Ideas to make a more mainstream VN

[JRFive]

hmm good point Desu_Cake, story and game visual novels really are different. The question is is it really solely up to developers to make that distinction? Do they necessarily have to be seperate?

I think VN's attempt to catch gamers because it is an audience that has a bigger potential market than readers, and is mostly younger. And on the flipside to the whole "gamers who don't like reading" people, maybe there's some more traditionalist readers who prefer just reading without visuals. (Correct me if i'm wrong, i don't know much about the market for readers heh). That said, I can't be so sure that just targeting readers would be a good solution to making VN's more mainstream.

So I feel like I'm understanding this dilemma a little more... I feel like there's gotta be some untapped middleground out there of people who like games and reading, or there's those who don't know they like both more than they thought. So it largely comes down to the way the visual novel is made, story and interactivity along with everything else (art, music etc). We can learn alot from looking at other successful VNs and form new ideas. I'd like to hear some more of these, methods and ways a VN should or could be made to attract more of a mainstream audience. For example, things that you liked or didn't like about visual novels you've read.

@DaFool: You make a good suggestion here. More animations I think would be helpful too. I'm not sure about just "more choices" though.. If the choices are just redundant or don't have any bearing on the story then that might not be so good. See there's a problem with VN's when you want to go back to a certain spot and play through different routes, or just see what happens with different choices. You either have to keep track of a bunch of diff save points or skip a lot to get there again. I think its important not to make this too hard or annoying on the player.
Oh and interesting point about cinematics in modern games heh.

Btw, playing through 999, its really good so far!


EDIT: oh i just remembered something interesting yet kinda sad. There was this poll on a website I used to frequent more "allisbrawl.com". It asked something like "What do you look for most in a game?". It had a number of options including gameplay, uh level design i think?, music, story etc. Gameplay was pretty solidly in the lead, but I chose story and I remember being surprised how very few votes that got in comparison to the others. Wish I could find that again heh. But man its almost like people are fine with just something simple storywise. Somehow need to change this conception.

[Dollywitch]

One of the main problems I find is that there are two types of VNs. Some are games, some are books. As in, some are focused on "getting" the love interests or whatever the plot device is, while others are focused on telling a story. This creates an obvious marketing problem. IMO "Game-VNs" (GVN) do need more gameplay aspects, and to market themselves as being games, while "Story-VNs" (SVN) need to stop marketing themselves as games, and aim for readers.
I also feel that a major problem is the term Visual Novel itself, as it has become almost synonymous with Eroge in the public conciousness (That is, those members of the public that have heard of it), and even for people who have never heard of them, a quick google of the term will give them much more information than they wanted.
Note: I am in no way suggesting that we pick a new name and all switch over to it, that would be incredibly stupid and also pointless. What I am suggesting is making up a new name for your own games eg: Plot-Driven-RPG or Interactive Storybook or whatever name you think fits what you have created.

That's where "Sound Novel" came from I think. Interestingly "Audio Novel" is a type of game you can make in GameDev story.

[Tsundere Lightning]

There are plenty of visual novels like Narcissu which are worth reading and not crap - can't you give those as examples? Or tell people that 999 is actually a visual novel with some other gaming elements mixed into it.

999 and Phoenix Wright, the gold standard of mainstream visual novels.

[Gear]

Professor Layton falls under the category too, even with its gameplay elements. Some elements of VN-style storytelling can be found in the Atlus' Trauma Center series, and Intelligent Systems' Fire Emblem series.

[bunny-gypsy]

Sorry to jump in so late in this thread, but this conversation also reminds me of the IF debates.

The whole "is it more of a game or is it a story?" question also comes up in the Interactive Fiction (aka Text Adventures, though some also have 2d graphics and sounds) community as well.

Just like with the Visual Novels, there are some Interactive Fiction(IF) that are more story than puzzles/gameplay and others are more puzzles/gameplay than story. There is also some debates on whether IF should have graphics (and sounds) or not in order to appeal to people who like graphics in their games vs people who like "traditional" text-based adventures, etc.

The IF community also sometimes question the labels, too. Should IF be called stories or games? Just like the conversations you guys are having right now. (Even the Adventure Game Studio forum members ask whether adventures should always have puzzles or how much puzzles and story can be integrated in a way that will still have story, but still have "gameplay", since adventure games are more story-based than other genre of games [besides VN's, of course!])

I'm guessing this is something that will always come up with video games. Especially since video games are so varied and have evolved into hybrid genre types.

Some video games are more story/narrative-based with bits of puzzle or action gameplay in between, while others barely have any storyline and focus on gameplay.

Anyway, sorry to ramble, but I thought this was kind of interesting to see such a similar question brought up in a few different forums I've lurked at (VN, adventure, IF).

In the Game Maker community, I remember someone posted a visual novel, and half the commenters said it's not really a game and that it's kind of boring. Perhaps it's because most of the Game Maker games were either platform games, shooting/arcade games, and that these commenters were not "exposed" to visual novels and don't understand what a visual novel is.

Regarding "mainstream", I guess it's a matter of taste (or how you define a genre) and exposure or awareness. Even among the VN community, some will prefer more linear story and some will prefer more choices ("gameplay"), etc.

Anyway, I don't know what the future will bring, since videogames and technology is always changing and people's definitions of "games" are varied.

I think this kind of conversation will always come up, since (deep) stories require some kind of linearity or restrictions on the games in order to have a narrative and games will require "input" from the players to create an effect on the world (or at least the "illusion" of choices or open ended-ness).

Again, sorry for the rambling, lol!