VNDB founder Yorhel has died

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.

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.

Also the creator of my beloved NCDU. May he rest in peace.

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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