Ame-chan’s Exciting Date Game, and the Black Box

　We’ve announced a new work for Summer Comiket. It’s meant to feel like a bishoujo game fandisc—like those goofy, poppy fandiscs from that era, full of charming airheadedness. We already would’ve been totally fine for Comiket with just one book and some goods (that was the original plan), but I couldn’t bring myself to miss the chance to go all-in on pure hobby. I guess, at the core, I really do just love bishoujo games.

We’ve got a brand-new set of goods for Summer Comiket!

For this project,
we went all out and bought up
every last one of those old-school “black boxes”
that were still left in Japan—only about 1,000 in total.
It’s a super obsessive, special item… 
which is why we can’t make it cheap—sorry ;; ✨

And of course,
the contents are packed too:
tons of carefully made goodies and mini-games.
So be sure to check it out♪

　The people around me understood what I was aiming for too well. When I threw out a ridiculous request like, “Do you think we can recreate that black box?” a veteran from the merch company—someone who’s been involved with bishoujo games for decades—replied with 100% confidence: “I’ll try contacting the factories from back then!”

　And that somehow led to us buying out every remaining brand-new outer box—about a thousand units—that were still in stock from the original era. Insane. Truly.

　Of course, the inside is packed with all kinds of obsessive touches too, beyond just the minigames. The merch lead—someone who lived through the PC-98 era before I was even born—got unbelievably fired up. Even the factory staff pitched ideas about how to improve the authenticity. People really do go hardest on the projects that make no sense. Thanks to that, I think we’ve recreated an outer box with the perfect balance: you see it once and laugh, “What the hell is this?”—but you still want to display it at home.

　A huge part of that is also thanks to Yoko-sensei, who delivered illustrations that perfectly captured what we wanted. The jacket is too good. It’s perfect. If there were more of these black boxes left in the world, I would’ve wanted to make thousands more…

　But because stock is limited, the “black box” edition will end at around 1,000 units. After that, we’re planning to switch to a more familiar, modern bishoujo game box version. That one has its own charm too, so even if you don’t get the black box edition, I’d still be happy if you’d display it.

As for the game itself, I’m thinking it’d be nice to sell a cheap downloadable version later on—though it might take some time, since we’re also dealing with things like visual novel translations.

Anyway, regardless of how hyped I am about the box, my main work this time—beyond supervising the packaging—was tackling one of the included minigames: a visual novel.

　The illustrations are by Maruino-sensei. Ame-chan’s profile… she’s beautiful. Every CG is ridiculously cute, so I really want you to experience it. And yes—the reason I asked Maruino-sensei is, of course, because I’ve been a huge fan of Mahouiku for years…

　Just having Ame-chan drawn by them was too much happiness. Writing the text—clack clack—didn’t feel like work at all. My words get to have art. There’s nothing better. I’m incredibly lucky. Truly grateful.

We made one of the games included inside:
 “Ame-chan: Exciting Date Game.”
Seeing Maruino (@malluino)’s gorgeous Ame-chan pop up
alongside the lines I wrote made me so happy 
I could’ve jumped for joy.

Since the main story has to skip over the date scenes,
I’d been a little worried about that—so 
I’m thrilled we got to fill in that gap this time.

　A little later we’ll officially announce it, but aside from the visual novel, I also finished writing an entire novel—one full volume. While supervising the overall project, handling other text work, and above all writing my daily diary, I still wrote over 100,000 new words. Hmph… I said it wasn’t a burden, but—yeah. Things that tire you out still tire you out. (Honestly.)

『蜘蛛』（にゃるら） 製品詳細 講談社

【『ＮＥＥＤＹ ＧＩＲＬ ＯＶＥＲＤＯＳＥ』作者にゃるらが贈る、美しくどこまでも墜落していく青春小説】 ───────────────────────────────────────── 現代、...

講談社「おもしろくて、ためになる」を世界へ

　The visual novel itself is about 20,000 characters. In the main game, we inevitably have to skip over the details of “going on dates” with Ame-chan, but I wanted to satisfy that lingering feeling of “If it’s a bishoujo game, the heroine date is sacred, right?” So this time, the theme is “going out with your lover.”

　For the original NEEDY-style tempo, it’s probably correct to not linger on date details. But for otaku, those extraordinary-yet-ordinary segments—going places with the heroine, moving through different settings together—can be more holy and important than the core plot itself. They become memories.

　This time, we deliberately didn’t use a traditional text window. It’s a style where the text covers the entire screen. Both for my own writing voice and for the works I’ve always loved (mostly Leaf), I think this was the right choice. When you display full-screen text at modern resolutions, you realize how long each line can become—and how unnatural it looks—so I asked for lots of careful micro-adjustments.

　Ah. So back then, because the screen was smaller, it was actually easier to follow the prose. Learning these little nuances—things you only understand by actually making something—is part of the fun.

　By the way: P doesn’t speak. Ame-chan’s lover is you, so you should respond to her words with your own.

　Because it’s a date with the heroine you love.

　Just one girl. Just one person. One-on-one.

　The “win condition” is simple: you both have a good time, take something back with you, and go home satisfied.

　That’s what I want to capture—and turn into a visual novel: the delicate inner landscape between two lovers.

　Two people shutting themselves inside a small world meant only for them. It feels almost perversely intimate when you stop and think about it… and yet every couple does this in their everyday life.

　And maybe that’s why this abnormal relationship called youth and romance exists at all: because you can stop worrying about the details, and just play, laugh, and savor it.