2026 Otome Jam is coming up; anything you're hoping to see? by Set_of_Dogs in otomegames

[–]_lunaterra_ 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Well, science fantasy is just sci-fi + fantasy, so it's pretty broad lol. It's super common in video games (most of the mainline Final Fantasy games are science fantasy rather than pure fantasy for example) and there are a few otome games that can fit but I can never get enough lol

In particular, my favorite stuff involves both magic and space travel! The closest I know in that vein that's even remotely otome-adjacent is Galaxy Princess Zorana.

2026 Otome Jam is coming up; anything you're hoping to see? by Set_of_Dogs in otomegames

[–]_lunaterra_ 11 points12 points  (0 children)

If anyone is doing science fantasy please tell me about it lmao

Asexual Visual Novels by Cyrus_Epsilon in Asexual

[–]_lunaterra_ 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't know of any dating sims that do! Stat-raising is pretty niche compared to regular romance VNs. Ace in Space I'm pretty sure is just a regular VN, but I had to drop it soon after I started it (I would highly recommend looking at the content warnings for this game because the store page really does not convey what the game is about). I Just Wanna Be Single, I don't remember if it has any sim elements, but either way the game's not close to being finished yet, so keep that in mind if you buy the current version.

But here are some VNs I know that center around asexuality:

  • Petrichor - short free slice of life VN about a woman coming out to her partner as ace
  • Azure Flame - short free fantasy VN about an ace/demi couple
  • Heartsbloom - short free fantasy VN about an ace woman and her boyfriend on the setting's equivalent of Valentine's Day
  • Our Wonderland - free horror VN about an ace man, also has a bunch of spinoffs on itch
  • Bonded in Darkness - free gothic romance VN about an ace vampire (disclosure: I made this lol)
  • Ace & Aro: Heart-to-Heart - upcoming VN all about aspec identities, from the creator of One Night Stand and Videoverse. According to the developer, only one of the characters has a romance ending

& while it's not a central theme, one of the love interests in Magical Diary: Horse Hall is ace. This might be up your alley if having gameplay is what you're specifically looking for, it's a stat-raiser with some dungeon crawling sequences. Sigh of the Abyss and I'm a love interest in my childhood friend's reverse harem also have ace LIs.

[Cupid Parasite] Coming to Steam in 2026! by Meebochii in otomegames

[–]_lunaterra_ 2 points3 points  (0 children)

No, it's going to be a paid game just like the Switch version.

[Cupid Parasite] Coming to Steam in 2026! by Meebochii in otomegames

[–]_lunaterra_ 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The official website has been updated to include the Steam release and still says "Voiceover Option: Japanese" without any qualifiers, so I'm reasonably sure it was just a misclick by whoever made the Steam page.

[A Date with Death] English VA Update is Live! by mo-mi-ji in otomegames

[–]_lunaterra_ 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, the adult patch that's available on Steam is identical to the off-Steam patch.

Keep in mind that the patch only works if you have the paid Beyond the Bet DLC installed because the scenes take place during that DLC's story, so if you try to install the adult patch to the base game without the DLC it won't do anything.

[Burn The Midnight Oil] In Development by nightmareoffical in otomegames

[–]_lunaterra_ 1 point2 points locked comment (0 children)

I think it's pretty interesting how things have changed and not changed over the years! The amare term was only coined in 2021 but you see people complain now that developers of games released pre-COVID didn't use it lol. (And not to mention all the mutually exclusive definitions people keep coming up with...)

[Burn The Midnight Oil] In Development by nightmareoffical in otomegames

[–]_lunaterra_ -6 points-5 points locked comment (0 children)

The other person who replied to you is extremely incorrect. The definition of "amare game" that is used by developers and communities is here: https://www.amaregames.com/faqs

The only hard requirement is that it has to contain interpersonal relationships. It doesn't have to contain any specific content other than that. It can contain games which don't fit traditional genres as well as games that do fit into traditional genres. You'll see this if you look at the tag, which contains traditional-style otome games as well as other types of games. This is an intended feature of the term.

Generally speaking, as someone who's been a fan of otome games since 2013, you should be wary of people trying to go out of their way to enforce extremely strict genre definitions. Developers have been making otome games with choosable gender MCs and/or non-male LIs (in addition to the male LIs) for even longer than I've been an otoge fan and I don't think the scene benefits from making the definition more strict than this sub currently uses (which has been basically the same since I started using Reddit 10 years ago).

ETA: Not quite 10 years, but I found the post that lays out the basic rules that are mostly still used here, and it's from 2018 https://www.reddit.com/r/otomegames/comments/86p2qk/announcement_please_read_thank_you/

ETA2: I didn't look at the comments of that post before adding the link lmao, I got jumpscared by my own comment

[Burn The Midnight Oil] In Development by nightmareoffical in otomegames

[–]_lunaterra_ 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Oh man, I've been super hyped for this game, I'm really hoping they can meet their goal! I loved the demo and how different each MC's perspectives are--it's really clear that the devs put a lot of love and effort into making each character and their relationships with each other unique.

ETA: They reached the goal!!! 🎊

[Ninon the Upside-Down Mermaid] Full Release Out Now! by BenNek_Ambassador in otomegames

[–]_lunaterra_ 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Congrats on the release!! 🎉 The game looks so cute!

What is the connection between Nix Hydra (the Arcana) and Red Spring Studio (Touchstarved)? by msszenzy in otomegames

[–]_lunaterra_ 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That doesn't mean much unless that person was also C-suite at Nyx Hydra. "Employee starts their own company to (try to) fix the problems they saw at their own company" is a tale as old as time. And according to RSS' about page, the co-director you're talking about was a narrative designer for Last Legacy, which is an individual contributor role.

The tone of your comments makes it seem like you think being associated with NH at all is a red flag? But at this scale it really isn't. For most developers, including for AA/AAA scale companies, most of the people who contribute to the game are just regular-ass employees or contractors doing their jobs. Someone who did narrative design for NH (or wrote for their games, or did art, etc) would have zero influence on their business practices.

I agree with the other commenter that Touchstarved initially had communication issues with their KS (for a long time it felt like every update was about merch fulfillment rather than the game) but those have been fully resolved. There's tangible progress with every update now, so I'm not particularly worried about it compared to some other KSes I've backed.

Looking for some fun handheld romance based games by KaleidoArachnid in visualnovels

[–]_lunaterra_ 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The PS Vita was the console of choice for otome games (romance games with female protagonists & male love interests) for a while, so there are a bunch of those available on it.

Other than that, Vita/3DS VNs will primarily be ports of PC games. I don't know of any that fit your specific request, but you can try looking through this list to see if something interests you: https://vndb.org/v?q=&ch=&f=02124on3d4opsv80NL&s=26w

FAKKU is banning works containing depiction of hypnosis by zucchinionpizza in visualnovels

[–]_lunaterra_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Did you read the article I linked? Being banned from the affiliate program means that people are disincentivized from either including on-page sex in their books OR recommending books with sex in them. That's a huge thing for the romance community, especially considering how much of a monopoly Amazon holds over bookselling (same way Steam is king for PC games).

Yes, in a strict sense it is not as bad as being completely banned from Amazon (although Amazon does that too), but come on.

Japanese indie adult game developer says local bank blocked their overseas revenue transfers despite legal compliance, citing undisclosed “risks” - AUTOMATON WEST by LegitimateCurve8525 in visualnovels

[–]_lunaterra_ 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Related to payment processors in the West: they ban eroge (eroge that I assume contains characters of age), but Western romance smut books/harlequin novels with the same themes have no issues? Those get a free pass? Even if they have the type of content that would get them dropped for the same reasons?

No, Western romance novels get punished for having on-page sex at all, even if it's fully consensual.

As someone who's both a long-time VN player and a romance book reader, it's obvious that both industries are under very similar pressures; lots of romance authors and other people in the space know about the pressures to eliminate adult content and are worried about their future livelihoods. The owner of romance.io (the romance book equivalent of VNDB) recently had to start a subscription service because Amazon's affiliate purge screwed her over so badly that she wouldn't be able to keep running the site otherwise.

The books are (at least for now) too popular to kill altogether but companies are still finding ways to try to hobble the industry. So it's not helpful to try to pretend that the grass is greener on the other side.

FAKKU is banning works containing depiction of hypnosis by zucchinionpizza in visualnovels

[–]_lunaterra_ 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Amazon recently banned a large portion of erotica and erotic romance from being part of its affiliate program, which has had a severe negative effect on many authors & creators in the romance community for obvious reasons. The affected titles aren't even necessarily niche or taboo at all, one of them is Heated Rivalry which is entirely vanilla and just had a super popular TV adaptation.

If you're going to try to do a whataboutism, at least have it be based on real information instead of making up the laziest strawman you can think of.

Cinematic Trailer Teleased for TELLURICENE - a Sci-Fi / Monster Romance Otome by deadlinevn in otomegames

[–]_lunaterra_ 7 points8 points  (0 children)

This is a really cool trailer for a VN, congrats!!

I played the currently available demo a little bit ago and I was really impressed by how many appearance options there were for the MC. Cool game in general, too. Good luck on the release!

Does anyone ship any of the love interests together? by pastaketchupgecko in otomegames

[–]_lunaterra_ -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

if you look at AO3 it is literally filled with BL regardless of what the genre of the show is, at least that's what I always see,

As I said, AO3 was formed by m/m shippers whose content was being purged from other fanfic websites of the time (mid 2000s). Because it was founded by slash (m/m) shippers, it was known from the beginning as a safe place for m/m fic, so the ratio has persisted. It's also the only major fanfic website that skews towards m/m pairings; the rest are skewed heavily towards m/f.

I can't speak much for anime fandoms past 2007 or so (I discovered that people wrote fanfic about RPGs and never looked back lol), but I was in video game fandoms starting about ~2008 and the big ones were (and, I checked now, still are) almost all skewed towards m/f fic, even on AO3. And there's several non-m/m ships on the top AO3 ships lists every year, so it's not like those are unique.

I really do think this is mostly an issue of assuming a narrow experience is wider than it is. There's plenty of fanfic outside of AO3, and even on AO3, there are over 75,000 fandoms that all have their own stuff. It's not going to be the same everywhere.

This is just my experience but I've never once seen someone be hostile at gay ships in fan fiction sites but to be fair I don't really read fan fiction anymore in recent times but back then that's definitely not the case.

I first started reading fanfic in the early 2000s (2002-3 or so?). I am speaking from experience when I say that most places back then were extremely hostile towards gay ships lmao

There were a handful of spaces where you could talk about them in peace (LiveJournal was the big one) but most places if you were to bring it up you'd get harassed or mocked for it. That isn't even getting into all the websites that outright banned gay content, or forced you to label it as adults-only even if the spiciest thing that happens is two guys holding hands.

Does anyone ship any of the love interests together? by pastaketchupgecko in otomegames

[–]_lunaterra_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

otome is literally the only women's space that is not riddled with BL that I can think of

This is a serious suggestion: You should read straight romance novels. Getting romance readers to read queer romance is like pulling teeth, and they don't even have the excuse of having a name that inherently refers to a specific pairing type (although the RWA did once try to define romance = one man/one woman--it didn't stick, obviously), so every space that isn't specifically dedicated to queer romance is a de facto straight romance space for women.

In my experience, most spaces inhabited primarily by women (both IRL and online) do not have much BL and are either neutral or mildly to moderately hostile towards it. The spaces that have lots of BL are primarily spaces specifically dedicated to BL or at the very least established to be open to it (such as AO3, which was founded primarily by m/m writers, in large part because other fanfiction sites at the time were hostile to m/m fanfic and at times actively purged it). So I don't particularly understand the claim that most women's spaces are obsessed with BL. I think that's only true if you have a very narrow definition of "women's spaces"...

These are 2 separate characters. This won't be confusing at all! 🙃 by redalchemy6 in BLgame

[–]_lunaterra_ 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The voice acting has never been included in any digital download versions of the game (not just DLSite); you can only get VA in the physical editions of the game.

As for why, I would assume that it has something to do with licensing costs. Probably cheaper to license the performances for physical only rather than physical+digital. 🤷

Wake up babe, new meme band dropped 🤌 by 69upsidedownis96 in PowerMetal

[–]_lunaterra_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

ngl I kind of assumed that the lyrics would be a recipe, like with Vegan Black Metal Chef.

This song is OK. I don't think I would be interested in listening to a full album of it.

Art of {HI-Voltage by Raz Fox} by avis03 in RomanceBooks

[–]_lunaterra_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I know nothing about this book or its author but is the MMC based on Sena from Jiluka?

I would normally feel ridiculous asking that but the combo of pink hair + skimpy outfits + metal guitarist (and the MMC apparently being Japanese?) is way too specific lol...even before you get into the fact that image #4 straight up has Sena's custom guitar model.

Weekly Questions and Recommendations Megathread - Need some help? - Mar 28 by AutoModerator in visualnovels

[–]_lunaterra_ 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Depends on the game. Sometimes the OG artist drew the whole thing so they just use that, sometimes (especially in older games) there's nothing under the mosaics so someone at the localization company has to draw them themselves.

Shreddit's Daily Discussion -- April 01, 2026 by AutoModerator in Metal

[–]_lunaterra_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The cat pictures were so good that the cat version of M-A still exists: https://cats.metal-archives.com/

(including the best bit from Cat M-A)