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Visual Novels - A different approach


Ame

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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 ?

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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.

Oh, I beg to differ. Music is a very important factor in visual novels for me, and it can be pretty damn good - there are lots of talented musicians doing tracks for visual novels, albeit it's admittedly not as developed as in anime for example.

 

I'm madly in love with all of Umineko's soundtracks because of how good they are. I love the Muv-Luv Alternative and Kara no Shoujo soundtrack and they were part of the awesome experience for me. I've looped god knows how many time the Dies Irae soundtrack in those last months, despite not having even played the visual novel.

 

I really think good soundtrack is a very important thing in VNs and that they're doing quite well with it.

 

In comparison I'm much less convinced by the use that is made of sprites and background, which is often very functionnal and bland - apart from some very well placed CGs in important scenes. On that I'll agree with.

I do believe making better use of it, beyond the realm of "it looks pretty", is a land largely left to be explored in VNs - someone prove me wrong, I haven't played that many.

 

---

 

As a last note, and more relevant to your topic as a whole, I wouldn't try to think of this in terms of "separate" elements. The medium is more than the sum of visuals, sound and text, and should be considered as such and explored as such (which, again, probably hasn't been done that much so far).

An interesting viewpoint would be to compare it to comics, which are themselves more than the sum of drawings and text. It's a pretty similar situation in my opinion, but comics have been explored much more and much farther. There's a very interesting and seminal book (actually no, comic, because why would you explains comics in a way other than a comic?) on the topic called "Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art". Highly recommended read if you're interested in theoretical thinking on comics as a medium (and by extension, by visual novels as a medium).

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To an extent Quartett! did this, and honestly Quartett showed why ignoring writing for fancy visuals and audio is a bad move. I appreciate Quartett for its unique presentation of art work (it is like a visual novel mixed with a manga), but I found it really hard to enjoy the actual story because the writing was just...meh. The only thing that kept me going was the fancy artwork and visual presentation, but I didn't really enjoy the experience. I mostly just kept with it because I was interested in how it was doing something unique in the medium. But if I had to pick between something like Quarett! with great artwork but weak writing, or something like Narcissu with minimalist artwork but fantastic writing; I would always pick the latter.

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Grassland Symphony was an attempt to create a visual novel without words -- just using pictures and music. Its development stalled. Since there have been no updates in over two years, it's safe to say that it died quietly.

 

If you're reading this and you want to create a VN in which every moment or action gets its own unique comic panel, then I will be interested. You might benefit by keeping it short and simple. Consider what the people who created Tell Her a Story did in a month. After you know that you can finish a project, then consider moving on to something more complex.

 

I noticed that Down mentioned Understanding Comics. Some parts of the book are dated now, but it's still worth reading. If you're a writer, be sure to look through it, and then think about questions such as "How do I want to tell my story?" and "What form do I want it to take?"

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you know there is a way to do a vn without words, its something that miku hatsune does and maybe most of the psp games (i dont play psp games) by time clicking. i believe that this idea can be use on novels to upgrade it even more daring scenes like a gun fight, fighting, plane crashing, etc. theres also many ideas i have for it but how well does this idea goes, it could be a good thing or a bad thing i dont know.

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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.

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.

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 ?

 

I do see what you are saying, but I must disagree here. The background music is just as important as anything else when it comes down to me sitting down and reading through a Visual Novel. I can name quite a few tracks that have stayed with me even now that had real emotional impact due to the scene they were attached to.

 

 

 

A Visual Novel's soundtrack is very important and thus far I have been very satisfied with pretty much every soundtrack I have come across. I mean, I definitely get that there are sub-par soundtracks out there, but I have yet to encounter them yet. While some of them may be slightly generic, there are a few soundtracks that really caught my eye. As an example, I will use Saya no Uta. The soundtrack attached to Saya no Uta creates a very somber and dark tone to the series that created a lot of inner tension when things are being told from Fuminori's perspective, as it is a lot of sounds singing in cacophony, minus whenever Saya is around.

 

This is one particular example where I think the soundtrack does something far different and leaves a lasting impression (although that whole damn thing left impression, let there be no doubt).

 

 

Pretty much everything else I agree with though. Although, with minimalist writing, and maximizing efforts into the soundtrack, and art, you begin to create something far different. This is going to sound weird, but I am going to compare this to Me!Me!Me!, that wonderful little music video that blasts you with beautiful art and awesome music. Now for someone who does not understand Japanese, the writing is a moot point so we will focus on what we can see. Using the visuals and sound as our guide, many people have come to various conclusions about what the overall meaning of Me!Me!Me! was. The visuals and sound paint a picture of something, with the overall meaning behind it being gleaned by attention to detail.

 

However, that worked very well as it was in an animated format. As a Visual Novel is.. well.. just that.. a Visual NOVEL, I feel like minimizing the importance of the NOVEL portion of it takes something away from it A Visual Novel to me is the culmination of all the individual elements, so in my own opinion... revolutionizing Visual Novels doesn't need to involve amplifying or reducing individual elements, but rather it would need to add whole new elements for people to play around with and do well/horribly.

 

But to answer your questions: Yes I would be interested in something like this, but only if it was done right. Be kinda interesting to see a Visual Novel that was a bunch of music videos, interspaced by narrative. Kinda like if you were turning a musical into a Visual Novel while maintaining fluid motion as opposed to static sprites. 

 

Apologies if I make no coherent sense. xD

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However, that worked very well as it was in an animated format. As a Visual Novel is.. well.. just that.. a Visual NOVEL, I feel like minimizing the importance of the NOVEL portion of it takes something away from it A Visual Novel to me is the culmination of all the individual elements, so in my own opinion... revolutionizing Visual Novels doesn't need to involve amplifying or reducing individual elements, but rather it would need to add whole new elements for people to play around with and do well/horribly.

 

But to answer your questions: Yes I would be interested in something like this, but only if it was done right. Be kinda interesting to see a Visual Novel that was a bunch of music videos, interspaced by narrative. Kinda like if you were turning a musical into a Visual Novel while maintaining fluid motion as opposed to static sprites. 

 

Apologies if I make no coherent sense. xD

But at the end of the day it's a Visual experience of the Novel... I mean however important the sound and other smaller elements is, wouldn't it be more important to focus on the visual and novel elements
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I can't really answer that question.

Seeing visual novels as something like a musical or visual experience is just impossible for me.

For now, I guess.

 

First of all, a visual novel differs from a normal novel since, well, music and stuff that you can see. That in itself makes the task of using our imagination to give image to the story null, since you're given the whole setting in visual detail. The mood itself is also set by not only the text and flow of words, but the music that plays in that certain scene as well. That's already a big difference from the normal novel. But of course, the objective of the two remains the same ---- to tell a story. The quality of the story is irrelevant to that objective. That will be set by the readers themselves.

 

The point that I was going to make was that I can't see visual novels as merely something like a musical and visual experience. Separating the two from the story being told kills the visual novel for me. To make the music and visual aids the central experience is simply... uh... lacking. You can't keep on listening to the music, y'know. A song is good, but you can't keep on listening to it continuously for, say, 8 hours. For visual novels, however, you can continue reading for a number of hours before inevitably succumbing to fatigue, boredom, or the fact that the thing your reading is just so bad that you just want to stop for a while and think about what you've been doing for the past few hours.

 

So the point is that I can't imagine it being a musical/visual experience since a visual novel is already these, only that they are tied to the visual novel as aids to accomplish its objective of telling a story. And they make the experience unique to that of reading a story from a novel.

 

Something like that.

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Well what is the intrinsic detail of a visual novel. The visuals and the novel (writing). Personally I believe the novel portion is paramount to a enjoyable visual novel. The art style can be utter crap but an absolutely brilliant piece of writing can turn even the most lackluster of set pieces into an amazing experience. The music portion of a visual novel great enhances the enjoyment as often it can help emphasize importance, help set the moods of the characters, and simply help the reader understand how the story develops. In filming music is a must because the audience will often get bored if it lacks a soundtrack, ambient track, etc.. It is possible of course as you can still read it. If you take away the story part though and just have the music and cg scenes I don't think it would properly work unless you had a lot of cg scenes. It is quite possible to create anime without words and that's what I feel a visual novel would end up turning into if you remove the writing portion. It would no longer be a visual novel. 

 

Basically without the visual and novel aspects whatever you have is no longer a visual novel proper. The objective of a visual novel is to share a story regardless of good or bad. Now if the objective is no longer to share a story but is rather more pornographic in intent then I suppose you could easily have a visual novel-ish type of thing for that purpose...if you have text in the image that could potentially also work but then you'd just have something akin to a comic. 

 

@Ame : How long have you been reading visual novels? I recommend you check out the soundtrack thread to listen to some of the better music and osts in visual novels. Honestly there are visual novels out there that truly can be an experience to read through beyond just a twist or sad ending. However to get truly in depth with this issue I ask a counter question?
 

What do you consider to be an experience? It has to have good writing but can't surprise the reader or make them feel emotional? How then do you have a good experience with characters that are unlikable and a story that's more than predictable?

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@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.

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Works by Samuel Beckett are generally non-dramatic. They are more of internal monologues. Take The Unnamable as an example. Also Thomas More's Utopia isn't really a story with a beginning, a development and an end. It's just a very prosaic way to describe the author's ideals.

 

Whelp. Thanks for giving me some examples.

I guess I'll try and read some of these in the coming days.

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