Do games like 'The Walking Dead' count under the 'Visual Novel' genre? What's everyone's take on this?

[Pabloc]

The only real "gameplay" element that can appear in a pure VN, are choices.

However, as long as the game has it's storyline written like a novel, presented in a VN format, and said storyline is significantly long, it can be a VN/[insert game genre here] hybrid.

 

Little Busters have negligible amount of (skippable) minigames, so it's a VN. Phoenix Wright has negligible amount of VN elements (if any...), so it's an adventure game. Kamidori is far more of an RPG than a VN (it could qualify as a hybrid I guess, but only very, veeeery barely...).

But on the other hand, something like BlazBlue's story mode alone is a proper VN/Fighting Game hybrid (duels usually take mere seconds between much longer novel fragments).

 

It's the same with games - Diablo has negligible amounts of RPG elements, so it's just a Hack&Slash. While something like System Shock is a proper RPG/FPS hybrid.

 

In short, pure VN = no, or only negligible amount of gameplay. If it has significant elements from both mediums, it can be a hybrid. But otherwise, games are games and VNs are VNs.

[Funyarinpa]

 

It's the same with games - (...)something like System Shock is a proper RPG/FPS hybrid.

 

 

I did not think anyone else knew System Shock here!

[Pabloc]

^ It's an awesome game, not knowing it would be a shame.

[Darklord Rooke]

Your obsession with gameplay as an exclusively identifying factor is absurd, as is your insistence that a game can only fall into one category. It's just as blind and narrow minded as the VNDB obsession with "narration" that you've insulted several times in this thread.

Kamidori is a VN. It is also an RPG. It is also a sim.

Does merely having story and text make something a VN? No, I agree with you there. But by the same token, merely having gameplay does not make something NOT a VN. The borders are always going to be hard to define, because of genre mix and overlap.

Instead, you will need to use common sense and evaluate each edge case as it comes along. Not everyone will agree, and not everyone will be happy.

But that's far better than hard and fast rules which no one, except you, agrees upon.

--

Toranth

 

I accept I may be going a touch overboard, however you cannot have a VN/RPG hybrid, and I will tell you why. 

 

The visual novel genre was created solely to accomodate specific games which were being imported from Japan which did not fit into an pre-existing category. These games, while exhibiting traits of other genres, lacked key elements of gameplay to be included in those genres. A VN is a narrative with choices, and while RPGs, adventure games and sims were all examples of genres which included these traits, a VN is one which has SOLELY those traits.

 

A VN/RPG hybrid is impossible because the RPG genre already accomodates for every single trait a VN possesses. Narrative, choice and plenty of text are all hallmarks of the RPG genre and therefore the VN tag is REDUNDANT. It's not needed. The same is said for adventure games and I think the same can be said for sim games. You cannot have a VN hybrid in these genres because the existing genres already in place accomodate the VN traits making the VN tag redundant.

 

I will accept, though, that VN/puzzle and VN/fighting hybrids can exist and will curb my criticism of Blazblue's place on VNDB...

[Funyarinpa]

 

A VN/RPG hybrid is impossible because the RPG genre already accomodates for every single trait a VN possesses. 

 

...

 

-Usually anime-ish art style

-ADV/"text-all-over-screen" label

-Multiple(mostly more than 5) endings based on decisions

 

 

I fail to see these in RPG's. But then again, opinions.

[Down]

 

A VN is a narrative with choices, and while RPGs, adventure games and sims were all examples of genres which included these traits, a VN is one which has SOLELY those traits.

The one pain in the ass left are "kinetic novels".

Those don't even have choices, therefore they don't have gameplay and are not games.

But I'm not sure you really want to exclude them from the definition of a visual novel (the name VN itself wouldn't be coherent)

[Darklord Rooke]

 

-Usually anime-ish art style

-ADV/"text-all-over-screen" label

-Multiple(mostly more than 5) endings based on decisions

 

 

I fail to see these in RPG's. But then again, opinions.

 

We don't categorise games based upon 'art style', nor do we categorise games based on the delivery method of the text (the old FF games had both of these btw.) These are things which change over time and have no affect upon the actual gameplay. 

 

And you haven't played an RPG with multiple endings??? 

 

 

The one pain in the ass left are "kinetic novels".

Those don't even have choices, therefore they don't have gameplay and are not games.

But I'm not sure you really want to exclude them from the definition of a visual novel (the name VN itself wouldn't be coherent)

 

Ugh, that is true. The whole genre is a mess to be honest, because not much thought has been applied from the outset. You're right with your definition of gameplay, 'choose your own adventure' novels are called gamebooks but take those choices out and what you have is just a novel.

 

Kinetic novels have no choices and are therefore not games. They can't really be called a subcategory of VNs because it doesn't encompass all the traits of a visual novel. So the only logical thing to do is to separate them, it's pretty much just a novel on a computer, separate from VNs which offer some gameplay. 

 

Whether it's desirable to separate them or not is another matter, but they provide a different experience and therefore should be categorised differently.

 

EDIT: What you could do is create another category and have VNs and KNs subecategories within. But ... eh...

[Guest]

For me, a Visual Novel is a Light Novel, to which we add : 

Character sprites, music and illustrations

And eventually :

Voice acting, minor gameplay, choices which have an influence on the story.

 

But the Novel part is central. Thus, Kamidori and Rance do not fall in the VN category in my opinion.

 

They are H-RPG's (or whatever kind of strategy game) using some Vn gameplay elements.

[Pabloc]

Since when VNs are "games"? They are novels. Choices alone are hardly a significant enough gameplay element to classify this medium as games. How is the experience provided by a charage with ~3-4 decision points significantly different from that provided by a kinetic novel? You aren't really "playing" either of them, even those with choices are still 99,9% raw reading.

Classifying VNs as games is about as sane as classifying Diablo 2 as a farming simulator, because there are some cows there...

 

As for VN/RPG hybrids, they are possible, why not? "RPG" describes gameplay mechanics, "VN" describes storytelling mechanics. They aren't mutually exclusive.

Typical RPGs aren't written like novels. They heavily rely on gameplay, the text rarely describes the setting, actions, thoughts etc. - it's almost exclusively composed of dialogues. Their storytelling style is much closer to movies if anything, not novels.

If they do tell their story in a proper visual novel format however (which is very, veeeeery rare in games), why shouldn't we classify them as hybrids?

 

For example, http://vndb.org/v11999 tells it's story like a typical VN, and only has simple RPG gameplay as an addition. It's both a VN and RPG.

[Toranth]

Ugh, that is true. The whole genre is a mess to be honest, because not much thought has been applied from the outset. You're right with your definition of gameplay, 'choose your own adventure' novels are called gamebooks but take those choices out and what you have is just a novel.

Kinetic novels have no choices and are therefore not games. They can't really be called a subcategory of VNs because it doesn't encompass all the traits of a visual novel. So the only logical thing to do is to separate them, it's pretty much just a novel on a computer, separate from VNs which offer some gameplay.

Whether it's desirable to separate them or not is another matter, but they provide a different experience and therefore should be categorised differently.

Well, historically, computer RPGs did not have much storytelling at all. More like 'premise-telling'. Think back to Dragon Warrior or Pool of Radiance or Bard's Tale or Wizardry. The Ultima games were considered unique because they DID have segments with structured storytelling.

It wasn't until the same time that VNs began to drop the Adventure elements that RPGs began to adopt the ADV/VN storytelling styles (circa-1990).

So, RPGs (especially JRPGs) picked up the structured storytelling of ADV/VNs and incorporated it so thoroughly into the genre that you basically can't find old-style premise-only RPGs anymore, except small releases from indie developers. Does that mean that all RPGs are also VNs? No, I don't think so. But it does mean that something can be an RPG without having storytelling.

And considering the only difference between a Visual Novel and a Kinetic Novel is the presence of choices, I see no reason why you'd need to categorize it differently. Are you familiar with the game Honey Coming? It's a VN that allowed the player to play normally (choices determine the route) OR to activate the "Only One" mode, which removed all the choices and fixed the game onto a single heroine's route. Does Honey Coming suddenly stop being a VN if "Only One" mode is activated? Even though everything else is the same?

VNDB is obsessed with 'narrative', but they aren't completely wrong. "The Walking Dead" doesn't use text, and has zero narrative. This means it is much more an interactive movie than any variety of novel.

I think that trying to have a precise definition is always going to cause problems. Personally, I'd say that to be a VN, it needs to have:

1) Heavy structured storytelling

2) primarily through text

3) with a narrative format

4) with visual support.

Gameplay (RPG, shooter, strategy, action, adventure, or otherwise) and voices/animation are optional.

But no matter what definitions you try to use, it will always be a mess.

--

Toranth

.

[Zodai]

Well, historically, computer RPGs did not have much storytelling at all. More like 'premise-telling'. Think back to Dragon Warrior or Pool of Radiance or Bard's Tale or Wizardry. The Ultima games were considered unique because they DID have segments with structured storytelling.

It wasn't until the same time that VNs began to drop the Adventure elements that RPGs began to adopt the ADV/VN storytelling styles (circa-1990).

So, RPGs (especially JRPGs) picked up the structured storytelling of ADV/VNs and incorporated it so thoroughly into the genre that you basically can't find old-style premise-only RPGs anymore, except small releases from indie developers. Does that mean that all RPGs are also VNs? No, I don't think so. But it does mean that something can be an RPG without having storytelling.

And considering the only difference between a Visual Novel and a Kinetic Novel is the presence of choices, I see no reason why you'd need to categorize it differently. Are you familiar with the game Honey Coming? It's a VN that allowed the player to play normally (choices determine the route) OR to activate the "Only One" mode, which removed all the choices and fixed the game onto a single heroine's route. Does Honey Coming suddenly stop being a VN if "Only One" mode is activated? Even though everything else is the same?

VNDB is obsessed with 'narrative', but they aren't completely wrong. "The Walking Dead" doesn't use text, and has zero narrative. This means it is much more an interactive movie than any variety of novel.

I think that trying to have a precise definition is always going to cause problems. Personally, I'd say that to be a VN, it needs to have:

1) Heavy structured storytelling

2) primarily through text

3) with a narrative format

4) with visual support.

Gameplay (RPG, shooter, strategy, action, adventure, or otherwise) and voices/animation are optional.

But no matter what definitions you try to use, it will always be a mess.

--

Toranth

.

 

Interjecting here - The Walking Dead's primary form of engagement is narrative.  It isn't absent at all.

[Pabloc]

^ The Walking Dead's primary form of engagement is gameplay. Controlling your character, walking around, clicking on objects/characters, occasional QTE or two, etc. etc. Text, appearing in the form of dialogues or MC's monologues (without a trace of typical narration, though monologues work as such sometimes), is only an addition.

This titles doesn't have a VN-style presentation, isn't written like a novel, has significant amounts of gameplay... It has absolutely nothing to do with VNs. It's an adventure game, nothing else.

 

Sometimes I think people consider text and storyline as something exclusive to VNs, and whenever a completely random videogame has slightly more story than an average FPS, they go all "Hey, this is kinda like a VN". -.-'

 

VN has to be text-based, written like a novel, presented in a typical VN format (sprites, background, textbox etc., though there's some leeway here), with no gameplay (other than optional choices, if we even count those as such).

How "heavy" the storytelling is and how much text something uses is absolutely irrelevant. Some Nukiges don't have a story at all, and a 5 minutes long VN has much less text than than an average shooter. But those are still VNs.

[Darklord Rooke]

Well, historically, computer RPGs did not have much storytelling at all. More like 'premise-telling'. Think back to Dragon Warrior or Pool of Radiance or Bard's Tale or Wizardry. The Ultima games were considered unique because they DID have segments with structured storytelling.

It wasn't until the same time that VNs began to drop the Adventure elements that RPGs began to adopt the ADV/VN storytelling styles (circa-1990).

So, RPGs (especially JRPGs) picked up the structured storytelling of ADV/VNs and incorporated it so thoroughly into the genre that you basically can't find old-style premise-only RPGs anymore, except small releases from indie developers. Does that mean that all RPGs are also VNs? No, I don't think so. But it does mean that something can be an RPG without having storytelling.

 

Pool of Radiance has a narration and a story, it may not be much of one but it's there. It's the same sort of narration you find in Baldur's Gate, except BG focused a lot more on the story because they had writers in their studio. As for Pools of Radiance "The skeleton of a long dead elf lies hidden in rocks and reeds" etc etc. It has a basic story narrated to you in 2nd person. The reason story wasn't emphasised overly much is because these games were made by a couple of people in their garage in their spare time, they weren't exactly big studios like today. Writers were the last thing you wanted, you wanted a coder, later on some art, and you hoped one of your programmers could write. It had nothing to do with not being a part of the genre.

 

RPGs were developed to emulate tabletop D&D games, which DOES include a narrative and a story. The earliest form of these were some text-based RPGs developed in the 70s which implemented the D&D rules into a dungeon crawling, text based computer game. While some RPGs sought to drop the narrative/story aspect of the genre to focus on the dungeon crawling experience, for reasons of art or limitations, the narrative/story is an undeniable and essential part of the history of RPGs. RPGs did not incorporate structured storytelling from adventure or VNs, it has always been an integral part of the genre.

 

By the way, Baldur's Gate had 2nd person narration, delivered by a narrator in ADV format. It has a myriad of choices throughout the game which affects the story and experience. When can I start calling it a "VN/RPG hybrid"? Baldur's Gate 2 had a million words as well, with the EE adding another 300k, so it's definitely not light on script.

 

 

And considering the only difference between a Visual Novel and a Kinetic Novel is the presence of choices, I see no reason why you'd need to categorize it differently. Are you familiar with the game Honey Coming? It's a VN that allowed the player to play normally (choices determine the route) OR to activate the "Only One" mode, which removed all the choices and fixed the game onto a single heroine's route. Does Honey Coming suddenly stop being a VN if "Only One" mode is activated? Even though everything else is the same?

 

It is an accepted practice that once any gameplay is added to a novel, it's no longer a novel. That is why Pabloc's novel/game hybrid idea cannot logically be (even if you can have a small amount of gameplay and still call something a novel, having as much as Pabloc's suggesting with his hybrids would automatically disqualify them as such. We have a name for a novel/game hybrid, and it's called a game.)

 

So if you look at what's historically taken place, with choose your own adventure novels being named "gamebooks", and text based 'choose your own adventure' fiction on the computer being termed as "interactive fiction", consistency would demand a separation between VNs and KNs. 

 

Concerning your "Going Home" example, it is a VN with an optional "story mode". "You can call it a "novel option" if you wish .......

 

 

VNDB is obsessed with 'narrative', but they aren't completely wrong. "The Walking Dead" doesn't use text, and has zero narrative. This means it is much more an interactive movie than any variety of novel.

 

The Walking Dead may have no novel narrative, but plenty of old-school RPGs do. Why? Because tabletop RPGs emphasised stories and narrative. To say an RPG needs to be a VN hybrid for incorporating properties they have always had is beyond ridiculous. 

 

The narrative isn't the worst part of VNDB's definition btw. Indeed I have problems with most of the other bits. My problems with their definition are thus: "the story needs to be uninterrupted for a significant langth" is entirely subjective and can vary greatly. I'm sure Lightning Raidy only qualifies for the VNDB database because the sex scenes were "uninterrupted" for a "significant length of time." What sort of bullshit statement is this? Is it relative to the gameplay, and if so what difficulty gameplay because gaming time increases with difficulty. Is there an arbitrary figure, or are the powers that be at VNDB pulling shit out of their arse like they usually do?

 

"Needs to be presented in ADV or NVL format" Piss off. Since when does a genre of games need to be presented in a certain visual format to be acceptable? ADV and NDL are delivery methods of the text, nothing more and nothing less. Whether something is a VN or not has nothing to do with ADV.

 

My favourite part is "In some special cases, a game may be added while not adhering to the above points. This is the decision of the moderators." Translation: We can't think of an acceptable definition to include all our very favourite games without also letting in some really stupid shit. So what we'll do is just ignore our own definition and add them all the same. 

[Zodai]

^ The Walking Dead's primary form of engagement is gameplay. Controlling your character, walking around, clicking on objects/characters, occasional QTE or two, etc. etc. Text, appearing in the form of dialogues or MC's monologues (without a trace of typical narration, though monologues work as such sometimes), is only an addition.

This titles doesn't have a VN-style presentation, isn't written like a novel, has significant amounts of gameplay... It has absolutely nothing to do with VNs. It's an adventure game, nothing else.

 

Sometimes I think people consider text and storyline as something exclusive to VNs, and whenever a completely random videogame has slightly more story than an average FPS, they go all "Hey, this is kinda like a VN". -.-'

 

VN has to be text-based, written like a novel, presented in a typical VN format (sprites, background, textbox etc., though there's some leeway here), with no gameplay (other than optional choices, if we even count those as such).

How "heavy" the storytelling is and how much text something uses is absolutely irrelevant. Some Nukiges don't have a story at all, and a 5 minutes long VN has much less text than than an average shooter. But those are still VNs.

 

I'm going to make another interjection - simply because a game contains gameplay, does not mean the primary form of engagement IS gameplay.  It contains walking around, yes - but it's not the primary reason the game is played - the reason you play The Walking Dead is for the narrative, which is the same as what exists in visual novels. 

[Chronopolis]

RPG (You walk around to interact and advance every part of the story)

Adventure Game (You click at things in a gameplay/interactive fashion, to advance most parts of the story).

 

VN (You read text to advance to virtually all parts of the story. You may arrive at plenty of gameplay or point and click (like Kara no Shoujo), but how you "got there" was through reading text, not physically moving there in-game.)

[Life]

Would it be plausible to consider something a VN if it makes sense when you only have the text? So say for the walking dead game, if you only had the  text, it wouldn't make too much sense thus, it won't be considered a VN. I don't normally look at it this way but I would like to see any restrictions that could be made.

[Pabloc]

@Palas

Yes, gameplay is a form of narrative, just like screenplay in movies. And when something uses those forms of narrative, it's classified as a game or movie respectively. As opposed to something that uses novel narrative, which is classified as... well, a novel.

 

I'm going to make another interjection - simply because a game contains gameplay, does not mean the primary form of engagement IS gameplay.  It contains walking around, yes - but it's not the primary reason the game is played - the reason you play The Walking Dead is for the narrative, which is the same as what exists in visual novels. 

And in order to explore that narrative (which is DIFFERENT then a typical novel narrative...), you have to progress through the gameplay. So it's a game. You don't read nukiges for their story, but they are still VNs. What is the primary reason to read/play something has absolutely nothing to do with storytelling format.

 

 

"Needs to be presented in ADV or NVL format" Piss off. Since when does a genre of games need to be presented in a certain visual format to be acceptable? ADV and NDL are delivery methods of the text, nothing more and nothing less. Whether something is a VN or not has nothing to do with ADV.

 

FPS and TPS are different genres based solely on their presentation formats for example. ADV/NVL stuff DOES matter, precisely because narrative isn't exclusive only to VNs (like you said yourself). Baldur's Gate doesn't use sprites+backgroud+textbox, it has nothing to do with ADV, just like the majority of RPGs that actually are written a bit like novels. They are not VN/RPG hybrids, because they are not presented in a VN format. Just like Doom isn't a TPS but a FPS.

 

I already told you what I think about automatically classifying something with the most miniscule amount of gameplay (like choices in VNs) as a game. If you'll tell me that Diablo 2 is a farming simulator, I'll refrain from arguing with you though.

 

Also, I like your gamebook example, because it nicely counters your argument that when you add gameplay to a novel it magically turns into a game. If that would be the case, we would label choose your own adventure novels as games, not gamebooks.

[Darklord Rooke]

FPS and TPS are different genres based solely on their presentation formats for example. ADV/NVL stuff DOES matter, precisely because narrative isn't exclusive only to VNs (like you said yourself). Baldur's Gate doesn't use sprites+backgroud+textbox, it has nothing to do with ADV, just like the majority of RPGs that actually are written a bit like novels. They are not VN/RPG hybrids, because they are not presented in a VN format. Just like Doom isn't a TPS but a FPS.

 

I already told you what I think about automatically classifying something with the most miniscule amount of gameplay (like choices in VNs) as a game. If you'll tell me that Diablo 2 is a farming simulator, I'll refrain from arguing with you though.

 

Also, I like your gamebook example, because it nicely counters your argument that when you add gameplay to a novel it magically turns into a game. If that would be the case, we would label choose your own adventure novels as games, not gamebooks.

 

Subcategories of the same genre. TPS and FPS are both shooters, they’re different kinds of shooters depending on the viewer perspective. You don’t define entire genres like this though, it’s a way to distinguish between games of the same genre. Baldur’s Gate isn’t a VN for reasons probably well described by Chrono, not because it doesn’t have sprites or static backgrounds. Sprites and static backgrounds are technological limitations which will more than likely be scrapped in the future. Just like how RPGs used to always use a textbox, but now is no longer limited to it.

 

Gamebooks are called that because they came in physical book format, not because it was a novel (book and novel are 2 different things.) Whether I agree with you or not is beside the point, historically in the west any novel which adds a miniscule amount of gameplay is no longer a novel. I like consistency in things, and saying that a visual novel is a type of novel even though it has gameplay is inconsistent with what has traditionally been the case. And there isn’t a very good reason to change it either.

[Toranth]

Pool of Radiance has a narration and a story, it may not be much of one but it's there. It's the same sort of narration you find in Baldur's Gate, except BG focused a lot more on the story because they had writers in their studio. As for Pools of Radiance "The skeleton of a long dead elf lies hidden in rocks and reeds" etc etc. It has a basic story narrated to you in 2nd person. The reason story wasn't emphasised overly much is because these games were made by a couple of people in their garage in their spare time, they weren't exactly big studios like today. Writers were the last thing you wanted, you wanted a coder, later on some art, and you hoped one of your programmers could write. It had nothing to do with not being a part of the genre.

 

RPGs were developed to emulate tabletop D&D games, which DOES include a narrative and a story. The earliest form of these were some text-based RPGs developed in the 70s which implemented the D&D rules into a dungeon crawling, text based computer game. While some RPGs sought to drop the narrative/story aspect of the genre to focus on the dungeon crawling experience, for reasons of art or limitations, the narrative/story is an undeniable and essential part of the history of RPGs. RPGs did not incorporate structured storytelling from adventure or VNs, it has always been an integral part of the genre.

 

By the way, Baldur's Gate had 2nd person narration, delivered by a narrator in ADV format. It has a myriad of choices throughout the game which affects the story and experience. When can I start calling it a "VN/RPG hybrid"? Baldur's Gate 2 had a million words as well, with the EE adding another 300k, so it's definitely not light on script.

Pool of Radiance had a tiny bit of narration, and a tiny bit of dialogue. The intro Diary thing that came with the came had more story and narration than the entire game combined. This was still a significant step up over the old-school Wizardy games, that didn't even have that. Pool of Radiance came out in 1988.

Baldur's Gate came out in 1998, well after the 1990 point I described as cRPGs adopting VN/ADV storytelling. Baldur's Gate 2 was years later. At that point, both had abandoned the free-play sandbox style world of previous cRPGs (that were trying to imitate tabletop play) and instead embraced the fixed characters and structured storytelling of VN/ADVs.

In traditional tabletop RPGs, the story was built by the players - their actions, their decisions. The DM performed the initial setup, but then spends the rest of his time reacting to the players. This is unstructured storytelling - where anything can happen, where characters are not fixed, and where the plot can be advanced, regressed, or tossed overboard at the whim of the players. This is the exact opposite of a novel of any sort, visual or not.

Also, tabletop RPGs were all about the quality of your DM. A good DM could get a great story going over the course of the campaign, with recurring characters, interweaving storylines, deep world-building... but the vast majority of DMs weren't good. Most just read the adventure module they were given, described the environments the adventurers found themselves in, and rolled the dice for the monsters.

 

 

It is an accepted practice that once any gameplay is added to a novel, it's no longer a novel.

Um... no? If it were accepted that any gameplay made a VN not a VN, then this thread wouldn't exist. Also, are you treating "Visual Novel" as one term or two? Because it seems like you are claiming that a VN is an instance of genre "Novel", with pictures added to put it into subgenre "Visual". If that is the argument you are pushing, then we can stop now. VNs are not Novels, not even a subgenre. Period. Trying to use the "Novel" to describe them is a waste of time. Instead, some other term needs to be used to describe them. Maybe we could come up with one...

Concerning your "Going Home" example, it is a VN with an optional "story mode". "You can call it a "novel option" if you wish .......

Assuming you mean "Honey Coming" ('Going Home'?), the idea that adding a half dozen extra mouseclicks to the tens of thousands that are already required moves the game from one genre to another is baffling to me.

 

 

 

The Walking Dead may have no novel narrative, but plenty of old-school RPGs do. Why? Because tabletop RPGs emphasised stories and narrative. To say an RPG needs to be a VN hybrid for incorporating properties they have always had is beyond ridiculous.

That's not what I said. In fact, if you read the very next sentence, you would have seen that I specifically said that NOT all RPGs are VNs.

RPGs adopted the fixed characters and structured storytelling of VNs/ADVs, and abandoned the traditional free world of tabletop RPGs. This was a shift of the entire genre - not a case of a few games becoming hybrids.

--

Toranth

.

[Pabloc]

@Rooke

Tron 2.0 has some upgradeable stats, but it's not classified as cRPG, only FPS. Why?

Portal uses first person perspective and you are shooting a gun of sorts there, but it's not classified as FPS, only puzzle game. Why?

Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim etc. use first person perspective and you can shoot bows or crossbows there, but those aren't classified as FPS' only RPGs. Why?

 

Maybe because classifying them otherwise would be seriously misleading and would completely defeat the purpose of genres?

Just like labeling VNs as games does. The term "game" focuses on gameplay and interactivity. VNs don't have any noteworthy gameplay elements, and even those with multiple decision points are still 99% non-interactive reading. They are simply a different medium than games. Throwing titles containing 0-1% of gameplay into a "game" category doesn't describe their actual content at all. If it really is some kind of historical, traditional, accepted BS, there's a damn good reason to change it - in case of VNs, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

I'd say labeling VNs as type of novels is less wrong than labeling them as games. While they are a separate genre from novels, their big part (the whole script) actually resembles a normal novel. They don't have too many elements that resemble a game.

 

The VN definition will probably be changed when they will stop relying on the typical ADV/NVL presentations. But for now they do, and it's a part of their definition, just like "shooting stuff" is a part of shooters' definition. Broad genres that describe gameplay mechanics are naturally less focused on presentation methods (because that's what their sub-genres cover). The term "VN" describes mainly storytelling methods (as there's pretty much no gameplay to cover), so presentation is much more important here.

 

But well, this is slowly heading into the semantics territory, so I think I'll stop here. If you think that labeling something with negligible amounts of gameplay as a game is some kind of a sacred tradition, go ahead. To me, it misses the point of the medium and is simply misleading.

 

Oh, and yes, Baldur's Gate isn’t a VN for reasons described by Chrono. If you read my post carefully, you will probably notice that I was saying why it's not a VN/RPG hybid though...

 

@Palas

Yeah, you're right, that was just a hasty example. I like your novel-movie example too, it works just like game/VN hybrids - merging two different narrative methods.

[Darklord Rooke]

Baldur's Gate came out in 1998, well after the 1990 point I described as cRPGs adopting VN/ADV storytelling. Baldur's Gate 2 was years later. At that point, both had abandoned the free-play sandbox style world of previous cRPGs (that were trying to imitate tabletop play) and instead embraced the fixed characters and structured storytelling of VN/ADVs.

 

Post hoc ergo propter hoc is a named logical fallacy. CRPGs wouldn't need to include the storytelling of VNs when the genre came from a storytelling background. Pools of Radiance had a tiny bit of narration and story, but the point was it was there. It was there in tiny amounts because developing studios were 2 men operations working from their garages and couldn't afford a writer, NOT because it wasn't a part of the genre. And previous RPGs were NOT sandbox.

 

Storytelling is essential to the experience of tabletop D&D, you couldn't emulate the experience without it.

 

In traditional tabletop RPGs, the story was built by the players - their actions, their decisions. The DM performed the initial setup, but then spends the rest of his time reacting to the players. This is unstructured storytelling - where anything can happen, where characters are not fixed, and where the plot can be advanced, regressed, or tossed overboard at the whim of the players. This is the exact opposite of a novel of any sort, visual or not.

Also, tabletop RPGs were all about the quality of your DM. A good DM could get a great story going over the course of the campaign, with recurring characters, interweaving storylines, deep world-building... but the vast majority of DMs weren't good. Most just read the adventure module they were given, described the environments the adventurers found themselves in, and rolled the dice for the monsters.

 

Unstructured storytelling is beyond the capabilities of computers and developers at this point in time. Like I said before, CRPGs best emulate the tabletop RPGs but there are computer limitations. 

 

Furthermore, I see nothing to suggest visual novels must be limited to structured storytelling. If, at some point in the future, computers allowed players to form their own plot, story and narrative and a developer offered that in a visual novel format, then that game WOULD be a visual novel. The narrative would be a cohesive whole to the player, even if they are free to dictate where it goes.

 

And of course the quality of the storytelling experience relied on the DM, just like the quality of stories in novels relies upon the writer. That doesn't change what the genre is about, at it's heart.

 

Um... no? If it were accepted that any gameplay made a VN not a VN, then this thread wouldn't exist. Also, are you treating "Visual Novel" as one term or two? Because it seems like you are claiming that a VN is an instance of genre "Novel", with pictures added to put it into subgenre "Visual". If that is the argument you are pushing, then we can stop now. VNs are not Novels, not even a subgenre. Period. Trying to use the "Novel" to describe them is a waste of time. Instead, some other term needs to be used to describe them. Maybe we could come up with one...

 

I was drawing similarities to the Western situation. A novel, a storytelling experience without choices, is categorised as different to a gamebook, a storytelling experience with choices. This situation mirrors that of KNs and VNs.

 

It's baffling to you because you're thinking in terms of 'mouseclicks' and not of 'choices, and what that could potentially imply.' Just because VNs haven't fully realised its potential in that respects, doesn't mean the potential isn't there.

 

RPGs adopted the fixed characters and structured storytelling of VNs/ADVs, and abandoned the traditional free world of tabletop RPGs. 

 

You keep stating this like it's a fact, yet you offer no argument to explain this situation other than 'isn't it obvious.' Well, no it's not obvious and it's blatently false.

 

@Pabloc: Games are separated by genres in the west, so if, by your argument VNs are novels, then there's no possibility for a hybrid with any game. We don't tag things by storytelling experience, we tag things by gameplay (shooter, RTS etc etc.) If VNs ARE games, then they couldn't possibly be hybrids with RPGs because that genre already holds 'story with choices' close to its heart.

[Funyarinpa]

@Rooke

Tron 2.0 has some upgradeable stats, but it's not classified as cRPG, only FPS. Why?

Portal uses first person perspective and you are shooting a gun of sorts there, but it's not classified as FPS, only puzzle game. Why?

Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim etc. use first person perspective and you can shoot bows or crossbows there, but those aren't classified as FPS' only RPGs. Why?

 

Maybe because classifying them otherwise would be seriously misleading and would completely defeat the purpose of genres?

Just like labeling VNs as games does. The term "game" focuses on gameplay and interactivity. VNs don't have any noteworthy gameplay elements, and even those with multiple decision points are still 99% non-interactive reading. They are simply a different medium than games. Throwing titles containing 0-1% of gameplay into a "game" category doesn't describe their actual content at all. If it really is some kind of historical, traditional, accepted BS, there's a damn good reason to change it - in case of VNs, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

I'd say labeling VNs as type of novels is less wrong than labeling them as games. While they are a separate genre from novels, their big part (the whole script) actually resembles a normal novel. They don't have too many elements that resemble a game.

 

The VN definition will probably be changed when they will stop relying on the typical ADV/NVL presentations. But for now they do, and it's a part of their definition, just like "shooting stuff" is a part of shooters' definition. Broad genres that describe gameplay mechanics are naturally less focused on presentation methods (because that's what their sub-genres cover). The term "VN" describes mainly storytelling methods (as there's pretty much no gameplay to cover), so presentation is much more important here.

 

But well, this is slowly heading into the semantics territory, so I think I'll stop here. If you think that labeling something with negligible amounts of gameplay as a game is some kind of a sacred tradition, go ahead. To me, it misses the point of the medium and is simply misleading.

 

Oh, and yes, Baldur's Gate isn’t a VN for reasons described by Chrono. If you read my post carefully, you will probably notice that I was saying why it's not a VN/RPG hybid though...

 

@Palas

Yeah, you're right, that was just a hasty example. I like your novel-movie example too, it works just like game/VN hybrids - merging two different narrative methods.

 

Then, my question is this: Do you think VN's like Ace Attorney and Zero Escape are "games", then?

 

Edit: Do you think those are games with VN elements, then?

 

(I think your definition of VN is "a medium where there is minimal amount of any player interaction and a heavy basis on storytelling", correct me if I am wrong.)

[Darkshine]

I've checked this game out and even though it can't be considered a VN it still delivers something else entirely. Zombie apocalypse games are real cliche and there's lots of them out there were all you have to do to play is just to shoot or smash their heads in as you progress. The Walking Dead has that but I find it pleasing that the game's main focus is not about killing zombies, the real point of the game is more centered on the survival and struggles that the characters face, also shows that zombies ain't the only things you should worry about in the game. The choices in this game really influence what happens in the story, it determines how people in your group look at you and sometimes your choices can decide if someone will make it or not. All in all even though it's not a VN it's worth just as much, really character and story driven with decisions ingame that drive the game in different directions. I myself am not much a fan of zombie games but The Walking Dead not only makes it work it makes it right. B)

[Pabloc]

@Rooke

VNs are much closer to novels than games, but they are a separate genre of fiction in the end.

Games are tagged by gameplay, because they are focused on gameplay, while the term "VN" describes a specific storytelling method. And yeah, normally we don't have any tags for storytelling styles in games (because those don't matter too much, and they are covered by gameplay genres to some extent). But, that doesn't mean games NEVER tell their stories in the VN format. And if they do, why shouldn't we classify them as BOTH games from the specific gameplay genres, and VNs? Well, not that I'm a big fan of labeling stuff as hybrids though, in many cases their gameplay dominates so much that adding "VN" to their gameplay genres seems like a bit of a stretch.

 

Then, my question is this: Do you think VN's like Ace Attorney and Zero Escape are "games", then?

 

Edit: Do you think those are games with VN elements, then?

 

(I think your definition of VN is "a medium where there is minimal amount of any player interaction and a heavy basis on storytelling", correct me if I am wrong.)

As for my VN definition:

VN has to be text-based, written like a novel, presented in a typical VN format (sprites, background, textbox etc., though there's some leeway here), with no gameplay (other than optional choices, if we even count those as such).

How "heavy" the storytelling is and how much text something uses is absolutely irrelevant. Some Nukiges don't have a story at all, and a 5 minutes long VN has much less text than than an average shooter. But those are still VNs.

So, when it comes to Ace Attorney, it's pretty much a pure adventure game. While it's mainly text-based and uses ADV format, it's not written like a novel (it's almost a pure dialogue, and while dialogue-novels do exist, AA isn't written like one) and has plenty of gameplay (investigations, cross-examinations, analyzing and presenting evidence, etc. - it just happens to be story-heavy, like many other adventure games or RPGs). I don't think it has enough VN elements to be classified as a hybrid even in a very broad sense.

I haven't read/played Zero Escape, so dunno about that.

[Toranth]

Post hoc ergo propter hoc is a named logical fallacy. CRPGs wouldn't need to include the storytelling of VNs when the genre came from a storytelling background. Pools of Radiance had a tiny bit of narration and story, but the point was it was there. It was there in tiny amounts because developing studios were 2 men operations working from their garages and couldn't afford a writer, NOT because it wasn't a part of the genre. And previous RPGs were NOT sandbox.

Pool of Radiance, since you have fixed on that one game, had a major dev team. In fact, just checked - a 35 person development team. That's not a minor 2 man team that couldn't do any better. It was a major production by a well funded company. It had very little structure and narrative because cRPGs were based on tabletop RPGs, and the assumption was that unstructured was better. As time went by, cRPGs began to limit the player's choices (anathema to tabletop RPGs) in order to present a better story. This was done because a better story was preferred by customers. Many of the storytelling elements, including style of presentation, matched those storytelling styles that already existed in the ADV/VN world.

Also, I never claimed that ADV/VNs caused RPGs to adopt. I said that those elements already existed, and that the cRPG genre began to adopt them.

You keep stating this like it's a fact, yet you offer no argument to explain this situation other than 'isn't it obvious.' Well, no it's not obvious and it's blatently false.

Storytelling, as in presenting a story to the player, is NOT an inherent part of the tabletop RPG experience. The players develop the story themselves, through their actions, because the DM can react to those actions. It is NOT a case of the DM controlling the story, forcing the players to react in fixed ways, deliver scripted lines, and hold predetermined personalities.

Modern RPGs, both Japanese and Western, have turned against that old-school tenet. Instead, even games likes Baldur's Gate or Dragon Age, much less games like Final Fantasy 13, put the player into a very structured world. The player has a limited choice of methods to interact with the environment - not because of technical limitations but because by imposing these limits, the developers can force the story to proceed in a controlled direction.

These two concepts are not only not the same, they are distinct opposites.

Free flowing, player developed story, using player developed characters with player developed personalities doing player decided actions

vs

Fixed structure storyline, featuring developer fixed characters with developer fixed personalities doing things determined by the developer for reasons the developer has decided. At best, players get a choice between developer fixed path A and developer fixed path B.

Tabletop is player based story development.

Computer is developer based telling of a story.

Not the same.

JRPGs dominate the modern RPG market. Their primary Western competitors are those that imitate them. When's the last time there was a successful Wizardry game on the market?

Finally, I'll say this again. You are thinking of "Visual Novels" as a subset of "Novels". Don't. They don't fit there at all. They developed mostly out of Adventure games rather than novels, and thus have a different background. Treat "Visual Novel" as a genre all its own, without your book-based preconceptions interfering, and you'll be much more likely to reach common ground with others in the community.