Android VNDS Interpreter is really good

Remember the VNDS Visual Novel Reader for Nintendo DS? It was super. It still is, and now there's an Android version too.

It seems a bit no-strings at first, not much in the way of instructions from within the app itself, but it turns out when you get it going, it works really well!

Useful Links:

• The VNDS site, this is the main site for the DS version - it has some free novels there.
• Discussion boards, to see what's being developed at the moment.
• Weeaboo.nl is the main site for the person who developed the Android VNDS Interpreter app. There are loads of resources here, special Android high-res packs for tablets, and convertors for games you already own. I guess they can't just give away retail games, so there we are - convertors.

At the moment I'm running the convertor for Ever 17. It's taking a while so I'm blogging in the meantime. :)

The process is... install the retail game on PC (which I happen to have right here, all 4 discs...), run the convertor application - which is really friendly and detailed and lets you select whatever screen size and colour depth you think is best for your device, and it not only includes a separate tool to convert the voice data into .wav files but it pops up a dialog box to tell you how to use that tool as well!

There are over 14000 of these little wav files btw, so it's taking ages. I think it's actually converting the .wav files into .ogg files. Ho hum, I think I'll come back when it's done.

Narcissu

This evening, I started to read the first Strawberry Panic light novel, out in the park behind my house. It was a beautiful sunny day and was so quiet that I could clearly hear any human conversation 50m away. Adults walked their dogs, children rode their bikes, police patrolled on horses. I sneezed. And I sneezed. And I sneezed and sneezed and sneezed.

Argh, hay-fever. My body's defenses are too high!

It's just not dignified to sit and read something outdoors with so many bits of soggy tissue paper, so I returned home, closed the doors and windows and showered all the pollen off of me, and decided to stay indoors and read something. Goodbye, sunshine!

I decided to start reading the DS port of the free visual novel Narcissu. I'd avoided it for a long time because I have a medical phobia. It's about two young people whose bodies have also failed them, but in a far more severe way than mine - terminal illnesses.

There's a voiced and unvoiced option for the story, even on the DS port, so I chose to read the voiced version. There is only one voice - a whispering girl, and she doesn't say too much, but it's good to hear her. She's played by "Ms Rino Ayukawa", whom I have never heard of, nor had I expected to recognise her name. But, it's good to hear her.

The music playing is also very beautiful, and fitting.

It's good, a touching story. Something about it, about halfway through the story... something about the two characters, reminded me somehow of the young mute walking couple in the film Dolls, which is one of my all-time favourite films.

Both pieces manage to be somewhat... distressing, never really stop being saddening, but are calming and beautiful at the same time.

It's short enough to read in an evening.

I may come back and read the unvoiced story sometime. It's a separate translation of the story, for one thing.

The DS port is ok, the pictures are possibly too small to clearly see, and there are a few typos in there and sometimes square characters in the middle of some words, but it's cool. It is listed as version 0.0.4, after all. Nice not to have to sit at my PC all evening. (I say, sitting at my PC typing this).

The VNDS is really good, possibly my favourite application for DS. ^_^ It's still receiving constant updates and new stories are being ported to it and released for download every few days! ^_^