I used this website several years ago as a pre-teen to try and make my own visual novels. I forgot about the website, but never thought to unsubscribe from the website's mailing list.
As of today, 4/27/23, the creator of this website appears to be experiencing a psychotic break. She has sent several bizarre, unprofessional emails via the mailing list in the past few days, some of which contain vulgar language (including ableist slurs) and pornographic content from the CloudNovel Discord. On her public Twitter, she is talking about Silicon Valley and Coronavirus-related conspiracy theories. It appears that similar to when I used it, a significant portion of the userbase is made up of children, which makes this shift in content even more disturbing.
I cannot comment on the technical issues with the website and other problems involving the developer's conduct on the Discord server itself, as I am not a part of the server nor have I used the website in a long time. However, I would not suggest that anyone (especially minors) use this service until the developer gets the help she needs.
So basically I tried to log into Cloudnovel one day and it said my account was banned. I did nothing wrong, I just played the visual novels and left kind words to the creators. Do NOT recommend unless you want to be bombarded with spam in your email and being banned for literally no reason.
I have heard a lot about Cloud Novel but here is an underlying truth. The CEO went out of their way to hack a game creators account and this game they have been working on for 3 years, and steal it basically. The CEO hacked the creators account, changed their username, and even edited their wording to frame thd creator for bad things. The CEO is obsessed with Elon Musk and called his autistic child retarded which is a nono since I am also autistic. I have been wanting to expose this ever since I learned about this and I am speaking up about it now. There have been several cases of the CEO and staff hacking and atealing users games and creations! DO NOT USE CLOUD NOVEL!! PROTECT YOUR CONTENT!
i would just like to start off by saying this has to be one of the WORST websites ever developed.
the format is janky, it's extremely outdated, and the cherry on top is the unstable creator.
y'all thought yandereDev was bad, wait until you hear about sonya; cloudnovel's creator.
i haven't used this site in over a year due to my visual novel being suddenly stolen with no followup, but ive been getting extremely absurd emails ranging from sonya literally sending pictures of children's personal information through the newsletter or laughable emails claiming that some users of her website are elon musk or steve jobs' wife. I've been in the cloudnovel discord server as well, and she will randomly decide to start beef w/ people. i'm honestly done with this whole situation, and if you have no idea what she's done or why i'm saying all of this about her... let me just tell you, the rabbit hole goes down far. the amount of things she's said to people and how she romanticizes her schizophrenia and her nonadherence to taking medication is genuinely shocking to me. i dont understand how someone like this is freely able to browse the internet and nonetheless monitor a website made strictly for children and young adults. if you really want to make your own otome/dressup game, please use ANY other website possible just don't use this one. i don't want any more people to get hurt by using this website and having their visual novels purposefully stolen and their account deleted for no apparent reason.
im posting this review after i saw the developers twitter and how DISGUSTING it is to see a woman do and say such terrible things when none of it is true. please watch yourself and stay safe out there for anyone reading this.
Well well well, where do I start? The doxxing, the stealing, and the falsified banning. Sonya is quote unquote "not in any realtionship with elon" and two seconds later shes calling his son the R slur. Absolutely pathetic for a CEO, Sonya needs to grow up. I personally have been banned from cloudnovel myself for making a callout post for everything she did, and blocked me from both Twitter accs. DO NOT USE CLOUDNOVEL NOR SUPPORT SONYA.
CloudNovel is a great tool for non-programmers. It is really easy to use and took me only several hours to master it and complete a bare minimum visual novel with free-to-use assets. I don't know any programming language nor am I interested in learning or have the patience to learn it. I tried numerous times, failed each time. Therefore, CloudNovel is such an amazing product if you are someone like me. It is an online engine, and it has amazing collaboration features that allow me to create a game together with my friends as if I am playing a game in Co-op mode.
Of course, it does have several flaws such as you need a stable internet connection to play the game but for me, the pros outweighed the cons.
I have been a user since it first started and I have been loving it. It has a great community that is ready to interact and helps each other. If you are an artist, or a writer, whom without a speck of knowledge of programming but you have this idea that you really wish to ingrain in the form of a visual novel then you should indeed, give CloudNovel a try. If you have any questions, just ask in the Support forum or contact the staff and they will answer it as soon they are available.
CloudNovel, quite simply put, is in itself a novel idea. Quick to learn, easy to master, and dependable as a platform for Visual Novel distribution. I often hear the argument to learn programming for yourself but not everyone wants to be a coder. CloudNovel is the experimenter and artist's engine worthy of a second glance or three.
First of all the Community is great and its like a big family. Whenever you have a problem someone is There to help you and its always updated. If you need any option thats not there yet you just need to ask for it and theyll do their best to make it available. Then it is really easy and intuitive to make a novel no need to Hire a technician everyone can Do it. And it saves so much time.