Author: Anne Lee

Fantastic Boyfriends Needs Your Help!

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It’s finally happening! Back at the beginning of April, I mentioned that I was working on the translation for a Japanese mobile game aimed at gay men titled Fantastic Boyfriends: Legends of Midearth. Well, the Indiegogo campaign just launched yesterday, and to get the full game localized into English, we need your help!

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As I mentioned on latest episode of The Nichiest Podcast Ever, Gordon is one of my favorite characters!

If you’d like to learn more about the game, head over to the Indiegogo page or check out the post I did last month. There’s also an English website, as well as a lovely NeoGAF thread made by a fan that is chock full of information! Even if you don’t have any spare change at the moment, word of mouth is really helpful, so please spread the word about this exciting project!

And, of course, by making a pledge toward Fantastic Boyfriends: Legends of Midearth, you’ll be helping to put food on my table, so don’t forget to leave a comment here so I can personally thank you! I’m sure I’ll be talking about this game a lot more over the coming weeks, so keep your eyes peeled for future updates.

Liebster Award: Strange and Fun Facts About Me

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What a pleasant surprise! My great pal and podcast co-host Bryan of The Gay Gamer has nominated me for a Liebster Award, an act of kindness designed to spread warm fuzzies around the blogging community. Part of the award requires you to answer 11 questions about yourself and share 11 interesting facts before nominating a few other bloggers to do the same (kind of like a nice chain letter!). Since I don’t get too personal very often on Chic Pixel, I thought it’d be a great opportunity for you all to learn a little more about me! Here we go…

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Splatoon Global Testfire Impressions

In a surprising turn of events, Splatoon, Nintendo’s brand new IP for the Wii U, is one of my most anticipated games of 2015. Why? I’d be lying if it wasn’t largely in part of the game’s amazing aesthetic, but the idea of a shooter based around paint guns instead of real guns is really appealing to this cute, peace-loving blogger. Though I was pretty much committed to picking up Splatoon day one, when Nintendo announced they’d be hosting a Global Testfire, I was more than happy to jump in on so I could give Splatoon‘s online multiplayer a spin.

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The Testfire was available for three one hour periods this past weekend, allowing players from around the world to play in online matches with a selection of four different weapons and two different maps. While Nintendo gave very little notice before the Testfire commenced, I was able to play during the first session, which started at 1 pm Saturday Australia time. I’m pretty helpless when it comes to shooting games, both first and third person… but even though I only won the very last game I played, I still managed to have a blast!

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Japan Envy: Seed Boyfriends (Tabegoro Kareshi Ikusei Setto)

Japanese companies have transformed everything from ramen to beauty products into anthropomorphized boyfriends, but the Tabegoro Kareshi Ikusei Setto marks the first time I’ve ever seen everyday vegetable seeds marketed as cute anime boys. Aimed at encouraging women to start their own home gardens, there are six different seeds available, each with their own male mascot. So, who’s your type?

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The tagline reads, “Which boy will you raise? ” which, as you can imagine, has a lot of weird connotations…

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Community Game-Along: Play Visual Novels in May!

A new month means a new Community Game-Along theme, and this year, May is all about visual novels! We’ve had a ton of great otome game visual novel announcements recently, and while romance definitely is a central theme to many visual novels, for the month of May, any and all visual novels are game!

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If you’re new to the visual novel genre, now’s as good a time as any to start! While visual novels generally forgo traditional gameplay to focus on text-based narration, voiced dialogue, and the occasional decision to change the course of the story, many other genres also incorporate visual novel elements. In the interest of getting as many people involved as possible, any games with significant visual novel portions, such as Danganronpa and Zero Escape, are going to be included in the “visual novel” umbrella.

Since we didn’t get a lot of buzz for last month’s theme (poor Yuji Naka!), I’d like to remind everyone to utilize the hashtag #VNMay on social media. All you need to do is pick a game that fits the theme and talk about your experiences to participate in the Game-Along. Don’t forget to share any lengthier thoughts you may have in blog posts, podcasts, or your favorite medium of choice! If you’re stumped as to what to play, here are a few games to get you started.

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Code: Realize English version on the way courtesy of Aksys Games

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It’s raining otome games! First, Idea Factory International announced plans to release Amnesia: Memories for PS Vita and Steam this August, and now Aksys Games is following up with another Otomate title, Code: Realize! According to the announcement on the Official PlayStation Blog, the game will be released both on PSN and physically for the PS Vita sometime this fall.

I recently lamented the fact that Idea Factory International still hadn’t announced an otome game localization (this was before Amnesia: Memories), but the article could really have been directed at any publisher, so I’m extremely happy to see Aksys Games following suit. The fact that Code: Realize is the third otome game IP Aksys has localized says a lot for how well the genre is doing for the publisher, which is extremely exciting.

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Whatever you say, amazingly good-looking man!

Last year, I even wrote that Code: Realize was one otome game I wanted to play before the end of the year, as its steampunk aesthetic and use of famous literary characters as romance options (Arsène Lupin! Victor Frankenstein!) looked like a lot of fun. The use of recognizeable characters may help the game appeal to a broader English-speaking audience than, say, Amnesia: Memories, so it will be really interesting to see how the two fare.

Aksys Games will be launching the official Code: Realize site shortly (update: the English site is now live), but in the meantime, you can head to the Japanese website for some promotional videos, wallpapers, Twitter icons, and all kinds of fun materials.