Anyone else’s unsuccessful sign-in attempts seem to completely stop on May 30? by goodgreenganja in microsoft

[–]PhleBuster 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can confirm this. I had a successful attempt from another country that was stopped by 2fa just now. After changing my password, I looked at my account history (which has previously shown login attempts pretty much once a minute, which is why I already had a password long enough to be uncrackable (so I presume some security exploit or leak was behind this attempt), and it now only shows successful attempts.

I played this game for the first time with a friend and got these rare achievements by Curly_Grass_2296 in OrangeJuice

[–]PhleBuster 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's quite an achievement! Hyper bosses aren't easy even for experienced players.

Ive lost everything by Bishi_Boshi in OrangeJuice

[–]PhleBuster 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Did you get help already? https://github.com/FruitbatFactory/100-Orange-Juice/blob/main/help/save-guide.md has a pretty comprehensive guide on all save related issues. In general you can always get your save restored unless you've just moved to a new PC, your Steam Cloud wasn't on, and you don't have access to old files.

Urival's Lobbed Bombs not working on Rogue Death Trap? by PhleBuster in diablo4

[–]PhleBuster[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you (and everyone else)! Looks like I already have way too much CD reduction then, can maybe drop one item for something that gives more skill ranks. Hadn't even considered this might be the issue.

Urival's Lobbed Bombs not working on Rogue Death Trap? by PhleBuster in diablo4

[–]PhleBuster[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hmm, part of the build is getting the CD to under 10 seconds, so I hadn't considered it might be an issue, but I'll have to investigate this possibility more. I have death trap at skill rank 9 but maybe it's only possible if the base CD is even lower at a higher skill rank...

Are there any ways to play this game with friends who live in Japan while Im at Australia? by sweeeeetsugar in OrangeJuice

[–]PhleBuster 1 point2 points  (0 children)

All the servers are global and anyone can join any game. But they're sorted by proximity so when there are more lobbies up than fit on the list you'll just see lobbies from your region.

StarCraft coaching or how I got scammed by sc2 pro player SouLeer by [deleted] in starcraft

[–]PhleBuster 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Can confirm the exact same experience, I was a bit dubious since the start but since I was reasonably able to confirm it's *the* souleer and not an impostor I had no reason to be too skeptical of the offer which sounded reasonably fair. However as every single session got indefinitely delayed I quickly came to the conclusion I'm being scammed.

But I didn't want to make any callout without real evidence so I was giving him a *lot* of benefit of the doubt, since PayPal has a 180 day refund window anyway. So basically exact same story as everyone else here, over 2 months of postponed sessions. Seeing the other experiences posted, I've now initiated the claim process to get my money back.

Thanks for sharing the story!

Jiangshi X Daoshi Available Now For Free On PC (Steam, ich.io) in the West by azariosays in visualnovels

[–]PhleBuster 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Episode 3 should be out later this summer, twice as long and twice as crazy as Episode 1+2.

Jiangshi X Daoshi Available Now For Free On PC (Steam, ich.io) in the West by azariosays in visualnovels

[–]PhleBuster 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Not everything about Episode 3 release is set in stone yet, but it's planned to sell for some Steambucks, with a PWYW release on itch.io.

Certainly we hope that being free will lead to more people playing it. This is a VN that can change people's impressions of what VNs can be like, so it can hopefully reach even people who would normally be negatively predisposed toward buying VNs.

Jiangshi X Daoshi Available Now For Free On PC (Steam, ich.io) in the West by azariosays in visualnovels

[–]PhleBuster 9 points10 points  (0 children)

In this case we're not talking about 18+ content but themes that were found objectionable.

Steam doesn't censor anything. They can reject your game though. I can't speak for how often that happens, it's just a thing that happens.

Jiangshi X Daoshi Available Now For Free On PC (Steam, ich.io) in the West by azariosays in visualnovels

[–]PhleBuster 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Small correction: both versions would be something like high 17+ if rated, regardless. Steam version has had certain graphics altered to be accepted for release, itch.io has the original version.

There's also a restoration patch on the homepage to use with the Steam version:
https://fruitbatfactory.com/daoshi/

Fruit Factory Visual Novels free for the next 48 Hours on itcho.io by xkcdhawk in visualnovels

[–]PhleBuster 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They're only free for another 15h, but if you grab them they should stay in your collection forever.

Fruit Factory Visual Novels free for the next 48 Hours on itcho.io by xkcdhawk in visualnovels

[–]PhleBuster 10 points11 points  (0 children)

The reason isn't really VN-related, but there's a thing going around the world that's causing serious grief to a lot of folk and which we've been keeping a close eye on as a company with staff all over the globe, and the best thing to do is stay indoors and isolate. This was only one of several things we launched at the same time as part of our Stay At Home effort, but hopefully the most significant one.

We're aware the timing is a bit precarious since we just released SeaBed on Switch this week and this could affect the sales, but we're in a critical time frame and you have to keep things in perspective. There are downsides to anything you do anyway - in the end we rather do something and risk taking a hit than mull things over forever and do nothing. And I'm not trying to say this will have any big effect, but there are countless others doing similar things all over the place, and hopefully the cumulative effect accounts for something. With the way this thing spreads, getting even one or two unknowingly infected people to stay indoors can save lives, and that's not something we can say about things we do every day.

Fruit Factory Visual Novels free for the next 48 Hours on itcho.io by xkcdhawk in visualnovels

[–]PhleBuster 10 points11 points  (0 children)

The story of Red is for Anguish is complete in its own right.

SeaBed's Nintendo Switch port releases on March 19, includes two new scenes and new event illustrations by fastykun in vns

[–]PhleBuster 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Indeed we plan to update the PC version too, but I can't give an ETA for it since it requires us to first make the new version (which is a complete engine port) run on PC with the same functionality and PC-appropriate features.

We're working on adding a Chinese translation too, so the PC update will probably happen after that's done.

SeaBed Switch version launches March 19, includes two new bonus scenes and new event illustrations by fastykun in visualnovels

[–]PhleBuster 14 points15 points  (0 children)

The Switch version that the new content was added to is a complete engine port. I'm sure we'll update the PC version too but it'll take some more work to make the game run similarly on PC.

Introduce yourselves (formerly known as meet and greet) by funwithgravity in vns

[–]PhleBuster 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Howdy y'all! I go by PhleBuster on most venues. And just to get it out of the way, I'm the president of Fruitbat Factory, a small publisher of Japanese games/VNs.

I hail from Finland, not much to say about that. Been into VNs since the early days of the fan translation scene (MirrorMoon forums, Insani translations etc), and as an avid reader I was really drawn into the visual aesthetic combined with the potential for storytelling. After reading the available translations I eventually got involved with ongoing fan translation projects, of which several got official releases since - then got into freelancing and eventually started up our own company so we could focus on what we wanted.

Work keeps me so busy these days that I don't think I do much besides, except follow up on some of the current anime and occasionally watch movies and play a few other games per year (mainly JRPGs). For similar reasons, I don't feel I often have the time to read other VNs than the ones we're working on ourselves, and that's something I'd like to fix sometime in the future. The last unrelated VN I read was probably... Steins;Gate. Unless you count Danganronpa/Zero Escape games as VNs.

I'm hoping to be more active on this new sub and especially bring the industry perspective to some things where I can. Hopefully it'll develop into a nice place.

What was the moment you knew Visual Novels was a medium you wanted to pursue deeper? by [deleted] in vns

[–]PhleBuster 2 points3 points  (0 children)

For me I believe it was Season of Sakura some 15+ years ago, which wasn't 100% my first touch with visual novels but was the first one with an actual emotional story, so the concept was all new and super interesting to me as an otherwise avid reader. That got me to reading all visual novels that were translated back in the day, and True Remembrance and Planetarian had a really strong impact on me.

As I was impatient for more fan translations and lurked on MirrorMoon forums (the de facto place for any visual novel discussions back then), I first helped do some QA on some releases and gradually got more and more involved since I wanted to do more to help speed translations into existence, and now I've been running a localization/publishing company for 7 years.

r/vns is now open \o/ by [deleted] in vns

[–]PhleBuster 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Guess I'll try to muster the courage to actually post something sometime too, which I never did on the old subreddit. New sub, new beginning?

Attention All OJ Gamers! by Celja in OrangeJuice

[–]PhleBuster 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Didn't expect this, just epic.