Otome Games

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.comfysnug.space/post/138679

We've been working on a guide to help players on all major GNU/Linux distributions play visual novels for the past few weeks. This guide is designed to be used by both beginners and experts, with minimal need to touch the command line.

openSUSE wins the award for "never had to touch the terminal" and "simplest setup instructions", but Fedora is a close second.

While there are a few existing visual novel guides for GNU/Linux around, we've tried to fill in the gaps we noticed. We've put a lot of research into this guide and ensured it is accurate while remaining simple and approachable.

If you're interested, start here!

We have an extensive Troubleshooting section on our Problems page if you're having trouble getting visual novels to work, too.

I wrote this guide with a lot of help from two other people, including /u/[email protected]. It’s available on our community wiki, https://wiki.comfysnug.space. As with all pages on our wiki, it’s licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0, meaning you’re free to share, remix, and build on the content as long as you credit us.

We also have some other pages you may find useful:

• If you're looking for something to play, check out our Recommendations page.
• If you want to know where and how to buy a visual novel you want to play, our comprehensive Buying page will help you out.
• And if you want to read a visual novel in Japanese, our Reading in Japanese page offers a lot of advice and points you to some useful software to make the process easier.

Do you like Mobile otome games?

I find I can overlook the dubious monetization practices inherent to mobile, but I don't really like playing mobile otoge because I get embarrassed in public.

My sister has a great story involving mystic messenger. She was at coffee shop one day with a Korean-American friend when she got one of the timed calls. She let it play on speaker and her friend was shocked that my sister apparently 1. spoke Korean 2. had a Korean boyfriend.

Recent Releases
Nothing I could find in the last two weeks. Continue to catch up on your backlog or check out the demos from this weeks active kickstarters

Upcoming Releases
July 20th
Switch port of Masquerade Kiss (ESRB M)

July 27th
Radiant Tale
physical
digital
You play as Tifalia, a women who gets recruited as a producer for a dysfunctional circus troupe that’s traveling around the world to save their crown prince.

July 31st
The Radiants
An ordinary young women's life is changed after she becomes the next Oracle and has to attend a magical school.

Recent announcements:
Ikemen Villians will be released in English in 2024
IFI announced western switch releases of My Life as a Villainess in winter 2023 and Sympathy kiss in early 2024
JAST Blue announced two BL game localizations Masquerade: Hell Academy and Paradise

Active Kickstarters
Speakeasy (18+) Funded: An otome set in a 1920’s jazz club. This is going to be published by JAST. They’re currently working towards stretch goals , the next one up is a polyamorous route.

Sweetcore Brews Funded: releasing for PC and Mobile, will be set in a magical tea shop. It should be noted that the studio behind this still hasn’t released the PC version of their last game, Untold atlas, on Steam even though they said they would do so in June

Of Sense and Soul (BL)
A slow burn BL set in 1870’s Victorian London. There’s one relationship; the two main routes are played from each man’s perspective. Features reserved journalist Hugo, and outgoing gentleman (as in landed gentry) Seamus.

VERBENA: A Romance Visual Novel
A paranormal visual novel set in 80’s small town Vermont. The main game will be free, kickstarter backers get the DLC. I’ve played the demo and the script has some issues, but the art is nice.

Mine was cinderella phenomenon. I have no recollection of how I stumbled across it. I was obsessed with Ouran high school host club as a teen so it probably looked intriguing to me as second time I'd seen a "reverse harem" on a cover. I played the entire thing within a single weekend. Then... I didn't play another otome game until Piofiore came out on the switch. No idea why I didn't. I vaguely recall not being able to find any other free games that were of similar quality, but I was an adult when Cinderella Phenomenon came out so it's not like I couldn't buy things online.

Anyway, like many others I bought a ton of switch games during the pandemic and one of those was Piofiore; I've been playing otome ever since.

Same author as Intertwine, which was released among the Otome Jam 2023 project. 115 min to get through the demo.

• Unseen Protagonist, can pick name and pronouns.
• 6 LIs, 4 male, 2 non binary (they/them) and one of them looks femme

There is this concept of an energy aura you can toggle on and off. Don't know if it wouldn't be better if seeing it was more tied to the narrative, but cool that you can control your MC magic sensing eyes.

Story: There is some crisis of the fae that really draws me in (narratively) and that brings you to Kuana's route. When an LI needs me to save their world, it's too hard to turn those puppy eyes down. But I was truly smitten and eye gazing with Fenir by the end of it.
I felt guilty that I had to turn away from him to help Kuana (I was like, I love you. But this man needs me 😤)

Cons: This demo is a bit unpolished, as some choices I made weren't referred to correctly. But it didn't ruin the demo. Some of the sprite art, especially Kayn and Aisa with their one eye- I hope it's updated for the final release. The music should be longer before it loops or have a smoother looping transition. But may all be fixed in the final product.

I'm going to buy it when it's released. Have you tried it?

Hello everyone, @Catch42 here, your friendly mod. I'm here to ask for feedback on what you think the boundaries of what's on topic for our otome game magazine!

Edit: I have updated the magazine with a new set of rules I'll still be checking this thread for a few days; I can always update them again.

~~As you can see~~, the initial rules that I posted only disallow explicit content. That is a hard rule because I don't want that here. Other than that, I've just been posting what feels like related content as someone who was a longtime contributor to r/otomegames back on reddit. I think it's worth fleshing out what we want this magazine to be in more detail so that newcomers who aren't coming from an established otome community know what to expect.

Some suggestions I've already seen brought up:

games should have:
-a strong/primary focus on romance.
-majority male romance options
-Option to play as a woman (I also suggest that games should have the option not only to choose she/her pronouns but also to have a feminine gender presentation)

Art:
only allow original fan art here, not reposts

Let me know what you think! Feel free to discuss these aspects or anything else.

https://itch.io/jam/otome-jam-2023/entries

If you've read any of the new entries in the link, please leave all thoughts here in this thread. I've read a handful so far and wanted to dive in in the comments. Keep in mind the comments may have spoilers.

To make a spoilers tag, replace the slashes with brackets: /spoiler here/(#spoiler)

If the game isn't below, start a comment thread. Try to keep to that mini thread to avoid accident spoilers maybe?

So last time I started a run I said it was going to be the last one. A standard teenage love story where the childhood best friends end up together after the girl gets hurt by a bad guy, but I didn't like the ending that resulted in for either party.

I thought maybe if I made peace with the planet, the outcome will improve dramatically. So my goals for the run are negotiate true peace, date anemone, and become governor.

So breaking this down to its requirements as I see:

80 toughness for free friendship with anemone

Max persuasion for becoming governor, helping anemone, and the final negotiations

Max(?) Animals for final negotiations

Max(?) Reasoning for final negotiations

I don't know if peace ending changes the final scene, but also max in bravery, biology, or combat to avoid the ded

35 biology for xenobotany

Keeping hal alive for the data stick

Keeping eudicot alive for a free council vote

Max friendship with anemone

Max friendship with marz

Max friendship with sym

Max friendship with dys

Man that's a lot, and given that maxing sym and dys requires going on expeditions I'll also be resting a lot until max bravery and even beyond. It sounds like a lot when I write it down, but it's it manageable? I know peace and governor are possible since they require one another. Exploring a lot will get me plenty of gifts, in my experience, so hopefully I'll be able to get everyone a loved present once a season. Exploring will also help max toughness, bravery, and animals, and progressing dys and sym relationships. Augmenting bravery with sports all and guard duty will progress anemone's friendship. Working at the government building will get me both persuasion and marz friendship.

I'm thinking the best start will be the +persuasion gear, and friendship with anemone, as it will instantly give me access to sneaking out and delivering supplies, advance me in the friendship that's most likely to lag behind, and give me a +friendship response to the soysweets event with marz.

My big concern is reasoning as it seems the schedule is already going to be right, I don't know if I'll have time to sort out reasoning on top of everything else.

So what do you guys think? Possible, or a pipe dream?

Standard fantasy fare- the art is pretty but imperfect . The MC is a powerful mage who gets a bit blushy for my taste. There is a fighting mode you can skip by playing story mode which makes it a little abrupt.

"get ready!"
------battle skipped---
"That was crazy!"

They also have only the one love interest, the Prince. He seems okay. The appeal is apparently having that relationship 8 different ways. Is female led an option? Ruling the throne through my adoring husband king would be a thing I'm into. But don't see that they're sharing clues about relationship ending types at the moment. Rated 16+ and planning a Kickstarter?

I've been curious about Galen Games for a few months but not pulled the trigger on anything. Maybe this VN will be the start.

Hello :) It's been 3 weeks since I created this magazine, and we already have a 34 subscribers and a handful of active members! I know that doesn't seem like a lot, but I really thought this place would be completely dead for the foreseeable future. Hopefully we continue to grow so we can have a bustling little community! In my original microblog, I said I would post news threads about once a week. Then I made one in the form of the "Otome News Round Up" and realized that once a week is far too often for Otome. Going forward, I'll aim to post these every other week. I'm open to changing the format of them as well. I hope they are as useful to others as they are to me; it's hard to keep tabs on what's going on in Otome outside of the tentpole releases.

#Otomegames

I define emotional engagement as being made to laugh a lot, be anxious in a good way, or straight up bawl my eyes out. If it makes me think about the narrative years later, than it is in my top VN.

1. Mystic Messenger did all three multiple times. <3 Unknown bad ends made me sob for an hour in the base game. Then I bought the after story, got a bad end, and sobbed for another hour. How can I keep failing you my love? v_v XD
2. Cinderella Phenomenon: pushed all my difficult parental relationship buttons and literally made me reach out to reconnect with my dad. <3 Rod, I cried so hard at his bad end, oh my gosh.
3. Gilded Shadows: I cried once but it was a good happy cry of relief. <3 Quill, Jack, Lance & Ari. One route hasn't been released yet of the 9.
4. Akash: Path of the Five. Only VA work I've ever bothered listening to. <3 Nate, Rocco, and Lux.
5. Changeling: I just liked the lore of the world. It's already so long and I wish it was longer on some routes. <3 William
6. Oathbreaker 1/2: The continuity and mature themes really touched and impressed me. Having moving scenes where a lover cries in your arms is beautiful. <3 Virion
7. Animal Lover: This had interesting concepts that were best exhibited by the hamster-turned-man I romanced, Edmund. What is it like to live forever, to lose yourself, to find yourself again, and find what's important about the self. Warning: Character suicide I didn't see coming at all that left me dealing with some emotions for about an hour.
8. Arcade Spirits: depression, finding a passion, finding somewhere you fit in, and fighting for it. The sexy dancer, Teo, was a bonus.
9. Royal Alchemist: I liked that I could pick the femme looking boy and skip the frilly dress and still keep she/her pronouns. I was invested and the story took turns I didn't expect. <3 Aurelius for making me want to so badly best him at sword fighting.
10. Crimson Spires: The MC is an FBI agent that is pulled into a retrieval mission for a prisoner that was being transported to trial. And then they were like, interesting idea. Let's destroy it with mysterious alien towers and vampires and let you romance the bad guys. <3 August for making me do the impossible and root for a serial killer.
11. Ebon Light: The amount of self expression as well as affection levels with the love interests were great. I told a guy I needed to think about whether or not we should be romantic. They accepted it and brought it up later- asked whether I had made up my mind. <3Haron & Vadeyn
12. Love Ritual: This seemed pretty standard but then Dom/Sub moving explicit sex scenes and the plot twist toward the end got me. Woof. <3 Shanrae
13. Love Spell: Written in the Stars- Sometimes immature, but I adored the mascot best friend there were some very actiony routes that kept me on the edge of my seat. <3 Florian and Enix
14. Veil of Dust: Focus is actually on your sibling and farming, with LIs being optional side content. Can play as brother or sister. I was obsessed with Stardew for a long time right when they came out, so I was fond of the farming mechanic. And I wouldn't give up hugging the brother. <3 Laan
15. Steam Prison: Couldn't put the game down because I found the world lore fascinating. <3 Ulrik
16. Silhouette: So short (<3 hours) but I was giggling a lot, and then I got downright teary eyed thinking I'd gotten a bad ending that turned round at the last second. <3 Derrick

Unfinished but author has recent content updates:
The Survival of Sarah Rose 18+ content is constant but avoidable. It's a dark dark world and Sarah can rise above it or wallow in it. So many branches, like, wow. <3 Atilla the orc and wins all around for female representation of healthy masturbation habits.

Happy to elaborate if my blurbs aren't enough in the comments. :) I've read over 100, but these are the ones that made me get attached.

@catch42

From the My Next Life As a Villainess series, we get this Otome game. If I'm understanding it correctly it takes place between season 1 and 2 of the anime. During a perviously unexplored spring break where Catarina realizes she's once again in danger as the events of the fan disk unfold. I'm looking forward to this. I enjoyed the first season but stopped watching because I knew she'd never actually end up with anyone. I'm hoping that in this game we can get some satisfying endings!

Here's the announcement trailer for Sympathy Kiss. It's an office romance where you're an app developer. And that's you specifically because it has a faceless/eyeless self insert protagonist.

My Next Life As A Villainess: All Routes Lead To Doom! -Pirates Of The Disturbance - coming this winter

and

Sympathy Kiss - coming in 2024

Both are coming switch digitally and physically with standard and limited editions

July 1st Otome News Round Up

Recent Releases:
June 27th
Charade Maniacs
Digital
Physical
To steal my description from my release day post: 9 LI options, drama (literally), drama (metaphorically), and a mystery traitor.

Jun 29th
Trouble comes Twice
A VN where you make a bet with your twin on who can get a girlfriend/boyfriend the fastest. You can play as either the female or male twin and there are 4 romance options (2 male 2 female)

June 30th
Otome Jame 2023
This year’s Otome jam over on itch just wrapped up yesterday. There were 73 entries! Lots of great demo’s and little games. I played Duskbound, and it was really cute (well as least as cute as yandere’s can get)

Upcoming releases
Nothing in the next two weeks that I could find. Enjoy Charade Maniacs and Jack Jeanne, hit up your backlog, or check out some Indies from the otome jam.

Active Kickstarters
Speakeasy (18+) An otome set in a 1920’s jazz club. This is going to be published by JAST. It’s the studios first game, so I have no idea how they managed that.

Sweetcore Brews Nochi’s 4th title, releasing for PC and Mobile, will be set in a magical tea shop. It looks like the mobile game will be the kind you pay once to unlock everything. It’ll have AR features too.

The Frozen Kingdom (18+ BL)
Be warned the kickstarter page for this fantasy BL is nearly nsfw. Follows a barbarian on a quest to avenge his murdered tribe. It just met its funding goal.

Tales of Aragorn: An Elven Marriage (18+)
This is at the limit of “otome” It’s an RPG sequel to a VN. You can choose to play as either male or female. If you pick female then you have two male romance options. It’s fully funded and recently met a stretch goal to have nude romance scenes.

IFI, who just brought us Charade Maniacs, is hosting a 10th anniversary event at Anime Expo in LA this weekend. They've strongly implied that they'll be announcing a new otome game as well as a new neptunia game. Any guesses on what it'll be?

The cautious guess is a port of Hakuoki. I've never played Hakuoki so I would be pretty jazzed with it as long as it's not in two parts like it was on the vita.

My hopeful guess is a new game that hasn't been translated yet. I don't keep up with Japanese releases well enough to be able to guess which one.

My very hopeful guess is that we get two games! A port and a new game.

What do you think?

The sale is poorly labeled but Amnesia and Amnesia Later x crowd as well as both the standard and limited editions of Piofiore 1926 are part of the sale. I picked up all 3 and got live a live to round it out.

It's got 9 LI options, drama (literally), drama (metaphorically), and a mystery traitor. However, it's reputation was marred by IFI's botched announcement trailer :/ I didn't personally watch that stream so I don't have those negative feelings that some might.