An acclaimed example is Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward, where nearly every action and dialogue choice can lead to entirely new branching paths and endings. Decision points within a visual novel often present players with the option of altering the course of events during the game, leading to many different possible outcomes. Non-linear branching storylines are a common trend in visual novels, which frequently use multiple branching storylines to achieve multiple different endings, allowing non-linear freedom of choice along the way, similar to a choose-your-own-adventure novel. Narrative branches In many visual novels, players are sometimes subjected to choices they need to make in order to proceed. This choice is meant to aid the player in identifying with the protagonist and to avoid having to record large amounts of dialogue, as the main character typically has the most speaking lines due to the branching nature of visual novels. Often, the protagonist (that is, the player character) is left unvoiced, even when the rest of the characters are fully voiced. Many visual novels use voice actors to provide voices for the non-player characters in the game. Usually such an element is related as a plot device in the game.įan-created novel games are reasonably popular there are a number of free game engines and construction kits aimed at making them easy to construct, most notably NScripter, KiriKiri and Ren'Py. An example of this approach is Symphonic Rain, where the player is required to play a musical instrument of some sort, and attain a good score in order to advance. Some visual novels do not limit themselves into merely interactive fictions, but also incorporate other elements into them. This style of gameplay is similar to story-driven interactive fiction, or the shorter and less detailed real-life gamebook books. For example, in a dating simulator-themed visual novel, the player is prompted to pick different characters to date which, in turn, leads to a different ending. Most visual novels have multiple storylines and more than one ending the mechanic in these cases typically consists of intermittent multiple-choice decision points, where the player selects a direction in which to take the game. This characteristic makes playing visual novels similar to reading a book. Another main characteristic of visual novels is their strong emphasis on the prose, as the narration in visual novels is delivered through text. Typically the majority of player interaction is limited to clicking to keep the text, graphics and sound moving as if they were turning a page (many recent games offer "play" or "fast-forward" toggles that make this unnecessary), while making narrative choices along the way. Visual novels are distinguished from other game types by their generally minimal gameplay. The market for visual novels outside of East Asia is small, though a number of anime based on visual novels are popular among anime fans in the Western world examples include Clannad, Danganronpa, Steins Gate, and Fate/stay night. The more famous visual novels are also often adapted into light novels, manga, or anime, and are sometimes succeeded or complemented by video games such as role-playing games or action games set in the same universe. Visual novels are rarely produced exclusively for dedicated video game consoles, but the more popular games have occasionally been ported from PC (or a hardware equivalent) to systems such as the Sega Saturn, Dreamcast, PlayStation Portable, or Xbox 360. This distinction is normally lost outside Japan, as both visual novels and adventure games are commonly referred to as "visual novels" by international fans. In Japanese, a distinction is often made between visual novels (NVL, from "novel"), which consist primarily of narration and have very few interactive elements, and adventure games (AVG or ADV, from "adventure"), which incorporate problem-solving and other types of gameplay. Visual novels originated in and are especially prevalent in Japan, where they made up nearly 70% of the PC game titles released in 2006. The format is more rarely referred to as novel game, a retranscription of the wasei-eigo term noberu gēmu ( ノベルゲーム), which is more often used in Japanese. They combine a textual narrative with static or animated illustrations and a varying degree of interactivity. Visual novels are often associated with the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. A visual novel ( VN) is a form of digital interactive fiction.
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