That’s right, bitches. I’m releasing this one day early.

It all began one dreary November evening when I read a comment of CCY’s (“make ccy make a visual novel, the visual novel”) and opened Ren’Py. I began scripting and I never looked back.

Okay, that’s a lie. I’ve looked back many times. But never mind that. Now, I present to you the first major point release in my visual novel project CCY-senpai wa 17sai, henceforth referred to as simply “CCY17″ for convenience. This new version, in addition to the traditional expansion of the story, is packing character art, an improved background for the classrooms, several more bad ends, and music!

This version also heralds the arrival of the official CCY17 website:

http://not.dotq.org/ccy

There, you can find a changelog for this new version, download links, and more!

Now, I am asking three things of you:

1. Give me feedback. Lots of it. Whatever you can think of. Tell me what worked for you, what made you laugh. What didn’t work for you. Was the “Nice Ideeea” too annoying? Was “Ano Ko wo Rape” too long? Etc.

2. Spread the word. Tweet this announcement, post about it on your blogs, tell your friends, whatever. The more people know about the project, the more people play the game, the more feedback I get, the more motivated I am to deliver the next version sooner.

3. Donate. If you have a couple bucks to throw around, please consider helping me pay Sixten for his art. The game will always be free and I am not trying to make a profit—just to sink a portion of my costs.

That’s it—go download the game now.

Knock yourselves out, boys and girls!

Credits and special thanks abound in game and on the website, but I’d like to make some hollers here: Sixten and Choux, for their masterful art; lelangir, for his audio contributions; everyone who goaded me into releasing a day early (you know who you are); and everyone who has donated thus far (again, you know who you are).

A final note: I am still looking for community contributions to the project. Stray ideas, sounds, musics, and so on are more than welcome.

I’ll be participating in CCY-senpai’s 12 Moments project this year. I would have participated last year as well but I didn’t blog between August 2007 and March 2008. Ah well. Late to the party, but that’s fine by me.

Over the next twelve days, I will post once per day, doing a run-down of my favorite twelve moments in anime of this year. To qualify as “this year,” I just need to have seen the anime in question this year; its vintage doesn’t matter.

Here are a few rules I’ll be following for my posts:
1. nothing over 500 words
2. no links
3. minimum images
4. minimum metabloggery
5. no asshole jokes
6. no trolling

Hopefully these guidelines enforce some commonality between my twelve posts, and will keep the posts friendly and in the holiday spirit (rather than being in my usual hateful style). Oh, and there will obviously be lots of spoilers.