Would you play interactive Manga?

[llplldll]

Ive had so many ideas floating around in my head lately. This latest one came about after I started searching the web for an interactive manga, basically a graphic novel layout with sound effects/music and a branching story line.
An interactive Manga about anything seems like it would be an awesome read but after an exhaustive search, I found nothing. Apparently, they are very rare.
(Is there another name for this other than ‘interactive manga’ , maybe Im using the wrong term)
There are plenty of comics that utitilze pop-up book style interactivity or motion comic techniques but I can not find anything with a branching storyline.
I don’t speak Japanese but surly some of these exist over there, right?
Does anyone know of any manga that has an interactive branching story line??

The only thing Ive found that gets close to what Im trying to do is this:
http://www.selins-inn.com/interactive-manga.html

Ive thought about making my own now. It’s a huge undertaking because of the amount of art required, but it might be worth it considering how rare such projects are.
I know people who like graphic novels will be into it but would this be something visual novel readers are into?

Please let me know you’re opinion on this, visual novel readers.

[DaFool]

Sounds nice in theory, but in practice, at least highlighted by the examnple, doesn't quite work.

The thing about manga is that it's a sequence of stylish event CG style graphics. Part of the charm in seeing them on a page or as a timed motion comic is you couldn't predict what will happen next. When the player is then given the opportunity to click on them to change the story, the player is at a loss what to do since there is no consistent set of choices.

Contrast that with interactive video games which have a more fluid, film like presentation. Whether it's Heavy Rain style controls, or scene set ups that's very reminiscent of hidden object games or at the very least TAKE/LOOK/INVENTORY as standard. Whereas with interactive manga or motion comic, you're like OH, I WAS SUPPOSED TO CLICK? WHERE THE HECK AM I SUPPOSED TO CLICK?

[SusanTheCat]

I think it would be better if ther e was a "Click to Continue" spot rather than having to hunt for the click spot.

I like the idea and think it would work if done well. But I think you are right, it would involve a lot of art.

Susan

EDIT: I really like the interactive map. I might steal that idea. Would make it easier for people who want to try out the different branches of a story without needing a bizzilion save games.

[llplldll]

You're right about the example, it fails because of the lack of clarity in choice path. The Map on the side indicates there are other paths and finding them seems to be the 'game' aspect of it, maybe? Im sure an approach like that would frustrate people just looking for the story though.

Ok, Here's another example:
http://www.nawlz.com/season1/
(Its extremely conceptual but I think it shows how an interactive comic can have better direction as far as flow. You should know where to click because of indications '>>>>>' and '<<<<<'. The animations direct your eyes and stuff but its still a lot to take in.)

As far as I know that example doesn't have a branching story, but it could easily by adding multiple choices to the '>>>>>' icons.

[VanillaPenguin]

I was thinking of the same idea a few days ago. I've never heard of a visual novel integrated with a manga. But Kinetic novels, you might find something there. Try playing Trauma Team (Nintendo, Wii), it's not VN, but I definitely think that it's similar to the idea you were explaining.

In my opinion, I would definitely be interested in playing an interactive manga because styles are so unique. There is something about screentones and shading that make the art timeless. I do agree with you. If it hasn't been made yet I'm sure someone is bound to like the idea enough to go through with it.

If you deliver your idea without so much the hassal as the previous commentators have said, then I think you might be onto a new genre of gaming

[AxemRed]

Why has no-one has brought up Quartett yet?

[llplldll]

Why has no-one has brought up Quartett yet?

Awesome, that looks more like what Im talking about! Im going to check this game out. Thanks for the link

[gekiganwing]

Back in 2010, the fan group Amaterasu Translations started to work on the other Littlewitch visual novel with a comics style presentation, Shirotsume Souwa -Episode of the Clovers-. They didn't make much progress before dropping it, and no other group or company is currently trying to translate it. The term used for this presentation on VNDB is "floating textbox," and while it exists in a few other visual novels, almost no others resemble comics.

If you're not familiar with the term infinite canvas, then you might want to read up on it. This is the notions of comics that aren't constrained by a few panels, or by the size limits of a printed page. I've seen a couple examples that have a non linear narrative, but I can't name any right now.

I know even less about interactive comics. (Unlike the thousands of dedicated Homestuck fans that I saw at Anime Central 2012, my knowledge of the series is entirely from two or three articles about it...) According to what I read today about the format as a whole, they're "interactive" because they are made with fan input, and credit is given to fans.

One more thing. From about 2007 to 2009, the now-defunct company Go! Comi was trying to create "OPlay" -- serial stories with some amount of player interaction. In other words, sort of like visual novels or perhaps infinite canvas. I knew about OPlay at the time, but didn't really look into it. Only a couple chapters of stories were ever released. Even though Archive.org has several captures of the site, it's difficult to unearth it now.

[DaFool]

Quartett, duh, shoulda been obvious, thanks.

FFD (Floating Frame Director), is just one out of many presentation styles (ADV, NVL). It's usually used in linear cutscenes though.

What Littlewitch did was put an icon to tell the player whether the sequence was still loading or stopped (thus the player should click to continue). Without that there would be no cue when to move forward. Also the menu choices are easily differentiated.

[llplldll]

@gekiganwing
Now that you mention it, I have heard of Go! Comi in the past but never really investigated it to find out what it was. Its a shame that it never really took off, sounds like an interesting enough concept. It must be hard to get traction going for these sort of concepts. :/
Also, The comic 'Nawlz' follows that infinite canvas method you mentioned. I put a link up in my 2nd reply.

@DaFool
Im glad to find out about Quartett. Thank you for sharing the term 'Floating Frame Director'. I was totally unaware that VNs have this presentation style until now.

[Destiny]

Well, I once made something that COULD be described like that ôo

I create Mangas on a website and after some pre-defined scenes, I made the readers decide.
I gave them 3 options and they were allowed to tell me their choice by comment. The option with the most votes won and I continued with that decision.

They liked it a lot, especially since the weird answers often won (making the MC end up with a Panda as a pet, for example) xD


But it is pretty exhausting, because I need to think of the possibilities and make the story in different ways, how the story might go, in advance.
And I can't just guess blindly which they will choose and just hope that I can just go through with my idea.
It's entertaining for the readers, but the artist has to be up to it, be pretty imaginative and aslo willing to let his story flow the way the readers want.
If they say, the MC should go to a date in a bunny suit, then the artist has to follow, despite what he wants, if he gave them that possibility and they chose it.

[Greeny]

I'm all for it. I think people need to seriously recondsider just exactly what this means.
I believe the example provided kind of misses the potential by a large margin, so people are incorrectly put off the whole concept here.

Let's start by removing choices - just to demonstrate a point. What do we have then, of this concept?
Basically, we have a visual novel, as we all know and love it, except with far more art assets. Just imagine a visual novel exclusively told through CG's. Sounds good, right? Now what we do is, we cut up the available screen space into frames, just like a comic, and we display each frame one by one as the player clicks. Then, we remove the text box and add text bubbles to the frames, or simply have voice acting.

Now to finish it all off, all you need to do is make choices appear on the screen if you want branches in your story.

How could this possibly go wrong with just about any audience? If anything, this is far more accessible than visual novels. After all, everybody is familiar with graphic novels and if you market it as an interactive graphic novel you simply do not need to provide further explanation.

Of course, your budget is larger by an immense amount. You'll have to stop comparing to art rates per sprite and start looking at how much artists for graphic novels ask per page, which is basically what a full screen of frames consitutes: A page, but digital.

Multiple videogames do something similar. For example, Mass Effect 2 had a short comic in a similar fashion when it got released on PS3, to allow players to somewhat choose the events of the previous game they couldn't import.

However, it's still a rare thing to see a full work in that fashion. But to me, it's very clear - the market is more than ready for it.

[Anna]

Since my group actually already makes coloured manga as side-projects now, I was thinking of doing this too. But when you sell the manga at conventions people will get mad if you ever release something like this for free later. On the other hand when you sell this online for any price, people will get mad because 20 manga pages = five minutes at most? Making both free isn't an option either, because printing costs are no joke. Oh woe, it'd be fun to have more people read it but it's not going to happen.

Also, if I didn't already draw manga, I wouldn't consider doing this; you would need a ton of art to even make it an hour. My hand would probably die and it would take ages.

[llplldll]

@Greeny
I totally forgot about that interactive comic Mass Effect had.
I'll check out some youtube videos to see what it's like.

@Anna
The method Destiny mentioned above about letting the audience choose what happens in small free installments could potentially be monetizable.
If the readers choose what happens as the story goes along the other story paths will remain unknown. Every story path can be made available in a commercial full version or something. Im sure there would still be people mad about this but they are getting an entire story for free, just the most popular path basically. Hm, releasing in installments would generate decent exposure each time too.
However something like this would require that the entire interactive graphic novel be finished before free release, which is a massive amount of work.

Ive tackled super large projects solo in the past, as an animator, so something of this size is comparable I guess. I'd actually be willing to attempt this if I could come up with a concept worth executing.

[cyber_alchemist]

I must say its a good concept. Here some of the modification and my thoughts of your Idea...

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Strengths:

1. It has lot of attractive images, so users will be engaged enough.
2. Having background sounds and fx will give a edge to its similar products such as VN.
3. Branching the stories will gain more of the consumers depending on their interests such as bishoujo , bishonen etc.
4. Reading in large pictures per comic scene is always better than reading in a small strip.

Weaknesses:

1. It will require a lot of art work....hence will take more time.
2. Requires more artists as well.
3. Programming such kind of platform is bit difficult (my suggestion take take example of translation projects of "Manganovel")
4. One have to make these novels in color for 2 reasons : they are all electronic, cuts the print charges. And It won't attract any users if you charge cash on such thing...so in the end extra work for coloring....

Opportunities:

1. one could make a integrated system for managing such novels via one server so having to sell 20 pages of comics wont be a problem you don't have to pay for the manga that much rather a membership fee for the integrated system throught its site .(of course you should make a small fee for you manga being downloaded on someones computer).

2. Being a integrated system, one doesn't have to make the whole novel and then worry about a next project. You could just extend the story which you have made in previous time.

3. One could also include small RPGs and maps of some place within the interactive novel, which will increase its game play and also your audience .

Threats

1. This whole thing could fall flat on your face because it is totally a new thing and people may not get what they are actually downloading for entertainment. Hence the ignorance.
2. Making this requires a lot work and would take up lot of time so.... the audience may loose their interests waiting for next work....

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came up with this borrowing many person's imaginations :p