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My first was also Hotel Dusk, though it took me a long time to finish and I ended up resorting to a guide at a couple of points. >_>

The first VN I played that I actually knew was a VN was Katawa Shoujo, then Digital: A Love Story.

ETA: I can't believe I forgot about Narcissu! This was back when al|together was active. So many tears...

Enzai was my first VN. My friend had just explained to me that "boy's love video games" were an actual thing, so we downloaded it and sat down for a good laugh. 12 hours later we were bawling our eyes out. The plot captured us both, and neither of us have looked back.

Yunou wrote:I'm surprised Togainu no Chi hasn't been mentioned at all in this thread.

TNC wasn't my first, but it was pretty close to the beginning... and remains one of my favourites!

For me, it was a prologue of a Kinetic novel called "Heaven Bound", which was a remake of a webmanga that the creator decided to make into a VN instead after cancelling the project after volume 1 (now it's being remade as a manga again lol). What really got me into visual novels and making them, however, was when I discovered the Ren'Py engine when seeing dischan's table at Anime Expo AX one year..I forget if it was in 2011 or 2012, so I asked what engine it was made on. I played the demo of their game Cradle Song and really liked it. When I got Ren'Py, I found my way to these forums and from then on played many great projects from the Completed board and the main site's game list. Among the first ever games I played are Fantasia: The Realm of Thanos, Re:Alistair++, Dual Hearts, Hikari's Ribbon to name of few--of course "The Question" which I think everybody plays since it comes with the engine xD

I first got into visual novels by watching Youtubers play the "Yandere Simulator Visual Novel", but never actually played a visual novel until my friend bought a copy of "Long Live the Queen" and let me play it at his house. Needless to say, I was hooked on the graphics, gameplay, and overall functionality, and that was what officially inspired me to create my own visual novels: the desire to meet the high standards set by talented developers like those who made LLTQ.

I remember my first visual novel was X-Note which I played years ago before I even knew what the genre was. After that I fell in love with all of Zeiva Inc.'s games and that opened me up to a bunch of different visual novels that I had never heard of. It was really my gateway into the world of vns.

"Kanon" was among the first VNs I've played because I liked the anime (Nayuki's freakin' cute!). That was like... over 10 years ago? Wow.

Then there's "Natsuiro no Sunadokei" (aka Hourglass of Summer), played it around the same time as "Kanon" - the premise was touching enough for me to buy it off J-List (okay, I bought it because the girls are cute). Ahaha, I remember on my first playthrough I got the bad ending ;_; Not exactly a fan of its password-based load system, but that's because I have the interactive DVD version. I still have the game sitting on my shelf... I should play it again sometime.

I guess those kind of influenced me into creating my own VNs, with my first ones created using Flash (before I've even heard of Ren'Py).

Despite it being ridiculously long, my entry into the format was Katawa Shoujo. It was free, and the download website wasn't blocked at school, so I ended up playing it during Algebra. It was never too memorable, but I liked the concept and the genre, especially since it made me feel more like degenerate trash (the stereotypical anime shut-ins are always playing VNs and the like). I forget how I found it, though. I think I was just going through JP games on Wikipedia, and was intrigued when I got to the bit about 4chan being the birthplace of the concept.

After I actually got into the genre as a whole, I went straight to Fate/stay night. I think that took me almost half a year to read, because I read the first route untranslated on my phone (The first route is free on the App Store!). That was my first JVN, and it was great.

I think it was "Three Sisters Story" almost 20 years ago ... I'm old

Honestly... I haven't played many visual novels at all. I've played RPGs with visual novel-style cutscenes (Wild ARMs 4 and XF, BlazBlue, Fire Emblem, and so on), but proper VNs? Not really. At least, I haven't really played any like, official Japanese commercial ones. But I have been interested in the genre for a while.

To answer the question, uh... I think my first might have been... Cute Demon Crashers, two years ago. Yeah...

EDIT: WAIT. I had started on Fate/Stay Night before that... but I never got very far.

Evy wrote:Honestly... I haven't played many visual novels at all. I've played RPGs with visual novel-style cutscenes (Wild ARMs 4 and XF, BlazBlue, Fire Emblem, and so on), but proper VNs? Not really. At least, I haven't really played any like, official Japanese commercial ones. But I have been interested in the genre for a while.

To answer the question, uh... I think my first might have been... Cute Demon Crashers, two years ago. Yeah...

EDIT: WAIT. I had started on Fate/Stay Night before that... but I never got very far.

CDC is a good one. ^_^ That was my second one. My first way Katawa Shoujo, like a lot of others have said.

Does the first Ace Attorney count? Otherwise it's RE: Alistair.

My first ~actual~ VN was Katawa Shoujo (I'm still a little bit fond of it...) The little animations between each chapter were so cute, and while it was definitely less than stellar at points, I stand by Rin and Emi's story arcs 100%. Anyways, once I played that, I started going through a bunch of indie VNs because professional VN have a tendency to be either a.) expensive or b.) untranslated, in the case of JVN.

I think my first visual novel was Doppelganger : Dawn of the Inverted Soul, because, in early high school, I was super into Vocaloid and there was this one song about doppelgangers with Gumi in it that I was almost obsessed with. I forgot the name of the song now lol. Somehow, I started researching doppelgangers and stumbled upon Dawn of the Inverted Souls. It had the type of stuff that I really like: mystery, suspense, likeable characters, and plot twists. Thus began my passion for visual novels.

First game I played with visual novel elements is probably Tales of Symphonia (with being able to choose a character through choices in the game). Though, I think my first game that followed a visual novel more acutely was Sakura Wars (So long my love), if that one can be considered a visual novel. I think that was back when I was in grade 9 or so when I played it, and was probably one of my primary motivating factors for wanting to create one.

Hmm.. I think I started with Fate Stay Night (vanilla edition). However, I really learned to love VN with Umineko.

But Ace Attorney would be my first contact with the genre <3