A-KON 2013 - New Digs!

Another year, another A-KON! This year, A-KON moved into a lovely new hotel with larger accommodations and a stunning amount of expensive (and potentially delicate) artwork. Thankfully, we didn't break anything, unless you count BREAKING IT DOWN for an impromptu dance party (Henoheno knows where it's at.) We shared a table with our friends at Sayuri Studios and some pretty sweet pachinko machines. In general, our table was a little out of the way, but persistent fans managed to find us anyway, which just proves how much you guys rock.

Bullet Points:
-Saw several cosplayers from various otome games like Hakuouki and Amnesia. It's really nice to see how popular otome games are getting.
-We got featured on the FUNimation live stream. Went on and talked about our games for a bit. :D
-I don't have to explain to people what visual novels are anymore. Three years ago, no one knew what they were. Now, nearly everyone has heard of them, or has a friend who likes them, or has tried one out on a whim.
-There was a food truck outside and I wanted a vegetarian taco, but they drove away. : (

Our next con will be MatsuriCon in Ohio. Be sure to check the official sakevisual site for an up-to-date list of where we'll be next.

A-KON 2012 Report

Wow! Almost a week late, but hey, it's a con report! We are back from A-KON, and we had a great time! Handed out some Kansei stickers and buttons, and we even sold out of Winter in Fairbrook (our first time selling out of anything). Sadly, I received a shipment of Oneiro stickers the Monday after the con. You know, just in time to have a huge pile of stickers that I can't give away. : ( That means free Oneiro stickers at our next con, though (schedule on our website)! So keep an eye out for that, at least. D:

And speaking of stuff available at other conventions, check out this little in progress gem (you've already seen it if you follow us on facebook).

Mini A-KON 2012

Photo taken by Kyoko. Many thanks!

First convention of the year. Yeaaaaah! Also the first convention with Winter in Fairbrook physical copies*. It was only a one-day convention, but you guys managed to pack in three days of fun into it. We didn't get to run a panel this time, but it was fun talking about VNs with everyone who came by. Thanks to all the fans who dropped by to say hi as well! It was also my first time eating kimchee french fries. That was pretty crazy. o.o Melted cheese and kimchee are a bizarre combination. o__o

Please Anime made a neat little video that summed up the events of the con. It's got a bit of sakevisual in it, and a snippet from the voice actor panel with Micah Solusod, voice of Naoki Mizutani.

We've got more upcoming cons listed on our site. There are probably a couple more to come this year, so stay tuned.

*P.S.

If you're having trouble with Winter in Fairbrook, the activation code is printed on the disc. Enter it into the "One time Activation Email" slot on the "Buy Now" page.

For want of a better word..."Owwww."

A behind the table shot of me attempting to explain something or other.

Two things happened this weekend.
1.) A-KON 22
2.) I got in a car crash.

Pretty much in that order.

The bad news: My car was hit by some flying debris when I was driving home from the con. The car spun out of control and crashed into a wall. I wound up bleeding and bruising a good deal, but no bones were broken, and I'm happy to be alive. Unfortunately, I did lose a lot of sakevisual stuff in the crash, and the car was towed by the police, so I can't get to anything that survived, anyway. Free games will not go on hiatus, but they will have to move a lot slower, as most of my spare money will now be spent on getting a new car instead of funding free games. D:

The good news: I make backups of my work (and you should, too), so all of our in progress games are still alive! Kansei is still in beta stages, since I decided that I want to do a lot more testing before I'm comfortable releasing it. I'll be opening up pre-orders for Kansei soon. Anyone who pre-orders will be given access to the beta version, as well as a direct line to provide your thoughts and feedback for the final game. For anyone who did a Kansei pre-order at the con, please email me at ayu@sakevisual.com so that I can keep you in the loop. Also, A-KON was a lot of fun, and I'm really happy that I got to make new friends and see familiar faces. A huge thanks to everyone who came by the table or went to my panel. I wasn't expecting so many, and you guys completely overwhelmed me. Thank you so, so much for coming (and also for laughing at my terrible jokes).

In summary: Please be patient with me. I didn't lose much progress for any games, but it will be a little harder for me to get work done in the coming months, and I'm afraid that funding for free games will be thinner than it was before. I promise I'll do my best to get them done, though.

A-KON 21 Report

And a week later, I'm finally getting around to posting this. Haaaa... Anyway, hey! For those of you who didn't know, sakevisual was at A-KON last weekend. Amidst the crowds of thousands of people, we shared a booth with the Japanese doujin circle, Zero Zigen. It was a pretty small affair for us. We had a demo computer where people could play the Jisei demo or RE: Alistair++, we sold Jisei, and we gave away lots of RE:A++ stickers. We also met a lot of cool people, and had a lot of fun.


We had a special Koenchu premiere panel where Zero Zigen and Sakevisual fielded questions about Zero Zigen's bilingual release of Koenchu Sora, what visual novels are, and how you (yes, you!) can make your own visual novels. Discussion ranged from comparing various engines (Zero Zigen uses Kirikiri and sakevisual uses Ren'py) to recording voices in person versus over the internet. In case you're wondering, I'm the one with the long black hair and striped glove, completely clueless to the fact that someone is taking my picture.

Lots of love to my booth girl, Tsayan, for holding down the fort while I went to the Zero Zigen panel and later galavanted off through artists alley in search of fresh blood to hire. And yes, she's dressed as FionaWings.

Fact: Real men play otome games.

Bonus shot: Ayu dressed as Mikoto from Zero Zigen's Koenchu Sora.

A video showing off the stuff that we sold and gave away at A-KON.

A huge thanks to everyone who came by the booth, bought a copy of Jisei, went to the panel, or just said hi. We had a great time, and if their latest blog post is any indication, so did Zero Zigen. I hope that we can make it to even more cons in the future so that we can meet all of you~