This kinda story right for a visual novel

[dino1489]

Its action heavy, and most of the VN I see are characters talking so its much easier to make. Are there any VN that are action oriented? how do they manage to do this without spending an ungodly amount on Art. Maybe its not possible, but I figured I'd ask anyways.

Story: Hunter Files (Skim through prologue)

[skyeworks]

Usually they use effects and sound as well as writing.
Death rule is a great example of this, there are some cgs but mostly they use flashes of red or white with sounds and it's pretty effective.

Doppelganger uses it as well and I love it more because of how well made it is, art and game. (though they do more cgs)

Some example:
Death rule:

viewtopic.php?f=43&t=13326

Doppelganger :
viewtopic.php?t=18947

EDIT: I just remembered another good example! Not a visual novel but Ace Attorney does this to some extent as well. 999 did this with some scenes as well, (when they were describing the first person that died, we heard screaming and then they never showed the scene just
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOZ4i-sSchs&t=43m12s

[Mammon]

It is true that too much action can mean too much CGs and other art assets. However, this is the case for everything. Someone who makes a slice of life with just talking can still find themselves need too many sprites for their many characters and still too many CGs because they have too many scenes that need one or a minimal amount of CG's per route ideal. Action too is a matter of how well you organise and use what you have.

A simple example:

Take a scene where a man fistfights a bunch of bounty hunters in a bar, jumps out of a window, runs through some back streets to lose the men chasing him and eventually loses them in a car chase. That could easily mean you bind yourself to 4 CGs for that one action scene: fight, window jump, chase foot, chase car. You don't find yourself reusing those CGs in later action fights with the exception of the car chase, because you don't fight said bounty hunters any more.

Now take a fight scene about an aerial mecha story. You have one CG of the mecha flying, another one of them taking damage, a third one of them firing a gun, a fourth firing missiles, a fifth about their sword-fighting, a sixth is a sight of the enemy fighters and a seventh of the armana or big baddy's ship. That sounds like three more CGs for one scene, but you will reuse them a lot more.

In the end both stories have 10 fighting scenes with the average amount of CGs as seen above. Story one needs 3 unique CGs per scene and reuses one, story two needs one unique CG per scene and reuses the rest. Story one needs 30-35 CGs, story two requires 17-25 (and 25 is taking quite some leeway). By properly selecting your assets to be reusable, you can make a more dynamic and overall supported visualisation of the action with the same or less CGs.

One thing to remember in this is that you need not feel ashamed for blatantly reusing assets. You're indie and this is probably your first story. Cut all the corners you want, as long as it means getting that story released. A story I know that used just a few assets to properly showcase the dynamic and action of combat was Autumn's journey, which just added a split screen of the MC blocking an attack with her sword instead of adding the enemy every time. (Ignore that the VN has a lot of good CGs beside that, focus on the cost-effective cutting of corners.) That works just fine.

Just make sure you don't make it too bland and boring, though. Take for example ChuSingura, which I thought had a lot of terribly boring fight scenes because they were making them too long and with too little properly used CGs. The CGs used there were overused to begin with, the story is cloudgazing a lot after all, but the fighting scenes took the action out of it by just continuously reusing the fighting CGs. They did the reusing of assets too simple and too much, and thus made it too boring. Though that's also on the writing.

Anyway; try to distil your action scenes into a few CGs, preferably finding some way to make all fight scenes take place in a similar environment (and thus with the same background) and with the same general actions. Avoid things that would need their own unique CG unless really necessary, but try to make the action still feel dynamic and meaningful despite using the same situation and simple actions the whole time.