After working like crazy on Mitsumata, we've finally finished 99.9% of the essential coding and are working primarily on script tightening, finishing up art/music and plugging it, extra visual pretties/animation to make it really awesome, and the best part...TESTING!

We need just a couple of people to start testing next week. Testing is not just playing the game and giving us your thoughts on it, it's looking at the script, playing the minigames, going through the RPG battles, and giving us a very detailed, succinct write-up of your experience, the difficulty level, any typos or game errors, any improvements, and things like that. It will require you to play through every portion to make sure it works.

In addition, the structure of the group has changed considerably, as has the focus of our projects, in hopes of attracting more people, and different kinds of people!

Please send a note if you would like to test! We are looking for people who:
--Are 18+
--Have the time to play through and make comments.
--Have native or near native fluency in English.

Thanks so much!

We've gotten a few questions on what sort of game Mitsumata is in detail, so I wanted to give an explanation.

Mitsumata is in many ways like an average visual novel. The story is the most important part of the game, topping out at an amazing 120,000 words. While the writers did keep a lot of key elements of anime to appeal to anime fans, they also decided to expand on that and show different types of characters and break tropes in half over their knees. They also have a love of plot twists, so hopefully you will be surprised, be happy and end up crying by the end of this game.

The tale told is in line with "dark fantasy", which means that it is neither completely happy nor sad. It has its light-hearted moments, but it gets very dark, and for that reason we're ranking it at least a T or 16+ at its current stage in development. Sexuality is also mentioned and liberally discussed.

The story starts off with a 17 year old boy named Riku, who, though raised as a human, finds out that he is actually one of a humanoid, language capable species called Majin when he is one day attacked on the street. Like most 17 year olds, the discovery of this underground world of fantasy appeals to him, and he willingly leaves with his saviours, Roman and Soume, to a rescue where they will train him to use his abilities and hide him from would-be capturers. He meets the cranky owner of the rescue, Susa, as well as the creepy, paranoid librarian, Doctor Osamu, and all the other trainees. It's different from his privileged life, but he can shoot fireballs from his hands, so who cares!

From there, the story branches off, to tell the tales of the other people in the shrine. You can follow your favorite character simply by making decisions to interact with them on a repeated basis. Each one has a detailed history, and once you branch off, you will follow the story through that particular character. The direction of the story remains the same...the difference is only in how much of it you get to see, depending on who you choose. Because of that, getting all of the endings is required to understand the full direction.

This is also where the story gets dark. Where people start getting attacked, where suspicions run high, where people start to lose their lives. Why is Susa so distracted? Why is Soume so quiet? Why doesn't Roman want to talk about his past? Why is Kazutaka so afraid of imminent death, despite the rescue being safe?

Throughout the game, minigames will pop up. You may skip the minigames if you choose, but we urge you to play them at least a couple of times, as your prowess in battle will depend on both your decisions in game and your minigame scores. The minigames will be training for Riku or Roman, and the higher your level or score, the easier your battles will be. Amidst all of this, you can gain bonus events by collecting certain items, as well as events to help you in battle, or help you through the story.

I hope this is a detailed enough explanation of the story and gameplay!

It is not a dating sim by any stretch of the imagination. Sorry, guys.

Due to the hurricane going up the East Coast, we will be temporarily delaying everything, as many areas near to members of the group are receiving voluntary evacuation orders, with preparation for mandatory evacuations.

We will return Tuesday and continue to work on fixing the problems. This will not delay Mitsumata. It will delay a full version of Papa Pirate, and we may release both at once at a reduced cost to show appreciation for the people who reported problems. If you did report glitches, we are keeping your contact information and you will receive both games completely free, as well as extra art updates, so thank you again for doing that for us.

We will continue to post updates for Mitsumata in the meantime, as we work on improving the game experience in Papa Pirate, and add a tutorial for easy understanding.

Many lessons were learned, which is also why we are making changes within the group structure!

Thank you as always!

The demo is completed 100% and will be coming out at the end of the week. We encourage you to download it and try it out. It runs you through the first three years of the game~ o /o/ o/

It's been a long road, but we hope you enjoy it! We'll be spending the rest of the week until then preparing for Comiket and revamping the sites to be nice and prettyful to prepare for mass downloading.

There are also some pretty large changes going on within the group structure itself, which we will give a posting about as soon as it's finalized, but you might notice things vanishing and reappearing over the next couple of weeks as the team goes over what to do with them.

Many people work under this name. The smallest amount of members this group has had is four. We are currently at our largest with eleven people working on Mitsumata. Half of those people are able to access and update for the group, or address questions and comments, and all of them have.

There is not just one person here. Any mail or messages you send can and likely will read by up to six different people. Please keep this in mind when contacting us on our sites or email address.

We would greatly appreciate it!

We're still around, guys, no worries~

Within the next couple of days, we'll be showing off pictures from the conventions!

Currently, we're trying to fix some last minute bugs, and PPBB will be out for online preorders and sales as soon as we're done.

YES, WE ARE SORRY, WE ARE LATE. D:

Some things went a little downhill and delayed us until the end of this month, however, we are going forward at AnimeExpo and JapanExpo as planned, and the game will be open for demo downloads and preorders at that time.

Please bear with us. @_@ There's so much to do even in the last 1% of the game!

KinouGames is now open for pixel art commissions!

For these, we're going very simple.

You may choose from either of our two bases and we will change the hair, the eye-color, the skin color and the clothing within reason.

For pieces made from this base:
[link]
$10 if it stays within 144x144 pixels.

For pieces made from this base:
[link]
$5 if it stays within 100x100 pixels.

We may make walk animations, or other fun animations available later, so keep watch!

Note us with your information!

You ever have any questions for KinouGames? About us, about our artwork, or about our philosophies? How about our characters?

Ask them all here~! We can't guarantee that all will be answered, since we do want to keep details secret, but test us and find out!

(Respectful comments only!)

Due to an unfortunate accident, a good pal of KinouGames, has lost all of their art supplies and is doing commissions to try to make them back! Please help them out!

[link]

So, as the development of Papa Pirate, Baby Bandit winds down and we start moving toward the things needed for release, we wanted to propose a question to our wonderful, amazingly supportive fanbase and offer them a chance that people who don't watch our blog will not get!

In the meantime, our blog has a new poll up! Please vote so we can figure out the sort of potential demand for each!

[link]

One of the wonderful artists for KinouGames is doing small commissions for the Japanese Earthquake Relief, which will be sent to the Red Cross to assist. Please donate a little something and help Japan!

[link]

The second batch is up!
[link]


I won't say too much now, but perhaps some of the voices might sound familiar to those of you who watch a lot of the more mainstream anime~

I KNOW I DO! And our blog has been updated with three of the characters you will hear!

Head on over now, this is a BLOG EXCLUSIVE!

[link]

Edit: I just thought everyone should know that I CAN'T STOP SCREAMING while I listen to these.

WITH VIDEO~~~~~

[link]

This is a thank you post, to the wonderful Grecchia, who donated a large amount of money to our group because he believed heartily in our work. We all appreciate it, and adore you for it.

From all of us, a HEARTY THANK YOU!

And we've casted all major parts!

We will be contacting everyone who we'd like to come around for the smaller parts by this weekend! There are tons of them, so it's highly likely that everyone will be contacted to do something!

Thanks to everyone who auditioned, we really appreciate it!

We've extended the deadline for male VAs interested in Samael and Shink until Saturday!

Any guy who feels they might be interested in either one of these two characters should apply now!

Extended information is:

[link]

Casting ends TODAY and recording will begin next week. There are not many lines and if you have a free day to work with us, we could probably get all your recording done in a single day or a single weekend.

However, we need more adult, mature male voices. The game's rating is 16+. We have the girls ready for final casting and are quibbling over three of our males, but we'd still like to hear more from you guys.

You need to be at least 16 years old, and have a clear microphone/clear sound. There aren't many lines, but because of that we're more stringent about the sound for each one.

Detailed information can be found:
[link]

OR

[link]