Do You Consider Visual Novels To Be Games?

Off-Topic
#21

I like this mindset, but you could argue that any narrative could be classified as a game. Any story that has events leading to a climax entices the reader to think about “what will happen”, and thus “winning” or “losing” would emerge from how well the reader’s expectations align with the actual climax. A joke could be called a game, too, since the ability to predict the punchline (which is something that we usually do when given jokes) gives rise to ‘win’ and ‘lose’ states.

EDIT: This also leads to the notion that a ‘game’ is not something that is determined by the author, but rather that it is decided by the participants. A card game gives rules for how its played and manually specifies win/lose states, but with your model, the card game isn’t really a “game” until the participants decide what winning and losing means. This is a very interesting perspective, but some people might assert that the notion of “game” is embedded in the rules themselves.

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#22

I don’t think I’ll ever see the Visual Novel medium in it’s current incarnation as truly being a segment of the greater “game” genre of interactive mediums. This opinion, however, it not meant to detract from the Visual Novel style in the slightest.

From my own humble perspective I see VN’s as the culmination of a few separate movements in storytelling and interactive media. When I first stumbled upon a handful of visual novels that caught my interest I was immediately taken back to the days of MSDOS and text-based adventure games. So sure, some VN’s do occasionally have limited “gaming” mechanics within them, but the other medium that I find parallel to VN’s would be the CYOA Books of the '80’s and '90’s.

This is truly where I feel a classification of VN’s should come. If anything, most VN’s are either kinectic (in which case they are simply digital graphic novels not unlike reading a graphic novel ebook), or could be considered CYOA Graphic Novels in digital format.

Again, this is not meant to say that VN’s are lesser than games, or less deserving as a means of storytelling. I’m just as much a fan of an inspired story as I am an enveloping gaming experience. Sometimes they walk hand-in-hand. Other times they are apart. It doesn’t mean one is better or worse than another, but I do take contention with one thing to arise from the movement of the VN currently; due to the insistence of the community, or the authors, or both (I’m really unsure) of them being classified as games, it becomes frustrating to stumble upon them when I’m instead looking for a interactive gaming experience. Many times I have recently found myself checking tags or comments to be sure what looks interesting is a “video game” rather than a visual novel because of this forced ambiguity, and quite frankly, it’s frustrating. It literally puts me off of a visual novel if I’m mistaken due its somewhat mislabeled experience, and I know I’m not alone in this feeling.

Thus, for the sake of visual novels flourishing as they properly should, I would think a unique and individual classification would only help them grow. People who enjoy them will search them out no matter the title, but “gamers” who feel duped into downloading/purchasing them because of vague and misleading marketing will only come away with a negative bias.

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#23

There has been this discussion lately all over the videogames community, both devolpers and players, about what is a videogame. Lately I have been using the term “videogame” as a substitute for other terms, prefeering “Interactive experience” to actually describing them instead. I think single route VNs like Umineko are not games per say, but if you are able to manipulate the outcome like in a branching VN or a VN with puzzles, I would call it a Game/Interactive Experience.

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#24

I’ll just throw some choice quotes from someone I know onto the pile here, I mostly agree with him, and he puts his points far better than I can:

If you want to define game, you need to include what games were BEFORE they became video games, and you need to recognize that choose your own adventure books, amusement parks, and promenade theater were NOT in the game category before video games came along, and therefore should still not be referred to as games.

and:

I’ve come up with a perfectly adequate descriptor of what a game is: A contract that a person or group of people agree(s) to abide by in relation to pursuing a favorable outcome or set of outcomes from a system that produces said outcomes inconsistently, for the purpose of amusement.

Inconsistency in the above definition covers both random chance and difficulty.

By this definition, which I am a fan of, I don’t think I’d describe Visual Novels as games. People don’t read VNs for the thrill of avoiding a bad end, they read it for the story and the characters.

Also:

This guy gets it.

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#25

Throwing my two cents in!

For my definition of games I think I’ll draw inspiration from the more legal stuff.

A game is a test of skill, test of chance, or a mix of both.

Most VNs wouldn’t be either so people wouldn’t consider them a “Game”. Which is fine and can properly set expectations.

Mystery VNs (or something like an Ace Attorney game) can fall under a test of (deductive) skill and therefore a game. A fair play mystery in a static form can be considered a game since it tests skills.

#26

To paraphrase my ideas better a year on, I’d say that technically VNs are their own medium, but practically they’re games.

#27

I suppose this is begging the question of whether mysteries are considered games. And not like in terms of Ace Attorney or Danganronpa, but something like And Then There Were None.

The reason I say that is if you’re going to argue that the challenge of solving it is equivalent to a game, then you might as well be classifying most games, like Zelda as a common example, as RPGs because you play the role of a character. Board and card games typically don’t have gameplay in the traditional way, but are filled with strategy, luck, and decisions that aim for a condition or victory.

A visual novel is pretty much exactly what the name implies, a novel that is visual. You could argue that there is audio there too, but I’d say it’s just more convenient than saying Audio Visual or AV Novel. Now granted, in many visual novels, you can make choices that impacts how the story plays out or the ending will change. I’d say this isn’t much different than a choose your own adventure book, except that the medium allows for more convenient piecing together of the story depending on your decisions.

What is a visual novel with gameplay then? It’d be closest to describe it as an adventure game. Perhaps they’re more streamlined without all the pixel hunting, but it still inevitably requires the correct decisions to progress through the game.

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#28

You know, there is And Then There Were None the video game! I’m not joking, I own it.

Anyway, to get back on topic, many JRPGs have super complex stories (looking at you, Final Fantasy), some of which are complicated enough where if they really wanted to they could probably be adapted into novels. Almost every game in existence has storytelling qualities, and more and more stories have gameplay mechanics. The two cannot be separated. This is why I see gaming as an extension of storytelling rather than classifying them as different things. I feel that games are just another medium in which stories are told.

I guess you could say I consider VNs to be games, just because I see them both as mediums in which stories are told. I think stories makes gameplay connect better with the player, which is why some games feel the need to build themselves worlds of lore for people to get invested in (again, looking at you, Final Fantasy).

But not everyone likes super story centric games. I think this is part of why stuff like Zelda and Kirby are so popular. Sometimes you want a game to just be a game, with no story attached to it. That said, other people like super stories in their games, where there’s little to no gameplay and it’s more like reading (this is where I think VNs like Umi and Higu do).

I think this opens up a whole new can of worms. And that can being the question of, “At what point do you consider something to be a story verses at what point do you consider it to be a game?” Because for some VNs like Higurashi, I say I’m “reading” them since there’s no gameplay aspects. On the same token, there’s other VNs like Steins;Gate where there’s a lot of choices and gameplay and so I would say I’m “playing” it.

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#29

Yes me too. I’ve played it. (It’s ok, there are better adventure games you could play, but the way they changed the ending was neat)

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#30

Now I’d argue that many of the Zelda games do have a little bit story, and there’s a lot of fans analyzing the lore in great detail, but I’ll give you that it’s more gameplay focused. But that’s getting off topic.

In terms of the topic at hand, if I’m explaining someone what a VN is, I usually say that it’s like a Choose-your-own-adventure book, since that gives the person a clear idea of what a VN is without being too far off the mark, so I guess I don’t quite view them as games. But U4ea’s idea is pretty good, as for when you’d want to compare a VN to other things and how it can push the medium, more often than not you’re looking at other things telling a story, so perhaps looking at the grand picture of how a VN can push story telling media compared to a film, book, or game is the best idea.

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