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[KO Traveling Hobo]

VNs having some sort of minigame or "gameplay" isn't really that uncommon. It's certainly not some rare exception.

I didn't meant to imply such. What I meant is that I'm specifically referring to VNs which limit player interaction to simple dialog choices.

 

[Ingueferroque]

I didn't meant to imply such. What I meant is that I'm specifically referring to VNs which limit player interaction to simple dialog choices.

Go play Phoenix Wright and give it up!

 

[KO Traveling Hobo]

Go play Phoenix Wright and give it up!

But I has no monies ;_;

 

[cj_iwakura]

Heck, Umineko has player involvement near the end. It's small, but something.


Trying to solve the mystery and keep your mind on all the twists and turns was plenty engrossing without 'gameplay', anyway.

 

[LegatoB]

Go play Phoenix Wright and give it up!

Phoenix Wright does something a lot of VNs don't: it gives the player the illusion that they're doing more than just paging through dialog and picking the right answer at prompt every once in a while. In other words, it masquerades as a more full-featured adventure game. 999 does a similar trick. Is it kind of stupid? Sure. Does it actually make for a significantly different experience from the Choose Your Own Adventure feel of most VNs? Not really, but it feels that way, and that's a key difference when it comes to getting people to sit down and pay attention, and take it seriously.

The appeal of something like Umineko, where the player is encouraged to speculate and try to solve the mysteries of the story on their own, is much closer to that of a "traditional" novel or other linear medium. That's not to say it isn't an enjoyable experience, horrific translation aside, just a different one from what is commonly expected of "videogames," and a harder sell to publishers and gamers.

 

[Marche90]

But I has no monies ;_;

Buy the wii or iphone version, they shouldn't be that expensive.

 

[Emitan]

Imagine you had an RPG, but the only thing the RPG elements really addressed was opening conversation paths and the like. I wonder what that would be?

Spoiler

The correct answer is Planescape Torment

Not really though

I really need to flipping play Torment some day...

 

[ponpo]

ponpo buy me Eiyu Senki. I'll give you monies.

Gaizin banned from giving tenco money

Spoiler

except for comiket where they will unknowingly be getting my money

Tell me more about this game.

SRPG eroge where all historical figures are girls

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4W7juQrW0g

Anyway most VNs are bad to begin with so trying to find 'good' ones + with gameplay + non ero + getting translated is pretty limiting. I don't think the market is there both for jp devs or valve.

 

[InfiniteNine]

Gaizin banned from giving tenco money

Spoiler

except for comiket where they will unknowingly be getting my money

Spoiler

If I give you monies will you get me a copy too?

 

[muu]

Phoenix Wright does something a lot of VNs don't: it gives the player the illusion that they're doing more than just paging through dialog and picking the right answer at prompt every once in a while. In other words, it masquerades as a more full-featured adventure game. 999 does a similar trick. Is it kind of stupid? Sure. Does it actually make for a significantly different experience from the Choose Your Own Adventure feel of most VNs? Not really, but it feels that way, and that's a key difference when it comes to getting people to sit down and pay attention, and take it seriously.

The appeal of something like Umineko, where the player is encouraged to speculate and try to solve the mysteries of the story on their own, is much closer to that of a "traditional" novel or other linear medium. That's not to say it isn't an enjoyable experience, horrific translation aside, just a different one from what is commonly expected of "videogames," and a harder sell to publishers and gamers.

It's probably getting harder and harder even in Japan to justify making/selling VNs as well. Aside from rampant piracy, just as KO Hobo points out the majority opinion is that these 'are not games,' and as popularity of light novels rose more people went that direction for the anime-ish novel fix. Not to mention that quite a few eroge writers went down that path and are writing novels themselves.

 

[Jintor]

Phoenix Wright does something a lot of VNs don't: it gives the player the illusion that they're doing more than just paging through dialog and picking the right answer at prompt every once in a while. In other words, it masquerades as a more full-featured adventure game. 999 does a similar trick. Is it kind of stupid? Sure. Does it actually make for a significantly different experience from the Choose Your Own Adventure feel of most VNs? Not really, but it feels that way, and that's a key difference when it comes to getting people to sit down and pay attention, and take it seriously.

The appeal of something like Umineko, where the player is encouraged to speculate and try to solve the mysteries of the story on their own, is much closer to that of a "traditional" novel or other linear medium. That's not to say it isn't an enjoyable experience, horrific translation aside, just a different one from what is commonly expected of "videogames," and a harder sell to publishers and gamers.

"Feels that way" in an experience-based medium I think is probably a legit differentiator. Not that I give a damn, everything is games

 

[jim-jam bongs]

Alright, here's a go of it: gameplay is how you interact with the game. And by that definition, most VNs have such limited gameplay that it shouldn't qualify.

currently playing analogue and la noire, and this statement feels more appropriate for la noire than it does analogue.

I really need to flipping play Torment some day...

there is no excuse

 

[Dog Problems]

As already mentioned, the Greenlight program will hopefully change this. I got Analogue during the Summer sale but have yet to play it. Not sure when I will.

 

[Nekofrog]

Are there any VN's that aren't about harems/lots of girls after one guy/high school dramu?

Genuine question. Wouldn't mind something like a good mystery/detective VN.

 

[cj_iwakura]

Are there any VN's that aren't about harems/lots of girls after one guy/high school dramu?

Genuine question. Wouldn't mind something like a good mystery/detective VN.

Yes.

The one in the OP, Umineko no Naku Koro Ni. It's a murder mystery.

 

[Marche90]

Kara no Shoujo: set in the post-world war II japan (the fifties), the main character is a detective.

Steins; gate: the main character is an university student, and the plot deals with time travel and a few conspiracies.

Both are awesome, though the first one is 18+ only while the later isn't officially translated (only an english beta patch)

 

[The_Player]

Are there any VN's that aren't about harems/lots of girls after one guy/high school dramu?

Genuine question. Wouldn't mind something like a good mystery/detective VN.

999 is a superiour choice for a mystery/detective game, but it's NDS exclusive. Yet, this game alone was worth buying console.

 

[Delusibeta]

Steam has a "no AO rated games" policy, which means anything with a sex scene will probably be out. There was also a post by SpaceDrake which I can't find any more about why Carpe Fulgur is not going to ever do anything with ecchi in it: essentially the argument goes that if you release something with porn in it, you get treated like a leper by all of the distributors.

Imagine you had an RPG, but the only thing the RPG elements really addressed was opening conversation paths and the like. I wonder what that would be?

Spoiler

The correct answer is Planescape Torment

Not really though

I half expect you're going to get a lot of virtual birds flipped in your general direction for that.

 

[Eusis]

Steam has a "no AO rated games" policy, which means anything with a sex scene will probably be out. There was also a post by SpaceDrake which I can't find any more about why Carpe Fulgur is not going to ever do anything with ecchi in it: essentially the argument goes that if you release something with porn in it, you get treated like a leper by all of the distributors.

Yeah, this would be it then. Maybe Steins;Gate stands a chance coming from a clean publisher, but it's also why cj's example of Atlus and SMT Nine doesn't hold: everyone releases bad games, so it's come to be expected there'll just be a few duds better ignored, but anything with dirtier content is very different, even if they release clean games.

 

[muu]

Are there any VN's that aren't about harems/lots of girls after one guy/high school dramu?

Genuine question. Wouldn't mind something like a good mystery/detective VN.

Any of the chunsoft Sound Novels.

Juusei to Diamond (PSP), which also had a somewhat playable 'negotiation' scene where you try to convince criminals to disarm.

Ever17. Mainly a panic situation/escape story. Technically there's a lot of girls after a guy, but... (to explain it would be to spoil a game that takes advantage of the VN 'perspective' to really surprise the player)

There's a fair number of dumb harem games, but among them are games where the girls are added in there just to satisfy the audience that won't buy the game if there aren't any in there (and that's a sizable population of the people that actually BUY these games -- many of the games highly regarded for story in VNs have awful sales that don't reflect the popularity in sites such as Erogamescape), an unfortunate situation that's similar to Cave games of late featuring girls as the player characters.

 

[muu]

Yeah, this would be it then. Maybe Steins;Gate stands a chance coming from a clean publisher, but it's also why cj's example of Atlus and SMT Nine doesn't hold: everyone releases bad games, so it's come to be expected there'll just be a few duds better ignored, but anything with dirtier content is very different, even if they release clean games.

Sega released quite a few AO games in Japan during the Saturn era and seem to be holding up fine...

 

[cj_iwakura]

Sega released quite a few AO games in Japan during the Saturn era and seem to be holding up fine...

Japan's definition of AO is wildly different than ours.

 

[thetrin]

Shootan dudes.

But seriously, you're right, I can't strictly define gameplay. But if VNs are games, then so are CYOA books.

CYOA are games. You make decisions to reach a favorable conclusion, and those decisions are made by you.

There is a success state, and a fail state. How is that not a game?

 

[Femmeworth]

I'd make a joke about quality standards, but Steam doesn't exactly have any. I would like to see some VNs on Steam, just not any of the shitty otaku ones.

 

[Makonero]

Hotel Dusk is the best visual novel I've played, since I don't quite count the Ace Attorney games (which I love to death). I was legitimately interested in the characters and the mystery and couldn't put it down until I finished it.

I really need to pick up the sequel.

 

[Eusis]

Japan's definition of AO is wildly different than ours.

Japan's treatment of such publishers ALSO seems to be much different, I doubt those Type-Moon games could've gotten console ports if they treated things the same way there.

 

[jooey]

They're all available through every avenue BUT Steam, sadly.

Good looking out for the doujin community, Cacpmo.

Oh so it's not, per your "feeling" in the OP, Steam not caring (or really, just not seeing them fit for them)?

More to my point, are you ever going to stop swerving away from every counterpoint people bring up to you in any of the threads you make?

 

[Pachael]

Steam Greenlight should alleviate some of these issues.

Steam Greenlight could do the trick, though in some ways it is dependent on a voting system that may or may not result in the outcome that you'd want.

Hopefully though, this means that good VNs for a reasonable price will be sold on the Steam storefront.

 

[Jintor]

I half expect you're going to get a lot of virtual birds flipped in your general direction for that.

Only if they have sufficient WIS

 

[Messofanego]

Now you guys know how it feels when people say Heavy Rain or art games are not games in their threads!

 

[Rapstah]

They're not real video games unlike accounting software and audio editing tools

I have this crazy hunch that those are just categories for internal Valve software that they distribute through Steam because it's easier.

 

[Eusis]

Now you guys know how it feels when people say Heavy Rain or art games are not games in their threads!

To be honest, I think the real question isn't "but are they games?", but rather "does it really matter?" Though admittedly this is a WAY bigger deal on consoles, on PC if someone like Steam doesn't agree you can just try selling it through another venue, maybe your own. If you run into this on consoles when said game was already OK in another region you either have to get that product ported elsewhere, or get screwed out of being able to release it due to arbitrary bullshit.

 

[Crash Station]

Hotel Dusk is the best visual novel I've played, since I don't quite count the Ace Attorney games (which I love to death). I was legitimately interested in the characters and the mystery and couldn't put it down until I finished it.

I really need to pick up the sequel.

Hotel Dusk is less of a visual novel than Ace Attorney.

 

[OnimaruXLR]

I'd be down for some of the less shitty ones going up on Steam, but this doesn't seem nearly as much of a Valve issue as much as it is a "licensing, localizing, and distributing extremely niche Japanese games in America is hard" thing

Hey VN guys, why do so many VNs have such shitty art? Whether it's shitty generic like Type Moon, or amateurishly shitty like Muv Luv and anything by ryukishi... I mean it says visual right in the name there. Why doesn't everything look dope like Steins gate and 999? I'm not about to play no game I could produce better art assets for

 

[ShockingAlberto]

They're not real video games unlike accounting software and audio editing tools

WAIT

Why did someone take a photo of a phone screen

 

[Pureauthor]

I'd be down for some of the less shitty ones going up on Steam, but this doesn't seem nearly as much of a Valve issue as much as it is a "licensing, localizing, and distributing extremely niche Japanese games in America is hard" thing

Part of the issue here is that the Japanese market for nerds works in a completely antithetical manner to how something like Steam works.

They first figure out how much money they need/want to make on a given piece of work, and then they estimate how many people there are out there absolutely must own that piece of work regardless of cost, and they divide the former by the latter to get the asking price. The prices for that shit would cause heart attacks for many people here.

Valve does the 'low price = more revenue' thing which many distributors in Japan just do not accept as true.

 

[Basileus777]

WAIT

Why did someone take a photo of a phone screen

It takes less effort than taking a screen capture from a mobile device?

 

[Eusis]

Valve does the 'low price = more revenue' thing which many distributors in Japan just do not accept as true.

I suspect both are valid depending on the product. You're probably not going to be getting THAT many more sales for some niche JRPG on consoles if you somehow put it at retail for $10 or $20, and if only a few will care to buy it regardless pricing high means you can safely keep making whatever you want.

 

[Canis lupus]

I would so buy the Steins;Gate novel!

 

[Rumbelow]

Kara no Shoujo: set in the post-world war II japan (the fifties), the main character is a detective.

Steins; gate: the main character is an university student, and the plot deals with time travel and a few conspiracies.

Both are awesome, though the first one is 18+ only while the later isn't officially translated (only an english beta patch)

Please don't recommend Kara no Shoujo, especially without mentioning that it's borderline torture porn. Out of 23 women, two are not violent, portrayed as "dirty", have sex scenes and/or are brutally murdered. Oh, and one of those survivors has been mentally broken down to a childlike state, while the other is forced to watch all of her friends die. As for the guys, discounting the main character, a full third of the male kill at least one woman, who, in all cases, never fight back.

 

[Metrotab]

Key's games have All-Ages versions because of their console ports, so I don't see why those versions wouldn't be able to be put on Steam.

 

[Basileus777]

Key's games have All-Ages versions because of their console ports, so I don't see why those versions wouldn't be able to be put on Steam.

No Key VN has been officially released in the west. They are probably too difficult/expensive to license. And the large amount of text probably makes dealing with their scripts a pain.

 

[QisTopTier]

No Key VN has been officially released in the west. They are probably too difficult/expensive to license. And the large amount of text probably makes dealing with their scripts a pain.

arn't there fan translations?

 

[Basileus777]

arn't there fan translations?

You still have to license the product even with those. And those translations would have to be edited, and the Clannad translation at least was a bit of a mess.

 

[LiK]

It would be nice to have a bunch of VNs available easily at one location and for reasonable prices on Steam.

 

[sflufan]

Perhaps someone should file a class-action law...oh wait

 

[Chiaroscuro]

Having actually worked with a hentai company in the past (I edited some localization for an English script, last minute grammar clean ups and the likes), I can tell you that at least for the majority of Japanese visual novel developers, they demand very very high prices on their products, and almost never agrees to reduced price and sales on their products. They like to have complete control, so it's very hard to argue pricing with them.

That might be the reason, at least from my own experiences when I lived in LA.

This. And probably also due to the heavy sexual content. PC Gaming in Japan also have a bad stigma.

But.... tecnically The Walking Dead from Telltale is an ADV.

 

[honorless]

Hey VN guys, why do so many VNs have such shitty art? Whether it's shitty generic like Type Moon, or amateurishly shitty like Muv Luv and anything by ryukishi... I mean it says visual right in the name there. Why doesn't everything look dope like Steins gate and 999? I'm not about to play no game I could produce better art assets for

Wow, for some strange reason I thought I was the only person who felt this way.

I've almost been talked into buying Analogue quite a few times, but then I click on the store link and see the screenshots. Hype deflated. I almost wish the developers would just sell CYOA books instead, so I could use my imagination.

 

[danmaku]

It would be cool to have a DD platform dedicated to VN, putting them on Steam is just not worth the effort. Too many problems for an audience that will always be small.

 

[Shig]

Japanese IP holders wanting to price their stuff prohibitively and being extremely reticent about discounts and sales seems like the Occam's Razor explanation here, rather than some conspiracy by Valve.