CuriousFactory and Buredo Releases "Blade Engine 2.0" Free English Visual Novel Construction Tool

HERNDON, VA - November 14, 2006 - CuriousFactory and Buredo today released "Blade Engine" version 2.0, a free game engine and construction kit aimed at making English Visual Novel easy to construct. "Blade Engine 2.0", is an upgraded version of Blade Engine previously released in July, 2006.

Blade Engine 2.0 Additional Features:

- Compatibility with DirectX 9.0
- Movie Play
- Variables and IF/Else conditional statement
- Max choice selection text will be 32 characters
- Accept JPG for background
- Title screen customization
- Text window customization
- Client header customization*
- File Packing Ability*
- Membership to Blade Engine Pro Forum*
- No Blade Engine logo displayed *

(*)Pro version only

For more detail, please visit Blade Engine official site.
http://www.bladeengine.com

What is Visual Novel?

Most Visual Novels have multiple storylines and many endings; the gameplay mechanic in these cases typically consists of intermittent multiple-choice decision points, where the player selects a direction in which to take the game. This style of gameplay has been compared to the Choose Your Own Adventure novels. Most, however, strive for a higher level of plot and character depth than the aforementioned series of interactive children's books. These can be more closely compared to story-driven interactive fiction.

Content and Genre of Visual Novel

In the West, there is a stereotype of: "Visual Novel = Dating Sim Game = Hentai", but that is wrong.

Visual Novels CAN be Dating Sim games, Ren'ai games, Bishoujo games but also can be Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Adventure and Horror Fiction games, or anything that the user's creativity comes up with.

Creating Visual Novel

Visual Novel usually consists of text window, background graphics and character graphics. In addition to those elements, music, sound and sometimes voice are added to make the VN more dramatic.

Producing Visual Novel is just like producing Japanese animation or Manga. Good storyline is important, but also facial expressions of characters, their posing, the timing to use sound and screen effects are important elements to create interesting Visual Novel. You don't need to be computer expert and have programming skill to create good Visual Novel.

Blade Engine Overview

Blade Engine was developed based on professional Visual Novel engine being used in Japan. CuriousFactory and Buredo hope that Blade Engine provides creators in the West the opportunity to explore the new medium of expression, Visual Novel, which has already gained tremendous popularity in Japan.

To learn more about Blade Engine, visit http://www.bladeengine.com where you can try the sample Visual Novel created by Blade Engine.

About CuriousFactory
CuriousFactory is a developer and publisher of software as well as online information provider. One of the sites CuriousFactory runs is Akiba Angels, (http://www.akibaangels.com) featuring Doujin community and creator information in Japan and in the west.

About Buredo
Buredo is a group of people in Japan which consists of staffs such as comic writer, scenario writer, programmer, game designer, music composer. Mainly producing Manga and Visual Novel in Japan, Buredo also develops Visual Novel construction tool for Japanese creator, and their tool has been used for a long time with constant improvement. Now, Buredo is bringing this tool to non-Japanese audience, with our USA partner CuriousFactory. Buredo Website: http://www.buredo.jp/