For this first non-intro post I figured—why not talk about how visual novels consumed my life…kidding…not really…I have a problem…
For those unfamiliar with visual novels, which is usually a lot of people—the basic idea is that it’s a story with pictures and music, and most of them look very “anime,” which makes sense considering their origins in Japan.
In my experience, many visual novels revolve around choices. Different choices will often get you different endings, or influence a character’s response to the player character. Think of it like a BioWare game without the flashy combat, or a Telltale game. And typically the endings are better than Red, Green, or Blue. (Love you BioWare!)
[Pancakes or waffles? The debate rages. [Image from Left of Center by Twin Turtle Games]]
Also I swear, way too many visual novels take place in really cool looking schools…
For more information about VN’s check out the Wikipedia article or TV Tropes page, they explain some of the intricacies way better than I ever could!
Anyway, what pushed me down the rabbit hole was a series of three visual novels, all free (many visual novels are commercial).
It started with a passing interest in “deIZ” by Mike Inel. In early November of last year I had turned on some videos from the Youtube Let’s Player KPopp, and she was playing deIz. I googled it, and saw that it was free. I wanted to see more of the endings, so I downloaded it and got to work completing it. It was really enjoyable, a little disturbing at times, but overall a fun way to burn some time.
[From deIz]
Then I noticed what it was made with. The Ren’Py Visual Novel engine. Naturally curious, I googled it, and from the home page my addiction was born. Almost. The front page featured a couple visual novels, including “Romance Detective” and “Autumn’s Journey”
[From Romance Detective by NomnomNami]
Romance Detective was a short, quirky, and straightforward visual novel (there’s only one ending). But come on, a lady who goes around calling herself the Romance Detective and constantly carrying a rose in her mouth? I couldn’t help but figure out what that was all about. And it was amazing.
[Romance Cop asks the important questions.]
[Catching a grown-up Cupid in a giant net. Yup. Sounds good to me.]
I played Autumn’s Journey next, and wasn’t disappointed. Autumn’s Journey tells the story of a young girl, Auralee, who can’t wait to become a knight, and the two dragon friends that join her on her quest. Kerr is a grouchy Earth Dragon stuck in a human form. And Ilmari is an ultra-friendly Water Dragon who’s fascinated with human culture.
[How do you combat grumpy dragons? Be super cheery to them.]
[You’ll figure out what that book says someday Ilmari. [From Autumn’s Journey by Apple Cider]]
It was a very light-hearted and sweet story, and my roommate told me the next day that they could hear me laughing from my room the whole afternoon. Whoops!
Regardless, this trio of games spurred me into looking up more, and I quickly became a huge fan of the genre. In addition, a visual novel can be made by a single person or just a few in a relatively quick period of time (compared to most video games) depending on the scope and complexity of the game. Romance Detective was by made by one person (maybe two, I’m not sure) in about a month, for NaNoRenO 2014. (NaNoRenO is like NaNoWriMo but for visual novels instead of written novels.) Now this doesn’t mean that they don’t require a lot of hard work, and many take much longer than a month to complete, but someone like me could actually have a hope of making one one day, and not spend years and years of my life on it.
So I promised that I would make one eventually, if only I could decide on a good (aka manageable) first project. Five months later I finally have an idea, and I hope to get started on it anytime now.
Thank you visual novels for consuming my life even more than video games already were!
Until next week! -L
Game Tangents 