Yorhel was also the creator/developer of ncdu among many other open source projects. He was a big open source advocate. The sites he hosted (vndb.org and manned.org) have automated database dumps and source code fully available. Recommend to check out his website https://dev.yorhel.nl/
This is probably a niche topic on HN, but for those of us who play Visual Novels, VNDB is a massive resource for getting the setup right for older and obscure ones that require odd hardware or configurations. The early days of VNs were all on DOS/V and Sharpx68000 systems with quirky configurations. VNDB catalogs so many of them and things that are "Mostly" VNs for historical purposes.
Without it, we wouldn't have the modern wave of VNs that have become popular today (Hatoful Boyfriend, Doki Doki Literature Club, etc.) nor some of the offshoot genres that have become popular.
I must admit, this is one area I've found LLMs to be surprisingly strong. They're REALLY good at reverse engineering obscure platforms, languages, game engines; and quickly throwing together super hacky tooling.
I was able to reverse engineer the PS4 edition of "New Game!: The Challenge Stage", which was never released in English. I've now fully translated it, added proper text wrapping and additional text boxes where text would now overflow. Along the way I've fully decompiled (with byte exact recompilation) the Squirrel scripts for the entire game, built atop the game engine of a now largely defunct game studio. Prior to this I hadn't even heard of Squirrel scripting language. I had most of this done in under 24 hours.
I'm not in any way a part of the visual novel community. I just did this because I enjoyed the New Game! anime way more than a near(?) middle aged man probably ought to.
P.S. My condolences to Yorhel's friends and family.
Brings back memories of how I did much the same for the PSP spin-off VN of the GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class manga/anime (that, of course, also originated from Manga Time Kirara and also had a big focus on art), although those were pre-LLM times. It even used Squirrel scripts too!
I second the condolences, tremendous loss for the people who knew Yorhel, as well as for the VN and open source communities.
I think there is some community around branching browser text stories like (mostly) Twine games that have their own database somewhere?
And then there is always some overlap and discussions around what games to allow where, with each community gatekeeping to some degree what games are allowed in their database or not.
So, for example, I never heard about VNDB and never really crossed paths with VN players online, even if I have been around communities for IF and gamebooks since last century and the similarities are obvious.
>similar niche genres of games have managed to mostly ignore each other
That's only because they are only "similar" on the surface. It feels like saying "football, volleyball and basketball are similar" just because they are all team games played with a ball.
thank you for sharing this! I never heard the two website you mentioned while being very familiar with vndb. I guess there will be always another corner of the internet that you don't even know existed.
If you are curious, vndb has a guideline you can see about what can be added here:
https://vndb.org/d2
Some VNs have no real choices and could hardly be called games. Others are deeply branched.
By the 2010s many JRPGs such as the Hyperdimension Neptunia series and Danganronpa pretty much stole all the visual elements of visual novels and mashed them up with gameplay from other genres.
By now the term "visual novel" got re-imported back into Japan so even Japanese creators have started using it for what they otherwise call "novel games" and VN-like "adventure games".
I think IF games tend to be more puzzle games with some story segments. Gamebooks are much closer, but still often have proto-RPG mechanics. (I remember tracking inventory and HP for the ones I played/read through). VNs are much closer to pure story, with some tracking of earlier decision flags for callbacks later in the story.
This website is a remnant of something long gone: simple yet capable HTML websites that just work. I hope it will be preserved, or at least the database made public so it won’t get lost.
It is public, and more! There's even an interface allowing you to run your own queries directly against a synchronized copy: https://query.vndb.org/browse
Wow, I hope they continue on with the legacy built. I honestly have never heard of vndb until a few weeks ago. I am a large VN consumer, and when I found the site not only did it hit VN side, but also the aesthetics of a website looking like it was locked in the early 2000s, it made me save a screenshot to remind myself to build out one of my domains to one of my older styles with updated HTML/CSS.
Worth noting that the VNDB code is also used to host other databases such as https://nepchan.org/ (a catalogue of indie Japanese or other similar-in-style RPGs)
Yorhel was also the creator/developer of ncdu among many other open source projects. He was a big open source advocate. The sites he hosted (vndb.org and manned.org) have automated database dumps and source code fully available. Recommend to check out his website https://dev.yorhel.nl/
Wow a few years ago I wanted to resurrect some of my old code, to do essentially what ncdu does
Then I found ncdu, and haven’t looked back since. So it saved me a lot of time
Thank you and RIP
ncdu is a lifesaver, RIP.
There's a Yomitan dictionary (by bee) of VNDB using those dumps: https://github.com/bee-san/VNDB-Character-Names-by-Bee
This is probably a niche topic on HN, but for those of us who play Visual Novels, VNDB is a massive resource for getting the setup right for older and obscure ones that require odd hardware or configurations. The early days of VNs were all on DOS/V and Sharpx68000 systems with quirky configurations. VNDB catalogs so many of them and things that are "Mostly" VNs for historical purposes.
Without it, we wouldn't have the modern wave of VNs that have become popular today (Hatoful Boyfriend, Doki Doki Literature Club, etc.) nor some of the offshoot genres that have become popular.
I must admit, this is one area I've found LLMs to be surprisingly strong. They're REALLY good at reverse engineering obscure platforms, languages, game engines; and quickly throwing together super hacky tooling.
I was able to reverse engineer the PS4 edition of "New Game!: The Challenge Stage", which was never released in English. I've now fully translated it, added proper text wrapping and additional text boxes where text would now overflow. Along the way I've fully decompiled (with byte exact recompilation) the Squirrel scripts for the entire game, built atop the game engine of a now largely defunct game studio. Prior to this I hadn't even heard of Squirrel scripting language. I had most of this done in under 24 hours.
I'm not in any way a part of the visual novel community. I just did this because I enjoyed the New Game! anime way more than a near(?) middle aged man probably ought to.
P.S. My condolences to Yorhel's friends and family.
Brings back memories of how I did much the same for the PSP spin-off VN of the GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class manga/anime (that, of course, also originated from Manga Time Kirara and also had a big focus on art), although those were pre-LLM times. It even used Squirrel scripts too!
I second the condolences, tremendous loss for the people who knew Yorhel, as well as for the VN and open source communities.
It is fascinating how some similar niche genres of games have managed to mostly ignore each other, from what I have seen.
Interactive fiction has https://ifdb.org/.
Gamebooks ("CYOA" to outsiders) have https://gamebooks.org/.
I think there is some community around branching browser text stories like (mostly) Twine games that have their own database somewhere?
And then there is always some overlap and discussions around what games to allow where, with each community gatekeeping to some degree what games are allowed in their database or not.
So, for example, I never heard about VNDB and never really crossed paths with VN players online, even if I have been around communities for IF and gamebooks since last century and the similarities are obvious.
>similar niche genres of games have managed to mostly ignore each other
That's only because they are only "similar" on the surface. It feels like saying "football, volleyball and basketball are similar" just because they are all team games played with a ball.
Isn't it the opposite, that they are mechanically the same, but differs on the surface (art style and type of stories)?
thank you for sharing this! I never heard the two website you mentioned while being very familiar with vndb. I guess there will be always another corner of the internet that you don't even know existed.
If you are curious, vndb has a guideline you can see about what can be added here: https://vndb.org/d2
VNs are not games. They're a kind of ebook.
But only people who are really into computers read them, so they like to use game terminology to talk about them.
(also, none of the creators of "VNs" call them "VNs".)
Some VNs have no real choices and could hardly be called games. Others are deeply branched.
By the 2010s many JRPGs such as the Hyperdimension Neptunia series and Danganronpa pretty much stole all the visual elements of visual novels and mashed them up with gameplay from other genres.
Danganronpa is a true "adventure game" (which is actually what Japanese VN developers call their VNs…). It's pretty faithful to its genre.
Phoenix Wright is the only one of those Westerners really know about.
By now the term "visual novel" got re-imported back into Japan so even Japanese creators have started using it for what they otherwise call "novel games" and VN-like "adventure games".
I think IF games tend to be more puzzle games with some story segments. Gamebooks are much closer, but still often have proto-RPG mechanics. (I remember tracking inventory and HP for the ones I played/read through). VNs are much closer to pure story, with some tracking of earlier decision flags for callbacks later in the story.
This website is a remnant of something long gone: simple yet capable HTML websites that just work. I hope it will be preserved, or at least the database made public so it won’t get lost.
It is public, and more! There's even an interface allowing you to run your own queries directly against a synchronized copy: https://query.vndb.org/browse
There's a whole team behind it running, so VNDB isn't going anywhere fast.
Also the creator of my beloved NCDU. May he rest in peace.
Wow, I hope they continue on with the legacy built. I honestly have never heard of vndb until a few weeks ago. I am a large VN consumer, and when I found the site not only did it hit VN side, but also the aesthetics of a website looking like it was locked in the early 2000s, it made me save a screenshot to remind myself to build out one of my domains to one of my older styles with updated HTML/CSS.
I've used ncdu for years. Great utility! I'm sorry he is gone. How did he die? He doesn't look too old from his website, https://dev.yorhel.nl.
Worth noting that the VNDB code is also used to host other databases such as https://nepchan.org/ (a catalogue of indie Japanese or other similar-in-style RPGs)
RIP. VNDB is a truly incredible resource and the world is a better place for its existence.
another RIP has a nice picture
https://bimgs.jlist.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/RIP-Yorhe...
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