About us

1. Goal

Our primary goal is building a large, comprehensive and up-to-date database for information about all existing visual novels. VNDB aims to be a central place to look up general information about the visual novels themselves, as well as practical information around it, like available releases, localisations and producers.

Our secondary goal is to promote the wonderful medium called visual novels to a broader audience, an audience not limited only to people who can understand Japanese, but to anyone interested in literature, anime, manga or games, regardless of their geographical location or cultural differences.

2. Genesis

It all started right after yorhel finished reading Ever17. Highly impressed by the masterpiece, several questions came to his mind: After learning about visual novels, why did it still take several months to find this game? Why hasn't he ever heard about it before? How can a visual novel of that quality go by unnoticed in almost all online anime and gaming communities? And more importantly: Are there more visual novels like that out there?

VNDB was born to answer that last question. The complete lack of any central resource for, or even a simple list of visual novels made it very hard to find new games or get a good overview of what was available. Having a central and well-organized place where everyone can share their information and knowledge about visual novels would solve this problem.

After a short three weeks of hard work, the first version of VNDB saw the light of day in September 2007. The obscurity and small fanbase around visual novels, combined with the bare minimum of features and the rigid contribution system in use at the time, made that the database only grew at a slow pace. But with time more people learned about VNDB, new and advanced features were being introduced, and in response more visitors started contributing information. The introduction of an improved and open contribution system in February 2008 motivated even more users to submit information, and as of September 2008 - a year after the initial version of VNDB - the database catalogues more than 1000 visual novels and 2000 releases, which still continues to grow in size and quality today.

3. Credits

Code development

Yorhel: Main developer.
QCyph: Contributed the character filters.
3dB: Contributed improved user authentication code and post throttling on the discussion board.
SpaceRanger: Contributed the visual novel release comparison page, userlist columns to the VN list and dx.x.x link formatting.
morkt: Contributed the staff database and lots of other stuff.
flan: Contributed Open graph tags and test cases for the BBCode parser.
TigerShark: Contributed release icons.

Special users

Yorhel: admin
beliar: admin
Ileca: boardmod, dbmod
skorpiondeath: dbmod, tagmod
trickzzter: dbmod
savagetiger: dbmod
Ninius: dbmod
carri-mihome: dbmod
Ezezin: dbmod

Skins

Yorhel: Angelic Serenade (dark blue), Touhou (grey)
echomateria: ELEL (peach-orange), Eien no Aselia (falu red), Ever17 (bondi blue), Fate/stay night (pale carmine), Fate/stay night (seal brown), Gekkou no Carnevale (black), Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (orange), Little Busters! (lemon chiffon), Primitive Link (pale chestnut), Saya no Uta (dark scarlet), Seinarukana (white), Sora no Iro, Mizu no Iro (turquoise), Tsukihime (black), Tsukihime (midnight blue)
applehq: Little Busters! (pink), Neon (black)
Yirba: AIR (sky blue), Higanbana no Saku Yoru ni (maroon)
nukueno: Teal (teal)