Tell me about yourself.

Hi. I’m Ghostiespectie, a 26 year old Malaysian who makes FVNs, plays video games–mostly fighting and horror–and watches some anime.

Thanks for that brief introduction.

Do you have a fursona and if so, what species? What does having a fursona mean to you?

They're ghostly dogs, one was the playful, silly side, and the other one was the sinister, edgy, twisted and evil side, but before that, it was a placeholder husky as it was the main character in my first work. Now I have these two little doggies as my fursona.

My fursona is a representation of part of myself.

I have to ask, because it’s so curious to me. It's so individualized. I'm always curious how people align themselves on that spectrum of answers.

However, now we're gonna get a little more spicy.

What’s your Hear Me Out? This is a no judgment zone. Okay, maybe a little judgment.

Jon Talbain from Darkstalkers.

I think he's too conventionally attractive!  If you had said the Frankenstein I woulda been on board. He doesn’t count! Go again!

I'm not sure, I think most of my interests are conventionally attractive. Maybe The Plague from Dead by Daylight? A lot of people find her gross and disgusting since she does look gross and her power is all about puking on survivors, but she gives me a hot, tall mommy vibe.

Fair enough, fair enough.

Would you say you’re an active member of the Furry community? If so, what do you get from your engagement with them? And how do you engage?

I guess I am, not in real life, mostly online. Mostly limited to my social circle. I'm kinda active, but not entirely. Mostly just in online furry spaces and mostly limited to the friends around the discord community.

How did you meet the discord friends?

I met most of them in the Furry Visual Novels discord. When I saw them on the call, I just tried and took a risk to join in, but I'm pretty shy about it. It took a while to learn more about them.

That's when I started actually talking to them instead muting myself all the time. Before, I rarely talked. I was too shy and rarely joined a call with people I don't know.

I get it. I'm not usually the one to jump into a call and start talking the first time around. I gotta get a sense of the sort of... talking meta, when joining a new space.

We have one more question about yourself. Properly `yourself` as opposed to the rest.

What’s your furry Hot Take?

One of mine, for example, is that people's fursonas should be more specific! If there's specific dogs, use specific other animal species!

I want to see more marine animal sonas. They're not super rare, but there should be more--outside of the common shark.

I think that gives our readers a good sense of you, as much as one can gather from bite-sized portions of your thoughts. Now let’s get into your work, and your feelings on FVNs overall.

You have two visual novels. The first is The Beast, which is currently on hiatus. It’s an RPG action visual novel, about a human named eric who learned he's not quite as human as he thought he was in a world of monsters and the eponymous Beast Hunters, and  your other work is Spirit: Summoners of Áine-Chlair , which the readers get to miss me mangling the pronunciation. That one’s about a wolf who moves into a new town hoping for a happier life and of course, what can happen but things starting to fall apart. At least, that’s two rough summaries–if you want to know more, you’ll have to read them, of course.

So, what made you want to make a Furry Visual Novel (and tell me about your general creative history?)

I always loved drawing and wanted to share stories with everybody. I thought about making comics, but it took too much effort, especially with my real life work, so I didn’t have enough energy to do that. So I sorta gave up on comics, and then I saw visual novels, where I can just draw sprites or a few CGs and then write. I then thought I'll give it a try and it will lend a way to share my stories and art.

The reason I keep doing hand drawn art is because I don't have the equipment nor money for drawing on the computer. I have to save my money for real life. 

I think it's a point in your favor to be hand drawn. I think it makes you stylistically stand out, so it's not all a "downside" to be hand drawn in a world of virtual art, in my opinion.

What are some of your inspirations for creation?

Kamen Rider --Toku works-- I like kaijus a lot. In my game you will see some familiar kaiju looking characters, as they're inspired from those shows. I'm also a fan of Digimon  too, which is one of the inspirations for Spirit. I also love horror movies and board games even though I can't stand jump scares. So two of my games contain horror and dark elements.

I think those elements are indeed visible to any of the readers of your works, especially in Spirit with the sort of companion creatures re the Digimon inspiration.

What do you hope people get from your work?

Like I mentioned before, I always wanted to share stories. I hope the readers have fun and enjoy my games while playing it. That's all. Just hope everyone enjoys it and has fun with it.

Really pure, to want people to invest and enjoy the works.

What’s next for you?

Still working on the side story for one of the characters for Spirit, and working on the routes for other parts. Not sure when it will come out due to real life. Once I'm done with the new build of Spirit, I'm also planning on maybe making a project for Novembear, but we'll see.

We'll definitely see as at the time of this interview, you have two days for Novembear. One and a half days? Not very many days, so we'll definitely see by the time this comes out haha.

(Editorial note: Okay, I got this out faster than I thought, so it will still remain to be seen heehee.)

And now for your thoughts on your colleagues, so to speak:

What’s something you wish there were more of in FVNs?

Not so sure as there's plenty of FVNs out there and they have their own idea of things. I don't think they lack anything in particular. There's a wide variety, like Alones about the wolves and slice of life --sorta, I suppose. Or Echo  about the creepy town. They all have their own varieties so I don't think anything is lacking... unless--no, never mind, no `unless`.

What makes you want to read a FVN?

I'm not too picky--I'm sorta picky, but I know how it is to make a visual novel. If anything sorta catches my attention, then I'll take a look and if I like it, I'll wish for more of course.

Is there anything in particular that catches your attention?

If I like it, I like it. I'll give it enough chances if I'm not liking it--if they do a new build, I'll take another glance, but that's just me.

What’s something you hate seeing in FVNs?

Isekai FVNs, especially the ones with weak main characters that don't do anything useful in the entire story, even at the end. I really don't like those. There are some good isekai FVNs that I like, but the ones the MC is so weak and does nothing for the story or just stays in the same place all the time and nothing happens--those I think are the most boring things I've ever seen in FVNs and are also overused.

Yeah, there's not a critical lack of weak main characters in FVNs.

Weak main characters can be good, but at least don't make them always useless, in every single build/chapter. In that one FVN I won't name as it'll get controversial, that main character just barely does anything at all in the story. I don't like that.

What are your thoughts on some of the common gripes of the readers/FVN sphere?

Multiple routes can be fun actually if it's about the characters, we can at least know more about them, but if it has choices throughout that barely do anything... it depends. And as for FVNs never finishing or updating--I totally understand. My FVN also takes a pretty long time to update, so I get it for the ones that are taking a while to create. I know they're doing it in their free time for most creators--it's hard to make it in their free time. We all have real life that gets in the way, so it's not really easy to release in a consistent manner, like every single month. It's really hard to do so if there's any real life obligations.

Everyone knows all the big popular names(Sorry Exca)— what’s your favorite underground/niche FVN? 

BEYOND the HARBOR r-- I don't think I hear a lot of people talk about it. I also like Fuzzy Donuts, it's pretty funny so far. Nerus. One Thousand Acts of Decency  --if you love anything like Dangaronpa and Ace Attorney you'll like One Thousand Acts of Decency. Alones is also pretty good. Cor is also a hidden gem. There are still others, but that's what's off the top of my head.

Now for some closing thoughts… something I’d like to know of all my guests.

What is the meaning of life?

This is tough. Do anything that makes you happy and anything that makes you satisfied. That's my answer.

Simple, clean and evocative, as an answer.

Finally– Anything you’d like to plug? And where can we find you?

Besides my visual novels, you can find me on my twitter, but given it's dying... on discord i'm pretty active, you can find me on itch and bluesky.