Darbury

Thanks! And you'll be happy to hear I wasn't suggesting using ‽ in this situation, just bringing it up as a fun bit of trivia. No one uses the actual interrobang — unless you live in Portland, of course. In which case, ‽ is probably your name.

Ouch! I sometimes forget that some people on Fuwa are using white-on-black color schemes. Thanks for letting me know. I've updated the text so it shouldn't be an issue anymore.

It's been way too long since I played these games. (I burned through VLR on Vita the week it came out, I think.) Anyone have a lead on the best YouTube recap of the series to date? I need a chance to refresh my memory on all the obsessive little details.

Next up in our parade of visual novel punctuation: the interrobang. That’s right, I said the interrobang. Can you believe it?! Huh?! What the hell's an interrobang?! "Interrobang" is the term we'll borrow to describe that little dogpile of punctuation, usually represented as ?! or !?, that sits at the end of nearly every question in a visual novel. It's meant to convey incredulity, combining elements of both a question and an exclamation. And, since the typical VN's stock-in-trade is exaggerated emotion, you'll end up seeing it a lot. Because why have your characters simply ask a question when they can GODDAMN SCREAM IT at Samuel L. Jackson levels. I mentioned we're borrowing the term. The actual interrobang (‽, a ? combined with a !) is a bizarro punctuation mark crowdsourced by an ad agency back in 1962, along with the term “interrobang” itself. (If Wikipedia is to be believed, other suggested names included “QuizDing," “exclamaquest," and “exclarotive.”) It fell out of fashion after the 1960s, though, so you'll rarely see it in the wild. Still, it lurks in the Unicode of a few fonts here and there, lingering on like some creepy conjoined twins left chained to a steam pipe in the dark basement of the English language. In the meantime, we'll appropriate it here to describe its unpacked counterparts, !? and ?!. So is it “!?” or the other way around?! Now that we know what our faux interrobang does, our next concern is how it should be edited. Do we (!?) shoot first and ask questions later or (?!) vice versa? There’s little agreement among language mavens as to which is correct, and most VN scripts I’ve seen switch between the two on a whim — sometimes in the very same line. Thus, it falls to the editor and/or translator to impose some order on the situation. The simple answer: Pick one and stick with it; I don't really care which. Consistency is our primary concern here. The standard emoji character set uses !?, so you'd be entirely justified in rolling with that. Some argue that !? is also more typographically appealing, and I'd tend to agree. However... The advanced answer: My own preference is to switch between the two on a case-by-case basis, with ?! winning out 95% of the time. That's because I tend to think in terms of nested levels of punctuation, rather than a monolithic model. Which is to say, the sentence should be read structurally as: with the ! modifying a base question and turning it into an exclamation. Since that’s what the interrobang typically does, I end up using ?! in almost all instances. But there are exceptions. Imagine some friends who find out they've won a contest to meet David Hasselhoff. Mid-celebration, it occurs to them they didn't actually enter, so there's no way they should have won. Here, a base exclamatory statement is being modified into a question: (We did it!)? so !? would be the more appropriate choice. This kind of usage requires an editor or translator to make lots of judgement calls, however. If you don’t feel comfortable getting that deep into the contextual weeds, there’s absolutely no shame in going the simple route and using one option across the board. What about interrogangbangs?!?!? Last but not least, we have the situation where a character goes into full freakout mode and says things like: In these cases, make sure the first piece of punctuation aligns with the intent of original sentence — is it an exclamation or a question? — then keep the rest of the punctuation exactly as it appears. Or, if you’re opting for the simple method, don’t change a thing. Just stick with the punctuation as provided and keep on walking. It’s what The Hoff would want.

You find that out in an unlockable route. Read the walkthrough.

I enjoyed Silver Spoon quite a bit. Don't think I saw that on your list.

After some great discussion regarding v1 of this working definition, I brought it back to the shop for some tweaks and tinkering. The results are posted below as v2 of the definition. And I'm sure I'll repeat this cycle many, many more times. So, without further ado... A 5-point test for visual novels 1. It must be read/played on an electronic device that outputs to a screen. Fairly self-explanatory. Computers, game consoles, handhelds, phones — hell, even a smart watch would qualify. A printed VN would be considered a graphic novel (or a choose-your-own-adventure book). An audio file of a VN would be an audiobook. 2. It must convey an authored narrative. By narrative, we mean an organized account of true or fictional events, actions, thoughts, etc. In other words, the visual novel has to tell a “story.” The entirety of the Detroit phone book displayed in Ren’py is not a VN, even if it’s accompanied by a whole chorus line of catgirls. By authored, we mean the narrative must be an act of transformative intent by its author. A VN cannot rely upon sandboxes, emergent gameplay, or similar mechanisms to generate its narrative arc (though they may be used to flavor it). Such experiences, while highly interesting, result in something other than a visual novel. To put Rule 2 in more narratological terms: both the story and discourse of a VN must be deliberate acts. 3. It must use art & copy as the near-exclusive means for conveying that narrative. Art: A visual novel must have visuals. Crazy talk, right? It doesn’t matter if those visuals are 1-bit pixel art, hand illustration, 3D renders, photography, or video. Ideally, these images will also be germane to the narrative. Copy: At the heart of any VN is the act of reading — eyes looking at words and turning them into meaning. A VN should be structured around this. If significant portions of the story are delivered as voice-over/video without text, then title isn’t a visual novel. If the text can be turned off — e.g., captions, subtitles, etc. — then the title isn’t a visual novel. 4. Uninterrupted reading must comprise the near-entirety of one’s experience with the title. For the purposes of our discussion, let’s assume a continuum that looks roughly like: non-reading gameplay (0%) >>>> reading as gameplay (100%) Past the 98% mark or so, we can usefully consider a title to be a straight-up “visual novel.” From 50%-97%, we can usefully consider that title to be a VN-hybrid (a cross between a VN and another genre of game, such as an SRPG). Below that point, we don’t consider it to be a visual novel at all, but we can still discuss its VN-like elements (or lack thereof). 5. It must possess a defined “page” structure that’s generated in real time and is, to some extent, controllable by the reader. Page structure: Unlike a novel seen in a word processor's window, a VN intentionally constrains what we may read and/or see at any given time. A VN-creator is almost like a film director in this respect, breaking a larger narrative into individual shots — in our case, screens or “pages” — for dramatic effect. Such narrative chunking is one trait that helps us distinguish visual novels from things like web novels or e-books. There are different conventions for such page display — ADV, NVL, diegetic, etc. — and each contains its own assumptions about how a story will be displayed. Real-time generation: Feel free to fight me on this, but a pre-rendered PDF is not a visual novel. A “Let’s Play” of a visual novel is not, itself, a visual novel. While it seems an arbitrary distinction to make, I’ll make it nonetheless. A VN must use a real-time engine of some sort to assemble art + copy for display. Controllability: In most cases, this is achieved by turning to the next “page” of the VN with a click, tap, or button press, but any user input could suffice — speech or motion controls, for instance. If the option is available (e.g., via an “auto-play” setting) the reader may choose to waive this ability. But why have this requirement at all? (If you remember, I intentionally chose to omit it in v1 of my definition.) It's here now because, at their core, VNs are both literature and video games. Can you have a novel without mechanical interaction? Sure; I argued as much in v1. But can you have a video game that allows for no interaction or control? Not really; it'd be a machima at best, indistinguishable from a video. And yes, I know Mountain exists, and there's still some small level of control there, if not meaningful interaction. A VN may also… A VN may offer a non-linear/branching narrative… or it may not. A VN may feature sound and music… or it may not. A VN may feature a story and/or visuals rooted in the anime/manga tradition… or it may not. A VN may be made by Japanese developers… or it may not. A VN may feature erotic content… or it may not. Extra credit "This is stupid. I know a visual novel when I see one." Well, what about the visual novel you haven’t yet seen? "Can't a visual novel be just text and no images? Why are we privileging one form of content over another?" You can create such a beast in a visual novel engine, sure — but it's not a visual novel. It's something like a visual novel, something I haven't yet seen an agreed-upon name for. I invite you to propose one here. Why do we make such a distinction? Genre lines are arbitrary, but we do have to draw them somewhere. Otherwise, anything could be considered a visual novel, which doesn't make for useful discussions. "This tree stump is telling me a visual story about its history, bro. And the tree is the author. And nature is its game engine. And I'm playing it right now." And Domino's stops delivering pizza to the dorm lounge at 2 a.m., so you better finish up wondering if we're all living in an exact simulation of the universe sometime soon. Bro. "Can't a visual novel be just images and no text? Why are we privileging one form of content over another?" See the above. "But when you get right down to it, what’s a 'story' anyway? Or a 'narrative'? And is an 'author' even necessary? Or 'readers'?" All good questions. They’ve been debated for hundreds of years, and they’ll continue to be debated for hundreds more. Suffice to say, we won’t solve them here. Go ask Stanley Fish or something. That's right. Go Fish.

Whereas another study says that Airblades are turning our public restrooms into giant germapaloozas: http://www.medicaldaily.com/keep-it-clean-washing-your-hands-hand-dryers-paper-towels-382554 No matter how you slice it, WE'RE DOOMED! THE BUGS ARE TAKING OVER!

Sometimes in life, you get a choice between the harem route and the true ending route. Today, I'm glad I chose the latter. At least I got pancakes and a nice hand-drawn card out of the deal.

The good news is, we have a backup of the forums from a month ago.

Welcome to Fuwa. There's already a forum thread here regarding your VN, and your project manager is already participating in it. Just in case you weren't aware.

Entirely valid point. And handling annoying text transformations like these is why God invented Perl. And Perl hackers. Those characters would seem to be exactly what the doctor ordered, in fact. And since it looks like one of my teams has found my blog — hi! — it's probably a good time to add the standard disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on this blog are solely those of Darbury Laine. They do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of any projects he may be involved in, nor of good and decent people in general. Furthermore, Antwerp is not a sexual position.

This is a very good point Rooke makes. Being a bloody Yank, I sometimes forget that our conventions aren't the standard — even when it's damn well clear they should be. I'll amend the blog post accordingly.

Darbury "Ïf prëtty wërë äll thät mättërëd, Ï'd püt ümläüts övër ëvëry vöwël. Bëcäüsë ït mäkës thëm löök lïkë thëy'vë göt lïttlë Mïckëy Möüsë ëärs."

Looks interesting, but I wouldn't call it an emergent visual novel. At most, Elisa looks like it simply has more plot inflection points then your standard VN, with more possible combinations of choices and consequences. But then again, I haven't read it, so I'm just going off the description. Is there an example of emergent play you could point to in Elisa?

Last time, we discussed how the casual ellipsis should almost always be considered punctuation non grata in VN translations. Today, we set our sights on a new target: Japanese-style quotation marks. Handling these couldn’t be simpler: If you see any in your text, replace them with English-style quotation marks immediately. No exceptions. No special cases. No mercy. A quick primer on Japanese quotation marks If you’ve spent any time looking at Japanese texts, you’ve likely seen 「 and its friend 」. These little guys are known as kagikakko (“hook brackets”) and function almost exactly like opening (“) and closing (”) quotations marks would in English. No surprise there; kagikakko were invented during the 19th Century to aid in translating Western texts into Japanese. Why use these instead the genuine article? Because a Western quote (“) looks an awful lot like a dakuten (゛), a common Japanese diacritical mark; it turns “ta” (た) into “da” (だ), for instance. The potential for confusion was enormous, so new punctuation was introduced. Less frequently seen are 『 and 』, known as nijūkagikakko (“double hook brackets”). These operate much like opening (‘) and closing (’) single quotation marks would in English — which is to say, for quoting things within quotes. (“You can’t just scream ‘FIRE!’ in a crowded theater,” he scolded.) In Japanese, they also moonlight as italics for things like book titles. Times are tough and they need the extra cash. The rules (You can quote me on these.) But all my friends are doing it! So here’s the rub: I see Japanese quotation marks everywhere. Fan translations, professional translations — everywhere. Why? Buggered if I know. I can only imagine it’s affectation that, over time, has become habit. Maybe TL teams think it’s more authentic? Maybe they’re convinced it makes the English text look more Japanese-y? Maybe it’s chemtrails? I just don’t know. Regardless of the reason, this is one seriously annoying trend that needs to be pushed off a seriously tall cliff. Starting now. UPDATE #1: As pointed out in the comments, I'm assuming the rules of U.S. punctuation here. I also eat my soft-boiled eggs little end up, just as The Lord God Almighty intended. If you live in the U.K. or one of its offshoots, however, feel free to reverse the order I've given — i.e., single quotes as your primary tool, double quotes for nested quotes and italics. And to be honest, if you look at how Japanese quotation marks are constructed, it seems pretty clear they're based off the British style. Point for the Queen. But ultimately, your editing decisions should be based on whether you're using U.S. or U.K. English for your translation in general.

And that, in a nutshell, is the difference between a preference and a definition. But what exactly is this essential "identify of a visual novel" that I'm ignoring? Where can I find it? Are we saying VNs must use anime-inspired spritework? Would that mean this or this don't qualify? Or are we saying VNs can only contain "things otaku like"? Which would be a very curious definition indeed. I don't doubt it for a second.

Who says they're unintended or unwanted? And even if they were, it doesn't change anything. I find Harmony Korine's films repellent, but I'm not going to craft my definition of cinema specifically to exclude him. A film is a film is a film.

Yup. /r/visualnovels would become an instant ghost town, for one thing.

I call this the “Italians never intended pizza to have pineapple on it, so ham + pineapple pizza shouldn’t be considered pizza” Argument. Let’s be clear: putting pineapple on a pizza is an abomination. If I catch you doing this, I will give you the hairiest of eyeballs. But it doesn’t make something not a pizza. Even if pizza originally didn’t have pineapple on it. Even if most fans of pizza expect sauce + cheese with meat and/or veg on their slice, not fruit. As much as I hate it, that pie still fits under the common definition of “pizza.” Which is to say, non-anime visual novels are the pineapple pizza of the VN world.

Even in the "common" novel, the text is a contributing visual. Set a beer down in front of me and I'll talk your ear off about typography. Depending how you typeset it, a given text can be received in surprisingly different ways. An author can also choose to be more explicit in their use of typography as visual — again, see House of Leaves. William Wharton also did this a lot in his novels, using multiple fonts for various voices and effects. Faulkner even wanted to chronologically color code all the text in As I Lay Dying. (There's a version published that actually does this, btw.) There is always a visual aspect to the rendered narrative. We just need to pick an arbitrary dividing line: where do visuals become so much a part of the narrative that they help us define something as a visual novel. And finding that line isn't science; it'll always be up for debate. Then we're arguing the same thing, since I also believe VNs are games. (I mean, hell — there are walkthroughs for most of them!) I explicitly called out hybrids in my definition, but I think my own shorthand was my downfall there. In my brain, "games" meant "all other entertainments more commonly recognized as games" and "VN" meant "the specialized sub-genre of games known as VNs." You've made some very good arguments regarding that distinction, though, and I plan to clarify that in future drafts of the definition.

We're in agreement. I want them to be considered VNs, too. Their interfaces are visuals, and that is the point. Diegetic visuals are still visuals in my book. We can take this to absurd lengths, of course — "My intentional lack of visuals are my visuals!" "The choice of Times New Roman is my visual!" — but at that point, we might as well just burn it all down and live in caves because we've decided definitions are useless. Is a box of refrigerator poetry magnets a poem or the potential for a poem? Again, I think there's a difference between a ludic text that allows for play and discovery within a structure — House of Leaves, I'm looking at you, baby — and something that has absolutely no form without play. Both are very interesting, but they're very different beasts. For the sake of useful conversation, I'd offer that it's best not to conflate them. You're basically arguing against genres. This is entirely defensible — and often useful in academic discussions. But for a working definition, which limits the potentially limitless so we can discuss it, it's not very practical. There is a difference between a VN and a platformer, and if I generally like one and not the other, I want a way to usefully signify that.

¡ǝnlq dǝǝp 'llɐɟ ʇ,uop Torment is one of my favorite RPGs, but it fails #6. While it's a text-heavy game, reading doesn't constitute the overriding bulk of the experience. It's just one of many other game systems in the title: combat, exploration, inventory management, adventure-gamey fetch quests, etc. Also fails #7. It's not framed. By virtue of its gameplay mechanics, moment-to-moment experiences on Torment are remarkably open-ended.

I think we’re in agreement here. The definition of “narrative” I used (borrowed from the OED) reads a bit narrowly and could stand to be broadened. A train of thought can still be a novel, as Joyce did a good job showing. But a list of unrelated words or statements picked at random? Probably not, unless you’re a diehard dadaist. Here we disagree. It’s a visual novel. By its very name, it seems to demand some sort of visual accompaniment. Otherwise, a straight ASCII dump of Huck Finn could be saved out as a PDF and qualify as a VN. A definition so broad doesn’t help us usefully discuss VNs, which is why I’m looking for a working definition here rather than a textbook one. I’d argue the opposite, and I think by using the world “build” at the end there, you might just doing the same. The emergent can certainly be wonderful raw material, but someone still needs to recognize the potential underlying narrative, then structure the text to best frame it. Me dumping all of Groucho Marx’s letters on your desk is not a narrative. Me editing and ordering his letters to spotlight the delightful back and forth between him and his studio is something much different. As for your MMO idea, you’re butting up against the notion of a working definition again. If anything that generates text to be read on a screen can be considered a VN, then a VN stops being a useful thing to define (which I suspect is your intent). Back to my chair example, it’d be like you saying that anything I can sit should be considered a chair. I’d ask for one and you’d give me a dead mule. “It has four legs and a back,” you’d say, “just like you’d expect. Go ahead and sit. It’s really not comfortable, but how many chairs are, really?” Yet I’d still be wanting for a chair. I’d be interested in hearing you flesh this out more. It seems like you’re hoping to blur the lines between text as a framework for the ludic (in which a reader plays between the lines, so to speak) and the ludic itself (where the play *is* the text). I could be misunderstanding, but this sounds like another case where the line between "VN" and "game" becomes so incredibly porous that any definition becomes useless. Again, I suspect this might be your intent.

Is it an act of creative intention? Are we both creating content together with the intent of it being a visual novel? No. Is it framed? Are we artificially limiting what portions of a larger text you're able to see at any one time? No. The conversation is emergent and the text does not yet exist. But I appreciate the effort you're putting into this.