Articles

How I Prepared for a Con in Under 12 Hours Solo (Selling Gay Visual Novels)

arimia

Every Thursday night you can find me on my friend Chap’s Anime Book Club streams, where we read a couple of volumes of a manga of our choosing, based on a group selection. You can watch them on YouTube or Twitch, but that’s not important right now.

On Thursday, July 9th, we were streaming Higurashi Daybreak, an interesting and fun 3D fighting fangame made for Higurashi When They Cry, which we had recently finished. All of a sudden, I got an email.

This is a long shot, but we have an opening this weekend in our artist alley and the table can be yours if you can make it tomorrow.

This was at 10PM. The convention in question, Anime Blues Con, is held towards the beginning of July every year in Memphis. Specifically, this year, it was July 10-12th.

I was previously put on the wait list for additional tables, but suddenly I was offered a last minute artist alley table—giving me less than 10 hours to prepare before the convention opened.

Naturally, I said yes.

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Articles

How to Contact Streamers about your Visual Novel

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Or, “I’ve sent too many emails the past 2 weeks and need a break”.

Getting streamers & press to play your game can be a really fun albeit nerve-wracking experience. It’s more personal than just asking players to try out your game on social media–you’re asking a stranger to not only play your game but give it a review, opening yourself up to that vulnerability. But it can also be a rewarding experience, to see people enjoy your game live and connect with it.

A lot of streamers find games organically, by seeing what other streamers are playing and what their friends have told them about and what they see on social media. But streamers also take suggestions for games occasionally, especially if you’re the developer of the game. So how do you reach out to streamers?

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Blog

2025 Year in Review

arimia

2024 was a year I set out to tie up loose ends, but 2025 ended up being a continuation of that. I still had several projects that needed wrapping up in 2025 and was able to make great progress on them. …As well as a few side ventures.

Releasing the full (longer) version of Asphodelium was my main project for half of the year alongside further development of Crimson Waves on the Emerald Sea: Amaranthine Moon, my first commercial otome game in years, and releasing several games I was doing marketing for such as A Tithe in Blood, Upwards, Rain!, and more. A long time goal was to run my own Kickstarter, which I did in the later half of the year. It was both easier and more stressful than I imagined. I also went back to Offkai Expo in the middle of the year for Studio Élan, where I got to meet even more streamers and vtubers I’ve watched (some who’ve even played my games!)

2025 was also the year I began trying more new things and setting up new routines. In late 2024 I began attending an in-person bookclub and have since become a regular as well as going to the library to work on writing frequently. It’s nice to get out and have a different workspace—especially since it’s free to sit at a library as opposed to a cafe. 2025 was my first full year of doing full time game dev & freelancing after being laid off mid-2024, so I had to be more budget-conscious this year.

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Articles

Developer Interview – Crafting a Killer Lawyer in of the Devil

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Earlier this year on February 6th, 2025, visual novel players got the 1st episode in the 5 part detective cybernoir visual novel, of the Devil. In just under a month, the game received over 500 glowing reviews, praising the game’s mystery, pacing, cinematography, characters, and more—despite only episode 1 being out. Now, episode 2 has been slated for release on December 18th, 2025.

Today, I’ll be sitting down with part of the team at Nth Circle about their process for developing of the Devil!

of the Devil
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Articles

I played 40+ more visual novels for Halloween

arimia

As is tradition every Halloween, I get kidnapped and stuck in a windowless room with only a computer already loaded up with indie Halloween & horror-themed visual novels and forced to play said games before I can escape. It’s a daunting task, not because my life is on the line, but because, well, that’s a lot of visual novels! And so much time and heart went into them, but now I have to be judge, jury, and executioner??

The annual Spooktober Visual Novel Jam has wrapped, along with our judging period for the entries. This year we implemented a new system, a judge pass, which not only allows us to fund some of the event with the small fee for games wanting to be judged, but also significantly cuts down on the workload for us judges. In prior years, the number of entries we had to read kept going up almost exponentially and was ultimately unsustainable at the level we were operating with, as each judge had to read 80+ visual novels within 3-4 weeks (one year, it was closer to 110). Suffice to say, the judge pass has worked well at allowing us to keep the event judged with prizes as well as keep the event afloat.

But, today I don’t want to talk about the logistics of the event—I want to recap it, including some looks at my favorite entries and some trends I’ve noticed.

If you want to see my advice from previous years, you can read my wrap-up posts from 2023 and 2024.

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Articles

Digital Book Burning – How Visual Novel Devs can Mitigate Harm

arimia

We’re currently in a new age of book burning—digital book burning, where mass censorship is upon us. Rather than censoring bigotted, hateful views that call for violence against marginalized groups, certain groups have pointed their aim at anything they deem problematic, including eroge, queer works, and more. First it was Steam, and now it’s itchio. Tomorrow, who knows.

This is not just a worrying trend—it’s outright alarming. But rather than speculating on what the future may hold, what can we do right now?

1. Stand with eroge devs.

Regardless if you make ero content, we need to stand with ero developers. These are our fellow developers, our neighbors, who are expressing themselves artistically. Furthermore, NSFW content can be a safe outlet for those who have been abused, as a way to work through their emotions without bottling it up. Banning NSFW content will not stop it. It will only make it harder for victims to express themselves.

2. Realize it doesn’t stop at eroge.

These groups will never be happy with just getting the Daz 3D games removed from platforms. No, they want any content they deem problematic to be removed, including queer games. American school systems are already targeting wholesome boys love manga because no queer media should exist in a conservative’s world. And naturally, they won’t stop at queer media either. The Hays Code is an example of how far this line of thought could be used.

This isn’t something that will go away by simply waiting or moving to other platforms, as they will target more content and be more vicious.

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