Tag Archives: relationships

Cover Games, Evenicle

Evenicle: Sex is Power

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It’s strange how certain memories — or fragments of memories, at least — stick with you, long after you’ve forgotten the original context. And yet they continue to be lodged in your brain somewhere, perhaps even colouring your own attitudes.

For me, one such memory is from — I believe, anyway — a childhood trip to the United States, and a TV show I happened to catch a snippet of shortly before I was supposed to be going to bed in the hotel room. I don’t precisely remember what the TV show was; I want to say it was LA Law, but I can’t find any reliable record of the scene I believe I remember to check.

The context doesn’t really matter. The thing that stuck with me was a single line that was part of a heated exchange between a man and a woman. “We had sex; we’re bonded for life.” And that’s a concept that’s very much come to the forefront of my mind since starting Evenicle.

This post contains some mildly NSFW images.

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Waifu Wednesday

Waifu Wednesday: Anniversary Special

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So, I wanted to do something a little bit different today, and I hope you’ll indulge me in a somewhat more personal post than usual.

Today is the third anniversary of my marriage to my wife Andie, you see, so I thought it would be nice to show her some appreciation, what with said anniversary falling on Waifu Wednesday and all. After all, what better waifu is there than an actual wife?

That was a rhetorical question!

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One-Shots

Supipara Chapter 2: With a Spring in Our Steps

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[Editor’s note: as of February 2019, it appears that unfortunately minori is ceasing operations. This article has been left in its original form as published in June 2018 to preserve the original intention behind the series, even if it will likely never happen now.]

It’s wonderful to see that minori’s ambitious Supipara project is moving along nicely.

As you may recall from when we explored the first chapter, Supipara is intended to ultimately become a series of five visual novels, all based around the same characters. Rather than taking the crowdfunding route a lot of current visual novel developers and localisers have been taking recently, developer minori has instead been ploughing its profits from sales of the existing Supipara chapters as well as its eden* project into development of the rest of Supipara.

It’s worth noting, however, that despite the series as it stands only consisting of two out of the five proposed chapters, each chapter stands very much by itself as a complete, self-contained story, and is well worth your time if you enjoy this sort of thing.

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One-Shots

Honey Select Unlimited: Let’s Talk About Sex

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Despite the fact that as you are reading this, someone somewhere is almost certainly enjoying an intimate moment of some description right now, sex remains the ultimate taboo in video games.

This is one of many reasons why I find it so endlessly fascinating that Japan, a nation whose society is not stereotypically known for being particularly open about such things, leads the way in terms of sexually explicit entertainment, be it interactive games or non-interactive formats such as anime and manga.

Up until now, our exposure to Japan’s thriving “sex game” industry in an officially licensed capacity has primarily been through eroge and nukige visual novels. But with Western hentai localiser and publisher Fakku’s partnership with Illusion, now everyone can get their hands on one of the most world-renowned “sex sims” out there: Honey Select Unlimited. It’d be rude not to take a peek, right?

NSFW warning: This article discusses strong sexual themes and features explicit imagery after the jump. If you read it at work and get caught, I accept no responsibility whatsoever!

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Features, MoeGamer Awards 2017

The MoeGamer Awards: Best Couple

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The MoeGamer Awards are a series of made-up prizes that give me an excuse to celebrate games, concepts and communities I’ve particularly appreciated over the course of 2017. Find out more and suggest some categories here!

I love the fact that modern gaming is such an interesting, broad medium that it is possible to even contemplate something like the idea of a “Best Couple”. When I think back to the earliest games I played, and their mechanics-centric, narrative-free, abstract representations of various concepts and consider how far we’ve come, I get very happy indeed. Not that there’s no value in those old games or indeed modern mechanics-centric narrative-free experiences, of course; it’s just nice we also have the option to immerse ourselves in more narrative-centric experiences such as visual novels now.

There were a number of excellent candidates for the title of “Best Couple” from the games I’ve played and written about this year. But the more I thought about it, the more I kept coming back to one pairing in particular, so it ended up being a fairly easy choice.

And the winner is…

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Cover Games, Nekopara

Nekopara: Staying True to Yourself

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As the Nekopara series has progressed, it’s clear that Sayori and the rest of the team at Nekoworks have become more comfortable and confident with these characters.

With each new installment, the series steps further away from the admittedly appealing initial novelty value of the main cast being catgirls, and further into stronger characterisation, including deeper exploration of the girls’ personalities, backgrounds and attitudes towards one another.

Nekopara vol. 3, the latest installment to be released at the time of writing (though a vol. 4 has already been confirmed), is the strongest episode to date, featuring some truly touching scenes, wonderful characterisation and, if you’re playing the 18+ version, it has to be said, some of the absolute hottest H-scenes in the series.

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Cover Games, Nekopara

Nekopara: Honesty is the Best Policy

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cropped-nekopara-header-1959547This article is one chapter of a multi-part Cover Game feature!
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Honesty is the best policy, as the idiom has it. And the further you delve into the Nekopara series, the more it becomes clear that this enjoyable series of visual novels is designed with this philosophy at their core.

Several of the Minaduki catgirls describe themselves as inherently honest (albeit whimsical) creatures, preferring to rely on their natural instincts and desires rather than indulging the distinctly human tendency to say one thing and mean another… though it comes more easily to some than others.

The rather deadpan Vanilla, who is explored in detail in the first volume of the series in particular, finds it very easy both to be honest — to an abrasive fault at times — and to encourage her peers to be honest with themselves.

Others such as Azuki and Coconut have a tougher time, however, and it’s this latter pair’s struggles with this concept that forms the backdrop to Nekopara vol. 2.

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From the Archives, Kira Kira, READ.ME

From the Archives: Kira Kira Hikaru

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Today I’d like to talk specifically about one of the narrative paths of Overdrive’s visual novel Kira Kira.

Specifically, I’d like to discuss Chie-nee’s path. There are spoilers ahead, so be warned if you’re planning on playing this. (And you should — it’s really rather good.)

This article was originally published on Games Are Evil in 2013 as part of the site’s regular READ.ME column on visual novels. It has been edited and republished here due to Games Are Evil no longer existing in its original form.

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