Community The Visual Novel Council | All Choices Lead To Here

AHA-Lambda

MetaMember
Oct 9, 2018
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GhostTrick

Banned
Oct 20, 2018
94
216
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WTF

Maybe it's time to fire someone at Valve over this.
 

skLaFarebear

MetaMember
Dec 4, 2019
653
1,230
93
Valve banning a (already censored) released that's already been approved for Switch and PS4? Lmao, the rando on the staff they must've gotten to review this submission must be hella strict.

I definitely think Spike Chunsoft has a direct contact at Valve they can talk with to get this resolved, so I'd wait for an official statement, but yeah none of this is surprising when you don't actually lay out any strict guidelines for your employees to follow when it comes to the submission process and for whatever reason don't allow resubmissions even for verified companies/devs.

It'd be nice if this was the game that was finally big enough to get some people to make a big enough stink at Valve's horrible submission and review process for any visual novel or game with an anime aesthetic, but I'm not holding my breath.
 

ZKenir

❀ Child of Raikou ❀
May 10, 2019
3,312
9,493
113
For the employee might simply be VN#1937467 with school uniforms + violence, plus japanese VN and got the boot immediatly.

And yeah i'm not holding my breath either
 
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GhostTrick

Banned
Oct 20, 2018
94
216
33
I'm not holding my breath either about their policy to change. But there's no way they don't backtrack on that decision.

It's way too stupid. It's not a random ass VN sold on adult stores. It is a game currently sold at GameStop, Walmart and most physical retailers. It is a game with board ratings.

If Valve decide to ban stuff that was deemed legit by big video game boards and worldwide physical retailers, this sets a fucked up precedent where Valve indeed enforce curation but only for anything that looks remotely anime, meanwhile letting racist shit and asset flips in without any control.
 

ExistentialThought

Coffee Lover ♥☕
Feb 29, 2020
1,561
4,835
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I cannot understand the logic of banning a game that has been rated by agencies, will have a widespread release, and is already censored.

On some level it may be a good thing this is happening to a bigger title to maybe, finally, possibly get folks to ask why there are titles that are barred from Steam with any means to resubmit (e.g. like the recent ebi-hime title) and even if the title is clearly not trying to skirt around the approval process.

It is just bizarre since straight-up troll and inflammatory games release on Steam every week when they said they will block illegal and trolling games.
 
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GhostTrick

Banned
Oct 20, 2018
94
216
33
I cannot understand the logic of banning a game that has been rated by agencies, will have a widespread release, and is already censored.

On some level it may be a good thing this is happening to a bigger title to maybe, finally, possibly get folks to ask why there are titles that are barred from Steam with any means to resubmit (e.g. like the recent ebi-hime title) and even if the title is clearly not trying to skirt around the approval process.

It is just bizarre since straight-up troll and inflammatory games release on Steam every week when they said they will block illegal and trolling games.

I mean, it only happens to VNs. So at this point, it's clear there's someone in the team biased against them.
 

tetel

MetaMember
Jan 7, 2020
333
1,005
93
What if it was planned but already got the boot?
And what if Tsukihime PC wasn't actually released for the same reason :detectiveblob:

Started Dive 2 in Baldr Sky yesterday, combat (well, combo-building aspect of it) finally clicked so I've been enjoying it way more than before. Still feel the romance parts are kinda jarring and there's way too much repeated text that I can't skip on every route.

Also the OP finally runs properly on default Proton (but not for the entire duration lol).
 
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skLaFarebear

MetaMember
Dec 4, 2019
653
1,230
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And what if Tsukihime PC wasn't actually released for the same reason :detectiveblob:

Started Dive 2 in Baldr Sky yesterday, combat (well, combo-building aspect of it) finally clicked so I've been enjoying it way more than before. Still feel the romance parts are kinda jarring and there's way too much repeated text that I can't skip on every route.

Also the OP finally runs properly on default Proton (but not for the entire duration lol).
I was actually curious if that "improved video playback" would let baldr sky's OPs work. Glad to see there's some improvement on Valve's end there even if it's not great yet.
 

skLaFarebear

MetaMember
Dec 4, 2019
653
1,230
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I tried this for a bit and seems to work alright. However the UI still seem to have bilinear filtering applied, so as a result it still look blurry in >1080p resolutions.

Still, this is great since battle maps look sharp now. :flare_bath:
I imagine doing the UI and CGs would take an enormous amount of work for devs let alone a modder, but at least we're at a state now where this was definitely how the games should've shipped in the first place.
 
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Snakethesniper

Time Traveler
Jan 11, 2019
923
1,669
93
Finished the first route of BaldrSky 1 , for now I would say that the action part are the best part, really like chaining and finding combos.
For the VN part, not really invested right now, I still haven't found that part where you get gripped in the story and want to know what comes next.
 

Kvik

Crossbell City Councillor
Dec 6, 2018
4,149
10,267
113
Downunder.
I finished reading Suhoshin last night. It's a neat little murder mystery VN set in ancient Korea. It's a bit short, but the story is interesting enough and the artwork is excellent. Furthermore, it's unvoiced, so fast readers can probably finish it in 5-6 hours. The twist and turns of the mystery here is not that deep, and it's kind of fun to come up with our own theories about whom the killer is; even though the final solution was kind of telegraphed (the clues were obvious enough). Still, it was not a bad way to wrap up an evening.

 

Knurek

OG old coot
Oct 16, 2018
2,438
5,999
113
Surely they would've announced if the ban was finalized by now? There's still a chance, right? Too much copium?
Japnese companies and public transparency.
Choose one.
(FWIW, JAST fought almost a year to overturn Muramasa ban and Valve just ghosted them in the end)
 
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tetel

MetaMember
Jan 7, 2020
333
1,005
93
I was hoping that Ciconia delay would result in Saku coming soon but that doesn't seem likely.

Finished 5th route in Baldr Sky yesterday, one of the Deck updates in recent two months must have broken something - the game has been crashing left and right whenever reaching setup menu.
 

skLaFarebear

MetaMember
Dec 4, 2019
653
1,230
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Aniplex announced a new VN "Hira Hira Hihiru" for 2023, planning/scenario by Setoguchi Ren'ya, author of Overdrive works such as Kira Kira and Musicus as well as the recently released Black Sheep Town.

Music by MANYO who's contributed to series such as the Baldr franchise and Cartagra/Kara no Shoujo.

Atri is also getting an anime adaptation

 

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
7,705
15,607
113

Is it real ? Does it work ? I basically dropped the game and all VN because I just can't stand playing them on desktop (and streaming feels weird).
 
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skLaFarebear

MetaMember
Dec 4, 2019
653
1,230
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Is it real ? Does it work ? I basically dropped the game and all VN because I just can't stand playing them on desktop (and streaming feels weird).
Moogul makes excellent Steam Deck VN guides, you can trust him.

He also runs a discord where people can ask for help for getting certain VNs to run on Steam Deck here in case the video guide isn't enough.
 
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Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
7,705
15,607
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Moogul makes excellent Steam Deck VN guides, you can trust him.

He also runs a discord where people can ask for help for getting certain VNs to run on Steam Deck here in case the video guide isn't enough.
Great ! Though skimming through the video there is no way I do all that stuff with virtual keyboard. I need a hub
:sweaty-blob:
 

skLaFarebear

MetaMember
Dec 4, 2019
653
1,230
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Chaos;Head banned from Steam, Spike looking into alternative storefronts (probably GoG at least) to sell the game but PC is delayed until further notice.

The "Steam's guideline-required changes to the game's content" line smells of complete bs, there are no steam guidelines as to what gets allowed/banned, but I'm sure if there was the other dozens of vn and indie devs who get their games banned for no reason would love to hear what they are.
 
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Knurek

OG old coot
Oct 16, 2018
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The "Steam's guideline-required changes to the game's content" line smells of complete bs, there are no steam guidelines as to what gets allowed/banned, but I'm sure if there was the other dozens of vn and indie devs who get their games banned for no reason would love to hear what they are.
There actually are
 

KingKrouch

Junior Member
Dec 14, 2021
79
273
53
The way that I see it, the whole Chaos Head thing has been showing a very visible problem with Valve's inconsistent content policies.

You could have something that absolutely passed ESRB and Australian rating boards and is sold in retail stores (I.E: Chaos Head, Dungeon Travelers, Mary Skelter 2) and still have Valve foaming at the mouth for completely arbitrary reasons. Valve allows actual in poor taste shovelware (I.E: Sex with Hitler, or stuff like Furry Loli Puzzle Simulator 15 that is sold for 99 cents) that is only passed because it's not Japanese, and I'm convinced that there's some Art Teacher "no anime" nonsense going on.

Valve will also allow paid snakeoil registry cleaners or driver updater tools (Most of which end up causing more harm to your system), while banning stuff like Special K because of it's SteamAPI integration features, even if there's an absolute ton of useful tools in it that make it better to use than the alternatives (RivaTuner comes to mind).

While you can absolutely view AliceSoft's games as eyebrow raising, I think that them putting their stuff on GOG was a fantastic PR move.

The "Taste police" comments from Valve regarding Hatred have definitely aged like milk, but except this time there's no backlash because (without getting overly political) certain fringe radical groups that base their personalities on being pointlessly edgy can't handle the optics of being consistent.
 
Reason: Slight corrections