Darking from the Barkness

shit posting, vn posting and kengo simping since 2019

[yeenthebin]

healing burns at home cuz hospital too expensive

[ark-barkness]

And the 3rd song

https://youtu.be/wKiriOAFUWY?si=ckf3KAF3aVMPdqYR

gonna answer just this one to avoid spamming, but thank you kind sir, I shall listen to this

[ark-barkness]

Ayo bark, you care if i send you vocaloid songs that I think fit Tora and Yuki.

You sure can :)

[ark-barkness]

Vague posting in case you haven't read the latest Tennis Ace update, but just in case, spoilers ahead ⚠️

So it's been more than a week since Haruki's latest update was released to the public

I hadn't checked what people thought about it since I've been hella busy with irl stuff but honestly, I didn't expect to see so many negative comments about it 👀

The main criticism from what I understand is that it feels both rushed, and out of character for Yuuichi and Haruki, but I can only agree with the former.

My only issue with Haruki's route is that it's such a slow burn on some updates, but 0 to 100 on others, which can make the pacing feel all over the place.

But out of character? Not at all, especially not for Yuuichi. It's a really common Yuuichi trait to jump into action without thinking, only to really think about his own feelings or the consequences after everything calmed down.

On the other hand, it's interesting to see Haruki's attitude during this update, as it flipflops between old Haruki and the new Haruki. The aggressive Haruki that does questionable things, and the one that takes a long ass train ride just to make sure Yuuichi is okay and he didn't cross a line.

They definitely need to talk about what happened in this update, Yuuichi conveniently leaves for a tennis tournament right at the end of this update, so that'll have to wait. Overall though? I still enjoyed this update

Would love to hear your thoughts!

[ark-barkness]

yes, I'm late, deal with it

Happy late Valentine's day guys!

Cherish your friendship and relationships. No matter if they're romantic, platonic or anything in between.

[ark-barkness]

To this day Darius Maynor remains the best written character in Extracurricular Activities.

He might not be my favorite character, and I might find him annoying most of the time, but man... once you get to see the real Darius in his route, Spencer's and oddly enough, the Halloween non-canon special, he becomes a really enjoyable, almost tragic and really charismatic character that puts other people's feelings and needs in front of his own, hiding behind an unbothered slut façade.

I'll try to go more into detail in another post but I just gotta give praise when it's due.

You know, for someone who claims to not like ExAc, I sure make a bunch of posts about it...

[ark-barkness]

Wait why was raincheck put on hiatus? Everything ok with the author? (Haven't been keeping up to date with the vns i read)

As far as I know, a combination of lack of motivation after the shadowban on itch.io last year, and Radcanine being busy with irl stuff.

But according to the last announcement on Patreon, the VN is still being developed, albeit at a slower pace.

[ark-barkness]

Rou being written off Javier's route and reappearing only at the very end, and being stabbed at the beginning of his own route before the VN went on a hiatus is low-key funny

We just can't get Rou content

[ark-barkness]

Okay, I'm a big fan of the sprites rework made for the main cast (silently praying they don't rework Yuuichu though, he's just perfect already) but I have to ask one question... was it necessary to give Keisuke a fat ass?

[ark-barkness]

Geez Louise my game is becoming self-aware

[ark-barkness]

Hello :3 since you like a lot of furry visual novels... I'd like to hear your opinion on Morenatsu, both the og and Homecoming if you ever played any of them.

Oh boy, I played Morenatsu OG years ago and most of my memories are a bit fuzzy, so pardon me if what I say next doesn't make much sense...

⚠️ Long post ahead, and some major spoilers for Morenatsu, specifically Juuichi's route ⚠️

Morenatsu was one of the first visual novels I ever read, back when our only options were this one, Nekojishi, Lagoon Lounge and the first steps of Extracurricular Activities.

My favorite character was of course Torahiko Oshima, he checks most boxes in my favorite archetype bingo:

✅ Tiger

✅ Himbo

✅ Childhood Friend

❌ Route finished

...right

Imagine being the mascot of the game, the one that jumpstarts the whole plot, and the obvious best choice for Hiroyuki, and still being one of the few characters that doesn't have a route

To add salt to the wound, if you want to complete Juuichi's route, you need to break his heart, my boy cannot catch a break.

Despite that, I have fond memories of playing Morenatsu. The characters, ambience, OST, and even the plot are all really interesting.

I remember the ending for Juuichi's route. There's this part where Juuichi gives Hiro his jacket before he gets on the bus that will take him back home, and I'm not gonna lie, the part where Hiro can feel Juuichi's heat being cool down by the air conditioner made me sad back then. He was really one, if not the best character.

Regarding Homecoming/Revisited, I played a couple updates, but since the updates were so spread out I ended up moving onto other VNs. I don't think I'll be retaking it any time soon.

At the end of the day, Morenatsu is a VN that I only have good memories of (especially because I skipped all controversial content) and I still have some tracks from their OST on my playlist. Still, it's a shame the project was cancelled before Torahiko could have a proper ending.

[ark-barkness]

Honestly with how many vns you've read. Would you ever make your own? And if you did, what genre would you fall upon?

I would love to write my own furry vn! I definitely toyed with the idea, but it requires a lot of time and resources that I don't have, and I'm not by any means a writer.

Let's think for a second that I'm somehow able to pay for artists, someone who either teaches me how to code on renpy, or someone that does it themselves, then I think I would like to write a mystery visual novel.

One of the many reasons why I love the mystery genre is because you can't help but reread (or rewatch, replay, etc) to see how many clues were obvious from the beginning, plus the satisfaction from seeing one of your theories being confirmed is so goddamn satisfying. This is one of the reasons why I like posting my theories about Shelter, and this is one of the reasons why I was so excited about the release of Rain Check.

I don't know how well this can translate into a furry visual novel, that's probably one of the reasons why the genre never took off in the community, but one can dream 😁

[ark-barkness]

Dozens of furry visual novels go into long hiatuses before inevitably being cancelled or abandoned, sometimes for situations that their devs cannot control, and it's always sad because lots of them had great potential.

When Stars Fall was a VN that for its only build, had a lot of branching paths, including 2 hidden ones and some easter eggs that, if you were not following a guide, were difficult to bump into.

It followed Marcus Carver, a human with amnesia (yeah cliche, I know, but 9 out of 10 VNs had amnesiac humans back then) that wakes up in a fantasy world. Long story short, no matter what you choose, you will end up in "The Academy", which is basically a school for adventurers.

His first interaction is with Silas Teigland who, I kid you not, is one of my favorite characters from any furry visual novel. Silas is actually one of the reasons why I like fox sonas so much.

This VN was probably too ambitious with its premise, it had branches inside its branches, but with no doubt, had a great potential and it still hurts it had to be cancelled. If you want to check it out, its only build is still available on itch.io

I recommend you give it a try, even if there won't be any future updates, at least you'll get to meet Silas Teigland 😍

[ark-barkness]

Even Eric can be funny once in a while. I love his loyalty to Spencer though, because part of him is definitely being serious in this scene... we're gonna ignore the scene that can take place almost immediately after if you were a pervert during this route 😬

[ark-barkness]

A theory I had since Dawn Chorus first released is that the canon route is Rune's, even though I know he's not exactly the most popular character right now.

⚠️ Spoilers for Dawn Chorus ahead ⚠️

Of course most of my theory is based on the fact that at the beginning of the game, both on the old version and the rewritten one, Arvo fantasizes about Rune before even meeting him.

Rune has a really bad time throughout the game, he loses his phone, which had all the music he had been working on, he's benched on the basketball team, and most importantly, he's not selected for an exchange program he was really excited about.

In my opinion his route theme can be interpreted as "some things are not meant to happen", because as we know, Rune works himself to the bone for the things he wants.

This contrasts in an interesting way to him meeting Arvo. How likely it is that you admire a jock who seems intimidating and unapproachable (Rune's own words), a jock that you had sexually fantasized about, and one day instead of sitting and talking with your friends, you decide to strike a conversation with him, and he turns out to be not only a really sweet guy, but also someone who feels lonely and could really use a friend.

Arvo and Rune's friendship and potential relationship is already something unlikely to happen, and yet it does. We know Rune receives the bad news no matter what route you're playing, but he's so scared to be seen as someone weak that he doesn't open up to Devon, his only friend, he instead will only show his vulnerability to Arvo, who he only met less than four days ago.

In my opinion this works more naturally than Mikko's route, since I believe his character arc should be more focused on closure, or the fact that sometimes you don't get closure.

But again, this is a theory based on the fact that Arvo has a wet dream involving Rune before meeting him. You're welcome to disagree, since none of this is confirmed 😼

[ark-barkness]

Have you tried asleep?

I'm gonna need a bit more context, but the answer is probably not

[ark-barkness]

SPOILERS FOR SHELTER FOR OTHERS

Jesus. Seeing Barry's memories. Wasnt expecting him to be a literal scholar genius while also being so full of sin. All of his siblings... (Also I've never watched but but man it gives me heavy full metal alchemist vibes)

That is one of my favorite things about Shelter. The tragic barkstories not only provides the barkground of the dogs, it also shows how different they were before meeting Luke, while also explaining their undying loyalty to him.

Absolutely Cinema, as the kids say