Rules on the Visual Novel as a Medium

[ludeshka]

You know, I've never believed in telling people that they can't criticize something unless THEY can do it better. I absolutely do not believe in it. I can't sing, but have opinions on music. I can't make movies, yet I think some movies are crap.

So I'm not going to tell you "Come back when you've created something".

There's no need for you to be a creator to have a voice in this forum.
Critics count! A critical view of visual novels is not something to despise but to encourage.

I'm trying to see things from your perspective. Trying, okay? Maybe I've got you all wrong.
You want to discuss aesthetics with us. You want visual novels to be better, or closer to your ideas of what better is.

But, the way you word it, we're foolish if we disagree.

Vito: "You don't ask with respect, you don't offer friendship. You come to my house on my daughter's wedding-"


Sorry, got carried away. XD

What I mean is, discussion on aesthetics? Super valid topic of conversation on a forum. Be willing to talk to people who disagree, and to listen to them. After all, it is a discussion.

RULES? Something like RULES, or a MANIFESTO would find a better place on your personal blog. (Which you could totally link to us if you want our opinions on it, or not, as you choose)
But just because you say so, don't expect us to drop what we believe it's valid, or fun to do.

Fun counts too, y'know.

[blankd]

What is the purpose of this topic?

As with the point of any discussion on Aesthetics, to try to see what the goals, limits and potentials of a medium or art form really is and should be.

I seem to have hit your bad spot or something because it seems that this topic is just made to question the artistic credibility of creators, which you seem very hostile towards. I don't think that was my intention even though its bound to seem to some people that if a person sets up a set of theories or anything then it seems like people who don't follow these theories are invalidated as artists. The point of this topic though is not to create aggressive knee-jerk reactions and hostility but to really ask what are the key components of the medium, what are its aspects, what are limits and what are potentials. Definitions and rules are set, people react and question these rules with meaningful retorts, new definitions and rules are set. Shaking up and questioning the small foundations lead to new ways of seeing and creating, even though this may seem like an arbitrary exercise meant to piss people off.

That's great OP, and typically I do not do this, but have you made or are making any games yourself or are you being a backseat DMV? I say this not because lack of creation is what makes you wrong, but because I want to know if you understand what you are asking or setting up rules for.

Cooking example, you are telling everyone to make their all food "well-done" as a new rule of cooking, it works for some things, but not everything- and even then "well done" can be a preference. If you are speaking strictly as a consumer what you think is a suggestion may not be feasible or something to be universally applied to a skill of creation.

There are nuances you can only understand with more research or actually making something for yourself. Even more, your "rules" aren't actually rules, they skew towards specific visuals, tempo and writing style. You are not giving rules such as a for an artist to master the basics of anatomy before stylizing their own work, you are arbitrating styles.

People (some of which who have made or are making games) are trying to engage you and correct some of your basic misconceptions in your posts. (eg: "NVL are doing it wrong" despite how NVL are a valid form of VN.)

PS: VNs are already a designated subcategory of games and have been for a long time. Yes VNs can be pushed, but your rules are not conducive to creating the most variety of VN, it's effectively killing it.

[Auro-Cyanide]

Personally I think your stated intentions are in direct conflict with what you are actually writing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm totally on board with experimentation and the growth of the visual novel medium. However, that doesn't mean everything currently happening is being done wrong. It's not growth if we simply move the point of focus. The idea would be to occupy the full spectrum of possibilities that we possibly can and that definitely won't happen if we are telling people not to do this and that.

People should keep doing those things, and possibly diversifying those things. People should also be doing other things, bringing in things from other mediums, bringing in their personal experiences, trying and failing and succeeding. Both of them are highly rewarding. I never want people to think they ever have to do something because of 'rules'. They should look at the problem and try and find the best solution they can.

There are two things that will bring this growth, and it's something that we have already started seeing in the past years. One is the diversity of the people. Diversity of people means a diversity of expression, experience and opinions. This naturally has and will lead to growth. The other is examples. Each time someone takes a risk and does something different they open the doors of possibility for others. These people lead through example and they inspire others. By questioning the common conventions that are in place, the medium changes and the perceived range of choices grows.

It is a mistake to measure a medium by it's existing texts. It's too limiting. Change is already happening and I've seen it. It will not come through manifestos and rules, but from the inside, from the people and creators. All we need to be is open minded and be willing to look at different options. The rest will come to us.

Finally, people that stick to common conventions are not failing the medium. They are by their nature accessible and often enjoyable to certain audiences. That is not a failing by any means. If we only measure out medium by how 'experimental' we are and not by the enjoyment we bring to others then /we/ are failing at what we do. Entertaining people is a worthwhile goal all on its own.

Also you might want to check out CAVE! CAVE! DEUS VIDET It seems like it would be right up your alley.

[czxcjx]

You know, I've never believed in telling people that they can't criticize something unless THEY can do it better. I absolutely do not believe in it. I can't sing, but have opinions on music. I can't make movies, yet I think some movies are crap.

So I'm not going to tell you "Come back when you've created something".

There's no need for you to be a creator to have a voice in this forum.
Critics count! A critical view of visual novels is not something to despise but to encourage.

I'm trying to see things from your perspective. Trying, okay? Maybe I've got you all wrong.
You want to discuss aesthetics with us. You want visual novels to be better, or closer to your ideas of what better is.

But, the way you word it, we're foolish if we disagree.

Vito: "You don't ask with respect, you don't offer friendship. You come to my house on my daughter's wedding-"


Sorry, got carried away. XD

What I mean is, discussion on aesthetics? Super valid topic of conversation on a forum. Be willing to talk to people who disagree, and to listen to them. After all, it is a discussion.

RULES? Something like RULES, or a MANIFESTO would find a better place on your personal blog. (Which you could totally link to us if you want our opinions on it, or not, as you choose)
But just because you say so, don't expect us to drop what we believe it's valid, or fun to do.

Fun counts too, y'know.

God FORBID that fun shouldn't come into play in the act of creation. Hell fun should come out of anything anyone does in life. But fun and aesthetic theorizing and manifesto making are in no way mutually exclusive. The forefront of artistic movements are basically usually a group of friends to get together with the same vision to discuss off each other at bars and salons about all sorts of crazy new shit and ways of looking at the world. I even said I had no intention of ever shutting down or creating some exclusion-inclusion dichotomy and neither do I try to shut out any form of conversation from the other party. In fact I try to expound on my viewpoint of art as clearly as possible with examples and all the whatnot just so that people can try to see as clearly as possible what I'm getting at just so they can tackle these points better. When I was talking about 'knee-jerk reactions' I'm talking about those people who post some fluff about 'rules being illusions' and basically not engage with anything or dismiss me ad-hominem for not being a creator of a Visual Novel myself (though that person seems to have finally responded with something more drawn out and can expect a reply from me soon which will probably be as lengthy and pedagogical as everything else I have written).

Of course I have no greater respect for creators and the act of creation. Aesthetics, creation, art and writing are the stuff that gets my blood boiling and makes me easily excitable which makes me overload with my connections and examples and make me seem like a kind of angry Roger Ebert type character cramping on people's styles and art philosophies. All my friends basically know me as the person who loves LOVES to go on non-stop about everything and anything in life. If anyone has really thought that I'm this kind of angry swamp bat thing sweeping my predatory form over the firmament and shredding any form of creativity with my talons I assure you that this was absolutely not what I wanted. Rather I hope that you'll engage with my irritating pedagogy and my aching need for overt comprehensiveness and grandiose explanation and we'll try to think through the state of this medium and a whole lot of other things.

For those asking about my creative biography and as to whether I have any background in discussing this sort of thing my answer is that my primary trade is writing. I've went for contests and tried to send things to magazines and have thousands and thousands of little plots that are born, swarm, and die in my head like thousands of little mayflies flitting around a stagnant lake. My experience in other mediums basically comes from voraciously consuming everything and everything about everything ever from countless biographies and interviews of my favorite directors, authors, game programmers, musicians, philosophers, and other thinkers, and also my visual library garnered from being a movie buff and watching just about every kind of thing.

[TrickWithAKnife]

What you claim to be doing and have actually been doing are not the same.
Adding wall after wall of convoluted, contradiction-riddled philojargon won't change that.

In no uncertain terms you've proclaimed that we are ALL doing it wrong and in the same breath claim to be helping to inspire and add depth to the artform.

The replies you've been getting are not "knee-jerk reactions". Excluding myself, the community have been very tolerant of your trash talking.

I challenge you to make a single post where you contribute something positive without talking down to us.

[czxcjx]

To Trick

Is there a name for that?

Starting off with a direct attack is not a very nice way of going about things.

Now let me get to those responses that are rhetorical questions rather than responses, all of which can be answered with a Yes.

NVL creators are doing it wrong?

By telling us that many popular methodologies are wrong?

(But not many. I only pronged some stuff like Bad Ends and Romance genre heroine branching and NVL formatting and bad usage of Choice systems. And even most of those aren't exactly direct retorts but more recontextualization and redefining of why these aren't really methodologies but more missteps and why thinking it isn't exactly these methodologies that make the works popular but rather other aspects that gloss over these flaws.)

And all of those answers that are nitpicking on small areas in my huge sprawls of text to make it seem as though I'm some sort of demonic wizard

Oh? All of us?

It looks a lot like one person saying how one particular way is acceptable and anything else is wrong.

And those answers that are just outright denying my case without any explanation other than insinuating "it's most likely common sense".

No it isn't.

I'll have as many choices as I feel are suitable.

Good now that those are shoved aside we can deal with the points

1. With regard to bad ends

Okay I think I wasn't quite clear on this point which probably made some people interpret it wrongly. Firstly what is a 'bad end' and secondly 'why is an end neither bad or good'. This idea is tied to win conditions and lose condition. Basically a bad end is an ending that implicitly implies you 'lose' the game. The context in Visual Novels is different in that because there are no point-systems and its all basically just story text, telling a person they lost has to be signposted in very large ways. In Fate/Stay Night this is done with the Tiger Dojo which is basically like a lecture on why you failed at that choice and what you should have had done. But in the cases where there are no guideposts then a 'bad end' is always about cutting short the story and having a quick tragic end. So the player indirectly knows that he reached a bad end because firstly, the outcome is bad for his protagonist which he is supposed to identify with, and secondly, the story is cut short at an unsatisfying juncture. The thing is having a win/lose condition makes sense in a video game, where there are very clear cut win conditions separate from morals and narrative. In the context of a narrative though a 'bad end' makes no sense because there isn't really a way for you to 'win' or 'lose' a story. The only type of novel I can find it making sense is for more intelligence-oriented stories like mysteries and detective stories where the unraveling of the mystery serves as a kind of win condition to the story. Bad ends in fact seem to be derived from the structure of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books. In the context of romance games it also reduces human interactions into a bunch of calculations about utility and reward. Real humans don't work on win-conditions and may do all sorts of contradictory things that seem against their own goals in the spur of a moment, and when they make a mistake they pick up the pieces and carry on to push forth their own narrative. This is why I cannot find a context at all for bad ends to work in an emotionally-driven or character driven narrative. To me there are no such things as good or bad ends, only abrupt unfulfilling endings and proper satisfying endings. When you think in terms of good ends and bad ends or normal ends and true ends this is what I mean by prioritizing systems or games over narrative and content. What doesn't fit clearly is put there to make it seem like more of a 'game'. If you want to look at games that question the nature of ends look at White Album 2, Forest and The Stanley Parable. See? Everything I just said in no way blocks out the possibility of using abrupt unfulfilling endings in Visual Novels. These have basically been conventions that have existed in Cinema and Literature for ages. I just want to recontextualize and redefine these misconceptions that seem to have been rooted into the way we view things. There isn't any 'dampening of creativity' involved but an attempt to elucidate things for what they really seem to be. And if people can still enjoy playing VNs with lots of abrupt unfulfilling endings that can be reverted with the snap of a finger and seem extraneous to the content of the game then kudos to them.

2. On whose vision?

This too is slightly misconstrued. You make it seem like its an issue of practicality. The one who has the vision is the one who funds the project. The one who has the vision is the one who gathers together the people to do it. When I was asking the question I was doing what many film theorists have been thinking of for quite a while now, basically that thing called Auteur Theory. It's basically asking what a medium should rest on. If lets say a Musician wants to make music. How should he go about doing it? Well the most commonsensical answer would be to make an album. So what happens when a musician, instead of making an album, makes a movie, and uses the music he wants as the soundtrack? How would the movie follow? Well it would probably look more like an elongated music video than a movie, with a narrative being tacked on and being more of a focus on the set-piece songs. This isn't to say that music-oriented cinema is bad, which is the whole point of musicals anyway, some with bloody awesome stories and distinct camerawork like Singing in the Rain, Fantasia and Sweeney Todd. But in the end a movie is still about the visuals and the editing of these visuals right? So shouldn't it belong to the director who directs the camera rather than the musician who makes the soundtrack? Well likewise do we think of Visual Novels in terms of games or of narrative? Do we want to think in terms of win-conditions and systems or in terms of emotional drama and character development? No I'm not saying that programmers aren't important, and neither am I saying that there can't be projects where the guy with the big bucks, who may happen to be the musician, directs the work. But the problem I have is that more often than not the resources that really matter become misused. I gave the example of Key throwing Romeo Tanaka into Rewrite but only giving him one arc and stringing together the rest with in-between writers. Maybe its a matter of practicality and trying to cater to their sponsors and audience but if you want to get a talented writer and streamline him like that its a huge bloody waste from a consumer's standpoint. Also people begin to focus on areas that may cause greater harm than good. Of course you seem to take a very relativist stance with a work of art, like you see to think that whatever you do will be hated by some people and loved by others so you should just open the floor to ideas and democracy and freedom of speech and etc.. etc.. Some people love NVL! They love sprawling humongous reams of text that covers the art most of the time and makes the player see nothing but words words words for tons of button clicks! Well just look at how popular Fate/Stay Night is! Obviously this must be a winning formula! This is VERY MISGUIDED. The whole reason why Fate/Stay Night works is because of how BLOODY AWESOME Kinoko Nasu is as a writer, to be able to come up with the craziest magic battle half-philosophical Buddhist battle-royale games. But then its more because its a good novel rather than its a good Visual Novel. How much more awesome do you think it would have been if Nasu had done it ADV and synced up the battles better with the stuff going on screen? How much more interesting do you think it would have been if he unified the text and the visuals in a more powerful manner? You want crazy-awesome writing with voices and art that fit the period and the narrative done tons better? Look at Kajiri Kamui Kagura and its stunningly beautiful half-Japanesey inked style. Of course you could bring up the whole point on practicality and how the market doesn't allow for that and how I'm just a person who can't see the big picture because I'm only looking at it from the point of a consumer and there are all sorts of configurations and circumstances and I'm steamrollering over all those struggling artists that have no budget to really work on every aspect of their dream VN. Well Yes I admit to that but still the medium is deeply and strongly rooted in its content and narrative over anything else and I'm sure a whole lot more could be achieved with a whole lot less struggle if people made their priorities clear. Since it requires loads more to compete against the likes of huger projects like the Type-Moon stuff, just think of how much stronger a leaner tougher more-focused narrative could be over attempting something with a lot of choices and complex pathways and bad ends. Of course what would I know? I'm just a big dreamer like anyone else.

3. On choice

Okay now here's the toughie. Basically its the one thing that everyone seems to come across. How can we use choice meaningfully? Is choosing in a Visual Novel really 'free'? Are 'we' really choosing? I could go on some existential tangent all day and rant about the divide between self and world and all that crazy shit but rather lets focus on it in terms of narrative and aesthetics. What does choice entail? Well, skipping all that stuff on consciousness and 'are we really free or predetermined' it has to do with judging between a set of physical scenarios and making a physical action to actualize, or carry out, that choice in the real world, or simulated context. What does this mean to you as a person who makes choice systems? Well obviously there's freedom-of-choice involved and to disprove that would be to go into long ass metaphysics and the problem of self and all that, but what do I mean by 'personality test'? Let's take a thought experiment here. Let's say you're given a test that tells you to pick one of two options, either you kill your mother or your girlfriend. Well both those choices are complete shit. Does killing your girlfriend over your mother indicate you hate your mother or you're a bad person? Well of course not! It could mean that both these people have done absolutely everything in the world for you and its just that you think your girlfriend has been more of an emotional support and you really can't live without her. Likewise you're given two options in a Visual Novel. Support the evil empire or support the small rebellion fleet? Wait can't I go and backstab the emperor, crush the rebellion fleet, and become the lord of the empire myself? You could but sadly the complexity of the system doesn't allow for that choice. Of course this is an example anyone can think of and some indie devs probably had to scrap their ideas because it involved too much branching. You're probably thinking "okaaaay but isn't real life just a series of choices like this one, in very rigid context only that our choices probably number the hundreds or the thousands?". Even a choice between two choices, no matter how narrowly defined, is still a freedom of choice if you look at it that way. Okay and if you throw out all sorts of choices and paths, like Persona or Planescape:Torment, you can make the player 'feel like he can play the game his own way'. Well yes but then we must go back to that second thing that I dealt with, on what should be the priority of a Visual Novel. Persona and Planescape:Torment are bad examples because they shine primarily due to OTHER THINGS than their choice systems. They shine because of their style, the soundtrack of Shoji Meguro and the writing of Black Isle Studios, the choices have meaning in the narrative and sync with the content. I especially like how Planescape:Torment is more crafted out of a series of interlocking vignettes that have some bearing on one another, with the main binding thread being the main quest to find the Forgotten One's past. The main theme of Persona 4 is also all about how we navigate our social public lives and how these cohere with our twisted inner dreams and secrets, so it makes sense to have a Dating Sim like game inside it. And most importantly all these are more games than the specially narrative-oriented medium that is Visual Novels. And don't try to use semantic wrangling on the game-VN distinction that exists/doesn't exist because the context I'm using here is purely on the general intuitive straightforward view of them. Whatever it is you can say about games you can't say that you don't INTERACT (as in perform kin-esthetic actions within a simulated audio-visual-contextual space) with them, and whatever it is you say about Visual Novels you can't say that you don't READ them. My point being that if you want to have a lot of stuff to allow for 'customization' please always remember that in a certain way a Visual Novel is still a linear aesthetic reading experience. This doesn't mean you can't have it but that you should be aware of what your player is actually doing. Semantically he's 'making a choice'. Realistically he's reading a bunch of text, then he's clicking a button, then he's reading a bunch more stuff that appears as a consequence of clicking that button. It seems as though people can intuitive grasp this but never exactly realize what it means. It means that the act of reading the text is being stopped and the player is cut away from the narrative and then he's forced to think about the simulated context of the story, and then he's pondering this context, and then he's going back to reading the text. You see the issues that could arise if you dump on a whole load of extraneous choices and, at every moment, the reader is sucked out of the world, forced to look from an outsider's perspective on that world, and thrown back in again? In the game you ask if the player wants to drink tea or coffee. The player thinks about his self-outside-the-game as liking coffee. The player clicks coffee. The protagonist drinks the coffee. Unless you can write well enough that the player basically identifies to the very core with the protagonist, even to the point where clicking on drinking coffee allows complete immersion into the world and narrative to be maintained, then by god you are a master of the craft. That's why its better to bet all your choices on those epiphanic or tense moments within the narrative where everything could really be changed. But never ever getting into the misconception that the player is identifying WITH THE CHOICES. He's still identifying with the WRITING and the narrative. That's why question these design tactics, are the choices in and for themselves or do they serve a purpose to the overall vision? You can see how the argument can be applied to Otome Games or Galge style romance games. Simply because they don't understand what the choice entails. White Album 2 understood this, and it contextualized the choices in such a way as to strip away the illusions of the genre, while also being a dramatic well-written emotional romance story. Basically every route and most choices in White Album 2 is a choice between the lesser of a certain set of evils. Someone is always on the losing end on the stick. Someone always gets denied. The narrative controls the choice all the way and never ever fails into the 'choice between 5 girls/boys' trap in and for itself. Sure if you think your game can bear the weight of those choices then go on and throw them all in, but never ever forget priorities. In an Orwellian way I'm going to add that Anything is possible, but some things are more possible than others.

4. On creativity

God this is a tough thing to touch on without seeing a lot of spite and rolling heads. Is originality really the sacred path of an artist? Does it even really exist? Is everything just shades of everything else. Who knows. I certainly don't. But what I do know is that there are a lot of people who have made lengthy histories and interpretations on the process and development of Literature and the Arts. I think that its a bit rude or ignorant to throw all their contributions out the window and claim that there hasn't been a progressive order to things. If you follow Marxist aesthetics for example you'll argue that creativity is a reflection of the infrastructural and economic forces underlying society and you'll state that as time passes the aim of art will be be drastically reoriented to different priorities, like focusing on a Literature that is more of a proper record of how the working class live rather than being an individualistic medium of emotions. escape and melodrama. For the pioneers of this school of thought look at Bertolt Brecht and Walter Benjamin. Furthermore Brecht actually put his theories of anti-dramatic theater to practice and his ideas on the alienating effect has influenced a whole bunch of playwrights and directors like Tony Kushner and Jean-Luc Godard. Harold Bloom wrote a long thesis called the Anxiety of Influence, which makes the process of poetry seem like a discursive push and pull between conventions and variants on these conventions (which then become the conventions themselves) rather than an open field for all to explore. Actually even Shakespeare was a writer who only worked with historical sources and based all his works on other texts. The idea of the truly original writer is one that arose out of Romanticism, with its ideas of an artistic Muse being sacrosanct to all other affairs, and Surrealism, which was about the splendid unconscious of the brain and dream logic arising into power. Now the field of Literature has basically been dictated as a lawless field where supposedly anything is possible due to the postmodern works of people like Pynchon and the crazy experimentalism of people like James Joyce. Yet why do writers still return to genre conventions and structural conventions like the Greek Tragedy and a three-act climactic structure? Maybe because absolute freedom and originality is a bit terrifying and, quite frankly, doesn't exist. The most stunningly lucid about this is Borges, who writes in a style that is the most academic and influenced by everything, but is simultaneously one of the most uniquely personal voices in the world. Now even the realms of the experimental have been encroached by placeholder names. You call some works Kafkaesque, other works Beckettian, some works Pynchonesque, some works Carnivalesque, some works Brechtian. What appears to be happening is that people are realizing that creativity is more like a series of interesting variations over a set of predetermined conventions that slowly make their way to the outer reaches of time and space. And most importantly there are some things that, within the medium, are set in stone and will never go away, like film and its relation to editing and shot, Visual Novels and its relation to text and image, and Music and its relations to scales and harmonies. Of course crazy stuff in music like atonality and power electronics exist but how many people in the world really listen to nothing BUT that crazy stuff? Just because its possible, does that mean that musicians have to include in their albums a tiny bit of noise and crazy tunes just to constantly remind the world of the contributions of Schoenberg and the whole Modernist music lot? In a finite universe a lot of things are possible but, once again, some things are just more possible than others. Are theories mutually exclusive to creativity? Nope. Is aesthetics mutually exclusive to fun? Nope. But people who set their aesthetics and their worldviews in stone can push their artistic vision better than anyone else. Ever see a Dostoyevsky novel without murders, suicidal thoughts and huge dialogues on philosophy and faith? Nope. Ever see a major Faulkner novel not rooted in the beauty of the South? Nope. Ever see a Kinoko Nasu work that skimps on crazy Buddhist theological magic systems? Nope. As said above, even the Bard, who was the most inventive with his tongue and the most astounding with his diversity of characterization still worked in variations of set conventions. It was his precise twisting of the norms that counted above all but he never forgot he was a playwright and he never forgot that the theater was all about spectacle and character.

My god I never thought that I had to write a longer Manifesto to explain a Manifesto.

[Caveat Lector]

I think the problem was pretty much nailed with that one statement TrickWithAKnife made--"without talking down to us". At times, yes, it does feel like you're running on the assumption that we don't know what a choice is, or that we don't understand the basic mechanics of how making VN's works, or even very simple mechanics of storytelling across all mediums, and that we need to have it broken down to us (mainly in walls of text). You have some interesting ideas (oh trust me, I love coming up with wild theories about works I love, and analyzing what makes them work!), but we'd listen to you more if you spoke to us on the assumption that we know what a choice is and what the mechanics of making a VN are.

Another problem I have with some of your critique is that, from what I can gather, you're applying a lot of film theory to an entirely different medium. VN's can, in some ways, be like a cinematic experience (Narcissu is often recommended as setting on auto-play and just sitting to watch the story being told, and effectively treat it as a two-hour movie), but they're not quite the same. They're a weird mesh of part video game part book part...any medium the creator chooses to throw in. Writing theories about plot, characters, and structure (amongst other things) can be applied across all mediums, but not all medium theories can be transferred the exact same way.

[czxcjx]

What you claim to be doing and have actually been doing are not the same.
Adding wall after wall of convoluted, contradiction-riddled philojargon won't change that.

In no uncertain terms you've proclaimed that we are ALL doing it wrong and in the same breath claim to be helping to inspire and add depth to the artform.

The replies you've been getting are not "knee-jerk reactions". Excluding myself, the community have been very tolerant of your trash talking.

I challenge you to make a single post where you contribute something positive without talking down to us.

Well I didn't see this post while I was writing that other post but hopefully everything has been clarified in that post. But if you do spot areas that appear to be contradictory or unexplained enough at least point out which areas so that I can clarify even further. If currently what you see nothing but walls of trash talk and philojargon then all I can really do is just keep on expounding until you see my view because I don't ever think I'll stop coming up with the boatload of associations and I don't ever think you'll ever stop being aggressive towards me. I do admit though. I can never know the experiences you've had, the boatload of time you put in your craft or the struggles you've been through that make you think of me as the embodiment of everything you hate. I don't think you can also ever know my thinking, experiences or anything about me other than the fact that I like to talk a lot about contradictory rubbish. If you think I trash talk then what else can I do but explain explain explain? And if you think that my style of writing or my theories are downright degenerate and never ever get to any meaningful point then what else can I do but write and write and write until we reach some kind of middle ground? But if we are to ever reach a middle ground then you have to explain properly everything that you think is completely disingenuous and impractical about my approach to the Visual Novel. Lets face it, any conversation is actually an attempt to straighten out a whole lot of misunderstandings in an attempt to try and reach another person's soul.

[TrickWithAKnife]

I don't have anything new to add, so you don't have to concern yourself with making me understand. I won't be writing any more replies.

And to be honest, your previous post was so incredibly long and devoid of any kind of formatting that I couldn't bring myself to attempt reading it.

[Caveat Lector]

If currently what you see nothing but walls of trash talk and philojargon then all I can really do is just keep on expounding until you see my view

If you think I trash talk then what else can I do but explain explain explain? And if you think that my style of writing or my theories are downright degenerate and never ever get to any meaningful point then what else can I do but write and write and write until we reach some kind of middle ground? But if we are to ever reach a middle ground then you have to explain properly everything that you think is completely disingenuous and impractical about my approach to the Visual Novel.

That's EXACTLY what I'm talking about when I mentioned how you talk down to people. And honestly? If I have anything more to add, I will; if anyone else wants to add something, maybe I'll reply to that; otherwise, I think I'll just quietly bow out, too. It's good to have that one person whom you can respectfully argue with over art, but the key word is "respectfully". If the other person says "If you can't see why I'm right then I'll just keep talking until you see I'm right", while also passive-aggressively insulting their opponent under the guise of "understanding them", and also painting their opponents as strawmen to make their own points sound superior, then there is no constructive debate to be had. Goodbye.

[czxcjx]

I think the problem was pretty much nailed with that one statement TrickWithAKnife made--"without talking down to us". At times, yes, it does feel like you're running on the assumption that we don't know what a choice is, or that we don't understand the basic mechanics of how making VN's works, or even very simple mechanics of storytelling across all mediums, and that we need to have it broken down to us (mainly in walls of text). You have some interesting ideas (oh trust me, I love coming up with wild theories about works I love, and analyzing what makes them work!), but we'd listen to you more if you spoke to us on the assumption that we know what a choice is and what the mechanics of making a VN are.

Another problem I have with some of your critique is that, from what I can gather, you're applying a lot of film theory to an entirely different medium. VN's can, in some ways, be like a cinematic experience (Narcissu is often recommended as setting on auto-play and just sitting to watch the story being told, and effectively treat it as a two-hour movie), but they're not quite the same. They're a weird mesh of part video game part book part...any medium the creator chooses to throw in. Writing theories about plot, characters, and structure (amongst other things) can be applied across all mediums, but not all medium theories can be transferred the exact same way.

Yes but we're talking about a sequential medium with a heavy text-component. At the very least image theory. like those of comics, for example Scott McCloud, applies here. You cannot ever deny that at the very least a Visual Novel must contain a photo attached to a statement or text, and most likely sound will also come into play. Eventually one element has to come through. All the wrangling about 'Video Games as an Art Form' is mainly due to definitional obscurities that make it easy for people like Roger Ebert to castigate Video Games as being low art solely on the basis of it being a systems-orientated affair hinging around the element of fun. If you define it in a certain way then yes, but if you define it in others then no. But the whole idea of a theory is to find the absolute bottom line of a medium and then, with that as a starting point, working upwards. My starting point is that of a content-purist, that until systems can become complex enough to allow for massive choice systems and possibilities with a lower barriers to entry then everything should be dictated by the content. Which means the aesthetics of everything going on on the screen. Of course it isn't equal to film theory, if not text rhythm would completely be thrown out of the window. This is a medium that allows the slender beauty of reading poetry to be mixed with the colorful flourishes of art, as seen from the LiarSoft What a Beautiful... series. Its also a medium that allows the novel's psychological exposition to be mixed in with art and sound, something which the movie and comic books usually lack. And because the stills are placed one after another you perceive the image morphing directly in time, like a movie, rather than in subjective simulated time, like a comic book, which makes it subject to certain areas of those theories. Take a still of a girl facing the moon. Take a still of a girl turning away from the moon. Put it back to back and you get continuity editing. Place a text at one side. Place a text at another side. Depending on how the text is placed, that too is subjected to editing and composition.

[czxcjx]

If currently what you see nothing but walls of trash talk and philojargon then all I can really do is just keep on expounding until you see my view

If you think I trash talk then what else can I do but explain explain explain? And if you think that my style of writing or my theories are downright degenerate and never ever get to any meaningful point then what else can I do but write and write and write until we reach some kind of middle ground? But if we are to ever reach a middle ground then you have to explain properly everything that you think is completely disingenuous and impractical about my approach to the Visual Novel.

That's EXACTLY what I'm talking about when I mentioned how you talk down to people. And honestly? If I have anything more to add, I will; if anyone else wants to add something, maybe I'll reply to that; otherwise, I think I'll just quietly bow out, too. It's good to have that one person whom you can respectfully argue with over art, but the key word is "respectfully". If the other person says "If you can't see why I'm right then I'll just keep talking until you see I'm right", while also passive-aggressively insulting their opponent under the guise of "understanding them", and also painting their opponents as strawmen to make their own points sound superior, then there is no constructive debate to be had. Goodbye.

Okay I'll admit that the tone of the first post may have pushed too hard the stuff I wanted to talk about especially with the ton of Caps that made it seem I was going hardline all the way. I'll also admit that Trick never actually said anything against me but merely made the comment about rules being counter-productive (which resulted from a misjudgment of the tone in my first post), which really got into my craw because I've seen so many people use that line to bow out of any conversation about aesthetics especially when considering that numerous great writers and people have all been coming up with the most interesting ideas and worldviews throughout the ages about how the creative process works and how it should be done. Everybody with a creative spirit probably has their own view of art and will go through all lengths to protect it. Most of the hostility afterwards resulted from that escalation and probably made my pedagogical and debating instinct go over the limit (Trust me though that my tone is mild here compared to the direct intellectual assault that goes on in the University debating circuit where literally blood and brains rush out into full blown combat. Trust me too that passive-aggressive retorting is basically hardwired into my thought process after 2 years of training there). I apologize to all parties involved but I still think the idea of originality is a bullshit concept that's a quick way for artists to drop out of having their works formally criticized or having anything at all be said about art that isn't their worldview.

[blankd]

Trust me though that my tone is mild here compared to the direct intellectual assault that goes on in the University debating circuit where literally blood and brains rush out into full blown combat. Trust me too that passive-aggressive retorting is basically hardwired into my thought process after 2 years of training there

Can you write anything in a succinct manner? You are literally wasting everyone's time by talking in long flourishes instead of sticking to basic formatting to get across your point.

If you are a writer and you want responses you are going to have to follow the RULE of making your posts legible, both in use of return key and word count.

Asking if you've ever made a VN is not an attack, it is a literal inquiry of your understanding of how you comprehend creation of VNs. And don't broadbrush the arts and the movements, the Dadaists would probably print out your posts, affix the title "Presentatious Posterior" and sign off on it.

This post in particular claims to talk about ideas but it is, ironically enough a demonstration about a fundamental lack of understanding of pacing and tempo of the textual variety. You *are* so caught up on reading "impressive" that you fail to communicate because no one wants to read those things that put textwalls to shame.

I repeat, I am pointing this out not as a way of saying you're wrong but because this is a communication problem, you need to compromise on this or else you sterilize the possibility of having any kind of argument/discussion.

[Enigma]

Okay, I'll go ahead and engage a bit. The whole idea of this thread is fundamentally flawed and I hope you don't get offended, filled with WAY to many quotes and philosophical buzzwords. The various aesthetic theories are not about defining rules, they're about understanding and studying techniques. Sometimes contradictory techniques. It's about identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the technique and trying to balance those strengths and weaknesses with new spins on techniques.

[Caveat Lector]

@ Enigma

Okay, then I'd like to debate this: Do you feel like there are any particular aspects or conventions of VN's as a medium that tend to be flawed? Not bad, not wrong, but flawed? What do you feel we could do to turn these aspects in another direction? When do you feel these flawed aspects are done right?

For me, I find the concept of good ends, bad ends, true ends, etc. to be flawed. I feel like a VN should be part of a cohesive whole, not just bits and pieces leading up to the "best" ending under the "right" conditions. Something I would love to do with the "bad end" concept is to either:
a) treat it as the VN-equivilant of a premature game over instead of an end-end, or
b) have it be the end to a major story arc as the result of a set of decisions you made that led up to that point--like it could bring closure and feel like it could stand on its own instead of needing to complete other arcs to understand it, or only reaching it as a prerequisite for other endings--and treat it as something of a tragedy. But it could only be just one ending of several potential, happier ones (or much sadder ones, if you will).

Of course, b would require for me to do a lot of programming and testing (heh, maybe I could just find a more talented programmer!), but you get what I mean. In that case, though, what could be used to motivate players to try to explore all possible endings and choices?