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 would do a retrospective like lelangir did, but it wouldn’t be too interesting—every few points would be interspersed with “then lolikit gave up aniblogging in an emo rage fit, and closed down notdotq for five months.” Not that I ever stayed away for long, but…

… I do have a habit for, shall we call them, disappearances.

Instead of a retrospective, let’s do a highlights, and without dates, because I care more about the feelings than I do the historical accuracies:

- after one year of animeblogging, notdotq is born on wordpress.com, one of the handful of “first” anime blogs to use wordpress.com, along with jp meyer’s fairy tale of love and courage.

- Jason Miao promises to put notdotq on Blogsuki.

- Jason Miao removes newcomer RIUVA from Blogsuki, refuses to put notdotq on.

- Various bedraggled anibloggers realize that Jason is a cancer.

- Hung builds AnimeNaNo, invites Jason Miao.

- I start spreading my name by creating and maintaining the AnimeNaNo IRC channel. The community is thriving. Mr. Pippers is still an aniblogger.

- Jason still doesn’t join AnimeNaNo.

- So there are no killer lolis in Higurashi, mmmkay?

- Jason says that Japanese anibloggers are better than English-speaking anibloggers. Reason: graphs.

- Beginning of holy anti-Jason crusade.

- Oh by the way Haruhi sucks balls.

- I go to France, where I finish Fate/Stay-night and die a premature death due to suck. While in France, AnimeNaNo takes off like a flock of majestic birds, Japes becomes my friend, and Haruhi 12 blows me away.

- Hung, Japes, and Hinano–later, Japes’ girlfriend, now, his wife–start the AnimeNaNo podcast. Pips and I parody: podcast.dotq.org.

- wait, this is turning into a chronological recounting. SHIT.

Okay. Deep breath.

Here are my top ten moments in animeblogging.

#10. The founding of AnimeNaNo. Shit was so cash.

#9. Blogging Kyoushiro to Towa no Sora, Sola, and Aria the Origination with Shirukii.

#8. That time a newbie added me to her initial blogroll along with the big names–Jason, Jeff, Japes, Omo, etc.

#7. Baka-Raptor informed me that I was the king of trolls. (Or maybe it was ‘trolling king,’ either way.)

#6. Konoe and I enjoy many philosophical discourses over AIM, I publish these discourses (“on disagreement,” etc.), ghostlightning realizes that love needs explanation just the same as hate, various anibloggers begin defending their stances more rigorously, “lolikitean” invented.

#5. Kyousora.com is registered and built. My first exercise in hilarious satirical porn stories, perhaps the genesis of my visual novel project.

#4. Graphs. So fucking many of them. Everywhere. All the fucking time.

#3. When Jason stopped posting for three months. Hell yes. This was also when lots of people (ghostlightning, lolikappa, lelangir) were posting on notdotq. I was being extremely productive and the ‘sphere was looking happy.

#2. Miao on My Mind.

#1. So, CCY-senpai, I herd u were maiking a gaem?

I’m going to stop the nostalgia train here because I’m not being very coherent or classy. This was really just a poor excuse to post more.

Love and peace and rock my song,
-Dr. lolikitsune