in the routse I played. Intrigue abounds, and even though I wish there was a little less blushing to go around, it’s pretty good overall.

Demonheart - I am a little torn about this, because it’s an ongoing game on Steam (released in chapters). On the one hand, I feel like romance things happened really abruptly in the last chapter. On the other, the concept is executed very well and there are so many choices. Plus, excellent worldbuilding.

Nachtigal - A really good shorter game about a spunky heroine trapped with two vampires. There’s a whole variety of ways to die in this one, so it’s extra satisfying when you do land the guy.

The Royal Trap - Say what you will about it, but as one of the first VNs I read, I still quite like this one. So many romance options, and so much intrigue. Each route reveals something different about the overall plot. Good stuff. 

The Second Reproduction - Starts off typical, but then it goes down some truly unexpected routes. Strong heroine, attractive demon king. Be sure to play it with a guide to get the whole story.

There are plenty I haven’t played at all, or not enough to comment, but this is the list I’d give out to anyone who wanted some recs.

[texasianotaku]

My Fall 2020 Otome Backlog

Crossposted on Otome Amino

Back in May, I got this little bit of a wild streak in trying to write up my backlogs, but in a smaller, more digestible way. For example, instead of overwhelming myself with extremely lofty goals of these massive lists of games and routes I want to play, I made a list of games and routes that I could feasibly complete in a matter of four months (through to the beginning of fall). I took into consideration that since it was summer (and also that I’m home with my daughter in the middle of a pandemic), that I should be able to accomplish it.

I didn’t complete the entire backlog that I had set aside, and that’s okay with me. I found that it was nice to have a directive instead of trying to blindly decide on my next route. Additionally, I feel like following the goals that I had written down in my last backlog blog really helped me with my focus and quite possibly allowed me to finish even more routes than I would have had I not written them down. It may or may not be really the case, but I feel it is. I think that this is something that I’ll want to continue to do seasonally to help me with tackling the monster that is my otome backlogs.

This is the list of routes that I successfully completed from my summer 2020 backlogs.

Abraham Van Helsing (Code:Realize ~ Future Blessings) Arsene Lupin (Code:Realize ~ Future Blessings) Azusa Kuze (Wizardess Heart) Comte de Saint-Germain (Code:Realize ~ Future Blessings) Episodes 3 and 4 (A3!) Impey Barbicane (Code:Realize ~ Future Blessings) Jaehee Kang (Mystic Messenger) Joel Crawford (Wizardess Heart) Karma (Cinderella Phenomenon) Kei Okazaki (Collar x Malice) Kent (Amnesia: Memories) Lupin’s Gang (Code:Realize ~ Future Blessings) Matheus (Beastmaster and Princes) Mineo Enomoto (Collar x Malice) Rod (Cinderella Phenomenon) Satoru (Bad Apple Wars) Souji Okita (Hakuoki) Takeru Sasazuka (Collar x Malice) Toichiro (Ayakashi: Romance Reborn) Toma (Amnesia: Memories) Twilight Common Route (Ayakashi: Romance Reborn) Victor Frankenstein (Code:Realize ~ Future Blessings) Vincent Knight (Wizardess Heart) Zen (Mystic Messenger)

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get to these routes. I did not take into consideration that Collar x Malice was as long a game as it is. I like to listen fully to the voice acting, so it does take me longer than usual to push through a console route with voice acting than it would take me to play a game with no voice acting. Also, I’ve learned that I have difficulty playing PC games because of the personal setting aspect. I’ve recently set up my office due to starting school again and have found playing games in my office is more conducive to playing PC games in general.

707 (Mystic Messenger) Aiji Yanagi (Collar x Malice) Fashioning Little Miss Lonesome Finis (Code:Realize ~ Future Blessings) Herlock Sholmes (Code:Realize ~ Future Blessings) Jumin Han (Mystic Messenger) Kageyuki Shiraishi (Collar x Malice) Mr. Love: Queen’s Choice Main Route Obey Me Main Route White Mask (Bad Apple Wars) Yoosung (Mystic Messenger)

These are the games and routes that I transferred over to my fall backlogs that I never got around to during the summer. The only ones I omitted were 707, Jumin Han, and the Obey Me Main Route. I’ve found that Mystic Messenger isn’t one of those games that you can play in one go, at least for me personally. Also, I don’t have much motivation to play them because I wasn’t too particularly impressed or touched by Zen or Jaehee’s routes. Additionally, of all of the joseimuke games I play, I’m the least interested in Obey Me’s story line than Mr. Love or A3! So that particular game’s plot is on the backburner for me as well.

Aiji Yanagi (Collar x Malice) Fashioning Little Miss Lonesome Finis (Code:Realize ~ Future Blessings) Herlock Sholmes (Code:Realize ~ Future Blessings) Kageyuki Shiraishi (Collar x Malice) Mr. Love: Queen’s Choice Main Route White Mask (Bad Apple Wars) Yoosung (Mystic Messenger)

For this section, I'll be talking about the new games and routes that I'd like to play and complete by the end of fall (December 20th). Each subsection within this category has a small exposition as to why I'm adding this to my pretty full list of games to play during the autumn season.

I really, really, really love both of these games. I feel like they both need more love, especially Ayakoi. Neither are strongly romantic, if at all, and I think that's a lot of the reason why they don't get as much play as some other games. I base this off of their sales numbers compared to games such as Mr. Love: Queen's Choice and Obey Me, which have made an explosive amount of money.

I have this tendency that if I don't need to read it immediately, I won't. And such is the case with both of these games. I have only played three routes on Ayakoi and am now behind on the new Act 2 episodes for A3!. However, my goal for this season is to simply complete the event stories that I haven't touched yet. That's eleven for Ayakoi and 8 for A3!. At least with A3!, I'm afforded the time to catch up since they are not doing events outside of the gachas (which I'm not counting here) and reading promotion for the Act 2 Episodes. I'm not too far behind, though, because I actually have been acting against character and making the effort to read the event stories as they come out.

I've been playing Ciagram games pretty chill for the past few months. I started Cinderella's Happy End when it first came out with the LOG app ("Love Stories and Otome Games for Girls) back in May. It's a simple game that doesn't require checkpoints or stat-raising. No avatars. Just 5 tickets a day, with the potential to gain an extra 2 tickets by viewing ads. I'm not exactly sure why I gravitated so much to this game. I think that maybe I needed a slice-of-life game in my routine. By now, I've completed the three other routes, and Kyosuke is the very last one I have to complete. 

As I've mentioned before, I've been playing Ciagram games really chill. In the past, you would've probably seen me playing 5+ of their games at a time. Now, though, I just don't want to do it. I think it's getting more stressful in my old age. 😝At any rate, with my full completion of Cinderella's Happy End coming up soon, I set my sights on Chocolate Temptation next.

There are a few reasons as to why this particular game as opposed to any. For the past couple of years, if I had some time, I'd play the ads on a lot of the Ciagram apps. I kept accruing story tickets, and back then, the tickets didn't expire. Now that it is on the LOG app, I've transferred those tickets as well as tickets to a couple of other games to the app, and now I'm sitting on 650+ free tickets. I need to use them by March 2021, so both Chocolate Temptation and Nightmare Harem are moved to the top of my list of Ciagram games to play.  

I could still also go for more slice-of-life otome. Seriously, I feel like there is a distinct lack of it in the past couple of years. And the art for Chocolate Temptation is among the more pleasing than many other Ciagram games.

I've been steadily playing through the routes that I haven't played on Wizardess Heart. It's not one of my favorite games, but I'm in such dire need for SWD content since they've officially decided to stop updating their still standing games with new content. 😭😭😭 Despite how they have perceptively done us otome players wrong by removing the bulk of their content from mobile game stores, I still have a soft place in my heart for them and will still be a champion for their content.

Guy's route is the last route that I have to play in the Day Class series, excluding all of the sequels that they did. I haven't yet decided whether I want to move forward this fall with the remainder of the Night Class routes I have yet to play. I'll probably take a break until the winter to start back up with the 11 remaining routes I have for Night Class.  😪 

I'm already exhausted thinking about it.

My completionist heart wants me to finish playing all of the routes available in SWD's The Niflheim. I played most of the routes on the standalone before it shut down back in March. I have extra diamonds on my alternate Story Jar account, so I wasn't in a rush to finish JJ and Philippe's route. Of all of the routes, I had the least interest in theirs, so I stopped where I did for a break. I have Jean listed because he's the canon, but I already played his route on the standalone; he's just there because it feels like Niflheim Academy follows as if he were to be the canon for that AU story as well.

 I'm pretty excited about playing these two indie PC titles, Ebon Light and Seduce Me: the Otome. Seduce Me has long been on my to-play list, and I've seen a lot of hype about Ebon Light. Apparently, on the Otome reddit page, it's their indie game of 2019. Tbh, even given the new circumstances of my PC habits, I probably wouldn't have chosen these games as my first games to play on PC, that other PC games held priority. I'm very thankful to the OA Book Club for giving me the push to prioritize these over other games.

I first heard about Piofiore when it first came out for the PS Vita from a friend of me. She effectively built up some hype, but not too much because at the time, I didn't know that it would get localized. I was super psyched when Aksys made the announcement that they would localize Piofiore. I love the mafia-theme as well as the time setting, regardless of whether is is the Taisho Era or the Roaring Twenties. Would the Roaring Twenties apply outside of the US? Idk, but I still romanticize that time period and really like it.

The only reason why Piofiore holds greater precedence on my backlog than Café Enchanté though, is just because of the release dates. Had Café Enchanté released earlier than Piofiore, I would have had that on my to-play list sooner than later. I'm hyped for both games. Realistically, I don't see myself starting Café Enchanté until near the end of the year, and that's me being ambitious. Despite that, I've still preordered both games.

This is another game that would've probably taken me forever to play had it not been for the OA Book Club. We've progressed through two routes, and due to the reading schedule for the remainder of the game, we'll be able to finish right before the long-awaited fan disk, Evermore, releases at the end of November.

 While I'm not dying over Cinderella Phenomenon, I'm floored by the amount of work that went into it. And for the developer to offer such a high quality game for free is astounding. The story is very creative and well-paced. I'm not sure if I'll be playing Evermore shortly after; I suppose that depends on how I feel when I completely finish the game.

 For the past year and a half, maybe two years? I've been working my way through the routes on SLBP. I'm sitting at seven routes remaining that I have not completed at least one ending (excluding Act 2 and Unification). I was a little conflicted about who I should play in this backlog round, but a dear friend suggested I play Saizo for a trope that I love. And she's been wanting me to play Shingen for a long time because he's her best boy. She may not tell me that she wants me to play him when I make my decisions, but I know that she dies a little inside when I tell her the next route that I'm playing. 

...But then, Kojuro's Act 2 Splendor was just announced. 😬 Even though I'm not a huge fan of avatars, there's something about an early completion challenge that brings out the event loving trash that I am.

Did you know that you can still access some of the Shall We Date? premium games that were taken off of the mobile stores back in March? 👀👀👀 As long as you still have the app on your devices, you can still access the content. This applies only towards the premium games that you had to pay for. The free to play games went offline almost immediately. RIP Modern Cinderella, I'll never forget you. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

I was able to save these games by recording them on a high speed, but since they're still currently available to access for me, I'd like to go back to record and read them with the sound. This applies to Castle Break and Guilty Alice.

For My Sweet Prince and Ninja Love, I still had them on my iPad and hadn't updated the thing in years so that I could retain the stories. It's time that I finally complete these games so that I could bring my iPad to the 2020s.

If you know me, this one is kind of no-brainer. I usually play IkéSen and IkéVamp routes completely within three days of release, dependent on the story boosting times in the concurrent collection events that they do. Theodorus bears mentioning simply because his route is coming out soon, like a week from when I post this blog.

I will say, when IkéVamp first released in Japan, Theo was the very first I had my eye on. His character design is top notch and hits all of my favorite aesthetics when it comes to 2D boyfriends. However, as time passed, I kind of lost interest in him because of his penchant of calling the MC a dog in Dutch and his sadistic ways. I'm generally not a fan of sadists or LI that treat MCs as an animal. I am hoping, though, that he proves me wrong and I go back to thirsting for him like I did when the game first released. Come ask me again in a week.

This year, I played every route on Amnesia except Shin, whom I completed back in 2018. My friend and I played this together, and if it weren't for her, I probably wouldn't have picked it back up again, or at least any time soon. So I have her to thank because it quickly became one of my favorite games that I played this year. We're wrapping up our playthrough of the game with Ukyo, who you can only play once you've completed all other routes. Right now, I'm on Day 6, and I'm still wondering what the hell is going on. I'm looking forward to a wild ride, just like the rest of this game was. Since I played Shin so long ago, I might even replay him.

No outro for this blog. I've got my work cut out for me. ✌️