Hey all, a couple days ago I found out that Sekai Project started a kickstarter to fund an official Western release of the classic visual novel Clannad, including both a digital Steam release and a physical release.

This is incredibly amazing to me personally, both as someone who really wants more of the world to gain some more awareness of VN's, and as a huge fan of the original work. I played the fan translation years ago and it blew me away. I'm usually really, really critical of storytelling in video games, it seems to constantly be retelling the same generic vanilla fantasy stories over and over again. That's why I'm playing Tactics Ogre right now as a friend claims its story stands head and shoulders above the story of most games.

However, the story from Clannad is incredible. It was deeply moving for me when I originally played it and I think I was better as a person for having experienced it. From a technical point, it wasn't perfect though. Baka-Tsuki's fan translation was complete but there were bugs (played most of one storyline with no working voices), bunch of random kanji still here and there, and still lacked some polish. The idea of a mainstream, polished, professional translation for this game really appeals to me as a good way to both read it again and support more VN's coming out over here. As a game that IMHO stands above all the earlier VN releases on Steam, I think that this really could be the game that gets more of the mainstream western gaming audience to take notice of the genre. I could see certain personalities on mainstream gaming critic websites taking notice, for example.

Anyone else share my excitement for this game? They've met their funding goal to release their goal, but they have some stretch goals that haven't been reached yet, one to get extra side stories from the PS3/Vita version of the game, and one for a brand-new anthology manga to come out. I'm pretty sure they'll reach those goals considering they have 41 days left to go and already have $258,391, but if you want to help fund it (and also receive a copy of the game early when it comes out if you fund enough!), go here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sekaiproject/clannad-official-english-release

hey!!! thanks for the heads up. I remember about 8 or so years ago fans were subbing the game and every year I'd check in and see how it was coming along but it would never be finished. now it's finally getting the release it deserves. whoa! I will probably just buy this when it comes out, since it's already funded I don't need to kickstart it....

anyways this is exciting news. if it does well I really hope more VNs get translated.

Clannad is awesome, good for them man!

I didn't even realize it was never officially released over here. That seems crazy to me.

been keeping an eye on this kickstarter, cleared its funding goal in 24 hours, looks like it is in good shape to hit its stretch goals also.