Touted as the world’s greatest, this game earns its feathers introducing eight ‘winnable’ birds and offering a total of 15 different endings. It tells the story of a young girl going to St. PigeoNation’s Institute, a school for human-level intellect birds.
The game features classic story branching, based on chosen activities and a simple stat system. In order to facilitate better interaction with the player, each bird is presented together with a humanized visualization during the first meeting.

The name Hatoful Boyfriend is a mixture of the English ‘heartful’ and the Japanese word ‘hato’ for pigeon. A demo version of the game was released in Japan in July 2011, offering a smaller number of characters and endings. An English translation patch for this free version was released several months ago.

Umineko no Naku Koro ni (literally ‘When the Seagulls Cry‘) is a popular murder mystery sound novel created by the authors of the equally famous Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. The story takes place in the year 1986 at a small, secluded island named Rokkenjima, owned by the head of a wealthy family. After a typhoon traps a number of visiting family members on the island, strange and deadly events start occuring.

The English fan translation of Umineko no Naku Koro ni has become well-known for having received official sanction from the original creator, Ryukishi07 of the doujin circle 07th Expansion. Having even a character in one of the episodes named after the group, the Witch Hunt were able to strike a deal with HOBIBOX to make the Japanese game available in the West through DRM-free download.

Over the course of the project the Witch Hunt have kept a very tight release schedule, releasing the translation of each episode before the following episode was released in Japan. For the last episode it took a year time before the full translation was released, the deadline eventually having been set to December 31, as 07th Expansion had announced it would then release a booklet with solutions to some of the puzzles and mysteries.

JAST USA Press Release: Adult PC Game “My Girlfriend is the President” Goes Golden Master

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

San Diego, California, Friday, November 18, 2011

JAST USA, the leading publisher of Japanese PC games in English, today announced the Golden Master status of My Girlfriend is the President, the latest “bishoujo game” collaboration between JAST USA brand JAST Densetsu and hit Japanese game developer Alcot. Golden Master is the final master before printing, putting the release of the game only a few weeks away.

My Girlfriend is the President is a fun and wacky visual novel full of cute girls, hilarious parody, and erotic romance. The player is Junichiro Hondo, who wakes up one day to find that the world has been transformed by aliens into a bishoujo paradise where cuteness is the ultimate authority. His childhood friend Yukino Ohama has become President of the United States of Nippon, who rules with overwhelming cuteness and a healthy dose of brainwashing. Will Junichiro be able to set the world right? Will he even want to?

My Girlfriend is the President is a multi-scenario romance simulation game with several endings to explore. Through their actions, players will be able to decide which of four cute and quirky girls Junichiro ends up with. Joining US President Ohama are Russian President Irina Putina (are these names starting to sound familiar?), Chief of Staff Ran Miyoshi, and a mysterious girl called Ell who just happens to be an alien starship in human form!

JAST USA president Peter Payne said, “There are thousands of dedicated fans of Japanese visual novels and bishoujo games around the world. When the fans let us know they really wanted us to license ‘President,’ we knew we couldn’t let them down.”

The official site, located at http://www.jastusa.com/president, contains character profiles, sample images, and more!

My Girlfriend is the President is suitable for adults 18 years and older, and is available for preorder now at the JAST USA website as well as other fine anime retailers, and is expected to ship in mid to late December of this year.

About JAST USA

Ever since the first computers with color displays, Japan has had a strong culture of “love simulation” computer games, which simulate emotional interaction between the player and various game characters when the player “wins” the love of a given character. PC love-sim games are also called visual novels, eroge, and sometimes “hentai” games by U.S. fans. JAST USA has been involved in licensing and translating Japanese dating-sim games since 1998, and is the leading producer and distributor of English-language PC games for adults in any form. The company has a catalog of over 50 English-translated games with every theme from maids to “cat girls” to “yuri” (female-female) and more.

Game titles are available to retail customers via http://www.jastusa.com or for wholesale customers at http://www.pcrdist.com/.

The Higurashi minigames offer a tongue-in-cheek parody story of the characters in the game, and were originally unlocked as the player finished different story arcs in the visual novel. All minigames are available in the translation, although it is recommended to play them in order.

The patch is released as a zip archive, with the latest ONScripter-En build for Windows included. Mac and Linux users are strongly encouraged to download the current version from the ONS-En project site. The patch requires a full installation of Higurashi 4, but should not be used to replace any English translation. It does however share the saves and settings with other patches by Sonozaki Futago-tachi, so that beating and/or unlocking minigames now will be remembered in future translation releases.

With artwork reminiscent of watercolor paintings, Quartett! is often described as ‘cute’ rather than an enticing feat of storytelling. Part of its appeal undoubtedly stems from its use of speech balloons instead of the usual bottom-screen text box, which together with an abundance of simple animations makes for a dynamic presentation. The game is however also renowned for its classical musical score, with the soundtrack spanning more than two hours in 47 tracks.

The Quartett! translation project, initiated by AstCd2 in mid 2006, started with some exploratory hacking and then eventually progressed to actual translation of the text. The large amount of time required to finish the translation patch is ascribed both to real-life issues and the difficulties with the advanced game engine. Some details remain untranslated, specifically some in-game menus and images.

The translation patch is designed to work with Standard Edition 1.0, which came shipped with the 2006 DVD re-release. The CD version can be upgraded to this version using an official patch from Littlewitch; instructions are available in the README file. The game is designed to work for older Windows operating systems, but appears to function in Windows 7 as well. Because Littlewitch ceased their production activities in December 2009, it has unfortunately become difficult to obtain a copy of Quartett! outside of Japan. The translation team suggests using auction sites, or buying in Japan.

The Witch Hunt has kept a track record of finishing their translations before the release of the next episode, so as to give fans a chance to read the game before discussions of the next chapter become widespread. No plans have been announced concerning the release schedule of the episode 8. The translation is released as a Windows installer, a Mac installer and a cross-platform zip archive. It is compatible both with the DVD version and the download version by HOBIBOX.

Umineko no Naku Koro ni (literally ‘When the Seagulls Cry‘) is a popular murder mystery sound novel created by the authors of the equally famous Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. The story takes place in the year 1986 at a small, secluded island named Rokkenjima, owned by the head of a wealthy family. After a typhoon traps a number of visiting family members on the island, strange and deadly events start occuring.

HOBIBOX have collaborated with 07th Expansion in the past to create a number of Higurashi audio drama CDs and mobile phone ports of the games, and they were responsible for creating the physical CD copies of MangaGamer’s Higurashi translation that were first made available at Anime Expo this year. The Witch Hunt has also had a special relationship with 07th Expansion, as the doujin group has publicly given full, official approval for their translation and even added a reference to the translation group in episode 4 of the game.

As is usual with games by 07th Expansion episode 4 also contains the first three episodes, while episode 6 includes both episode 5 and 6. Following episodes will be made available by HOBIBOX as their respective translation patches are released.

The all-ages story of Remember11 has both a male and a female protagonist, and in contrast to the other Infinity games it does not play out like a dating sim. Instead of several heroine routes, the game offers two perspectives on the same events.

Third-year psychology major Fuyukawa Kokoro, along with three others, is forced to take refuge in a mountain cabin after surviving a catastrophic plane crash in the middle of a snowstorm. In the cabin the group discovers a newspaper detailing the death of all passengers save one – with the newspaper dated six months in the future.

In a seemingly separated situation, quantum physics grad student Yukidoh Satoru is equally isolated by a snowstorm and experiences a life-threatening situation of his own. Someone, possibly even one of his three companions, is trying to have him killed. He and Kokoro find out that their consciousnesses have somehow become linked together, essentially causing control over their bodies to be swapped back and forth between them. Another discovery leads to even more questions about their predicament: Kusuda Yuni, the young boy reported to be the only survivor of the plane crash, is present at both locations.

Remember11 is reported to offer between 30 and 50 hours of gameplay. Information on where to buy the game is given at the project webpage.