27th May 2018 - What is your opinion on visual novels?

Today's Topic - 27th May 2018

Submitted by @Kudo

What is your opinion on visual novels? Do you think they are considered games?(edited)

The Communist Wookie - Last Sunday at 4:13 AM
My personal opinion on visual novels is that they are fine. They have a passionate fan base and do have a place within the gaming industry as a way of expression. I personally can really only be interested by one that has an interesting plot or characters and eve then it's hard for me to keep engaged with the amount of limited interactivity.
And as for the question "Do you think they are considered games?", I believe that they are games based on the fact that the definition of a game is that you have some input (physical or digital) within an environment and visual novels have that to a certain extent. Are they my favorite genre or subgenre of game? No. But do I believe that they are games and have a place with the gaming industry? Hell yes I do.

Doki - Last Sunday at 7:36 AM
What are video games exactly? A kind of entertainment media that is interactive the how abouts said interactions are not limited to the point and click nor to wasd.  In my opinion every piece of electronic entertainment that has somesort of interaction between the user and itself can be considered as games. So by my definition yes the visual novels can be considered as games.

PH4SE - Last Sunday at 8:56 AM
Steam doesn't; but I do - Visual novels are a media that no one really understands but everyone seems to take a liking to. May it be for interesting characters, adaptations or... y'know the alternatives... As a person of culture I like all types of visual novels - I guess that sprouts from my liking of anime; but that's a side thought. When I think of all the possibly visual novels that are out there I start to think of how many different stories we are capable of creating. Just think about it; so many people with different stories to tell influenced by their different passages; it's amazing really. cough but to get back onto the question - yes; I believe they are, and the sure are damn fun.

May 28, 2018
Rednose - Last Monday at 12:17 AM
Most visual novels with branching paths have a win and a lose state caused the player, I think its safe to classify these as a game. However some don't have any direct input by the player and are just viewed rather than interacted with, I personally don't believe these are games. Does this mean that they lack a place in the industry? Absolutely not.

Silen - Last Monday at 12:17 PM
Personally, I'm torn apart on this subject, because while visual offers do not offer much in terms of actual gameplay or mechanics, they offer more interaction than a book does. When you think about it, telltale games are rather similar to visual novels in the amount of gameplay interaction given, it's just that they are of better quality, and yet almost everyone I know agree that telltale makes ''video games''. In my opinion, visual novels should still be considered games, because in the end, it's a form of entertainment targetted towards young-ish people who are into games.

Thy F - Last Monday at 4:04 PM
They are games, yes. It's just like every category (fps, find and click, pixelated games), and has it's own subgenres/themes (horror, adventure, etc). They're mostly made by artists who are good at their art, but can't make a "complete" game, due to their lack of programming/scripting and 3d design knowledge, etc. I think it'd be unfair not to let those people have the title of a game developer. Another reason, well, they're entertaining, interactive, they have a goal (or more), and like every other game, they're simply "playable". They do lack some features, but doesn't every game lack something? But then again, if the writer/developer believes that it shouldn't be labled as a "game" for whatever reason, then that's a different case.
Old Senile Mushrooms - Last Monday at 7:06 PM
I've never understood why they can't be considered games except that there are arguments about a proper game requiting a 'fail state', which doesn't exist in a lot of point and click games either but nobody debates whether or not those are games.

May 29, 2018
Rednose - Last Tuesday at 3:16 AM
But most point and click games do have fail states, in fact many are notorious for throwing random death screens at you out of no where.

Admiral Sloth - Last Tuesday at 6:44 AM
The fail state in puzzle games and point and click adventures is essentially constant, until you solve the entirety of the game.
I would consider them to be the bridge between Videogames and books, but we also consider very cutscene heavy games like heavy rain or Beyond two souls as games, while they are essentially interactive movies.

So I personally don't see a problem with calling them videogames(edited)

anormal dude - Last Tuesday at 2:12 PM
I believe they have a lot of potential for storytelling. The fact that the player has agency and can make significant changes to the story (most of the time) makes them games in my eyes. Sadly most visual novels that I know of or have played do not have as much input as I would like. But a great example for the potential that visual novels have is "Long live the Queen" where you periodically choose skills for your character and have to pass skill checks to gain favor with other characters or to prevent being assassinated. Skills also unlock areas or dialogue choices that you can use in the more traditional visual novel gameplay sections. You could also take a RPG like "The Witcher 3" remove the combat and just expand on the dialogue and world to create a compelling visual novel. From what I understand I do not see these types of visual novels being made in the future. Since most people are satisfied with well written story and characters and the extra effort on part of the developers is not worth it. Which leaves me a bit frustrated seeing the missed opportunities to use the strength of games as a medium. Which would be interactivity (not to be condescending just for clarity)

Old Senile Mushrooms - Last Tuesday at 9:25 PM
I am admittedly the kind of person who will drop a point and click game as soon as it throws me a fail state, unless I'm just really into it, so most of the ones I'm familiar with and would praise don't actively remove progress, they just prevent you from making any more until you solve the puzzle. There are also plenty of puzzles outside of games that qualify as games that don't include fail states. I've had an unsolved rubik's cube for 16 years and that's considered a game.

I don't know what having a hard fail state even adds to a game besides frustration, more playtime, re-reading dialogue options you've already gone through (or just mashing fast forward), and the illusion of challenge. I don't even believe real challenge is necessary for a game to be a game. It works in some genres but in narrative-heavy ones, the focus is more on the player's agency than the player's ability. Sometimes, those two things mesh, and you get puzzles out of that, but the former is always prioritized over the latter even in VNs with fail states. (It's why half a given scene has flavor text programmed into random objects that does nothing.)

May 31, 2018
Firecakes - Today at 1:36 PM
Oh wow, this is still going? I guess I'll add something in here.

I'm going to use a definition of what a game is from a book I read Called "half-real" by Jesper Juul. This definition stretches beyond video games and into sports and board games as well. A game is...

1. A rule-based formal system
2. Has variable and quantifiable outcomes
3. Has different outcomes that are assigned different values
4. Requires the player exerting effort in order to influence the outcomes
5. The player must feel emotionally attached to the outcome
6. The consequences of the activity are optional and negotiable

Outcomes are basically your end game states. With tic-tac-toe for instance, maybe you win, maybe you lose, and maybe you tie. Variable and quantifiable  means there should be multiple end states and that the goal of the game is to be established. Different values of outcomes means some outcomes are more desirable than others, positive outcomes usually being harder than negative outcomes. Rule 6 is talking about real life consequences, so the player has choice in whether consequences apply: if they're forced to fight in a war where they could die, then that's not considered a game. There's some hazy cases like with gambling and games of pure chance (no player effort) but otherwise if applying these rules then visual novels with at least some variation of outcomes with more desirable ones than others can be considered a game.

As for my opinion on visual novels, I really don't have any, since I don't play them.