Visual Novels to Recommend to New Writers?

[Rosstin]

I've just had the unbelievable good fortune to receive a writing submission from a published (eBook) author whose work is right up the alley of our project. The only problem is, this writer doesn't have extensive experience playing visual novels or other branching narrative works. I want to give him the best possible introduction to the genre, and seed his mind with good stuff.

What can I have him play? What are the best examples of visual novels, CYOA, or gamebooks? I'd like to recommend things that have truly excellent writing and might be considered art outside of the VN community. (It would help if it involved dating boys, but good writing and good branching structure is more important.)

Thanks for any advice!

[redeyesblackpanda]

Well, there are the classics, if you look them up on VNDB, but they're lengthly. Clannad (my personal favorite), Fate/stay night, Ever 17, just to name a few.

There isn't much when it comes to dating guys though. If you're looking for those... This game seems to be the highest rated BxB game, and this game by Sakevisual seems to be the most popular GxB game.

Some of these games have adult content though, so I'm not sure whether your writer would be okay with that.

[Rosstin]

I'm pretty sure he'll be cool with it. Thanks so much!

[MaiMai]

Have you tried any of Type-Moon's visual novels? That's almost always a must and I'm sure you can find a version where you can turn off adult content for Fate/Stay Night and Tsukihime. Kinoko Nasu has a unique way of writing when translated into English.

[Applegate]

For the sake of curiosity, which author are you talking about?

[Rosstin]

Ryan Martin:
http://www.amazon.com/Ryan-Martin/e/B00 ... r_dp_pel_1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc2PoCB64W4

I hadn't heard of him before, but he seems pretty legit.

[Dim Sum]

Not best in any of the topic I've seen but always felt Fatal Hearts by Hanako Games would have best transition from OELVN to general e-book despite age of game.

Some parts have shades of Hunger Games without the debt/world background. Other parts have the Twilight/Shades of Grey crew. While not BxB, it has feel of True Blood when it finally reaches boy intro.

Best aspect is that all characters seem to be e-book fodder ready if only makers seem more interested in selling e-book rather than visual novel with mini-game.

Edit: Judging from author's work though, something like Cinders might be more his alley but his book cover has shades of Fade, Kansei/Jinsei, [text], Always Remember Me, Heileen and maybe Christine Love's VNs.

[Arcanum]

One of the best VNs I've seen (with english translation) is http://vndb.org/v131
The plot does involve dating boys (if you want to - it also might involve dating girls), but it isn't the main feature.
There's roughly 14 endings, I think? And a couple of nifty features like item collection and a couple of minigames.

[Applegate]

Hmm... I think calling him a "published" author is giving it too much credit, since he self-publishes his books. Took a quick view through his works, too.

I'd recommend letting him read "May Sky".

[papillon]

If you're looking for things that are well-regarded both inside the VN community and out of it, I would also suggest having a look at 999 on the DS. It's not very branchy and it's not very romantic, but it has stronger mainstream appeal and is certainly worth taking inspiration from.

[Gear]

Papillon beat me to it. Other commercial games that are really good to consider are Ace Attorney, Another Code: Two Memories, and the Hotel Dusk series. Just stay away from Detective Chronicles, it's terrible. It's linear, even for a VN.

[Auro-Cyanide]

I don't know, but if a writer wants to see examples of branching writing, maybe it's best to try out some shorter ones? While some of the commercial ones are awesome, they are incredibly long and a writer might not want to wade through it all just to see how branches and dialogue work. Trying out a bunch of short VNs in different styles would be more productive in my opinion. Even demos could be decent to try out. Variety at this point is probably better than just getting a singular long point of view.

[Gear]

If you want to make a VN, you gotta play good ones. If you don't have the fortitude or interest to play them, why make them?

[Obscura]

Anything from the Christine Love opus trio.

He should also go to Choice of Games: http://www.choiceofgames.com/ and play a couple of the games, probably Choice of Broadsides. It's a text adventure but it gives a good feel for how a story can branch and come back together. There are a lot of articles there about how to write branching games there as well (I believe Ookami Kasumi posted a few tips from those pages in the "Writing" section of this forum

And if he has time, in terms of crazy-ass branching, he should play Planescape Torment. Old game. About 800,000 words, it's fucking epic and is a classic example of incredible game writing. IMHO, the quality is above and beyond any writing I've ever read in a game, ever. It's pretty much spoiled me in terms of every game I've played afterwards...unfortunately.

[Obscura]

Ah, I just saw you need something that involves dating boys. Try Choice of Romance from Choice of Games
(off the same site above: http://www.choiceofgames.com/category/our-games/). You can play as a man or a woman and date men. I only played part 1 but I enjoyed it.