English List

[mikey]

And since the name is new from 2007-06-17, I've renamed the topic from English Bishoujo Games List to English Bishoujo/nen Titles List.

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Since the games encyclopedia is gone, it's best to convert this thread about the game list on the ATP site, which is a "light" version of the former.
http://atp.manga.sk/english/index.htm

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This is the experimental guestbook/discussion thread for the English Bishoujo Games Encyclopedia.
It can be found at atp.manga.sk/mEBGE/index.htm

I would like it to have three major uses:

- [anyone] pointing out correction/completion of factual data (alternative titles, years, production staff etc...)
- [anyone] pointing out new candidates to include
- [fan developers] correcting info, donating project screenshots/sketches (should include character graphics)
- [staff] informing about a new release/update of the encyclopedia

You can also have other suggestions and so on, I'll read them all, but you'll have to understand I can't guarantee their implementation. As far as the game commentaries go, I know that people from these forums are intelligent enough to see their true meaning (impressions, exaggeration, fun, opinion) and won't be flaming or picking on them - they aren't descriptions, reviews or summaries.

Anyway, feel free to chat away, I am just sort of testing this, my main reason was that this way, new titles and corrections can be pointed out easily, without having to contact me by e-mail, so I hope this can be useful.

I hope this thread is okay with the mods, I haven't tested it, but I believe that one doesn't have to be a member to reply.

[mikey]

So, an update to version 2.215

- an all new blacklist is introduced, for titles that aren't included, but we know people are looking for them (Try typing "Plumerai", or "DSE") with many categories moved into it.
- a new translation projects page, listing and merging all incomplete translations (previously demo trans, menu trans etc...), the complete translations are treated as normal English b-games in their respective categories
- we finally have info on the BL games Kuro No Tsuki and Graduation, even though it's called bishoujo encyclopedia, we list bishounen as well, applies also to the translations
- as usual, several minor corrections, we finally found out the JPN name of Love Potion, several updates in the unfinished fan projects section.

[PyTom]

Okay, I'll bite.

I'm not sure I like the term "fan-made" when used to describe our games.

Let me stipulate I am a fan. I am a fan of many things: bishoujo games, visual novels, anime, manga, comics, Firefly, the new Battlestar Galactica, Football (american-style), and a host of other things.

But I'm not sure why any of that matters. I would suspect that many of the creators of the games you list in the straight-up visual novel category are fans of visual novels themselves. And I don't think me not being a fan of VNs (among othet things) should cause my game to change categories.

For a project like Onegai Nurse or Sango, fan-made makes sense, as they are more or less works of fanfiction. (Less so in ON's case, but still.) But that's not the case with MW, in which everything is original.

I'd suggest a better term is noncommercial. This implies a lack of profit motive, which is probably the defining force in these games. Many fan translated games could also fall into this category.

I'm not sure if there should be a semi-commercial category for doujinshi-like games that cost small amounts of money, but I think grouping games into commercial and non-commercial make sense.

[mikey]

I'd suggest a better term is noncommercial. This implies a lack of profit motive, which is probably the defining force in these games.

The first thing is, division between fan-made and others (pro, commercial, shareware) is only in the full titles (1st category - full English bgames), to make identifying of those free titles easier. I suppose I can change it to non-professional or non-commercial, or even free.

The other option is to remove the fan/free label alltogether and put the games in their respective categories, like Heikou into RPG and all the others into VNs, and IT into the 2nd category. This would seem less "racist".

[I should point out that there is a division between pro-made and non-pro & free in terms of ranking and which & how strict a criteria for judging them are applied. Non-pro & free aren't ranked, pro-made are. This is a different kind of division though, and has flame potential, so...]

Many fan translated games could also fall into this category

As far as unfinished fan translations (or simply unofficial translations - sounds less downplaying) are concerned, I don't want to differentiate between translations of commercial, free or whatever - simply because I take them as an in-between stage, something that when it's done will be judged for what it is (Planetarian translation as a KN, Girlfriend of Steel as a VN etc...)

If you meant the VNs without characters graphics not being included, Amatire, Plain Song etc, that's one of the points I will probably adhere to. I made the blacklist page to explain this as good as I can and made an effort so that you *can* find your title, but also understand why it's not detailed.

The focus is on the bishoujo/nen element in the VNs - be it VNs in "our" way of understanding (a gameplay mechanic with multiple choices), or in the "original" sense (respecting the Japanese usage, which includes choice-less and character-art-less works), some will just not be included. Drawing the line is tricky in some cases, but it's all I can do to keep the lists focused.

[mikey]

version 2.220

An update. The pages where titles are briefly listed are nicened up, as usual little things were fixed and data corrected. Not much added. The big thing about this is that it's refocused. With the DSVN Wiki going to take on a role, as well as Shii's list that is getting increasingly authoritative, I wanted to concentrate what this guide can offer. So, the titles listed are not divided into groups by how "good" they are, whether they are commercial or not, whether they are ren'ai or not, or even what their gameplay is (even though in some subdivisions of the categories gameplay matters). You can find Kaori and Kasuka alongside Kana and Kango Shicyauzo then. The reason for this is I want to emphasize the "full English" aspect as well as the "bishoujo/nen game" aspect (not limited to VN and DS).

So if you're looking for a game that has its gameplay built around pretty anime girls and you want to play in English, the Encyclopedia should help you.

Any other questions like "quality VNs", or "OEL games" can't be answered (or if they can, not necessarily completely). Partly because of the fixed system (no tables, no generated scripts), partly because it's so hard to keep focus if you don't have strict rules. The blacklist shows the struggles. Anyway, hopefully this is the last update in a longer time.

[monele]

Just thought I'd point it out :



In Firefox 1.5 (and probably earlier versions), the ticks are not shown properly ^^;. Got me confused at first until I realized it was a browser quirk.
If you care but don't want to spend time on it, I can try to find a solution.

Something else : I'd be curious to know the meaning of abbreviations such as ADV, ANM, ARC. A description is given, but not the details such as "ADV = Adventure" (I suppose). It doesn't have to be on the website but if anyone could tell me the meanings ...

[mikey]

If you care but don't want to spend time on it, I can try to find a solution..

Thanks, if you can, it'll be helpful. If not, I'll try to sort it out some day.

Something else : I'd be curious to know the meaning of abbreviations such as ADV, ANM, ARC. A description is given, but not the details such as "ADV = Adventure" (I suppose). It doesn't have to be on the website but if anyone could tell me the meanings ...

As for the abbreviations, I tend to use the oldschool ways from the time that Himeya soft and I think also Peachprincess started to do this:

ADV - general adventure game, comprises AVG and ANM
AVG - adventure game, with the typical visual novel gameplay (deducted from the game types that were described by it)
ANM - singlepath adventure game (animated? whatever), mostly used with Desire, EVE, and similar
NVL - digital novel (Fairy nights, no choice visual novel, kinetic novel etc.)
SLG - simulated life game, it's all with stats and numbers, it can be a dating sim, also a raising sim (upbringing sim)

The others are kind of derived from the genres (ARC = arcade etc... - there's a minibox on the left with abbreviations). Note that I never fully understood the logic behind the abbreviations, and who made them. I just started to use them. I also saw other abbreviations, such as NV (for visual novel), or SIM (for dating sims... duh) on non-US-distributor sites, but I always went for those that Himeya, JAST and PP used.

EDIT:

version 2.3

Grrrr, I just couldn't stop reorganizing. I know I'm bugging again with yet another categorization, but this makes very good sense, it's simple and works for what I want to achieve. I feel this is quite it. It's focused (only English bishoujo titles get a detailed entry), and a lot of the things have been simplified even more.

So you want to know? Hey, don't leave!!

Now there are just two relevant categories beside the main (which is English Bishoujo Games). This category lists all projects that are full, completely English and are games (including some notable exceptions like bishoujo KNs). The main cat includes:
- OEL/fan games
- translated games (fan translated)
- Flash games
- full KNs
- commercially released
- etc...

Projects - lists everything bishoujo that isn't yet available, but when it is (if it would have been), it would be fully English. This includes
- fan projects
- flash games
- original commercial English projects
- etc...

Potentially/Partially English - contrary to the previous category, this lists bishoujo projects/games that are fully available (in Japanese), but they aren't fully English yet (or never will be). Incliudes:
- incomplete/partial fan translations
- cancelled commmercial releases
- upcoming/announced commercial releases
- released insuficiently translated games
- etc...

The other categories Non-English, Non-Bishoujo, Non-Anime, Blacklisted) are just for demonstration purposes.

The main thing about this are the two supplementary categories - Projects and Potentially English. It solves a lot of problems, now I can add almost any project that isn't yet done (be it a translation or original project), very simply to the appropriate category - there's no need to worry about a gazillion of subcategories, because in essence they don't matter - what matters is the full English game.

I'm happy!!! Well, I do understand that you can't share my enthusiasm, but anyway...

[mikey]

version 2.312

A few titles added and a bit of a design change. Most notably I have given up on categorizing everything that doesn't fit into the encyclopedia. I've set a definition of bishoujo game and whatever doesn't fit, is just listed. It's a bit one-sided, but in the past I have really struggled with some titles, constantly revising their status and so on. So generally, the 3+1 categories that are now have eased the maintenance and adding of titles for me.

Again, getting back to the main purpose of this thread (I don't want to turn this into a personal blog) - if anyone wishes to donate some screenshots or give away details about their projects that have incomplete or wrong data (this happens quite often, as we sometimes have no choice than to guess things), you are welcome to do so. Mock-ups/sketches are perfectly fine for projects. Whatever you'd like to add/correct, write/post it here and I'll see to it that things get corrected in the next update.

[mikey]

Alright, a very new approach to the encyclopedia, basically there's room for much more info now, a new style of reviews and more images. It's still got a very long way to go to be complete, but easy does it. The bold entries have a review, but not necessarily 5 diferent images. Some entries have 5 different images, but no review.

http://atp.manga.sk/mEBGE/index.htm
This is called version 3.000

We'll see how this will manifest in bandwidth usage.

[papillon]

It seems like you should disable the showing of the 'larger' images if you don't actually have larger images to put there - stretching smaller thumbnails looks ugly.

[mikey]

It needs a lot of work on this front. I'll try some inoffensive placeholders, and also bigger images (and scale them down if there's only one picture). I'll have to find some time for a larger screenshot session some day.

[Alessio]

Very nice, congrats for the site! Maintenance is going to be a lot of work now that Ren'Py is loose! ^_^ I'd have some remarks:

1. It would be good to provide some explanation of the symbols (heart, "all", male/female signs) and abbreviations you are using ("2006(F)", "ADV" etc.) in an easy-to-find place.

2. A link from the title page pictures to the articles. I'm really wondering which game they belong to, that would be a nice feature. (Just a suggestion, not a must if it's hard to implement).

3. In the reviews a link to the resources (e.g. to the Ren'Ai Archives), especially for non-commercial games that are usually downloadable from somewhere.

Again, just some toughts, feel free to ignore them.

[mikey]

Thanks for the tips. I do have these issues in mind, I was thinking about a page that explains all these details, so maybe in the future...

1. the letters behind the game years are countries (F - Finland, as you'd have guessed), ADV means adventure (or whatever the term is worth in these days of visual novel terminology), venus means bishoujo, mars means bishounen, All 15+ and 18+ are are ratings.
2. linking to the respective game isn't really possible, it's style thing... but I'll put alternative text into the images, so you'll be able to tell what game it is from.
3. hmmm, no links is something I've set as a rule...

Thanks for the interest! The worst for maintenance isn't actually the completed games (even though there is the "Ren'Py factor"), it's the projects/announcements. What is meant seriously, what can be expected, what is just an idea... but I like the work.

[Alessio]

Thanks for explaining! Most I guessed, but this one I didn't:

the letters behind the game years are countries (F - Finland, as you'd have guessed)

Maybe because IMHO "F" is France and "FIN" is Finland. :)

[PyTom]

Wouldn't this be what ISO-3166-alpha-2 codes are for? So FR for France, FI for Finland, etc.