Ame

The amount of Nukige (meaning the numbers are relative) and the negative social image that they relay have a strong influence on their announced and displayed popularity. VNDB figure's are irrelevant in that sense. Also, the disparity between digital and hard copies is pretty standard online, and impulse buying, has nothing to do with casuality, especially when it comes to porn.

This shouldn't be a surprise. Unless you are already aware of what Visual Novels are, none of these products will be attractive. For an outsider, the standard Nukige isn't different from something like planetarian for example. If there is no proper marketing done, you'll keep selling to the same people over and over again. And yeah, the VN community prefers Nukige. Shoudln't be suprising either. VN have overall worse writting than books, worse drawing than mangas, and disputable music (which can be good, but is overall very average), and often fail most of the time to make all the three blend together. In the end, VN's are just the most convienient way to make "interactive" porn and justifying it with a generic story. Unless there's are real effort made to seperate Nukige, Eroge and/or All Ages Visual Novels, there's no getting out of the loop. Localisation companies have to make an effort showcasing properly what's worth being. TL;DR : 1) Seperate crap from the rest 2) Marketing

Hello, my nickname is Ame, There are two things I love : Trance music, and Graphical art. My dream is to become an artist and travel through the world. My first Visual Novel was Planetarian. If I had to pick my favorite it would be Planetarian too. Otherwise, I'm not fond of any VN that has currently been done as I feel every game is a copy of another. Although I tend to "prefer" shorter ones. I still think there is potential in the genre, so I'll stick to them until my hopes vanish because no matter what, they will always follow the same pattern. I think +18 content is useless, so are choices. Basiclly I'm only interested in a extremely small portion of an already niche genre. My hobbies : creating a website, studying, partying, drawing, hanging out and traveling. Nice to meet you

@Down Umineko is "the exception that proves the rule". I haven't found a single soundtrack which could be convincing enough in its entirety. Maybe it is as you say, more about making the trinity work together. Currently, this is how VN's are in terms of importance given to each matter : Graphics < Music < Story. Not only does that often result in neglecting important parts of the novel in terms of quality, but also their influence in the gaming experience itself. Although depending on your audience you can make it work this way. Proof being the scene is slowly expanding the way it is. @Zalor You can't take a single VN's mistake and present it as a proof that experimenting with the VN genre is a "bad move". You can only say that you didn't enjoy Quartett! as much as a typical Visual Novel. I didn't read Quartett!, but I can only give them props for trying to be different, be it a failure or not. Besides, my point isn't to say that story telling should be neglected. It's the complete opposite : I want everything to work together and nothing to be put aside. @Supah Kawaii Weeaboo It's a shame it's stalled, I would have loved to try it out. Even if the art is far from what I call good, I would have applauded the attempt. Unfortunately I do not plan to start the production of any VN unless I'm satisfied with the quality of the art I can provide, which isn't the case yet. But thanks for the tip. @Palas Cave!Cave!Deus Videt is interseting. Very different, maybe even too different for me, so different that it kinda loses its appeal. But that maybe because I haven't tried that much to see what it could offer. Then, again, this isn't the only thing which can be made out of the limitless possibilities the genre offers, but it shows how far we can go. (Edit : I'll give it a look for the sake of this thread) I don't have anything to say regarding choices and interaction since it's something I don't think a VIsual Novel needs nor do I think it adds anything. But that is a topic I won't expand on. But I'm glad you think experimenting with the genre is interesting ! @Mr. Meogii No I haven't, I can't see how it's different from a generic Visual Novel. The graphics don't shine, nor does the soundtrack. @firecat That isn't really what I was thinking about, but these are ideas too. @LinovaA I can't remember Saya No Uta's soundtrack, so it musn't have left that big of an impression on me. You mention Me!Me!Me! and I think this is a great example. 7 minutes of animation put together with a according soundtrack told more things than you could read in that amount of time. An example of quality work. I'm really glad you took this as an example ! =^) And you talk about Visual NOVEL, but can you talk about VISUAL Novels, or VISUAL NOVELS ? I too don't think ignoring the quality of the story telling (if ever you want to tell a stroy) is good. But as much as printed words can be powerful under the pens of talented writters, so can graphics and music. And you raise the question about whether or not thatwould be a visual novel ? That's a good question, but I don't think it's something anyone can answer without stating what they want a Visual Novels to be. In the end, does it really matter ? As long as it is possible to do something good and different. @Mustkill1234 That would be a picture book ;p. Visual Novels have a soundtrack, it is but a name for the genre. What we can experiment on, are its properties, what we want to emphasise in our game for the player to experience. @KosagiFag Why should a Visual Novel have to tell a story ? Not every novel tells a story to begin with, and Visual Novels have accets regular novels do not have. Why would a genre which has so many different tools use them to do exactly what you could do via a book with a slight bonus ? You view them as aids, as features helping the story, and this is completely fine because this is the way you define them. But art in the form of music and graphics can also communicate in a way. They can convey emotions or messages. Of course you can't make a game out of these two alone. Fortunately, Visual Novels also have writting. See how I can also turn the picture around ? How to make it is a different matter, but I believe it definitely is possible and can be as good if not better thana regular one. @kyrt Why would you make a Visual Novel if you do not intend to focus properly of the Visual side of things. Myself, I could argue that you are making a novel rather than a Visual Novel. I have been reading them for around 4 months. And I listened to a lot more VN soundtracks and seen tons more Computer graphics than I have played games because I was quickly interested in the genre itself rather than the games. And honestly, with a couple exceptions, I wasn't impressed. The Visual Novel audience -as proven by this forum - is very focused on the story telling, and that is obviously not something to blame, it is a trend : Most people read Visual Novels because they like the way it currently is. You can quickly recognize patterns in the way they are made. Such as intensive focus given on the story telling part as an answer to an audience who likes it, CG's used at 80% for Hentai scenes illustration, etc . (I would still say that the OST's are less than convincing for people like me who aren't exactly fond of the typical japanese music). An experience is a game that goes beyond copying a simple scheme and tries to emphasise other things than what usual ones do.

When we think of Visual Novels, we mostly think of it as another story telling genre. The writing is what often gets the most attention. The soundtrack, computer graphics and sprites are here illustrate the story. What if it was the opposite. Would you imagine a Visual Novel being a Visual or/and Musical experience rather than a simple way to narrate ? This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately and which was a result of my disapointment in the artwork quality and the musical quality in Visual Novels. They act as good - sometimes really good - emotionnal catalysts when paired up with the scenario but fail to shine on an individual level. Unless you like traditionnal anime music or what I'll call japanese music overall, it's a little unlikely that any of the tracks of a Visual Novel will find it's place in your music folder. It's not called background music for no reason. Most VN's illustrators (with a few exceptions, such as Huke) do not have a real artistic identity and are pretty much standard manga drawers who gained fame because they could draw moe or hentai in a slightly different maner. This may have to do with what are currently Visual Novels, the way they evolved and their roots (Nukige and Eroge). But if we think of the genre as a mean of expression more than anything else, focus only on its properties and the way we could use them, could it be possible to acheive something ? What I'm trying to do, is to think upside down. It may not even be a Visual Novel in the end, but that doesn't have a clear definition anyway. I personally want to believe that this is possible even if I doubt such a thing will ever happen. I would love to one day play a VN and be genuinely impressed. Not because an ending made me sad, nor because a twist surprised me, but because it would be an experience to read through, to watch and to listen at. I don't think such a thing exists, I would be extremely pleasantly surprised if it did. Would that be something you would be interested in ? Do you think focusing primarily on something other than the plot, or using the writting in a different maner could create something worth checking out ? What are your feelings about the current state of Visual Novels ? and how would you like to see them evolve as they slowly grow outside of Japan ?

Visual Novels are comparable to manga, lights novel, books, cinema, painting, etc. The way I see it is as a book with music and illustrations. The choices do not matter, since I am likely to play through the entire game anyway. It has its own qualities. The music creates an atmosphere and can increase the emotionnal impact some scenes can have on the reader. The illustrations : sprites, backgrounds, computer graphics give the reader a good representation of what the author wants him to understand, as opposed to books where words are vague enough to let the audience imagine the scenery. The role of sprites is in my opinion to make the game feel more interactive and lively. As for computer graphics, I haven't read a Visual Novel which had CG's I liked. Let's say it's in between books and anime. It's not a book, since it does not give you such imaginative liberty and has no music, and it's not an anime because it's simply not animated and can go at your own pace. In the end : It's easier to write than a book, It's easier to draw than a manga, It's easier to make than an anime. But it's just as hard to made a good VN than anything else of the same quality. Great visual novels could be made, I haven't read that many unfortunately. 80% are mere hentai games. A Visual Novel is just a different kind of product, aimed at a different kind of audience and which offers a different reading experience than other means of expression. I think it's highly underrated and completely missused as a genre, that's why it's interesting. I didn't mention Japan once. Adult content aside (which we see less often in OELVNs), I don't really know why people love to separate English and Japanese visual novels. They both have sprites, music, and backgrounds : It's the same stuff.

This is insane This must have taken forever to write down ! Very well done and explained. It's funny how some things would have completely flown over my head had an experienced Visual Novel creator not pointed it out. Impressive.