I love to make big lovely blog posts to match my updates, but Tracon is tomorrow and I’ll be vending there. If you’re attending, please come visit for some TWS freebies! I’ll be at Artists’ Alley table 3.
TWS – Anna’s Tale Begins! Patreon Launch
Thank you for your patience. Today, Those Without Shadows has updated with Chapter 1: The Prince. It took us quite some time thanks to the boss battle on page 9, which we had to program and create assets for from scratch. I seriously underestimated the amount of time it would take to make those sprites, with all kinds of conventions and traveling happening in the middle of it. I wish it hadn’t taken so long.
With Chapter 1 comes the real hard premiere of Those Without Shadows. The Prince should make a better example of what the heart of the story will be like, so please help and promote it if you can! Chapter 2, The Pauper does not have a playable segment, so it should be out early September. I hope to update Those Without Shadows with a full chapter once a month.
With the hard premiere of Those Without Shadows I have also launched a Patreon if you’d like to support it. There are lots of goodies available for anyone who does!
Thank you all for reading. I hope you enjoy.
-Dawn
Those Without Shadows Begins
This post was originally published on thosewithoutshadows.com on 14.04.15.
Welcome friends and new readers! I hope that this story will means as much to you as it does to me. This one has been long coming down the pipeline and now we’ve finally arrived at a release! Things might be a little buggy as we work things out and the updates will be a little slow while we’re still programming some things on the back-end, but here it is! Please look forward to the story!
Those Without Shadows is a tale that I’m calling a “composite media narrative”, which is to say a story which is told with many creative devices at work. Stories are often defined based on the medium of their publication. While I toyed for a long time referring to Those Without Shadows as a “browser novel”, that removes the aspect of interactivity that is pivotal in the storytelling. While there are several stories like this on the internet, there has not (as far as I know) been a term chosen for tales like this. Often they default to calling themselves “webcomics” because there is a strong visual element comparable to a comic, and published on a browser. Those Without Shadows is more like a novel than a comic, and too interactive to be called a novel. It is a composite media narrative. I can’t decide if I’d rather shorten it to “comena” or “webcomp”.
Please enjoy this not-so-new concept with a shiny new name.
-Dawn
Animal Boyfriends (Dandelion, by Cheritz)
Probably the funniest thing that’s ever happened to me in a video game.
Nameless ~ The One Thing You Must Recall Review
Perhaps one day I’ll be caught up enough on all the games I want to play that I can review things that are new? But probably not. Nameless ~ The One Thing You Must Recall was released in English in November 2013 by Cheritz. It is an Otome dating game where your five bachelors are actually the main character’s collection of ball-jointed dolls.
There’s an aesthetic/personality type for everyone! Unless you’re into Fifty Shades.
Nameless is a bit more visual novel than dating sim. It’s a railroad text-heavy tale that has some selections that steer your relationships in certain directions, rewarding you with different endings, both good and bad. The stats are invisible relationship points per character rather than including other stat-based requirements like in Hatoful Boyfriend or Dandelion, Cheritz’ other work. In exchange for customization and exploration, Cheritz gives us an interesting story with great characters that is remarkably long. My playthrough clocked in at over 50 hours, a number I haven’t seen outside of an RPG. (Unless you count Hato, which I’m not, since I did an LP. That’s cheating.)
5 Reasons Not To Get Too Hyped About the Final Fantasy VII Remake (And 2 Reasons Why You Should.)
The time has come at last, the time that I had been hoping would never come. The arrival of the announcement of the Final Fantasy VII remake.
Don’t get me wrong. I am a huge Final Fantasy fan. I grew up playing the games and they inspired me to become the creator that I am. Final Fantasy VII was not my #1 (VI and IX are tied for that slot) but it was dear and precious to me and has influenced me in countless ways. As a result I am a huge obnoxious snob about this game and other retro Final Fantasy games, so an actual remake announcement left me with a sinking feeling. I wonder if other fans of the original have forgotten the sins done to the game since Sakaguchi was removed? I have come to remind you:
Stephen King, The Dark Tower V
Doujinshi – Doubt by Moriar-tea
Doubt is a beautiful Dangan Ronpa fanbook by denpasei, formerly known on tumblr as moriar-tea. This comic contains many spoilers for Danganronpa 2, so I’m going to put it under a readmore here for people who haven’t played the sequel yet.
TCAF & Fancomic Reviews
A friendly reminder that I’ll be mooching some table space from the lovely Anayte Delahay, one half of the creators of Feral Gentry, at TCAF next weekend. Please come visit me to peek at Broken Birds and let me talk to you about Those Without Shadows.
Since reading lots of Doing in the Wizard and making my own doujinshi I’ve decided to take up doing some fair zine and fancomic reviews. It’s going to be a tricky thing since a lot of fancomic makers are little people having fun and I don’t want to crush any dreams or anything, so I’m going to need to think hard about how to make a review that’s truthful without being mean. Hopefully you’ll be seeing some of these in the coming weeks as I review books that I already own. The focus will be on English-language publications.
Two Releases
As I mentioned last time I’ve been working on a few things. One is Broken Birds, a Hatoful Boyfriend doujinshi about Nanaki and Yuuya. It’s been officially released on Gumroad for $2 as a PDF. You can pick it up here: https://gumroad.com/l/brbrds
Secondly, Those Without Shadows is live.
It would mean a lot to me if you could check it out!