Tay is putting together a short video to explain ‘what is a visual novel’ to people who have never seen them or played them before.
Hello all,
I need your help! I’m putting together a video introduction to visual novels for the site’s FAQ page and want to pool our brain cells. Please take 3 minutes and answer a few questions.
Thanks a ton!
Tay
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1) In your own words, what is a visual novel?
2) What makes you love VNs?
3) Name one favorite song from a VN.
4) Can you think of a moment in a VN-to-Anime where the animeperfectlyeffectively mirrored or embodied the novel?
Hmm Number 4 I want to put my spin on it because it’s a bit too tricky:
4) Any moments in a VN where the comedic lines are the same as in the anime that you remember? (bcuz we want to use video clips of SCENES in VNs people recognize from anime so that they have an instant connection. I also wanted to use music people will recognize from anime. Clannad was great at this because it used all the music from the game.)
You can reply in the comments or directly on the forums thread here.
Since I’ve only played one (the one I did play was rather simple – still dancing around the idea of trying more) I can’t really help much, but I can try to offer what I think an answer might be to #1.
A Visual Novel is a blend of print, visual and audio media with an interactive story line where the reader is placed in the role of the protagonist. Think of a Visual Novel as a book first, but with a lot of extra features that makes it much more than just a book.
The text of the story is presented to the user against a background of scenes, mostly static, some with limited animation, that are relevant to the situation occurring as the reader reads the text. The images usually represent what the protagonist is actually seeing at that moment of the story, including superimposed images of any characters the protagonist may be interacting with at that moment. Images of such characters change to represent the the changing appearance and reactions of these characters as they “talk with” the protagonist, from “laughing” at jokes to angrily shouting at an offense.
The main hook of Visual Novels is that the story is not fixed, but rather takes different paths based on choices the protagonist is offered at various points of the story. Usually such choices are a series of possible responses to the statements, questions or actions of the characters the protagonist is currently talking with. The more “complex” the Visual Novel setup, the more often such choices would be presented and the greater the number of possibly paths for the story to take based on these choices.
Though the stories may include action and adventure, Visual Novels are NOT for those seeking action. With these games you leave the game controller on the shelf. You may not even need to use anything other than the mouse.
As with any game, the choices the player makes in a Visual Novel can lead to good or bad ends. Often, however, part of the interest in such games is to map out all such paths, not just the “best” or “all good” paths, particularly when “gems” are offered as bonuses for completing each path.
Well, this is going to be fun /sarcasm
1) In your own words, what is a visual novel?
A visual novel is what happens when you take a light novel and put it in a computer program as a sort of ebook. Add a background, a user interface, character sprites (usually), music, sound effects, and voice acting (sometimes), and you get a visual novel.
2) What makes you love VNs?
To steal an answer I once saw on Lemmasoft: They take great things about light novels, anime, and manga and combine them into something unique.
3) Name one favorite song from a VN.
Sin from Saya no Uta
4) Can you think of a moment in a VN-to-Anime where the anime perfectly effectively mirrored or embodied the novel?
USODA (say what you will about the rest of the anime, but those parts in Higurashi were a good transition I think)