Cool menus in VNs

[Kinmoku]

Hi all,

I've been thinking recently about how VN menus can become a little more dynamic, especially in Ren'Py. How can a VNs gameplay actually become a tool for narrative? I'm personally a big fan of more interactive VNs, like the Zero Escape and Ace Attorney series, so I guess I'm wondering how to make menus a little more interactive and fun.

Some examples I can think of are Ladykiller in a Bind, Yakuza 0 (telephone game), and Ace Attorney's psyche locks. All of these work in totally different ways, but I think they're very interesting to look at:

With Ladykiller, although it's a typical menu at first glance, I love how upfront the options are. They're clearly described a certain way, and even give you the suspicion warning up-front. The way the options disappear over time, as well, is a very nice addition, and it makes every menu feel like a real, natural conversation.

Although not a visual novel, I love how they made a multi-choice option into a tricky mini-game. The answers (where the correct one is super obvious) float around and distort, making it very difficult to select the rightt one, which adds to Kiryu's nervousness and lack of experience at this time in his life. I like it a lot. If this was a typical menu, where selecting the right answer was easy, it'd be so boring.

The psyche locks in the Ace Attorney games (okay, I admit I HATED them at first) are a nice visual cue that something needs to be done to unlock conversation options. They certainly broke up the usual questioning approach than the original game had. Anyway, I know they're not a menu as such, but I thought they were an interesting way to show a character hiding something. Maybe not every character questioned in a VN wants to answer, for example.

Other menus mechanics I can think of are timed, looped and QTE. There's certainly a time and a place for them though. I don't think timed works well unless there's a heated moment in the narrative. QTEs can exaggerate movement and make some scenes more lively, but you wouldn't use them all the time.

I'd love to hear if anyone else has seen some cool menus that add to the character or narrative

[philat]

Interesting thought experiment, so I'll add a few of mine:

- May fall under the general umbrella of QTE, but Danganronpa's titular use of bullets for the interrogation/cross-examine mechanic comes to mind as a reasonably fun mini-game.

- Although not a visual novel as such, I recall that Oxenfree's conversations were also much discussed when it came out. Conceptually somewhat similar to Ladykiller's approach, in the way that the option to say things comes and passes in the flow of conversation, except in real-time.

- Harmonia, an entry in this year's IFComp (https://ifcomp.org/ballot#entry-1673 ), uses a neat little trick of using hyperlinks to expand content but presented as scribbled notes on top of text. Again, this is not a visual novel but I thought it was a cool way to increase interactivity and present information in a work that is closer to a linear/non-interactive piece of fiction.

- There are a few "conversation as combat" mechanics that come to mind (Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Koei's ROTK series, Undertale, etc.), which may or may not be along the lines of discussion here. They're generally in not-visual-novels, but there's no reason you couldn't implement something similar in a visual novel (which would be similar to the Danganronpa/Ace Attorney style interrogation/trial anyway).

- Since I'm basically only talking about not-visual-novels, here's another one: 80 Days' writing is pretty unique in how it offers choices mid-sentence, although it leans heavily on the qualities of ink (the language), which was designed specifically for that kind of writing, and it's really the writing itself that's more interesting than the presentation.

And on that note, I do want to point out that the writing quality itself ultimately makes or breaks the games moreso than the mechanic/presentation. Consider, for example, Fallout 4's widely derided ABXY approach to conversations, compared to Alpha Protocol which did the exact same thing except people actually liked the writing

[Kinmoku]

Ah yes, 80 days of course! I loved how that game handled dialogue. It was nice how it mixed it up sometimes too.. kept my interest I should probably play that again at some point.

Oxenfree's conversation choices were cool, but I felt they only worked when there was 1 other character to talk to, else there was way too much going on to take in and only a limited amount of time to answer. I'd often press nothing by accident... The same happened with 1979 Revolution Black Friday, which I adored but wished their choices weren't timed. Life is Strange: Before the Storm uses timed answers when Chloe is back-talking to characters, which is clearly marked so you know it's coming up. I think it works well because it's a tense moment and you're given a heads-up. The mechanic adds to her character, too.

Conversation as combat is a good point I loved how Undertale did it, and that's obviously a huge mechanic/ part of the game's story. Good shout.

I haven't played much Danganronpa... I should probably get around to that at some point.