Hello journalists,

Christine here from Udon Addict. I hope you guys are having a great month of December until the end of 2024. Today, I have extremely sad news. The app called KochoVN was defunct this year. For those of you who don't know what that is, KochoVN is the name of the visual novel engine launched in 2020. It didn't require a lot of stressful programming or coding while developing your own visual novels. Unfortunately, after 3 years of operation, rumor has it that the app didn't have enough fans due to low viewership or probably the company’s contract for the App Store and Itch.io expired. The only two visual novels I played were Corinna and You're It. That's it. This December, when I opened the app just to see how the engine was doing, it turned out that all of the games’ icons disappeared into blanks. That type of occurrence shocked me. Despite its defunct status, the only interesting thing is that I still have the app on my phone, and the way I'm still active in the Kocho engine, where I still have my games in progress. Otherwise, everything I worked hard on would be moved to the Ren’Py engine until further notice. I'm not playing with you. To a certain visual novel engine whose contract had expired as an app, Kocho, I will miss my days playing with you and happily having me wanting to make my own visual novels. You were so amazing; you had all the interesting games a lot of us wanted to check out. Keep up the good work, and I'll see you around.

In conclusion, if you are reading this news, my deepest apologies if this happens to your dream to become a writer, and I understand your grief. But look at the light near you; there are other visual novel engines you might like other than KochoVN, like Ren’Py, TyranoBuilder, or Unity, likely. And remember, never try to give up your dream as a writer and just keep it alive.

Best of luck,

Christine Lim from Udon Addict.