A recap, in case any of you are even more out of it than I was: there’s an Aniblog Tourney happening. That’s right, bitches, aniblog.

“This is the first time!!! SO EXCITED” scream countless aniblogosphere sycophants. But no, sadly, this is not the first time. We had the Anime Blog Awards in 200…8? Lemme check my sidebar. Ah yes. Best Satire Blog 08. To give credit where credit is due, there are two original things about this Aniblog Tourney: first, it’s sucking on Jason’s cock by being set up in a sports-esque bracket (which Josh so kindly SGML-ized); second, I’m not in it.

Am I bitter? Fuck no! Being excluded from this sham of democracy is the best thing that’s happened to me all month!

This also means that I can kibitz from the sidelines with impunity. I won’t look like a narcissistic whore and I won’t look like an emo loser! I’ll just be me, you know, just be me. And then no one be judging me, except me.

All this said in various shades of verbal irony, I shall now move right along to the first round of the Aniblog Tourney without further ado.

My picks are winning for now, but will it all be meaningless in the end?

Every day, two pairs of blogs are voted on. Today, it’s… well, you see the names in the above-srced image. Calamitous Intents and The Cart Driver are winning so far today. This is good, because those are the two blogs I voted for. Why did I vote for them? Funny you should ask!

I voted for Calamitous Intents because that’s where Choux resides. For those not in the know, Choux is a lovely lovely artist who did the female character designs of CCY-senpai wa 17sai. Yes, this is a plain case of personal bias. What? How much did she charge me for the artwork? Zero dollars. Fuck, this looks like corruption in action. So much for democracy!

As for The Cart Driver, I was unfamiliar with the blog prior to today. I was also unfamiliar with its opponent, Sekijitsu, but the choice was pretty easy to make after a quick peek at both sites. First, Sekijitsu has about 600 pixels of the HTML equivalent of drivel before you actually get down to business and read their posts. That’s a big no-no in my book. To make matters worse… well, I’ll let the blog speak for itself:

Do you remember what I said about the originality of the Aniblog Tourney earlier in this post?

Okay, okay, so something can be 100% unoriginal and still be epic, but this is really pushing it.

Moving right along, The Cart Driver is… well, you remember how Code Geass R2 ended? Remember how a certain Mike was orgasming over the idea of Lelouch still being alive at the end? Remember how, grasping for whatever straws he could, he came up with a 4chan rumor that zomg the cart driver is Lelouch!! ? Yeah. The Cart Driver is that cart driver.

Negative points in my book, but said aniblog quickly shoots to the top of my list of good blogs due to the number of pixels between the top of the page and the first post (maybe 100? something sexy like that). All this pored over, The Cart Driver carts home an easy win.

Am I suggesting that my votes are important in any way?

I suppose I am. Please forgive me, oh aniblogospeers.

P.S. just for the record, if rankings in the Aniblog Tourney are primarily based on blog age, how is notdotq not even featured? I was around before half of the participant blogs. ghostlightning? You gotta be kidding me.

Click the thumbnail to see Sixten’s blog post.

As for CCY17 progress on my end, er, school just started. I have an essay due Thursday so I’m not even worrying about visual novels right now.

Will update soon~

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.

=-= This Friday, July 31st =-=
I will release version 0.1 of my visual novel CCY-senpai wa 17sai, a satirical epic featuring our beloved eternally youthful senpai CCY. Last version released was version 0.04, in which I introduced a ton more story and some background images.

This version will bring many new things to the table.

1. The first smatterings of Sixten’s contributions to the game. CCY’s sprite will be present in every scene, and one of the backgrounds is Sixten’s.

2. Music. lelangir transcribed some anime music, so we have suitably annoying midi backgrounds.

3. More story. Lots more story. More branching, more options, more bad ends, more good ends.

4. Character art from Choux: five beautiful character sprites to liven up the game’s scenes.

And there’s more… touched up dialogue, improved ending notes, credits, an opening, and, well, more. I won’t enumerate it all here. But there will be a changelog when I release the game this Friday. It’ll be good.

This is a major leap forward from last release.

And remember: this won’t be a final version of the game. It’s still very much unfinished. There will be more releases as I make suitable progress in the future. Continued community feedback throughout the game’s development is crucial to a good final product, so please: play every release and comment in as much depth as possible!

Thank you, and look forward to Friday.

Damn. What a manly man.

I continue to be very pleased with Sixten’s work.

If any of you are as pleased as I am, feel free to help fund this artwork.

The full portraits can be found at Sixten’s site, with on-the-mark character descriptions he wrote himself. [ Baka-Raptor | Scott ]

So far I am quite pleased with Sixten’s work.

If any of you are as pleased as I am, feel free to help fund this artwork.

I do not believe shirking the responsibility of paying for this artwork is acceptable. However, it’s a hefty blow to me to just dish out a few hundred dollars.

As such, I am accepting donations.

See, normally, with art as good as what Sixten’s, I’d pay him out of my pocket and then sell the game, and make this disgusting thing called a profit. I’m not interested in that profit thing, and I’m not interested in making anyone pay for my game. It will be distributed for free at every stage in its development. That’s a promise.

And because I’m not making money off of it with which to recover from paying Sixten, I ask those of you in the target demographic (anime bloggers) who may or may not have five dollars, ten dollars, twenty dollars lying around to spend on a bit of entertainment, to spend those spare dollars on a bit of entertainment.

Lest you think I am trying to shift the entirety of the payment onto the community, think again: I have shifted the donation count up by $100: I am only asking for donations for the remaining two thirds. (The extra 20 dollars are from an anonymous benefactor, who shall remain anonymous unless he or she desires otherwise.)

• • Donations should be made via Paypal.
• • My account is dotq11@gmail.com .
• • If the deal with Sixten falls through, I will reimburse all donors.
• • If development of the game ends prematurely, I will pay Sixten personally and reimburse all donors.
• • If you need convincing that Sixten’s art is worth a couple of your dollars, see: Exhibit A / Exhibit B / Exhibit C / Exhibit D.

To all who contribute: thank you.

And finally: I have decided that this project will see fruition. I once joked that I was doing something dumb for fun and it wouldn’t go anywhere. The community spirit that subsequent “releases” of my game stirred up was gratifying; I felt, I should really deliver this. And then people began contributing things to the game. Choux made five amazing character portraits. lelangir sent me music to use. And so on. I can’t and won’t let the community down: I will complete this game.

Click for Sixten’s blog post.

Sixten continues to please with the male character designs for CCY-senpai wa 17sai. I quite like how my character turned out–it’s a welcome change of pace from most of this stuff.

And oh man, I’m looking forward to Owen.

The game contains 1046 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 11233 words,
for an average of 10.7 words per screen.
The game contains 17 menus.

Pretty sweet, passed the 1k screens marker.

Click for Sixten’s blog post.

Sixten is doing a fabulous job with the art for my game thus far. Our protagonist now has a sprite.