Fishing for Audience
Crunch-free working conditions leave me some time to explore the world of visual novels. The more I learn the more I feel like our game is an oddity. A blessing and a course. A blessing because it is pretty easy to stand above the crowd. A curse because people may not be looking in that direction at all. 

Anime people and novel reading people are similar. They have a list of things they like but also yearn for something different. Anime fans in particular when talking about things they like in a show is more likely to sound like a list of features and the worst as a list of fetishes. And if a piece of media doesn't tick all their boxes they score it lower.
Novel reading audiences are more subtle but similar. They are less likely to list things, as there is less of a stigma to finding objective criteria. 
Both are guided mostly by taste and affected by things they have read before.

This is what I love so much about the LGBTQ+ segments on itchio. Their experience doesn't necessarily find a home in either one and seems to be altogether different. It isn't a "get out of being creative" free card but it does signify a certain removal of expectation. A space to be free without having to worry about getting enough tsundere or obligatory nudity.

Though, as in writing, marketing has promises that must be paid off in the narrative. Part of writing well is if not giving the reader what they want, giving the reader what you promise. 
In this spirit, I am trying to set expectations for the reader as soon as possible and as easily as possible. That is why in between working on the game, I asked to make a trailer.

The trailer was written, has been cast, the assets are chosen, and I even have people's parts submitted. The trailer will make a great asset for a press page (that I still haven't made), it will exist independently on youtube for people to find, and it will be used as an ad.

There are more ways to find the base of users! There are forums and reddits for example where people talk about games but those places are best left to the people who normally inhabit them. Discussion boards and reviews are meant as ways for the audience to interact with one another and are not FOR the writers and creators.

Visual Novel Lists

What I am talking about is databases. Itchio is one. Game Jolt is another but I don't understand it as well. There other places for cataloging and organizing games and visual novels.

F95 is the biggest and very active visual novel sites I have seen. The details of that are that it is a pirate site devoted to adult material. It is very easy to find games there. The in-site search engine is not impressive but google a game and "f95" and it will take you'll find it. It is very easy to find games and patches. It is impressiveness stops at its size and scope but the users are toxic and everything is stolen. It is a pirate porn site. There are mods that have gone out and even stolen work-in-progress betas with bugs that the devs are trying to find and fix and users judge the game based on its broken beta. There are others that have stolen builds meant to reward high-tear patrons with a few days of exclusive play and those wishes have been ignored in the name of piracy. I'd be stressed/pissed if a reading partner or beta reader leaked my work before it is ready and it has driven some devs to quit and abandon projects. Still, my game is not for Adults Only.

VNDB The Visual Novel DataBase is very extensive. There are over 28,000 visual novels listed on the site. It is similar to Wikipedia that anyone with a profile can make edits but they have to source their changes. It seems to be pretty active. While I was editing the description for RtS, someone else helpfully added a tag! I know the least about this site because it is very Japanese. If you have spent time on anything with a Japanese otaku tagging sense, you'll recall my "list of fetishes" observation. Love interests are called heroines. There is a guarder belt and ahegao tag. I'm surprised there isn't a hair color tag but it doesn't seem to matter as much to them.
f95 isn't much to look at. It looks like a forum but VNDB looks old. A site could be more bare and hard to navigate if they tried. There are thousands of Visual Novels and a suite of rules to decide what counts as a visual novel and I don't know how or if people actually find things on the site. I'll update this post if it gets me traffic. Otherwise, it feels good to be on a giant unwieldy list.

REN'AI Archive I know the least about this one. It was a link from VNDB and seems to be its own distributor. It seems to before SFW-ish bunch of ren'py games. I put in a description for the game and it said it needed a few days for approval but I didn't upload a file or anything. So, who knows.  https://renai.us/

Lemma Soft Forums

Added 2-15-2021 Lemma Soft is focussed on "Supporting creators of visual novels and story-based games since 2003." The work in progress forum said it was for SFW games (heh, you can't play games at work) but I say a few NSFW tags.
I figured it would be pretty niche being a support forum. There is a page for people to upload their projects and any questions they want feedback on but like anything that wants to stay organized there are rules and guidelines for posting about your game. Don't spam, proofread, and other basics. 
The site claims that your posts will be seen by thousands of people, which surprised me because it is old and doesn't look like much.  But my post in the guestbook says it has been seen by over A MILLION people (I double checked). So, it seems credible but I haven't managed to actually interact with anyone.
My post for romancing the sun has 87 views right now and has been up for 4 days. 

Question!
Do you know any good lists for Games and Visual Novels? What are your experiences with these sites?

Custom Renders

Copied from Patreon because I'm suddenly busy! https://www.patreon.com/posts/46748962

Is anyone interested in custom renders?
Seeing how I am pretty far into the sudo-photograph of Daz 3d, I could make a few renders each month.

I am pretty limited and would work best with requested poses and locations that have already been in my work. Like if you want to see a clown fight Godzilla on mars, I won't be able to help you.

This is about my level of quality.

Comment if you are interested and I can make a tier just for it.

Game Update
So much stuff is done; I could spit.

The writing, assets have been done for a while. In the last two weeks, I made some more party assets because I wanted to. I still haven't done anything with the music. I kind of forgot about it until now. Ooops. 

Anyway, there is an (eighth) LAST segment of story that needs to be edited and approved and then it can be programmed. It's very exciting.  Then I can do whatever with the sound design and we can play-test a finished product. A finished chapter two. The complete vision for the demo.

Sound
What needs to be done with sound? I have a selection of sounds that I want to put into the game. Engine noise, door, party sounds, maybe two more sounds. I need to take those sounds and put them in an editor because the full files for sound effects go on for much longer than I need. So, I am going to upload them, edit them shorter and make them quieter and mess with the pitch, and then export it. Then figure out how to put them into renpy and hope I don't mess something up!

Sudden change! My update graphic is outdated because part eight has been proofed! I just haven't to fix the changeds in the script and I can add it to the game! I may forgo music programming to get the update out.