Escape

You guys have been asking, and Aural Wave has graciously provided us with the full version of Kansei's opening song, Escape. Download and lyrics below.

Download MP3

Quickly, getting nowhere in this harsh reality
Solving, only to find dead ends
Running, running and then falling down to your knees
Trapped, wanting to escape the truth

Running from the past, won't erase mistakes
Trapped in the confines of our minds
Even in the name of good
Our neuroses clashing with our eyes

The world, so full of fear, regret, the hurt and hate is felt
Whatever hope you have is bleak
Helpless why fight to make things right
Hopeless, try, why try again

Escape...

No matter where we go, the past catches up and becomes present
The world so full of fear, regret, hurt and hate
The shimmer's gone and I want to escape

Cold, dark bitter and bleak
Hopeless the will is killed
Helpless why even fight
Feeling trapped

Running from the past, doesn't take you very far
Escaping needs far more skill
When everything is against you
Hold out, keep true, and strengthen your will

The world, so full of lies, deception, tormented in grief
Whatever hope you have is numb
Helpless why fight to make things right
Hopeless, trying to escape

Enjoy VN Promo

Hey, all! Looking for a good deal on a VN? Got friends who you wish were into VNs, but who keep saying they're too expensive? We can help! All through the month of March, Okashi Studios, sakevisual, and Zero Zigen will have games on sale for super low prices. This is the perfect time to grab that VN you've been eying, or to get your friends to take the plunge.

Shira Oka by Okashi Studios - Buy it for $7.92

Kansei by sakevisual - Use code ENJOYVN2012 to get it for $6.99
(Buy it with Jisei and get another $5 off!)

Koenchu by Zero Zigen - Buy it for $6.50

Jisei/Kansei Fanart Contest!

And the entries are here! A huge thanks to everyone who entered. You guys are wonderful. *_* Voting is at the bottom of this post. You may pick up to THREE pieces that you like. Be sure not to vote for any more than three, or your vote won't count. Anyone can vote. There will be five winners total.

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Kansei Complete!

Yay, Kansei's out! ::keels over:: I think I need to go sleep now. XD But let's talk about the important stuff first.

You can get it here, should you so desire: http://sakevisual.com/kansei/buy.html 

And the demo is available on LemmaSoft and the official site.

If you're looking for discounts, details follow:

1.) Donation: If you donated to the Support Japan project, there's a discount code headed your way. Please check the email address that you used when you donated the money. If you don't see a code within 24 hours, email me from that account. You cannot email me from a different account. It's the only way I can verify that you're the same person who actually donated.

2.) Fanart: If you've been following me for any amount of time, you know that fanart makes my little heart melt. To that end, I'm holding a Jisei/Kansei fanart contest. Draw any character(s) from either Jisei or Kansei and email me the image or a link to your image by July 23rd. The winner(s) will receive a code for any sakevisual game free (works on future games as well). All entrants will receive a code for 15% off Kansei. Winners will be determined by vote. ayu@sakevisual.com

3.) Blog it: Write a blog post of 250 words or more containing your thoughts on the demo and which of the characters' powers you'd want the most (and why) before July 16th, and I'll give you a 15% off code.

4.) Social: Follow us on twitter and facebook. I'll be posting limited use codes this week and holding a RT raffle.

Shamelessly lifted from Deji's tumblr.

Anime Expo + Future Plans

And I'm back from my very first Anime Expo! It was craaazy, but I had a great time meeting everyone there. Visual novels got a great representation there with several EVN dev groups putting in an appearance (Dischan, Kinou Games, Kuroi Games, Okashi Studios, R3 Productions, Sakura River, Zeiva Inc. and Zero Zigen, to name some in alphabetical order). It was also great to meet a lot of you guys who I've only managed to speak with online. Sorry if I seemed kind of tired. I really was. ^_^;; Unfortunately, my body is still recovering from the accident, so I really wanted to sleep, and I was a little out of it during the whole thing. Being able to see all of you really made the trip worth it, though! Also, a big thanks to EigoManga for graciously inviting sakevisual to take part in the doujin game panel alongside Zero Zigen, Carpe Fulgur and Okashi Studios.

Now that the big con for the summer is over, it's time to buckle down and get some visual novels done! Kansei will be released this week (in fact, the countdown to Kansei will begin tomorrow), and Winter in Fairbrook will follow shortly after that. I'm also doing work with Moa Cube on a fairy tail visual novel called Cinders. Expect a release of that sometime this summer as well.

Once these three games are taken care of, we'll be turning our attention to a sequel novel that a lot of you guys have been asking for. Hint: See the sketch above for details.

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.

Updated Art

To the left, you can see art from our first build of Kansei. The initial plan was to use the same sprites for the returning characters for the sake of consistency, but as we worked on it, we quickly changed our minds. Deji felt that her art had improved enough that she wanted to redo the characters. Looking at some of the feedback we received, we decided to update the art style to something more mature and fitting for a murder mystery, so Deji changed the style and the color palette to have a darker feel. As this game has a good deal more exploration than the first, my plan was to use 3D backgrounds to generate all the environments, but after getting the first few done, I wasn't terribly enthusiastic about how it meshed with the sprites. Once Deji updated her art, the 3D backgrounds were completely inconsistent with the sprites, so I switched back to 2D. The current build (pictured on the right) is, in my biased opinion, much better than our first go. I'm really excited by the way this game looks, and I hope that you guys like our updated look as well.

Twins

Well then. Guess who didn't update on Wednesday? I wasn't kidding when I said we'd be back to our normal schedule. owo Please enjoy this screencap from Kansei. Only one of these characters is female.

Kansei Update

I suspect that if I ever chose to move Wordcount Wednesday to Thursday, we'd begin to celebrate Apology Friday instead. Anyway, here's a sneak peek of Detective Gurski from Kansei. This is a sketch by Deji of the updated design, and personally I rather like it. What do you guys think?

Also, Kansei is currently at 13,650 words, and the victim just died about a thousand words ago. This is most definitely going to be a longer game.

Kansei Teaser

Hey, look! A progress update on Kansei! Exciting, isn't it? This is a screencap from the opening scene of Kansei. Check out the protagonist's new look! I wonder where he is right now. He certainly doesn't look happy to be there. D:

Something or other Wednesday

Starring the ACTION MYSTERY COOKIE drawn by Stranger from Transplanted Liver.

I was rather busy last week due to the National Holiday, but I've been up to a lot since then working for sakevisual and doing things with other fantastic VN groups. A lot of things are still in the very early stages of production, so I can't give away much right now, but I do like to drop hints here and there in the blog, twitter, and my choice of forum avatar. >.> Here are some things that you can look forward to coming sooner rather than later:

-Winter in Fairbrook: The sister dating sim to Winter Wolves' The Flower Shop. Writing is somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 complete, and the artwork is coming along beautifully. Release date is likely between late December and January.

-Oneiro: Another free otome game from sakevisual. The writing is nearly complete, and two out of five sprites are finished. Thanks to loving donations from viewers like you, all the boys in this game will be voiced. I'm still not sure when this will be done, but we're moving at a fair pace, so that's pleasing.

-Kansei: The second chapter in the Jisei series. Currently with three endings you'll want to get, and a few more that you probably won't. I don't have any finished screens for you yet, but we're working on streamlining some of the navigation, and integrating suggestions from the last game. We're currently slated for an early summer 2011 release.

Kansei - We're Not Dead Yet!

"Everyone's going to think I'm dead if you don't update!"

Progress update ahoy! For those who have played Jisei (or even those of you who haven't), you probably know that it's the first chapter in a series. The question on everyone's lips is "When will the next chapter be out!?" The answer is "Not yet." But we ARE hard at work on it. We've gotten some wonderful feedback on the first chapter, and we're striving to incorporate your thoughts into the second chapter to make an even better game. A huge thanks to everyone for all the comments, constructive criticism, and amazing support. Here are a few tidbits about the second chapter for you to enjoy.

Tidbit #01: The name of the game will be "Kansei." (Spelled as 感性 for those of you who are curious.)

Tidbit #02: Kansei will be significantly longer than Jisei. A lot of people felt that Jisei was too short, so the next chapter will have a lot more meat to it. It will be longer on a single play through, and it will have more endings (that aren't terrible, bad, dying endings). Keep in mind that this also means it will take us significantly longer to complete. >.> But hey! More game!

Tidbit #03: We're getting the band back together! If you liked the art or the music in Jisei, then you'll be pleased to know that Kansei is bringing back the same artist and composer. Woooooo~!

More tidbits on the way, but that should hopefully whet your appetite.