Frequently Asked Questions

Obtaining Boys' Love Games

Troubleshooting Games

About This Site

About Boys' Love Games

A. Boys' love games are a genre of Japanese romance games that are aimed at a female audience and revolve around relationships between male characters. These games typically feature "bishounen" (beautiful, somewhat feminine-looking boys), and can range anywhere from innocent implied boys' love, to full-fledged male-on-male sex. The style of play is usually adventure games, which is a visual-novel style of game where you pick choices that lead to different outcomes, but some will also have different play styles, such as RPG, life simulation, or board games.

A. Girls' games are a genre of games in Japan aimed at a female audience. These usually feature a female lead character who is trying to gain a relationship from a group of male characters. Boys' love games are also considered a "sub-genre" of girls' games, since they are also aimed at a female audience.

A. Yes, though there are not very many commercially released: the Hotaru series, Cox-Bax, and Hunks Workshop. There are several doujin game groups that make games targetted toward males, such as those by Underground Campaign, but being doujin games, they are hard to get ahold of. These type of boys' love games usually feature more masculine, muscley, and hairy males as opposed to the bishounen style in boys' love games for girls.

A. The majority of boys' love games are only in Japanese. However, there are a few exceptions. The doujin game Graduation by Joinac GAS has both an English and Japanese option, and Shounen-tachi no Byoutou Full Voice Version, while not having an English option in-game, does include an English translation .pdf file on the game CD.

There are some fan groups working on translations for boys' love games: Lavender Cross, who currently have finished Kuro no Tsuki as a translation patch and are working on other projects, Onadoru Euphoria, who have translation scripts to Silver Chaos (which are planned to be used to make a patch by Lavender Cross), one group working on script translations for Cafe Lindbergh, and the Apocripha/0 Fans Mailing List (which is co-run by myself), who have a small variety of script translations to the Apocripha/0 games.

Finally a few American companies will be releasing some boys' love games: Animamundi has been released by Hirameki International (however it was edited), and two Langmaor games, Enzai and Zettai Fukujuu Meirei by JAST USA.

For current information on boys' love and shoujo games in English, please check this thread on my Message Board. I try to keep it current with all information I receive regarding games in English.

A. This is simply a question of personal opinion. I still enjoy boys' love games even though they are in Japanese. And yes, I don't know Japanese. While I may not understand a story in detail, from the expressions of the characters, the tones in their voice, the CGs, and the little bit of Japanese I do know, I can at least get a general idea of what is happening, and see the personality of the characters, and that is enough to keep me entertained. I gear the reviews on my site toward people like me, who enjoy playing despite the language barrier, to try to give a little explanation on the story, the characters, and how to play the game to help with the gaming experience.

Recently, there have been some tools developed that can also help with your gaming experience: Oh! Text Hooker and Anime Games Text Hooker. These programs work by extracting the Japanese script from the game as you play, which with certain settings can then be sent to Japanese translation programs such as Atlas. I personally find Anime Games Text Hooker working with Atlas to be a very powerful tool in helping with the gaming experience. However, remember that there is no such thing as a perfect translation software: you will get choppy, "Engrish" translations, but it still greatly helps just getting a basic understanding of what is happening in a scene. For more information about using Anime Games Text Hooker, please visit this thread on my Message Board.

A. Due to Japanese pornography laws, mosiacs or some other kind of censorship is present in any sexual images. If you find a game that doesn't have censorship, it was either a) released in a country that has different pornography laws so the censorship was removed, b) has been hacked to remove censorship, or c) is a little known doujin game that is breaking the censorship rule. Currently, the only boys' love game that is uncensored is the English release of Enzai and Zettai Fukujuu Meirei by JAST USA; since it was released in the United States, the Japanese censorship was removed. However, to my knowledge there are no other boys' love games that do not have censorship, so you will have to deal with it.

A. I hear this constantly, but in truth, I have only played the games that are listed in the Game Database section of this site, and I have written thorough reviews of my opinions on these games. Therefore, the only "recommendations" I can make will be found by reading the reviews I have written on the games listed in my Game Database. If you want recommendations, try asking others on my Message Board. Other people who have played more games would be happy to give recommendations (I even commonly ask others for recommendations for what I should play and put on this site).

Obtaining Boys' Love Games

A. If you are looking for commercially released boys' love or girls' games, you may purchase Animamundi or Yo-Jin-Bo from Hirameki International and Enzai and Zettai Fukujuu Meirei from JAST USA.

If you are looking for import games, there are a few sites where you can order them:

FromNippon - A site that will special order import games that you can't find anywhere else. You make a request and they will try to find the product in Japan for you. They have a 20% handling charge, but I've been told by others they are very quick about finding your game and getting it sent.

Himeya - An excellent site for ordering import video games and computer games. Carries boys' love games as well as other ren'ai games, for near yen value and comparable shipping to most Japanese import online stores. You can also request games that aren't on the site and they can usually get them. I've personally used them and had good experiences.

Rainbow Shoppers - A site for ordering boys' love games that are targetted toward homosexual men.

ABSOLUTELY DO NOT CONTACT ME ASKING ME WHERE TO GET GAMES. All messages of this nature will be deleted. If the problem persists, it could lead to me shutting down my site.

A. IRC is Internet Relay Chat. With an IRC client such as mIRC, you connect to a server, and then connect to a chat room, where you can chat or share files via "FServs". However, teaching how to use IRC is not my job. There are tons of tutorials on IRC if you do a simple search on Google. I easily found this guide with a simple Google search, and there are plenty others out there as well, such as this one from Yaoi Daily.

Game CGs may be found on IRC server irc.irchighway.net #girlgames. My channel, #girlgames, DOES NOT HOST GAMES. Do not enter my channel and ask for games, or where to get games. Doing so will lead to you being banned from the channel. If the problem persists, it could lead to me shutting down my site.

A. No. I'm not a personal BL game supplier. I will not give you games, and I will not tell you where to find illegal downloads of games. If you ask me any of these things, I will get very nasty, so please don't ask.

ABSOLUTELY DO NOT CONTACT ME ASKING ME WHERE TO GET GAMES. Additionally, don't ask me for game CGs or other game-related media. All messages of this nature will be deleted. If the problem persists, it could lead to me shutting down my site.

Troubleshooting Games

A. These files are image files of CDs. I have a whole section of my site dedicated to this question. Turning CD Image Files Into CDROMs explains the different CD image file types, as well as how to burn them into game CDROMs. There is also information on Mounting CD Image Files Off the HDD, if you don't want to turn the image files into CDROMs and instead play them off of your harddrive. If you don't understand my instructions, then go to Google and do a search on CD Image Files, there is likely many tutorials out there.

A. Boys' love games are in Japanese. Your computer must have Japanese language support to show the characters correctly in the game, and many games won't run /at all/ without Japanese language support. Check out Setting Your System Into Japanese. I run Windows XP, and these are the instructions for enabling the native Japanese language support on Windows XP. There are also instruction for both Windows 2000 and Windows XP on this site.

A. These operating systems do not have native Japanese language support, like Windows 2000 and XP have. There are some games that simply will never work without native Japanese language support. Some games will run with the use of third-party programs that enable Japanese characters on Windows 98/Me, such as NJStar Communicator or AsianSuite. There may be other Japanese language programs that I'm not aware of, head over to Google and do a search for Japanese language support programs for 98/Me. However, any of these programs are not guaranteed to work!

I do not have Windows 98 or Windows Millenium, and I cannot help you run these programs. I have never even used these programs, I've only been pointed out to them by others. And remember; even with their use, some games are simply not going to run without that native support. You'll either need a Japanese version of Windows or Windows 2000 or XP to truly have the support to properly play Japanese games.

A. I have lots of information on this in my Troubleshooting Guide and a checklist of game problems to follow on my Message Board on this thread. This includes information on installation, crashing, and any problems I've personally experienced with games myself. The information provided here is the extent of my knowledge on boys' love game troubleshooting; I can't help you with anything else. I haven't even /played/ the majority of games out there; how can I answer questions about installing, uninstalling, crashing, error messages, and the like when I haven't even ever touched the game?

I'm not here to be a boys' love game technician, to install these games and test them for you. It isn't my job. So please don't ask me troubleshooting questions. Look at my Troubleshooting Guide, and if your answer isn't there, ask other people on my Message Board, or try the BL Games Support Mailing List.

A. Here is another question I constantly get spammed in my mailbox. 99% of the time these questions are about games I haven't even played. I have only played the games listed in my Game Database, and for most of these I have included a play guide or capture guide to help you with the game. If these guides are not sufficient, ask others on the Message Board, or the BL Games Support Mailing List, please don't e-mail me about it.

Another thing you might want to try is using a Japanese capture guide. In the Links section of this site, I have a list of some Japanese --> English website translators, and several Japanese capture guide sites, which show how to get endings to games. In fact, these are what I use when I make my own capture guides! Usually you just load one copy in the original Japanese, and one copy through an online translator so you have some idea of how the guide is set up, and for adventure games it is easy, as they show you all the options to pick, and then you just simply match up the text on the guide with the text in the game. I have a tutorial of how I do this on this thread on my Message Board.

About This Site

A. When I have time. For a while, I worked very hard to get new game reviews out, but in the end, I got to hate playing games because it started to feel like work instead of recreation. So now I play games when I feel in the mood, which makes them much more enjoyable, so updates aren't as constant as they were when the site first opened.

A. When I go to make a game page, the first thing I do is research the game on the company's website or other Japanese websites. I put the content of these sites through online translators: the two I use are Excite and Google Translation. The Excite translator just translates from Japanese to English or English to Japanese, and seems to handle Japanese (particularly katakana) better than Google. But for good measure, I usually put the page through both translators. I then use this information to fill out the first three sections of my site: the system requirements, the story, and the characters. The story and character blurbs are from me doing my best to turn the horrible Engrish produced by the online translators into something understandable. Therefore, they aren't going to be very accurate, but they should still be better than knowing nothing about the story and characters at all.

The playability section is written directly off of what I encountered while playing the game; how the game plays, the controls, ect. Sometimes I will also use information from Japanese sites run through a translator to get some information for this section, but most of it is just from the hands-on gaming experience.

The troubleshooting section is also just for issues I ran into trying to play the game on my system. However, the information in this section does not mean that you will have the same problems, or that you may have other problems that I didn't have. Just remember, the only information I know on troubleshooting will be listed in this section, so please don't ask me about any other issues -- I just can't help you, as I only know what I encounter on my own system.

The preview CGs are just pictures that I have screencaptured out of the game as I played. It is my personal policy to never put up CGs from endings, so you won't have to worry about ending spoilers. I also try to pick pictures that aren't /too/ hard-core for those that would be bothered by this that may visit the review.

The full-capture save files are provided from my own playing: I work hard to win all the CGs in the game for myself, so I am providing my own save file of my full capture from playing. Basically, you just search for these files in your game install and replace them with the full-capture ones. Please do not host these files on any other site or direct link to them. These are a replacement for the CG sets I used to host, which I removed due to people breaking the usage policy and stealing the CGs. Please do not also abuse my save files, which I work very hard to provide.

When I offer play guides or capture guides, I make them by running a Japanese capture guide through an online translator, and then leaving one copy of the guide open in Japanese. Then I can get an idea of the layout of the guide from the English version, but match up the dialogue in the game to the dialogue on the Japanese version of the guide. Then I simply write down the option numbers on the guide. In a few cases, I also write in my own information on playing the game from my experiences when playing it.

And my review is just that: a review. My overall impression of the game, and pointing out both the strengths and weaknesses in each game. I try not to be too biased, and hope they don't come off that way. The bottom line is always this: whether I like a game or not does not mean you will have the same opinion. But I hope my reviews may help people decide what they are interested in based on the pros and cons of each game.

A. Absolutely. I even have a thread for these suggestions on my Message Board. However, that doesn't necessarily mean I'll get around to playing it and reviewing it right away; I simply have to be in the mood for it, and have the time for it. But suggestions will push those game titles higher up on my "to play" list. Most of the time I can't decide what I should play anyway, so if I know what people would like to see on my site, that helps me make that decision.

A. I prefer to do my own reviews. However, any game information on the story, characters, playability, troubleshooting, etc. are always welcome. Also, if you have files to contribute to the downloads sections for a game, such as play guides or scene translations, please send them in!

A. I use Winrar because it compresses better than Winzip, which means less space used on my webhost and a faster download for you. You will need to download Winrar to uncompress the files. If you can't get Winrar to run on your system, then I'm sorry, but I'm not going to change my format. So please do not ask me to .zip the files instead, or to send you files directly.

A. People broke the usage rules< that I packed with the CGs by posting them without asking permission, linking to my site, or giving any credit. Therefore, I decided to take them down. Additionally, hosting full sets of game CGs on my site could result in legality issues.

Information on IRC is provided above. You are welcome to come into my channel and download the files I have listed as being IRC-only from my FServ. However, I expect you to use the files I provide on IRC for personal use only, and to be asked permission if you would like to use them otherwise. If people break my usage policy, I will stop hosting them. I also will not teach you how to use IRC and download the files. As listed in the information above, there are plenty of tutorials out there on how to use IRC. I also will not directly send you files on IRC, e-mail them, put them on download sites, or supply them by any other means, so don't ask.

People that come into my channel and ask me how to get my CGs or if I will send them will be can be banned from my FServ. Also, if at anytime I think my FServ is being abused or see suspicious activity, I will shut it off for however long I think is necessary. If I continue to have problems from users, I will take it down completely and no longer offer my CG collections.

A. Because people abused this. They only did fanwork for a chance to win a game, which completely defeats the purpose of doing fanwork, which is something you do because you are a fan. You should not need some "prize" or "material possession" to do fanwork. You should do it only because you want to.

I decided to cancel the contest and see if anyone would still submit fanwork: by doing so I'd see if there really were any dedicated fans out there, or if everyone was just greedy and only doing it to try to get their hands on a free game. Guess what? No one submitted anything after I removed the contest (except for a few close friends). This proved my point: people only did it to try to gain something material, not because they wanted to do it as a fan. Therefore, I decided to cancel the contest for good.

A. Absolutely, I'd love any submissions! Please send them in, I really want to see that Fanworks section grow!