What features do you like to see in a VN?

[astrokeofmadness]

Obviously, a good story and good characters should be at the top of the list.

I made a very small visual novel back in 2015, it was exactly 17 minutes long(played on auto, with voice acting). I had positive feedback from those that did play it, but It definitely didn't get much if any attention.

I am going to continue the story I made and create a full Visual novel this time. A big fear I have is that I can't take the easy way out and corner a specific demographic. I refuse to make a game that sells on sex appeal. I want to simply tell a Bildungsroman styled story(coming of age). It isn't geared towards a BxB crowd, the manga crowd, mystery crowd, the eroge crowd etc.

So faced with that realization I'm curious what motivates you to want to play a visual novel beyond very specific themed stories. Obviously if you're a fan of eroge you'll be basing you decisions mostly on art aesthetics for example.

I am being ambitious in what I'd like to include in this Visual Novel, and i'm curious if any interest you, or if you have ideas of how to improve upon them.

Clickable objects- these would be things you can click on for additional information, likely in the form of an internal monologue- example: you click on your friends diary in her room, and you get a little bit of insight into that one time you snuck a peek into her diary

Timed dialogue boxes- choices must be answered within a certain time frame or you may be interrupted before being able to answer, or have you choice taken away by someone else, or perhaps you'll make an alternative 'bad choice' if you were angry etc

Voice acting- in my opinion voices really make the game more enjoyable, it turns it into much more a video that your playing.

Animations- I've been learning animation as of late and plan to add animations, this is obviously to be used only every once in awhile, and for minor movements. Example was a test animation I did a few weeks ago. I didn't make clean linework for it, as you can tell.

Art- Until further notice I'll be doing all the art. My experience working with others thus far, at least on the working for free end is that people disappear too often and that its not worth it to look for unpaid work. I am a fairly competent artist so it should be fine. It won't be super traditional anime, more Disney/anime hybrid but should still be appealing enough. If anything I'll possibly pay for some indoor backgrounds, as that's my major weakness.

Other things I'm curious about:

Do you prefer being in full control of the character when possible, or are you alright with forced decisions? If you could have the option to decline doing anything offered to you, would that make a more enjoyable experience, or do you want a more controlled experience to ensure you don't miss things? Would you hate it if I removed the option to rewind?

Do you prefer being able to do everything in 1 playthrough,(Ie-finish all the girls arcs) or do you prefer to replay to get the other arcs.

[nerupuff]

I'll try my best to answer your question by evaluating each of the features/elements that you want to include in your VN. Of course, these are based on my opinion solely as a player of VNs.

Clickable objects- these would be things you can click on for additional information, likely in the form of an internal monologue- example: you click on your friends diary in her room, and you get a little bit of insight into that one time you snuck a peek into her diary

I think this would add a more interactive effect to the VN, which I would support, especially if it adds more insight to a story. Some games (not necessarily VNs) incorporate this style of object interaction to a good effect. The only time I would think of it as overly excessive is if you give any and all items a description that it becomes a chore to find which items are key items based on descriptions (looking at you, Life is Strange...)

Timed dialogue boxes- choices must be answered within a certain time frame or you may be interrupted before being able to answer, or have you choice taken away by someone else, or perhaps you'll make an alternative 'bad choice' if you were angry etc

Mm, I'm guess this is in order to get a faster response from players? I'm not too iffy about the idea but it might be a bit taxing especially for some people who want to think of their choices carefully. I don't have a solid opinion on it because I have yet to see something like this in practice.

Voice acting- in my opinion voices really make the game more enjoyable, it turns it into much more a video that your playing.

I'm very impartial to this. But I suppose voice acting does add a certain charm to the game itself. It's just a matter of how well-done the dialogue and the voices are.

Animations- I've been learning animation as of late and plan to add animations, this is obviously to be used only every once in awhile, and for minor movements.

I think this would be a very nice addition to a VN. Makes for a more dynamic experience. That, and I do appreciate animation in whatever form. It's a labor of love~

Do you prefer being in full control of the character when possible, or are you alright with forced decisions? If you could have the option to decline doing anything offered to you, would that make a more enjoyable experience, or do you want a more controlled experience to ensure you don't miss things? Would you hate it if I removed the option to rewind?

I'm okay without the option to rewind, as most of the games I've played recently enforce this sort of style. It also gives me more reason to stick with the choice that I selected (and if I don't like how it's turning out, there's always the save and load function). I think it should be a healthy mixed of character control and possibly some forced decisions. You can't have everything, I guess.

Do you prefer being able to do everything in 1 playthrough,(Ie-finish all the girls arcs) or do you prefer to replay to get the other arcs.

I've always replayed my games so not everything is done in 1 playthrough (unless I find no reason to continue after finishing the game once). Replaying is fine, because a skip dialogue function exists (which I am very thankful for).

[NocturneLight]

So faced with that realization I'm curious what motivates you to want to play a visual novel beyond very specific themed stories. Obviously if you're a fan of eroge you'll be basing you decisions mostly on art aesthetics for example.

Not true at all. I imagine many people, at least me, base their decisions off of art and aesthetics regardless of whether it's eroge or a regular visual novel.

Clickable objects- these would be things you can click on for additional information, likely in the form of an internal monologue- example: you click on your friends diary in her room, and you get a little bit of insight into that one time you snuck a peek into her diary

If you want to improve this, here's a suggestion. Make there be some kind of repercussion for clicking on some things.

Voice acting- in my opinion voices really make the game more enjoyable, it turns it into much more a video that your playing.

If you want to improve this area, be sure to get voice actors that you feel fit your characters. If you don't cringe from their performance and you say to yourself "This is [insert-name-here]." or "This is the voice I envisioned for my character.", then you're good.

Animations- I've been learning animation as of late and plan to add animations, this is obviously to be used only every once in awhile, and for minor movements.

If you add animations, make sure it looks good. Since you're the one doing animations, if you don't put your 100% into making it look smooth and good looking, don't bother putting it in. The choppiness and other problems with the animation may conflict with the rest of the game and put off players.

Art- Until further notice I'll be doing all the art. My experience working with others thus far, at least on the working for free end is that people disappear too often and that its not worth it to look for unpaid work. I am a fairly competent artist so it should be fine. It won't be super traditional anime, more Disney/anime hybrid but should still be appealing enough. If anything I'll possibly pay for some indoor backgrounds, as that's my major weakness.

If the art style is going to be like your avatar, then you're on the right track. Work on it some more and I think you'll be fine getting the anime crowd interested. But, just so you know, if you make it too Disney you're running the risk of losing a majority of potential players. For me personally, seldom do I touch Visual Novels that don't have an art style that is at least somewhat anime-esque.

Do you prefer being in full control of the character when possible, or are you alright with forced decisions? If you could have the option to decline doing anything offered to you, would that make a more enjoyable experience, or do you want a more controlled experience to ensure you don't miss things? Would you hate it if I removed the option to rewind?

What impact does the forced decision have on the story? No impact? Don't implement it. Major impact? Implement it if it's going to really mess up the player. Let me decline options that impact the story drastically. If it's just declining buying Apples and that choice impacts the game in no way, then that doesn't improve the experience at all. At least for me. If you remove the option to rewind, then you better have a good reason, or people will hate it.

Do you prefer being able to do everything in 1 playthrough,(Ie-finish all the girls arcs) or do you prefer to replay to get the other arcs.

I'm fine with either. Do whatever lets you make the best story arc for that character.

[astrokeofmadness]

I'll try my best to answer your question by evaluating each of the features/elements that you want to include in your VN. Of course, these are based on my opinion solely as a player of VNs.

Thanks for the feedback-
Clickable stuff would be purely optional, in other words flavour text only, unless a section where your supposed to click something was made, kinda like a Phoenix Wright find the clue moment(not sure I'd do that, but just to give the idea)

The timed dialogue boxes idea is to create a sense of realism in terms of someone making a decision. There are many times where you have to make a decision or someone will make it for you for example. You can't stand there and spend a minute deciding what type of pizza to order, as your friend is standing beside you on the phone ordering. So in this example, you'd have say 10 seconds to decide, or your friend just orders you a cheese and calls it a day. The anger example, if your character is furious at their best friend, then you are given the options to yell at them, or walk away, the failure result might be to punch them and then storm off. Essentially simulating a lack of control over the situation by requiring you to respond before you've lost it.

[astrokeofmadness]

Stuff

What I meant by the eroge example is that likely the most defining feature of picking one eroge over another will be you like the art. You'd pick the one with good art and a moderately interesting story over the one with moderately good art and an interesting story. Art is important to all Visual novels, but the degree changes depending on the intent of the Visual Novel. I'd never personally play a visual novel in a theme I don't enjoy just for the art.

My rule for voice acting is it needs to sound natural. No anime voices. I was super happy with the results I got previously so I have a good example of what I'd be going for in that.

Animation- basically my avatar is the example. Small little animations to turn moments that would be just text into actual events. Edit- added an example above.

Art will be similar to my avatar, allthough that was made a long while ago. I'm still refining exactly how to do it. I'm mostly a portrait painter lol, so my figure drawing skills are kinda weak. Art will be a notable step up from my previous release if nothing else. Seen in my sig.

Removing rewind goes hand in hand with timed choices. If you can rewind it kind of makes timed choices a bit pointless. I'd look into if its possible to disable rewinding beyond a choice, in which case that would fix that issue. Obviously you can save/load but at least that feels like cheating and you likely didn't save right before.

[Mammon]

An answer I think will and should answer all of your questions: What do you think will work best here?

The author, at this level of indie games, should never bend over and change their game for what they think the players will want. Of course, if their story is too out there or uninteresting no one will play it, but them changing the story to fit the latest trend or to fit certain gimmicks players apparently like can have equally bad results. A lot of the possible additions you mentioned can easily be annoying chores within the game added with no virtue at all, because the author added them because they thought the players would want them. These mini-games had the opposite effect, though.

Clickable objects and timed choices can easily be either bothersome or pointless. If the clickables aren't intuitive or skippable the player might be unable to continue because they're not finding that one thing they need to read before continuing, and timed choices are either too fast or give you so long they're pointless. If you as the author, without looking at what the player might want, think that they'll add to the story and will be enjoyable, add them. If not, don't.

The same for free-choice interactivity and singular complete playthroughs, you're the one who knows what the story is about and whether such a thing would actually be possible and beneficial to your tale. Putting the player in control is very difficult though, so don't even try unless you can imagine how you'll do it before writing the story, and single playthroughs only work if you can and want to show all there is to a story or route in one go. This even more than before depends on whether YOU and YOUR STORY can and want to do this.

The voice acting and animation, definately yes. If it can be done right, of course. Your example could work well for both a CG or as the sprite getting an animated expression, and even with the more drawed look I still like the aesthetic it has. The voice acting, of course with the potential risk that you'll find someone not quite fitting for one of your characters, can add upon their character just as much as their sprites can do. Immediate and stronger character establishment. Plus, you can put a lot of subtleties in their voice and pronounciation at certain times that can't be done or are more jarring in written word.

About certain genres like eroge or BxB, keep in mind that while there are players that proclaim loudly that they'll only play certain genres or with certain things like anime styles, these people are a niche. The audience for non-eroge and non-BxB is a lot bigger than either, just a bit more quiet and with more competition. Don't go for a certain genre just because some people will only play that genre, those people exist for every genre.

[astrokeofmadness]

An answer I think will and should answer all of your questions: What do you think will work best here?

The author, at this level of indie games, should never bend over and change their game for what they think the players will want. Of course, if their story is too out there or uninteresting no one will play it, but them changing the story to fit the latest trend or to fit certain gimmicks players apparently like can have equally bad results. A lot of the possible additions you mentioned can easily be annoying chores within the game added with no virtue at all, because the author added them because they thought the players would want them. These mini-games had the opposite effect, though.

Clickable objects and timed choices can easily be either bothersome or pointless. If the clickables aren't intuitive or skippable the player might be unable to continue because they're not finding that one thing they need to read before continuing, and timed choices are either too fast or give you so long they're pointless. If you as the author, without looking at what the player might want, think that they'll add to the story and will be enjoyable, add them. If not, don't.

The same for free-choice interactivity and singular complete playthroughs, you're the one who knows what the story is about and whether such a thing would actually be possible and beneficial to your tale. Putting the player in control is very difficult though, so don't even try unless you can imagine how you'll do it before writing the story, and single playthroughs only work if you can and want to show all there is to a story or route in one go. This even more than before depends on whether YOU and YOUR STORY can and want to do this.

The voice acting and animation, definately yes. If it can be done right, of course. Your example could work well for both a CG or as the sprite getting an animated expression, and even with the more drawed look I still like the aesthetic it has. The voice acting, of course with the potential risk that you'll find someone not quite fitting for one of your characters, can add upon their character just as much as their sprites can do. Immediate and stronger character establishment. Plus, you can put a lot of subtleties in their voice and pronounciation at certain times that can't be done or are more jarring in written word.

About certain genres like eroge or BxB, keep in mind that while there are players that proclaim loudly that they'll only play certain genres or with certain things like anime styles, these people are a niche. The audience for non-eroge and non-BxB is a lot bigger than either, just a bit more quiet and with more competition. Don't go for a certain genre just because some people will only play that genre, those people exist for every genre.

Good point.

The ideas I put forth ares ones that I think I can implement in a way that will enhance the gameplay. I wouldn't implement something like a timed choice without extensive testing to get those values perfect. I wouldn't be using a single value for each choice, it would vary depending on the scene, or perhaps not exist for slower paced decisions. Clickable stuff would be exclusively flavour text in all likelihood, this isnt meant to be an object find event. I'd likely indiacte anything clickable with a sparkle, and its your choice if you want to read it.