Visual Novel reccomendations? - for analysis purposes

[Deji]

I'm currently writing the memory/thesis part of my final college project (that revolves around Visual Novels, focused in the visuals) and I need to analyze the structure and graphics of at least a couple of visual novels, so I can isolate the characteristics and compare them to my own proyect.

My teacher and I talked about it, and we thought it would be a good idea to analyze 3 different VNs:
- a dating sim/eroge
- a non-romance/non-sex centered vn
- a vn created outside japan, fan or not.

I'm not experienced in Visual Novels myself, so I thought I should ask around for help ^^;
I'm looking for demos to try for the analysis, since I don't have a big amount of time to spend plauying 3 full games right now, and I also don't know japanese or have much money to spend on buying them either ^^;

Any help is greatly welcome!
Thanks in advance ^^

[Adorya]

Free and quite popular free non romance non sex vn could be Narcissu, though there are a lot of them elsewhere but in japanese language (or maybe check Haeleth website).

For a typical dating sim/eroge...typical cannot apply unless you look for historical or popular. Do you want an historical one (like Tokimeki Memorial or Sakura war), or significant one (Tsukihime, Higurashi...). Might be easier to check wikipedia for popular ones...

[Ignosco]

Dating sim/eroge - I might recommend purchasing something, as the demos that are available in English often give a very incomplete picture of the game and art as a whole (eg Yume Miru Kusuri has all of the H chopped out, as well as some other events, and only contains 2 [Edit: 3 actually] out of 71 base CGs). Some of the artwork is for Yume Miru Kusuri is here (NSFW). Maybe you could convince the college to cover the cost of purchasing something which relates to your research if you decide to go down this route .

Non romantic etc - I'd second Narcissu, as the visual presentation in the game is quite unusual (very few full-screen pictures, no character sprites etc). The author, Tomo Kataoka talks about his choice of presentation in the game's after notes as well.

VN outside Japan - Out of the completed free games in English, Ori, Ochi, Onoe probably has the highest production quality. It's also an example of how the art can cross into the story, and be used to ... well that would be a spoiler . If you choose an OEL game, if would be fairly easy to contact the artists/game makers about their work too.

[musical74]

I was going to recommend Garden Society Kykuit for the non-Japanese VN, but that's mostly because I like it a little more than Ori, Ochi, Onoe...but both are very good choices. Both games are made by members of the forums - mikey did Ori, Ochi, Onoe and Eclipse did GSK. Both are well done, and both show how creative you can get with the novel. If you are under the gun as far as time goes, GSK is a better choice - it takes maybe 20 minutes, 30 if you are a slow reader. O3 takes longer (with one exception) but shows how wonderful the art tells part of the story...either one works well for a non-Japanese VN for you, I think

[Adorya]

Problems about analyzing VNs structure is after the engine and the very basis of narration...it's up to the maker to do anything, from a game to a movie, so the thesis might focus on its freedom ability.
Also analyzing graphic might not be an appropriate choice, since it all depend on the maker's abilities (to make them or use others), there is not much more to say about it. Maybe focusing on the commercial aspect would be more interesting, but I fear this is going to the eroge path and niche analyzing, which is quite dangerous for a thesis

[Deji]

Thanks for the suggestions =D
I played Narcisu yesterday and I think it will be nice to analize it ^^
I've downloaded some translated demos from visualnews.net and I'm going to give them a try.
I'll try O3 and GSK as you suggested =3 I might end up analyzing both if I have the time. The more info, the better =P

And I don't think I'd get funds to purchase something for my thesis, let alone if it's an eroge, haha XD; If I could find a translated demo that includes one H scene, it'd be amazing... otherwise I'd have to go download a pirated copy and play it for a while just for research purposes >_o; which I don't want to do. And I don't know any japanses, so I'm screwed with the japanese available demos ._. I guess if I'm just analyzing the visuals, it wouldn't matter that much, thou... but I hate not to know what's going on =_=;

Problems about analyzing VNs structure is after the engine and the very basis of narration...it's up to the maker to do anything, from a game to a movie, so the thesis might focus on its freedom ability.
Also analyzing graphic might not be an appropriate choice, since it all depend on the maker's abilities (to make them or use others), there is not much more to say about it. Maybe focusing on the commercial aspect would be more interesting, but I fear this is going to the eroge path and niche analyzing, which is quite dangerous for a thesis

My project revolves around the creation of graphics for Visual Novel kind of games, so that's why the main focus I'll have on analyzing would be that ^^; I'm an illustration student, btw. The point of the thesis is basically that you can create good illustrations and tell a meaningful, interesting or fun story in a format more interactive and fun than traditional illustrated books and consuming less resources and drawing time than making a full comic book, let alone animation; and, besides, there's no record of games like this bein created in my country, not even foreign ones or translated ones being comercialized, so it's a "new thing" here (even if a few otakus and people alike know of the genre). The actual project after writting the thesis is to produce all the artwork for a Visual Novel kind of game, but not really make the game itself; just a demo to show how images are displayed on screen is enough, I was told. I'm going to make the game anyway after I'm done with the artwork, thou.

Well, off to play some!

[papillon]

I think the old Critical Point demo included some H, if you can find it. IIRC the demo allowed you to find one of the possible murderers and there was some sex along the way.

There's the Little My Maid demo (can be found at http://engbishoujo.tripod.com/comingsoon.html ) which I think might have an H-image or two in it, but I'm not sure.

... also, if I were your professor and I caught you using illegal stuff for your project (without having cleared it with me beforehand, since sometimes there are circumstances) I'd fail you on principle.

[DrakeNavarone]

Both the Majipuri demo and the Anonono demo, both translated by insani, have ero scenes in them, though they're shown in an omake section as just a preview of such scenes, and aren't integrated into the main trunk of the demos at all.

[rocket]

The point of the thesis is basically that you can create good illustrations and tell a meaningful, interesting or fun story in a format more interactive and fun than traditional illustrated books and consuming less resources and drawing time than making a full comic book, let alone animation

I had the same thought myself... I wonder if it's something in the water (or the wine)?

Here's a couple relevant graphs from my essay:



Since embarking on my own project I've been meaning to return and revise teh second graph to reflect more of the ranges of cost an average project usually takes... ah well someday!

[Deji]

@papillon: I'll take a look at those demos later =3 And yesah, I don't want to go illegal either >_o; I have a couple of japanese eroge demos with sample sex scenes, thou. I might end up using those in case I can't find anything else.

@Drake: I tried Anonono and I got bored as hell and couldn't save, so I just quit trying to play it longer last night >_o; I'll try majipuri later, thou

@Rocket: I saw your essay in your blog... last week, I think. It helped me figure out a couple of things ^___^
Your graphs are really helpful too!
I'm so giving you a link in my thesis bibliography ^^

Thanks a lot for the help, guys =D

[DaFool]

Good discussion. I second the recommendations.

I think for your thesis you need to explore VN vs comics/manga/graphic novels. Usually a VN is supposed to be more efficient than a graphic novel, able to tell very long stories taking upwards of 100 hours (Ever 17, a commercial non-ero/non-romance-per-se centric VN).

Manga drawings are more numerous and varied, but tend to be black and white and low tone detail compared to VN CGs. So it can't be absolutely generalized that drawing for VNs will take less time. I mean, the current output of OEL manga and webcomics totally dominates the output for visual novels, even with exposure factored in. However if you employ minimalist techniques like what Narcissu and other sound novels use, then VNs will really become extremely efficient. (I myself stuck to side-char headshots to minimize having to draw full-body sprites).

[Jake]

Manga drawings are more numerous and varied, but tend to be black and white and low tone detail compared to VN CGs. So it can't be absolutely generalized that drawing for VNs will take less time.

(Equally, it can't be absolutely characterised that drawing manga will take less time than drawing VN CGs; not only is it perfectly possible to spend just as long on comics with just as much detail and colour, also if you draw them using traditional methods (you know, with actual pen and ink and screentone) you'll lose a lot of time messing around with tools, where it seems to me that most VN graphics are at least partially produced digitally...)

I mean, the current output of OEL manga and webcomics totally dominates the output for visual novels, even with exposure factored in.

This, however, I strongly believe has nothing to do with the time it takes and everything to do with the vastly larger audience for comics than VNs. It's not that less people know about VNs, it's that less people are willing to put time into them, and they're not so accessible. I can read webcomics or manga in my lunchbreak at work, manga on the bus or in bed, but VNs require me to be in front of a PC (or console, in some cases) and usually alone, lest I spend as much time explaining to whoever else is around what the hell I'm doing as actually playing through the thing. And that's just me, who's already quite amenable to the format; manga has taken off in a big way amongst (for example) the teen-girl audience in the west, which doesn't intersect so well as other demographics with VN fandom.