The history of visual novels in Russia. To the “endless summer”

The Russian Game Industry is not the best times, and this is a universally recognized fact. A slightly different, but no less deplorable situation occurs in it with an industry of visual novels – we do not have so many high -quality projects that are able to compete with the Japanese, but even to get closer to “Infinite summer“. But few of you know that the “endless summer” was not the first full -fledged visual novel created by Russian -speaking authors. Today we will go into the past and get acquainted with the oldest novels produced in Russia. Fasten the belts, we take off!

Once again, to talk about where such a specific genre originates from fromVisual novel“, We do not see the point. Moreover, we already have a whole cycle of videos on this topic. Similarly, it makes no sense to talk about what contribution “Endless Summer” has made to the development of domestic game construction. Let’s move to the end of the nineties when Russian -speaking players slowly mastered the worldwide web. Around the same time, the series began to gain popularity among the child population “Pokemon“Who was shown at ORT, But they cut off, one might say, on the most interesting episode for unknown reasons. Perhaps it was at this time that the first large anime scores, festivals, especially active users of personal computers began to emerge and began to timidly get acquainted with the previously unprecedented genre. There are no more detailed chronicle of those years.

And now – a small check for the Oldfall. Do you remember such pirate offices as “Fargus” And “Akella“? It is possible that yes. Rumors that these organizations have been branches of each other for a long time. Another unconfirmed information says that after the closure of Fargus, some of its translators went to work in the new Akellla unit called “Flight of the navigator“, Which was engaged in the implementation and distribution of pretentious quality games. If you believe information from the foreign base of visual novels Vndb, This sub-public is involved in the release of such a monster in 2006 as “The first Russian anime-crop“Under the name”Book of the Dead: Lost Souls“. In addition to the “flight”, a certain studio also indicates in the column “developers” I Turned Into a Martian!, Nothing is known about the activities of which on the Internet-it is possible, because in the future it is reorganized into something else. But let’s not run too far forward.

What was the first officially documented visual novel of Russian production? She was not a masterpiece, but could pleasantly surprise with graphics, something similar to Japanese, as well as atmospheric music and sounds. As for history, but it is not so impressive, even if it is executed by references to Howard Lovecraft, But purely out of sports interest, you should get acquainted-after all, the first domestic short story. Maybe in some places underestimated, but this is normal – there was always a special attitude towards anime in Russia ..

And here we will make a small twist, since we need to reveal the other side of the early Russian visual novel. In addition to the brilliant works of Lovecraft, enthusiasts were not already disdained to interpret the Japanese pornoaltics. So, in 2008, Dodzinxi-Ninella appeared “Conscious distortion»Based on the legendary series Neon Genesis Evangelion. Of course, there was no question of any commerce – a short film adaptation of the fan fiction was created by forum users Evangelion Not End And posted it online. However, with one game, the authors obviously did not want to limit themselves;Their stream of consciousness more than two more novels, interconnected by a single plot, as well as skillfully – by the then standards – operating the canonical images of the characters of the “Evangelion”. Here is a brief description of the trilogy with a miracle of the preserved site of the authors:

“A series of games consists of three parts united by a common plot, which originates in the 16th series of the original series, when Shinji falls into the shadow of the angel Lelia. From this moment, a ball of dark and confusing stories begins to unfold, which are rooted in the 90s, a few years before the second blow.”

Of course, the developers were not only inspired by the “Evangelion” – some gameplay chips were spied in the universe Silent Hill, And it was precisely because of them that many players had certain difficulties with passing. No less impressively sounded the music from the short story that a person wrote in the group of the VK project signed as “Akira Yamaoka 2.0“. Some of his developments for “distortion” sounded in the release of the program ”Man and the law»From March 1, 2013. Can this be called an achievement? I don’t know, I don’t know. The authors themselves consider their work completely completed and do not deny that everything described could happen between the 16th and 17th series of the original series.

Let’s get back to Akella. Rather, to the games from her wards of studios. Without making bitterness from the “Book of the Dead”, I Turned Into a Martian! take a break, and in 2007 they return under a new brand – Dreamlore Games. And in the appendage they present the short story “Red cosmos“, For the promotion of which a rather aggressive advertising campaign was deployed. On the cover of the DVD edition of the game, a proud verdict flaunts from the popular in the zero magazine “The country of games“, As if hinting that every self -self -respecting anime.

And, in fairness, it is worth recognizing that in comparison with the “Book of the Dead”, the developers significantly pulled their skills and were able to use them in a new creation. They also did not open from the first pancake – in one of the plot scenes of the Red Cosmos there is a fairly noticeable reference to it. But what is the new Dreamlore project so hooked domestic journalists?

The plot of the game sent us far to the future, where we will plow the open spaces of the immense cosmos on Soviet shuttles. And while the Earth calmly and peacefully exists, outside its borders between the two fractions, the USA and the USSR, fierce battles for each comet, an asteroid, and sometimes whole planets are underway.

“During a skirmish with superior enemy forces, the light frigate“ Yuri Andropov ” – on which the game takes place – is forced to retreat from the battlefield on the command of the command and hide in the hyperspace. The damaged ship is in the poorly studied sector of space, where something strange begins to happen with the exhausted and desperate crew. Namely – a computer game!”

- reads a description of the game on her official website.
The main problem of the game is dialogs. They are unbearably boring;Even the scattering of famous dubbing actors do not pull them out with their variety of emotions. Graphically, at that time, “Red Cosmos” did not look so bad, but it was stylistically like a mixture ”Star track” And “Star Wars“. By the way, does it seem to you that the developers scooped up from here Mass Eff … yes, not, nonsense! In general, despite a bunch of problems, both technical and plot, and with graphics, especially “red cosmos” was quite warmly met for the Bezrybeye, who was reigning in the Russian -speaking segment in those days in the absence of sound competition between the authors of graphic novels. Come out now, he would probably have been waiting for the fate of, say, games from Dagestan Technology – We think they understood the essence.

The next 2008 year was a turning point for the culture of anonymous imageboard, because it was then that a group of visitors to Yuchan gathered to create “Eroge with Muscles“, And a little earlier abroad, on 4Chan, The team formed 4leaf Studios. But there were several more years before the releases of their projects.

In the same year, according to the official catalog of games on the engine Ren’PY, The first Russian-speaking game on it-a novel-victor “came out”Then hee: remember everything. Victorin for survival“. Despite the declared genre of the visual novel, at first it really justifies it, but almost immediately the protagonist meets the heroines of the comic book “To & hi“Who take turns asking him questions. It is advisable to answer correctly, otherwise it will not end in anything good. In this case, the short story justifies its original name – “Victorin for survival”. But periodically between questions they will slip scenes of the interaction of girls both among themselves and with the player. The ending of the game will depend on the degree of involvement, as well as sympathy for each of the characters – in principle, a familiar scheme, plus everything is not like that and new. The minus, perhaps, is that this quiz is designed mainly for those who are familiar with the first-first comic book. True, this did not prevent reporters from warming it during the show at Voronezh anime festival 2009, as well as to find another project in the future – now more similar to a visual novel.

Returning to the topic imageboard. At the end of the zero what Dual, What Yuchan, experienced a stormy flowering of their popularity. Many fores, memes, masks and other folklore, today everywhere everywhere used by the younger generation that did not find those “golden” years, came from there precisely. From there, the mini-games that entered in 2010 in the collection reached the present day IICHAN CLASSIC FOND. At different times, the hands were attached to their creation, noted as “infinite summer” co-authors, in particular, IRABU, Cun artist And Lolbot. Separate mention will probably deserve mini-games UVAO 1, UVAO 2 And UVAO Forever, which is the adaptation of the very fan fiction, subsequently and gave rise to Girl-cat from the southeastern administrative district of the city.

But there was another attempt to create a visual short story purely for his own, under the name Project Namae. The artist-kun, lolbot and also, most likely, were also involved in its creation, Maxim Smolev. The development of the project was carried out at the turn of 2007 and 2008, but very quickly curled up for unknown reasons. After the drain of the draft in 2009, it became clear that many of the ideas migrated in the end in Erog with Muscles, the development of which started on May 14, 2008. But this is not even important in this whole story, but the very fact that in the next few years Dual And Yuchan gathered around them the entire progressive audience, which one way or another observed abroad novels, not forgetting to follow the local ambitious project. But we will return to this topic. In general, it turns out that even trying to abstract from the “endless summer” in this story, we involuntarily mention it again ..

But let’s return to the official Russian https://24-casino.uk -speaking short stories. In 2009, Dreamlore Games, like Akella’s parental enterprise, was not the best time in its short but rather bright career. The publishing house suffered losses due to failure localizations of good games, as well as investing in an unofficial sequel of the series The Disciples. Dreamlore was also indirectly affected by the short -sightedness of Akella and its spontaneous misses, which was reflected not only on the quality of their new game, but also on sales. The third and, not surprisingly, the last project of the studio was the short story “Evgeny Onegin“. Young viewer will probably ask: have they really encroached on the holy? Almost.

Despite the fact that even in the main menu it is written that the game is based on a cult novel in verses written Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, We are offered a completely different, more strange story, similar to the nonsense of schizophrenic. The protagonist, in honor of which, apparently, was named the short story, comes to the uncle’s estate, the other day of the deceased, and almost immediately becomes a witness to some uniform insanity, turning into a crossover with the Turgenevsky “Fathers and children“. Doctor Bazarov, living in the estate of the Larins, along with the stepmother Tatyana Larina They conducted terrible experiments on zombie peasants … If briefly, at the exit instead of the plot, a certain substance turned out, which ends with fanfares and the inscription “Congratulations! You just killed Lensky!»At one of the endings. The graphics also look no less strange – the characters are not like the primary sources, and they are drawn very strange and incomprehensible. There is also a voice acting in the short story, but it is not worth talking about it – it is felt that the actors were not at all involved in the process, which is why they did not trite the roles assigned to them. In a word, “Eugene Onegin” is an indicative example of what middle -level gaming studios feel, while in agony, attack with the publisher. Dreamlore Games, having failed this release, quietly closed, and Akella, stretching for another two years and rehabilitated a little thanks to cooperation with Ubisoft, announced bankruptcy in 2012. After the case with Evgeny Onegin in our country, none of the professional gaming teams was no longer taken up for the development of projects in such a specific genre. The Dreamlore activity still remains a mystery. What it was: a banter over Japanese colleagues or a desire to earn easy money on hack?

As we noted above, about a hundred records on releases of various short stories in Russian until 2013 have been preserved in the foreign base of VNDB visual novels. Contrary to the desire of many of our viewers to pay attention to each of them, we want to note this: most of the short stories presented there do not fit into the genre frames according to various criteria. Often this is a transformation of some famous works like “Flying ship“From the studio”Locator” or “The other side of the fog»Based on the book Stephena King From the illustrator Alexei Galanova. Some novels regarding graphics or gameplay solutions do not fit into the genre, being for the most part quests or adventure. And some were completely erased from the memory of the Internet, and the mention on VNDB is all that remains of them.

But it is amazing at what rise began to enter the RUVN sphere in 2012-by the way, it was then that came out Katawa Shoujo and almost instantly reached the Russian -speaking reader in a completely translated form. The quality bar was raised much higher, and the authors had more extensive access to the Japanese classic of the genre, and indeed, the understanding of what it was from himself gradually came. True, not for everyone, and many still do not know how to create novels correctly.

The first competitions between developers-enthusiasts are slowly arise;In 2013, the Vanguard is getting up the event gaining the first audience “Micro“, Which has been well accepted and is still held every August. The first bloggers-recallers of short stories arise, among whom Terons And Himari, Later responsible for creating a site Anivisual.Net. The townsfolk begins to pay attention to the genre, but so far it is not as closely as it will be in the future.

The late Neolithic projects in the history of the development of Russian -speaking short stories include an unfinished game “Pink thread»On a series of comics of the same name from the artist IDLE ANTICS, “Tulpa: Games of imagination»From the author Mikhail Zinchenko, He Mideri; Winter Tale – The scriptwriter’s debut Dreamtale as part of the future Soviet Games, and in general in the field of writing novels;as well as a novel “Resonance 0“, Which, taking into account the amendments and reorganizations, is still under development. Probably, at each of these projects you need to stop at least briefly.

The “Pink Thread” is an experimental project based on the manga of the same name, which tells about the difficult relationship between the girl Larisa, The prototype of which served Dull-chan, And her friend Alice – It is easy to guess whose features she adopted.

“The heroine is waiting for a meeting with her past, and the school will not be the most common. But all this will be later. Now it is much more important for her to figure out what is happening with her heart. “

-This is how vaguely the annotation of the final alpha version of the novel, which saw the light on March 8, 2012, looks like this. The reasons why the author did not finish it, we are unknown, but it is worth noting that the manga still lives, and as of November 2018 there is more than seventy issues.

About “Tulpe”, in principle, has already been said a lot. This is a very gloomy mystical and psychological thriller about a schoolboy, because of the inability to be with her beloved classmate creating inside her subconscious Tulpu, endowed with her appearance and character. But you can’t joke with such things, and during the plot the protagonist understands this more than. The final of the story is sad, but it contains some tank for a continuation, which came out in the spring of 2015 under the name Your Endless Mind.

“Resonance 0″ is just part of the story that is still in the development of the team Promus Studio. Plus, we periodically report on the course of its creation in the news heading, so it is unlikely that it makes sense to even closely disassemble its very old version.

Winter Tale against the background of the presented short stories looks much closer to that short story that three years later will divide the history of the genre in Russia into two different periods. Largely, due to the fact that the same authors worked on it as the “summer”-however, the action of this small short story takes place on the eve of the main holiday of the year, in winter. Separate contrast give sprites that the artist worked on Arsenixc, as well as topics written Viruzz-Kun. The short story, recall, was the first serious scenario work for Anton Arkatova, He Dreamtale. Today he almost finished work on Love, Money, Rock’n’Roll, And then, in 2011, he also wrote lamp stories about the pioneer camp in another reality and tried to correct the flaws of previous scriptwriters “Eroge with Muscles”.

And then we got to the final part of our story – in fact, the release of the “endless summer”. The consequences of this event are well known to everyone: the general popularization of Russian -speaking short stories even abroad, hundreds of modifications of varying degrees of lousy, an influx of new authors, including artists, cosplayers, musicians and writers. And most importantly, but controversial, perhaps – this is the separation of the once unified team “Eroguev»For two parts, which are now engaged exclusively of their games. Since this stage has not yet ended, and did not appear on the horizon of the novel, which is close to the quality of at least BL, but as a maximum-to any classical Japanese history, we put not a point, but only a meaningful multi-area ..

The best comments

Infinite summer, eh … Honestly, I am neutral about this game, but not to recognize the fact that it can wake up, of course, certain feelings cannot be denied. Since the infinite summer is an attempt to show an alternative, let a short but desired alternative to the present in which a person can live. And the main thing is that it does is sending the hero to the past, as if restoring the opportunity, the opportunity to catch up, reveal the feelings that I felt before. As for me, health and sincere love, another, yesterday, you will not buy someone else’s person for any money. And the game is just about this, it is, as it were, about love, about the first experiences and and all that.
But over time, you understand that a lot of screens or just stupidity, and over time, the need for Lyubovi disappears if it does not disappear at all. This is bad, and others affect this, and you yourself help you. So it turns out, and nothing can be done. After all, even I realized over time that this is not necessary, and even my craving for another person is a shoot from the essence of which I am. Eh ..

It’s strange, you come here, try, you write a blog about the short stories, and such a monster comes to you in the commentary and something is rubbed there in a slurred. Hmm, it happens. I hope you are a decent person and your blog will gain a mountain of pluses, yes.

Hello, but what about the epic “Stalin vs. Martian”? Dreamlora closed only a few years later (and revived not so long ago).

The Dreamlore activity still remains a mystery. What it was: a banter over Japanese colleagues or a desire to earn easy money on hack?

I would not say that on the visual novels in the zero you could earn easy money, even on hacks, although no, it was still a very specific genre. Regarding Dreamlore-definitely, all their activities are one big stem (just look at their website and sites of their projects, this is delightful) + judging by what is known about the studio, it consisted of people who already worked in the game sphere in parallel, so that the Dreamlore was unlikely to be the main.

OSS, again condemned with fact, “Stalin against Martians” was released in April, “Eugene Onegin” was released in September. Strange, it was postponed in my head that on the contrary.

I look at these screenshots, and I think why it looks so familiar. Then I remembered, because I played a miracle on Java, the devil knows when and even passed, lol

Also, the Evangelion Not End port was also on Java, but I did not play in it because in principle, in principle, I was not a sign

But what about the “non -Japanese” visual novels? Leviathan: The Last Day of the Decade turned out to be very original both in style and in everything else. In general, the phenomenon for this genre in Russia, as for me.

True, she came out in the same period as the “summer”, as far as I remember.

It is also worth noting that they reorganized in Kremlincorp – Infa about this, including on their new site. When a video version of the article was created, it was also taken into account.

I do not cease to catch Keki from the fact that the infinite summer was originally planned as Erog with masks, which can now be found only in mods.

There are plans to tell about Leviathan in another material that will affect the already domestic short stories after BL. When it will be, I do not presume to predict.

I, too, remember, the first thing I went to this route – the girl is quite stagnant, and if you play passively, it is easy to go to her. As for the choice at the very beginning: he seems to roam in several rubles and in true ending, if it is already open. Here the exit to the ending depends on the three factors:
1. The number of points score. The game has a hidden counter that gives or takes one score from a certain girl for a certain choice. I scored more than 6 – an exit to its root opens, did not get 9 – there will be a bad ending. Sometimes the elections contradict: if you refuse to argue with Alice, for example, you will get a score from Lena, but you will lose from her.
2. Choice in a key fork. The game has several fork, like a campaign at the end, the choice in which leads to different routes (in the presented example, you can go to Lena, Glory and Ulyana, if I remember correctly).
3. The number of open endings. Not all endings are available by default (the same Ruth Miku will not open on the first passage).

The first text review, which was interesting to read from the chal and to the end, plus learned something new. Respect)

The first time I went through this short story, I had the same impressions.
Of course, knowing that there were all kinds of “red cosmos” before her, she still seems like a small masterpiece.

I bought a disc “Red Cosmos”. Then I even liked it, but this was my first visual novel! Now it looks complete UG in terms of the plot, dialogs and drawings.

Oh, here you’re right: I have a heart of my heart when passing the group of SG Ruta Miku/Masha. And their ruts were printed in memory.
Yes, moreover, recently for a pickup (I just had an advertisement, it is itself!1) I saw a post in which the guy wrote that he had recently experienced several very difficult events (like the family died), and he found comfort in, pam-pam, endless summer. As a result, he earned dependence on him, especially Miku, and could not come to terms with the fact that the world is unreal and he could not get there.
In short, BC really knows how to hook for the living.

Well, BL is not so straight and high -quality, of course, the music and the visual there are really chic, but the script came out rather graphomaniac and in some places ridiculous, this act of Lena in a bad ending simply came out of anything and looks pretty tinted, given that at the end it was shown quite a bold one at the end. And if you rummage on the internet and find snatches of the early version of Hentai scenes with text, you can do not care about your voice so good. The typical problem of short stories with routes also annoyed, when you constantly have to squeeze for a long time until the moments that I have not read, and unique for each route only 2 last days, which is not very. Perhaps really, against the background of the RUVN, it looks very good, but against the backdrop of Japanese short stories and katava, it loses greatly in scenario

In general, Russian, and indeed, the CIS-Ov, introduction of that period has a common feature-they, damn it, almost never lived before the release! Demos were produced, and then Bryak-and Tyu-Tyu.
I remember, for many years I have been waiting for the “already about” the release of the “Lesoor”, based on East Slavic fairy tales, but in some kind of technomagic setting:/

I believe that it can be mentioned in the future material and the work of a fairly good author of Mitredel, namely, his magnum vene is a cycle about demonologists, which began in 2013, “6 nights in Chernavsky”. In my personal opinion, these short stories are TOP-1 in terms of the quality of the text (but not always in the quality of the plots, although this is already a taste) among Russian short stories.