Visual novel
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Visual novels[a] are a video game genre of Japanese origin focused on presenting a story. Progress is made via means such as clicking, tapping or pressing a button. Some descriptions of the genre suggest that they present the player with choices that branch the narrative. The aesthetics of visual novels are often conveyed through static images of characters, background art, with soundtracks and sound effects for feedback. Both the narrative and interactions in the games are commonly presented through text boxes and often employ forms of interaction which include menu-choices to control player actions or dialogue that represent the player's character speech or thoughts.
Visual novels draw gameplay elements from 1980s Japanese and Western made adventure games. The term "visual novel" originated by the later-half of the 1990s, while in Japan they are often called noberugēmu (lit. 'novel game') for short. Releases in the 1990s such as Otogirisō (1992), Yu-no (1996), and Kanon (1999) would establish the gameplay and visual elements that would become common in later visual novels. Being narrative-focused, the stories and themes explored range from various narrative genres, with Japanese-made games often emphasizing romance. Visual novels are made with lower cost and in shorter periods of time compared to other game genres. This has led them represent the majority of PC videogames produced and sold in Japan. As they are easier to develop than other game genres, most Japanese erotic games were developed as visual novels due to their low-budget nature.
The genre grew more attention in the West with the belated release of games like Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (2001) in 2005. This coincided with the rising popularity of anime in the West in the 2000s, which led to players discovering visual novels from their anime adaptations, which led to Western developers developing visual novels more prominently in the 2010s. Through the release of free and open-source software such as Ren'Py, developers outside of Japan began developing more games that adapted visual and gameplay elements of visual novels such as the American Butterfly Soup (2017) and Chinese The Invisible Guardian (2019). Other Japanese games would adapt to newer technology such as virtual reality headsets or artificial intelligence in the second quarter of the 21st century.
The genre has historically maintained a strong presence in Japan's video game market and otaku culture with hundreds of titles produced yearly. In the Western world, there is debate whether the titles are games at all due to the limited interactivity. Publishers have said these debates had led to slower adaption to mainstream digital distributors such as Steam to release visual novels. In 2015, academic Mia Consalvo said that visual novels remained one of the most "Japanese" genres of videogames, due to their use of Japanese tropes, themes and settings and described them as the least exported styles of games coming from Japan.[1][2] Mark Kretzschmar and Sara Raffel, authors of The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels (2023) wrote that they expect the visual novel to remain a least a fringe level of popularity due to the changing tastes of Western game audiences. They described these audiences now finding the "Japanese-ness" of visual novels as being a "selling point, not a cultural obstacle".[3]
Etymology
[edit]The visual novel video game genre originated in Japan.[4] The commonly used term for them in Japan is noberugēmu (lit. 'novel games', short for visual novel game).[5][6][7] The expression "visual novel" emerged in the mid-1990s and has been applied retroactively in the Western world to a vast corpus of games.[8]
Some games from the late 1980s promoted themselves as novel games first appeared in the Japan in the PC game market. The first of these was DOME which was released by System-Sacom in 1988. The game was marketed as "Novelware" and released for the Japanese home computer market. Several other games marketed as "Novelware" were created by 1991, but have what Japanese video game historian Yuhsuke Koyama described as little impact on what would be later be known understood as a visual novel.[9] The Japanese video game company Chunsoft used the registered trademark "Sound Novel" to describe their early 1990s games Otogirisō (1992) and Banshee's Last Cry (1994).[6][10] The first commercial video game to be described as a visual novel was Shizuku (1996) which was created the Japanese company Leaf listing their game as being part of a similarly named "Visual Novel Series".[10][11] The next year, the term "visual novel" was used during the development and release cycle of Tactics's Moon (1997). Video game journalist Koji Fukuyama wrote that while he lacked empirical data, he believed that companies such as Leaf, Tactics, and Key may have spread the common usage of the "visual novel" term.[11]
Characteristics
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Game genres are commonly conceptualized and occasionally named after, specific sets of control schemas, mechanics, player goals, and narrative structures.[12] Janelynn Camingue, Elin Cartendottir and Edward F. Melcer published their research of academic and commercial literature of what was considered a visual novel in 2021.[12] They found that most definitions of visual novels as a genre only contained a small number of elements of what would define the genre.[13] Their studies showed existing academic writing on the genre had a variety of definitions of that could vary wildly with no clearly defined census on what set features defined the genre.[12][14]
In an attempt to create a core definition pulled from the various sources and played through a corpus of 54 visual novels, the three proposed a definition based on the re-occurring elements as described by previous academic research and how regularly the elements appeared in at last 95% of their selection of games. They described visual novels to be digitally-based narrative-focused games. These games require players to be able to impact the story's progression or world.[15]
The story and interactions in the games are commonly presented through a text box and often employ forms of interaction which includes menu-choices. These menu options often employ additional forms of interaction including choices with set actions the player can perform or dialogue options that represent the player's character speech or thoughts. Visual novels have their stories progress when the player clicks, taps or presses a button to see the next part of story. The aesthetics of visual novels are often conveyed through static images of characters, background art, soundtracks and sound effects for feedback.[15] They said that games presenting themselves as visual novels which did not feature these core features would likely confuse players or violate their expectations.[16] The two most common textbox formats are ADV (short for "Adventure"), in which the box occupies only a part of the screen, and NVL ("Novel") in which the textbox fills almost the whole screen or the whole screen.[17][18]
Camingue, Cartendottir and Melcer said nine of the thirty definitions of visual novels said the genre contained branching stories.[19] This can be seen in games like Steins;Gate 0 (2015), which has six different endings and two main story branches while 428: Shibuya Scramble (2008) could result in 85 endings.[20][21] They said that linear structures were notably prevalent, with 18% of the games not having branching narratives such as popular games Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy (2014) and Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony (2017).[19] Choices in visual novels may have no immediate effect on the narrative, contributing instead to a complex system of potentialities and character relationships that resolves itself toward the end of a playthrough.[6] A small portion of these titles, such as Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet (2004) and Higurashi: When They Cry (2002), feature no branching path choices at all and are completely linear.[22][23]
Camingue, Cartendottir and Melcer found that their that visual imagery varied in definitions of visual novels. Some definitions described static images or illustrations. Others specified the use of images as backgrounds and character art. Several definitions specifically identify the Japanese influence on both the art and general aesthetics of visual novels, with four definitions stating that visuals have anime-inspired aesthetics.[24] Nine definitions did not specify an art-style to the genre, which the Camingue, Cartendottir and Melcer attributed to the genres growth in development outside of Japan.[25] Academic Mia Consalvo said that visual novels remained one of the most "Japanese" genres of videogames, due to their use of Japanese tropes, themes and settings.[1] One of the characteristics that the genre shares with anime fandom is discussion of the genre often infuses terminology and tropes that have become loan words in their adopted languages, such as doujinshi, nakige, and utsuge.[26]
Regional genre differences
[edit]The English use of the term "visual novel" is often used for games that have Japanese aesthetics and copious amount of text. Mark Kretzschmar and Sara Raffel, authors of The History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels (2023) described that this description as potentially "confusing and misleading" as Japanese creators would note there are distinctions between a "true visual novel" and Japanese adventure games.[27] Japanese video game journalist Koji Fukuyama echoed this, saying that the term "visual novel" had different meanings in Japan and in the West.[5] In Japan, visual novels are considered a sub-genre of adventure games.[5][6] Fukuyama continued that audiences outside of Japan that might describe games like The Portopia Serial Murder Case (1983) and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (2001) as visual novels, while Japanese gamers would likely find them inappropriately categorized.[5]
For most Japanese gamers, the term "visual novel" would bring to mind the novel-like bishōjo games of the late 90s. These were games like gameplay that featured many anime-styled girls, which had begun appearing more on the market at the time.[5][28] Kazutaka Kodaka the creator of the Danganronpa franchise echoed this saying there were two originating paths of the visual novels. The first were games rooted in The Portopia Serial Murder Case whose lineage is led to games like Ace Attorney and Danganronpa and the second being the bishōjo games.[29] Game developer Jiro Ishii expanded on this, saying that the two major Japanese adventure games trends were titles that originating with "command-based" adventure games like Zork and The Portopia Serial Murder Case while the latter began the novel-like format with Otogirisō and Machi (1998).[30] Ishii said that Japanese adventure games like Jesus (1987) and Snatcher (1988) may appear to be novel games, but were too were too linear, concluding that when one breaks down the systems of gameplay mechanics, the differences become more apparent.[30]
Status as games
[edit]In the Western world, it has been questioned whether visual novels should be considered video games.[21][23] Mikhail Fiadotau wrote in 2024 that Western audiences were divided on this on the basis of the limited interactivity within the releases.[21] Due to the genres heavy use of and text and emphasis on reading as a central activity, visual novels have been compared to books or the Choose Your Own Adventure series as being digital counterparts.[31] While the genre resemble books like the Choose Your Own Adventure series, Camingue, Cartendottir and Melcer said that visual novels incorporated more involved and mechanical moves and constraint-based gameplay that impacted the story which would impact the progression of a story. They wrote that visual novels remain distinct from their non-digital and non-interactive counterparts, as they show one snippet of text at a time as the player interacts with them.[13] Fiadotau added that visual novels described as kinetic novels, which feature no choices for users, complicate the discussion.[21] Titles such as Gnosia (2019) have had their status of being a visual novel questioned due to having too much gameplay between the novel segments.[32]
In Japan, visual novels are generally accepted to be a genre of video games.[33] Game developer Kotaro Uchikoshi asserted that visual novels are games at his panel discussion at the 2013 Game Developers Conference. He described them as video games with a larger emphasis on storytelling which included events that involve a viewers conscious choices that would how the plot will unfold. He concluded that these choices effecting the overall outcome would mark visual novels to be games as much as chess, boxing, card games or Tetris (1985) do.[34] Academics in Games and Culture highlighted that Mark Kretzschmar and Sara Raffel, the authors of History and Allure of Interactive Visual Novels (2023) had acknowledged that the "very lack of choice has become a hallmark of visual novels" while highlighting that the authors did not hesitate to refer to visual novels as games and their users as gamers.[35]
Development
[edit]Various free and paid game engines have been made for developers to create visual novels. These game engines implement not only the basic functions of advancing in a game, playing back voice samples, or presenting graphics, but also various function such as managing flags as well as managing the loading and playing of save data. This would make development of a visual novel possible without having a programmer which is unique to the game development industry.[36]
Visual novel games represent the majority of PC videogames produced and sold in Japan, with around 500 releases each year. Average sales volume counted at 2000 units sold for each title with cost-recouping generally being at 3000 units sold.[37] From a business perspective, the most significant feature of novel-styled games is they can be developed for low cost in short periods of time. Koyama wrote that the development period of Japanese visual novels generally lasts from a year to a year and a half with a budget of 20–30 million yen. This is lower than other game genres, as visual novels lack having to adjust difficulty balance, which exists in nearly all other genres of games.[38] Debugging of these games is also considered a smaller task, as it is often limited to checking flag management, proofreading text, and checking for deviations in game direction.[9] Koyama wrote that despite it being easier, many visual novels made by small companies for personal computers (PCs) often had inadequate of debugging during development.[9]
The process of localizing Japanese into English takes considerable time as not only text requires translation, but sometimes entire lines of dialogue or visuals must be adapted.[20] Mike Engler, an editor for publisher Aksys Games said that Xblaze Code: Embryo (2013) was "light" in terms of translation with over than 400,000 Japanese characters making the English word count for the story text being 139,833. In comparison, Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward (2012) had over one million Japanese characters.[39]
Indie game developers in the West also took advantage of the simplicity in developing visual novels.[21] Anna Blackwell of Wireframe magazine and Kretzschmar and Raffel wrote that Ren'Py was among the most popular visual novel development kits.[40][41] Krezschmar and Raffel found that over 7,800 visual novels developed with it by 2023. They hypothesized that its popularity was due to it being both free and open-source software whose extensive documentation allowed developers to learn its nuances.[40]
Genres and themes
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Visual novels sometimes break general common definitions of the genre, according to Uchikoshi at the 2013 conference.[34] Japanese visual novels have segments that intersperse with other gameplay genres. These include but are not limited to puzzle games in 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (2009), fighting games with Melty Blood, role-playing video games with Princess Waltz (2006), and