Visual Novels; their place in the gaming world?

[Hagi]

I'd personally say the majority of visual novels aren't actually games. That's not to say that makes them any less, if I'm honest I think visual novels manage to be good exactly because they aren't games.

I'd put them closer to audio-books. Books leveraging the power of another medium for greater impact and ease of use.

I don't think having choices qualifies something as a game, I'd say what makes a game is having rules. And most (not all) visual novels don't really have those, at least not beyond click to make story continue (occasionally down different paths), much the same as a DVD (play, pause, select chapter etc.).

And yeah, this means that I personally consider things like Dear Esther to not be a game either. Probably more like an interactive movie. Which is fine, there's nothing magical about being a game that makes things better or worse. It's in no way a superior medium or anything like that, just a different one.

But my conclusion is rather simple. Games have rules. Visual novels (most) don't. Ergo visual novels (most) aren't games.

 

[Tegual]

A visual novel is a game. Where it belongs in the gaming world, the same place that all other games exist, as something people can enjoy, which is of course one of the simplest definitions of the term game. Whether you like them or the genre or not, not every visual novel is the same like not every shooter or every rpg is the same.

But my conclusion is rather simple. Games have rules. Visual novels (most) don't. Ergo visual novels (most) aren't games.

This is entirely untrue, the difference between most games and visual novels is that generally the rules are clear, for example a gun may only carry 7 bullets in a clip before you reload it. However, a visual novels rules are only clear after you have finished and 100%ed the entire game. This is because the choices you make are the rules. Almost all choices are tracked and have an outcome.

For example say there are 3 choices in a game. Each choice is label A, B and C. Generally if you choose all A's and the next time you choose all B's then there will be, even if only slightly, a different version of the story. These are the rules that define the visual novel and only by trying every choice and mapping out where each one leads can you see where everything leads. You are also no matter what type of visual novel you play confined by who you can talk to, the places you can go and what your answers will be. Basically one may say that in fact visual novels have stricter rules than most games since there is generally less freedom in them than most other games now days.

 

[SquallTheBlade]

This is entirely untrue, the difference between most games and visual novels is that generally the rules are clear, for example a gun may only carry 7 bullets in a clip before you reload it. However, a visual novels rules are only clear after you have finished and 100%ed the entire game. This is because the choices you make are the rules. Almost all choices are tracked and have an outcome.

But what about VNs that don't have choices? Or what about VNs where you can read routes only in certain order?

VNs by definition don't need choices so by definition they shouldn't be games. But there are some VNs that push the boundaries of what is a VN and what is a game by giving the reader many choices and/or puzzles/gameplay.

 

[Mutant1988]

But what about VNs that don't have choices? Or what about VNs where you can read routes only in certain order?

VNs by definition don't need choices so by definition they shouldn't be games. But there are some VNs that push the boundaries of what is a VN and what is a game by giving the reader many choices and/or puzzles/gameplay.

It's easy to apply rules to hypothetical scenarios.

If a novel does not involve any activity then yes, they would not be games, but novels.

If they involve even a slight activity then yes, they are games.

Whatever the case you can make a decision on whether a game or novel is for you when you encounter it, rather than try to dismiss an entire field of work on perceived merits or based on arbitrary conditions.

That is akin to Roger Ebert saying that games can't be art because of X or Y. It's completely unnecessary absolutism.

 

[Hagi]

A visual novel is a game. Where it belongs in the gaming world, the same place that all other games exist, as something people can enjoy, which is of course one of the simplest definitions of the term game. Whether you like them or the genre or not, not every visual novel is the same like not every shooter or every rpg is the same.

But my conclusion is rather simple. Games have rules. Visual novels (most) don't. Ergo visual novels (most) aren't games.

This is entirely untrue, the difference between most games and visual novels is that generally the rules are clear, for example a gun may only carry 7 bullets in a clip before you reload it. However, a visual novels rules are only clear after you have finished and 100%ed the entire game. This is because the choices you make are the rules. Almost all choices are tracked and have an outcome.

For example say there are 3 choices in a game. Each choice is label A, B and C. Generally if you choose all A's and the next time you choose all B's then there will be, even if only slightly, a different version of the story. These are the rules that define the visual novel and only by trying every choice and mapping out where each one leads can you see where everything leads. You are also no matter what type of visual novel you play confined by who you can talk to, the places you can go and what your answers will be. Basically one may say that in fact visual novels have stricter rules than most games since there is generally less freedom in them than most other games now days.

By that logic a movie is a game with even stricter rules. You can press pause, you can press play, you can press load/eject and get an entirely different movie etc. There's also extremely strict rules on what scenes you can see and what scenes you can't.

But those aren't the rules of the visual novel or the movie itself. They're the rules of the genre.

A game has it's own rules meaning different games have different rules. It's why so many MMOs, military shooters and mobile games are accused of being clones or reskins. Because even though they have different art assets, a different story etc. They have pretty much the same rules and thus are considered pretty much the same game. Rules are a massive part of the unique identity of a game, something that clearly doesn't apply to visual novels.

Change the art assets and the story of a visual novel but not the rules and you've got a completely different product.
Change the art assets and the story of a game but not the rules and you've got a clone.

The vast majority of visual novels operate under the exact same set of rules. Your description of those rules above isn't the description of a particular game. It's a description of the genre.

As I said, there's exceptions. Visual novels exist that have rules unique to them that define part of their identity, usually in the form of mini-games. But for the most part visual novels don't have rules themselves, the genre has rules, the individual products that make up said genre usually don't.

A game is defined by it's rules. A visual novel is not. A visual novel is not a game.

 

[NPC009]

It's easy to apply rules to hypothetical scenarios.

If a novel does not involve any activity then yes, they would not be games, but novels.

If they involve even a slight activity then yes, they are games.

Whatever the case you can make a decision on whether a game or novel is for you when you encounter it, rather than try to dismiss an entire field of work on perceived merits or based on arbitrary conditions.

That is akin to Roger Ebert saying that games can't be art because of X or Y. It's completely unnecessary absolutism.

What if they are neither? As mediums evolve into new ones, it makes sense to think up new words to describe these new mediums. We don't call movies photos. They were moving pictures, movies in short.

How about this: pure visual novels are neither books nor games. They are, I don't know, digital interactive experiences.

We're seeing a whole spectrum of electronic products that aren't quite games, from products such as Dear Esther and Gone Home to various virtual reality experiences. Instead of blindly labeling them games or not-games, we may be best of to think of them as something else.

 

[Mutant1988]

It's easy to apply rules to hypothetical scenarios.

If a novel does not involve any activity then yes, they would not be games, but novels.

If they involve even a slight activity then yes, they are games.

Whatever the case you can make a decision on whether a game or novel is for you when you encounter it, rather than try to dismiss an entire field of work on perceived merits or based on arbitrary conditions.

That is akin to Roger Ebert saying that games can't be art because of X or Y. It's completely unnecessary absolutism.

What if they are neither? As mediums evolve into new ones, it makes sense to think up new words to describe these new mediums. We don't call movies photos. They were moving pictures, movies in short.

How about this: pure visual novels are neither books nor games. They are, I don't know, digital interactive experiences.

We're seeing a whole spectrum of electronic products that aren't quite games, from products such as Dear Esther and Gone Home to various virtual reality experiences. Instead of blindly labeling them games or not-games, we may be best of to think of them as something else.

Still, I think that trying to forcefully re-label works reeks of cultural elitism (I'm not directing this at you, we seem to be on the same page on this).

"You're allowed to have your things, but not to call them X or Y." is the impression I get from those adamantly insistent that visual novels aren't games.

As for you suggestion to call them something other than games, we already do that. We call them Visual Novels.

I think that's sufficient and if someone wants to call it a game or not I think is entirely at their own discretion. Because when you argue that X is or isn't a thing you're really just obsessing over semantics, because calling visual novels games does not degrade games.

If I may insert my own opinion here on the division between game or not game - It is when you actively engage with it for a specific goal that it is a game. Passively experiencing it, such as with music, movies and books (Turning a page is not really something you want to do, it's just necessary) is different from actively moving it towards the goal.

Which is why an entirely passive visual novel (Kinetic Novel) is something I would not call a game. It's a book with a different means to turn pages. While all the ones that actively require an action Like a choice by the player to progress, I would call a game.

I'm not an authority on this by any means, but I think this argument is fairly convincing.

 

[maninahat]

Visual Novels are a potentially great idea, badly explored.

The standard format is to have a big bloody picture of a cartoon girl, and one sentence of poorly written prose on the screen at any one time. Even if these VNs were well written (and they hardly ever are), it would still be a terrible way to present the story to an adult reader. It's like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, only with worse artwork and more nudity. It's like reading a comic with 10,000 panels, each one showing the exact same picture, save for an occasional change in facial expression. In terms of player interaction, that is usually limited to an arbitrary choice every half hour or so. The purpose of this choice is always to either a) choose which girl you want to have sex with, or b) choose whether to get the jerk bad ending or the "nice guy" good ending. Note that the choices actually have nothing explicitly to do with either of those two things - I'd like to think that my decision to go to a library over going to the school roof shouldn't be the deciding factor in whether I fuck the chick with the glasses or my underage step-sister.

Christine Love has shown me that VNs can be done well. In her VNs:

a) Some thought is actually put into the interface, and how it could benefit the story being told.
b) The story usually has primary themes that aren't about having sex with children.
c) She looks at efficient ways of getting the story across, so that it doesn't take twenty minutes of your time to learn about an after-school club.
d) She actually features regular player interaction, in which the player can make meaningful decisions that immediately relate to what is currently going on, and maybe feel responsible for how you control your character in the setting.
e) She is a competent writer.

I have only recently discovered TWINE, and I am seeing a lot of good old fashioned text adventure stuff coming out of there. I see that as offering a lot more interesting source of games than the tired Japanese VN format.

 

[SquallTheBlade]

Visual Novels are a potentially great idea, badly explored.

The standard format is to have a big bloody picture of a cartoon girl, and one sentence of poorly written prose on the screen at any one time. Even if these VNs were well written (and they hardly ever are), it would still be a terrible way to present the story to an adult reader. It's like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, only with worse artwork and more nudity. It's like reading a comic with 10,000 panels, each one showing the exact same picture, save for an occasional change in facial expression. In terms of player interaction, that is usually limited to an arbitrary choice every half hour or so. The purpose of this choice is always to either a) choose which girl you want to have sex with, or b) choose whether to get the jerk bad ending or the "nice guy" good ending. Note that the choices actually have nothing explicitly to do with either of those two things - I'd like to think that my decision to go to a library over going to the school roof shouldn't be the deciding factor in whether I fuck the chick with the glasses or my underage step-sister.

Christine Love has shown me that VNs can be done well. In her VNs:

a) Some thought is actually put into the interface, and how it could benefit the story being told.
b) The story usually has primary themes that aren't about having sex with children.
c) She looks at efficient ways of getting the story across, so that it doesn't take twenty minutes of your time to learn about an after-school club.
d) She actually features regular player interaction, in which the player can make meaningful decisions that immediately relate to what is currently going on, and maybe feel responsible for how you control your character in the setting.
e) She is a competent writer.

I have only recently discovered TWINE, and I am seeing a lot of good old fashioned text adventure stuff coming out of there. I see that as offering a lot more interesting source of games than the tired Japanese VN format.

Feels like you have only read eroges. Have you tried reading other types of VNs? Because all those problems vanish when you step out of the eroge zone.

 

[Mutant1988]

*Snip*

Sounds like you suffer from http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllAnimeIsNaughtyTentacles? and dismiss a medium solely based on your own ignorance and preconceptions.

Corpse Party
Dangan Ronpa
Phoenix Wright
Katawa Shoujo - Which can be played with censored scenes, but is in fact incredibly tasteful and respectful in how it handles mature themes and the subject matter of living with disabilities.
Saya No Uta - Where the H element is more disturbing than titillating
Steins;Gate
Hatoful Boyfriend
Snatcher
Policenauts
Higurashi: When They Cry.

All visual novels. All more than just "sex" games.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VisualNovel
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Utsuge

Of the games that are "sex" games, there's also considerable diversity in what gender the protagonist is and the gender of the characters they aim to woo. Not many genres outside of VNs that are as diverse, even if the subject matter is raunchy and the works partly exploitive (In the same vein as exploitation movies pander to trends and niche appeals).

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RomanceGame

Just because most games available on Steam are garbage doesn't mean that the entire genre consist of nothing but garbage.

 

[Lilani]

-snip-

I think they very clearly have a "place" in games already, otherwise there wouldn't be so many of them and they wouldn't be so well-known. The fact that they exist is not preventing someone from making a more interactive "artsy" game. And obviously there are plenty of people who approve of the format given the fanbases they have. There's really no point in complaining about them, they're already here and here to stay.

 

[Atmos Duality]

The few I've seen slide heavily towards the "no-agency" end of the spectrum, so even if they are "games" I wouldn't consider them good "games" to begin with...
...Which doesn't mean they're bad works or useless (good writing is good writing), they're just not good games.

Besides, such restrictions on player agency greatly limits discussion of them as games anyway...so basically the only people that even care if Visual Novels are "games" or not are those getting hung up on meaningless technicalities.

 

[maninahat]

*Snip*

Sounds like you suffer from http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllAnimeIsNaughtyTentacles? and dismiss a medium solely based on your own ignorance and preconceptions.

Corpse Party
Dangan Ronpa
Phoenix Wright
Katawa Shoujo - Which can be played with censored scenes, but is in fact incredibly tasteful and respectful in how it handles mature themes and the subject matter of living with disabilities.
Saya No Uta - Where the H element is more disturbing than titillating
Steins;Gate
Hatoful Boyfriend
Snatcher
Policenauts
Higurashi: When They Cry.

All visual novels. All more than just "sex" games.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VisualNovel
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Utsuge

Of the games that are "sex" games, there's also considerable diversity in what gender the protagonist is and the gender of the characters they aim to woo. Not many genres outside of VNs that are as diverse, even if the subject matter is raunchy and the works partly exploitive (In the same vein as exploitation movies pander to trends and niche appeals).

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RomanceGame

Just because most games available on Steam are garbage doesn't mean that the entire genre consist of nothing but garbage.

I expect some of those on your list do not meet what I described as the "standard format", though the two on your list I had played do. Even if the rest didn't, they still don't exactly disprove that there is a standard format, just that there are some exceptions...which I obviously already knew, or I wouldn't be going on about Christine Love.

Taking your example of Katawa Shoujo, I think I can fairly direct all my previously made criticisms at it. It has:
a) Dodgy writing (the quality is very sporadic, perhaps due to having so many different writers).
b) Inefficient picture based format that mostly consisting of the same pictures of school girls, eschewing the showing of more than one line of text on the screen at once.
c) Sex with said schoolgirls (whether you choose to see the images or not).
d) Infrequent player input that largely serves to determine which girl you are going to chance upon, and whether you will get a good or bad ending, even though the decisions themselves are utterly arbitrary and not logically connected to those goals.

 

[maninahat]

b) Inefficient picture based format that mostly consisting of the same pictures of school girls, eschewing the showing of more than one line of text on the screen at once.
d) Infrequent player input that largely serves to determine which girl you are going to chance upon, and whether you will get a good or bad ending, even though the decisions themselves are utterly arbitrary and not logically connected to those goals.

Next you're gonna tell me that you don't like the fact that you shoot guns in shooters. That's genre convention and does not affect the game in any way. There's no reason to make special CGs for each scene, unless something interesting is happening it's just 2 or more people talking in a room. And player input is the only way to have variation on the gameplay.

It's a bad convention that needn't exist. The reason to make special CGs for each scene is the same reason for why you should also have different back grounds or different angles; it gives you so, so much more range to tell a story. Look at how in a single page of a manga or a comic book [http://i4.mangareader.net/yokohama-kaidashi-kikou/132/yokohama-kaidashi-kikou-89259.jpg], even something as simple as a conversation between two people will involve the "camera" moving around the room from panel to panel, focusing on different things, capturing the people and the story from different angles. It does a lot to set a tone, emphasis or a dynamic without having to depend on what is being said by the characters. It's so rare to see a comic not use these techniques that it actually becomes an neat story telling trick when it does pop up. [http://4thletter.net/wp-content/uploads//thiefofthieves-01.jpg]

In VNs though, there is no effort to experiment with these options despite being a primarily visual medium. The only thing that ever changes is the expression on the face of a static standing body. Imagine a manga series doing the same thing for thirty or forty panels at a time. It would be agonizing to read. How it still is so pervasive in VNs, I don't know. Okay, well I do know, it is because VNs are made as cheaply and as quickly as possible, so anything that might push up the production cost is out of the question. What I really don't understand is how the fans have grown so accustomed to this standard, they think it is bizarre for others someone question it. Hell, you even said it yourself: "There's no reason to make special CGs for each scene, unless something interesting is happening it's just 2 or more people talking in a room." In a VN, two people talking in a room never looks interesting.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

VNs are VNs. They are their own thing and don't need to be tied to gaming (though I don't see the harm in it either, it's just a niche category if you do). They are "played" on systems mostly dedicated to gaming, but that's not saying much since most platforms are multimedia devices anyway.

I can see how many people see VNs as wank bank material for weirdos what with the torrents of meme worthy content pushing that idea being rampant on the internet since the late 90's or early 2000's. But as someone mentioned earlier, Sturgeons Law comes into effect here as much as any other medium.

That's about all I can say. I have no fondness towards the medium. I find them boring and often lazily made.

 

[SquallTheBlade]

]Look at how in a single page of a manga or a comic book[/url], even something as simple as a conversation between two people will involve the "camera" moving around the room from panel to panel, focusing on different things, capturing the people and the story from different angles. It does a lot to set a tone, emphasis or a dynamic without having to depend on what is being said by the characters. It's so rare to see a comic not use these techniques that it actually becomes an neat story telling trick when it does pop up. [http://4thletter.net/wp-content/uploads//thiefofthieves-01.jpg]

Good thing that VNs use music to set a tone, emphasis or a dynamic without having to depend on what is being said by the characters.

In VNs though, there is no effort to experiment with these options despite being a primarily visual medium.

But that's just wrong. The novel part is primary, not the visuals. If you were expecting good visuals you had very very wrong mindset. Though that doesn't mean that no VN tries to do stuff visually. Fate/Stay Night comes to mind as an example.

Hell, you even said it yourself: "There's no reason to make special CGs for each scene, unless something interesting is happening it's just 2 or more people talking in a room." In a VN, two people talking in a room never looks interesting.

There are many reasons why two people talking in a room can be interesting. The dialogue and the interactions between those characters for example.

 

[maninahat]

]Look at how in a single page of a manga or a comic book[/url], even something as simple as a conversation between two people will involve the "camera" moving around the room from panel to panel, focusing on different things, capturing the people and the story from different angles. It does a lot to set a tone, emphasis or a dynamic without having to depend on what is being said by the characters. It's so rare to see a comic not use these techniques that it actually becomes an neat story telling trick when it does pop up. [http://4thletter.net/wp-content/uploads//thiefofthieves-01.jpg]

Good thing that VNs use music to set a tone, emphasis or a dynamic without having to depend on what is being said by the characters.

In VNs though, there is no effort to experiment with these options despite being a primarily visual medium.

But that's just wrong. The novel part is primary, not the visuals. If you were expecting good visuals you had very very wrong mindset. Though that doesn't mean that no VN tries to do stuff visually. Fate/Stay Night comes to mind as an example.

Hell, you even said it yourself: "There's no reason to make special CGs for each scene, unless something interesting is happening it's just 2 or more people talking in a room." In a VN, two people talking in a room never looks interesting.

There are many reasons why two people talking in a room can be interesting. The dialogue and the interactions between those characters for example.

If it is the novel part that is the primary part (in spite of the name "visual novel"), then it is still a bad format. The word part of a visual novel is often reduced to one/two sentence captions that appear on the screen one at a time. You can set an automated scroller to move from one line to the next, but if you have a fast enough reading speed, the autoscrollers are too slow and you have to move to the next line with a mouse click or space bar. That is a terrible way to have to read a novel.

 

[SquallTheBlade]

If it is the novel part that is the primary part (in spite of the name "visual novel"), then it is still a bad format. The word part of a visual novel is often reduced to one/two sentence captions that appear on the screen one at a time.

Wrong again.

You can set an automated scroller to move from one line to the next, but if you have a fast enough reading speed, the autoscrollers are too slow and you have to move to the next line with a mouse click or space bar. That is a terrible way to have to read a novel.

Just as terrible as flipping a page in a book. Why is that okay but not pressing enter/space/mouse?

 

[NPC009]

In VNs though, there is no effort to experiment with these options despite being a primarily visual medium. The only thing that ever changes is the expression on the face of a static standing body. Imagine a manga series doing the same thing for thirty or forty panels at a time. It would be agonizing to read. How it still is so pervasive in VNs, I don't know. Okay, well I do know, it is because VNs are made as cheaply and as quickly as possible, so anything that might push up the production cost is out of the question. What I really don't understand is how the fans have grown so accustomed to this standard, they think it is bizarre for others someone question it. Hell, you even said it yourself: "There's no reason to make special CGs for each scene, unless something interesting is happening it's just 2 or more people talking in a room." In a VN, two people talking in a room never looks interesting.

You do know that many VNs are made with shoestring budgets by teams as small as one person? It's kinda like complaining indie developers never bother to innovate because so many of them make sidescrolling games. Doesn't mean that part of the industry is rotten. It's just that many have to pick their battles.

Besides, does deviating from the standard make all that much sense when it doesn't add anything to the game? The interface in Christina Love's games suit the setting and add something to the game, as do the fast-paced court battles in Danganronpa or even the little RPG battles in Hatoful Boyfriend. If the developer can come up with something like that, great! But if the twist is just there as a stupid gimmick, I'd prefer they didn't bother.