Who here has played a visual novel?

[Zangou]

I really wanted to get into visual novels, but I somehow lost interest both times I tried. The two VNs I played were Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and Fate/Stay Night.

[† RazorDan]

I'd love to play one. Can anyone recommend a short one for me?

[† Emotional Outlet]

A short one! The one seirachan posted on the first page is pretty short.

Most of them can be completed pretty quickly if you read quickly and don't really explore all of the paths. The ones I posted

don't take it personally, babe

and

Digital: A Love Story

are both free and well worth a play! The first one is set in a high school in the future--you're the teacher of a troublesome class. As it advertises:

Seven students, three endings, one eavesdropping teacher. A full length visual novel about the erosion of privacy, gay drama, young sexuality, and the perils of modern online life for a high school literature class.

Digital is very interesting and was my first experience with digital novels. It's very old-school in design and doesn't feature a lot of art. It's still incredible and engrossing--I sat and played it the whole way through in one sitting, haha.

As it advertises:

A computer mystery/romance set five minutes into the future of 1988.

[RikuoAmero]

Add me to the list. Started playing them as a teenager. Of course, given that I was going through puberty, you can guess what genre I read ^^

As an aside, my first taste of Bible Black was when I was at my mate's house. We had just recently learned of the wondrous world of torrents. It was awkward though: I was the better reader (he's Franco-Irish, so a bit shakey when it comes to reading English), so I was tasked with reading BB aloud.

BB. Aloud. Not alone. Yeah...

Speaking of playing a visual novel, here's a 2-parter of Benzai, Kaiser-Neko and MasakoX playing XChange 2. Fucking hilarious. NSFW

http://thatguywithth...-with-team4star

Edited December 8, 2012 by Emotional Outlet

[† RazorDan]

Thanks EO! Will definitely give them a go

[Nero D. Ace]

I've played

Fate/Stay Night (ofc) - ALL endings

Disgaea Infinite - a spin off from NIS America

Analogue: A Hate Story - If you haven't played it, give it a shot. It's awesome.

Ace Attorney series - duh.

and some Higurashi novels ... and Bible Black ...

Digital: A Love Story

are both free and well worth a play! The first one is set in a high school in the future--you're the teacher of a troublesome class. As it advertises:

Digital is very interesting and was my first experience with digital novels. It's very old-school in design and doesn't feature a lot of art. It's still incredible and engrossing--I sat and played it the whole way through in one sitting, haha.

That wouldn't have any relation with Analogue, would it? Like - same universe, characters, etc?

Edited July 25, 2012 by Nero D. Ace

[† Emotional Outlet]

I don't know whether it's in the same universe, but it is by the same creator. Digital is set in the 1980s and Analogue is set quite a bit further in the future and has a different focus--so no to same characters. You do still deal with AIs and uncover various plot developments, but Digital is more linear and you don't have as much option as you do in Analogue.

[freemail]

I'd like to try Steins;Gate, but... English version?

Something for Android would be great... (4,65 inch AMOLED-Display with 1280x720p )

I also don't see why I should need my PC for something simple like that..?

Edited July 26, 2012 by freemail

[† RazorDan]

good point, anyone know any for mobile/psp/vita/etc?

[† Emotional Outlet]

Ha, I started looking for any mobile versions of visual novels and one of the first hits I got was for eroge. I don't know if that interests you, lul.

Anyway, I found this link, but no guarantees on whether any of it will work. This thread here might be helpful as well.

Maybe we should just make our own Kametsu visual novel for mobile, haha.

[† RazorDan]

thanks for the links EO, and I agree! A kam VN would be pretty awesome ^.^

[† Emotional Outlet]

Maybe one of these days we should do something like that. Get a little team together and make something~

I like the ones with RPG elements in them--like Magical Diary. That game consumed me for days, haha. Choosing which magic classes I take each week, having different cut scenes happen depending on which classes I take, and having the skills I learn eventually be put to use in the exam dungeons was so awesome. I only wish it were bigger.

[† RazorDan]

That sounds like fun! Hmm, well I'm not into magic and stuff, but the school element definitely appeals.

[† Emotional Outlet]

In the process of half-heartedly searching out what it takes to actually make a visual novel, I ran across Ren'Py and they have a list of visual novels made with the system--I saw Digital and Magical Diary on there, so they list both free and commercial games without seeming to indicate which it is. You can sort them by visual novel, kinetic novel (no choices), by relationship type (male/female, female/female, &c), and OS compatibility. They also note on some of them how long each game takes to complete, a word count, and what ages it's appropriate for. I'm about to go to bed in a few here, but it seemed neat~

And magic doesn't necessarily have to be at the forefront or even a factor in this hypothetical Kametsu VN. Magical Diary was just the latest one I've played. Any sort of skill building element that actually pertains to the game outside of romance would be neato~

[freemail]

Ha... I also found out about Ren'Py. Been searching for VNs in Googles Play Store...

I already tried it and I could do a little VN BUT I'd need a good plot AND some drawing skills

I made a little monolog with pictures I found on the net... next step is to get it running on an Android device.

Edited July 30, 2012 by freemail

[† Emotional Outlet]

Let us know how that works out!

I think it'd be a cool project for the forum to do, and it might even bring in a little traffic. I know someone on Tumblr made a visual novel of sorts using RPG Maker that has garnered quite a bit of attention--like enough to get people theorising about it and making fan art--so it wouldn't be unreasonable to think we could do the same.

[† RazorDan]

Hmmm, well I'm pretty terrible at art so don't rely on me for that! Haha guess I could help think up a story of sorts.

[† Emotional Outlet]

Well, if it is something we consider (heaven knows between everyone's varying schedules and the ebb and flow of interest in the forum, it would certainly be a long-term project), would it be preferably to do something actually based on the forum a la Shazi and Mae's Kametsu story or something more original? I figure either way it's probably best not to have it be terribly serious so it's more accessible as a group project and less likely to fall apart due to creative differences, haha.

I just got the final achievement on Magical Diary that I was missing--Summer School, of all things--but having achievements like that, I think, is super helpful in garnering replay value for a visual novel. I don't know about other people, but when I play visual novels, I tend to make choices I am happy to live with, so I rarely do things like purposely get detention or sleep in from classes for a week straight. Having the achievements made me reach out of my comfort zone (at least after playing the way I wanted to play the first time through, haha).

[lucky14]

I had my fair share of visual novels...

My favorite is Katawa Shoujo, because of the atmosphere of the game and its soundtrack!

Next is Saya no Uta, it's creepy, in a very awesome way!

Some of the novels I've read: Fate/Stay Night, Narcissu, Ace Attorney(Not really sure if this is a visual novel)

[† Emotional Outlet]

So I have two new visual novel type things to add to my slowly growing collection.

Long Live the Queen, which is ridiculously difficult but well worth the money. I haven't even begun to scratch the surface in how deep the game goes, and it took me three days to figure out how to get through it without dying. That might be because I'm pretty stupid, but I've seen comments from others that it's a pretty difficult game, so I'm going to go ahead and say it's not entirely my fault, haha. The story is pretty intriguing if you're into stories based on royal dramas.

You start the game as a fourteen year old princess who has to ascend to the throne as queen by the time she turns fifteen. Her mother recently met an untimely death and you're next in line. There are romance options, but they require a lot more cunning than the average otome game, since most everyone is trying to assassinate you. Not to mention after a few weeks in the game, almost anything can kill you. I spent about five minutes raging about how my character died because she was literally too stupid to live.

She got shot with an arrow and then, lacking better knowledge, pushed that arrow right in because she "heard a story" about pushing in arrows after being wounded. Instead she jammed that thing right into vital organs and died. Augh.

I also bought Cinders--it's quite beautiful and pretty well written. There's a few typos here and there and for the price you'd expect for there not to be, but I'm pretty forgiving. There's a lot of variation in the story--there are four main ending you can get, each of them with two to four variables, so you get different little details. Mostly about Cinders's disposition, who she's in love with, the relationships she fostered (or failed to foster) with her family, and whose support she took through the story. It even marks where branches in the storyline can happen with--what else--a little branch in the corner, so that was useful in marking when I should slow down when I'm powering through the parts I've been through already.

Basically it's a modern retelling of Cinderella with more three dimensional characters. I found myself cheering for the wicked stepsisters on occasion, even wanting the younger one to be with the prince, haha.

Check them out if you have the time. They both have demos.