Visual novels are a medium using the narrative style of
Literature, but in a digital format that could technically be considered a
Video Game.
note Don't try to bring up this distinction with the fans, though. It's for your own safety. They tend to put more emphasis on the plot and on characterization, rather than on action scenes, like
Interactive Fiction and more so than
Adventure Games. Visual novels are effectively seen as a digital evolution of
Choose Your Own Adventure books, with music, pictures, and occasionally even voice acting or movies. However, unlike most
Choose Your Own Adventure books, they
usually branch off into distinct storylines early on, and can have a lot more choice points (since they're digital and therefore don't suffer from physical limitations). Puzzles, quests and escape games are usually embedded within the plot in order to advance the storyline(s).
The level of gameplay can vary, leading to difficulty in defining the boundaries of the medium. On the far video game end of the scale we have games that adhere closer to the
Adventure Game model such as the
Ace Attorney series and
Zero Escape: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors.
note Some of the earliest examples of games now considered visual novels, such as Snatcher, are in fact adventure games in all but name, complete with text parsers and / or point-and-click interfaces; the distinction between the two genres is largely a matter of divergent evolution. Kinetic Novels (visual novels completely devoid of interaction) and
Linear Visual Novels exist on the other end of the scale, such as
When They Cry. The majority of Visual Novels, however, tend to focus on non-linear
Story Branching plots with
Multiple Endings.
Because they are treated as games, the fact that many of them tell well-written, compelling stories can be easily overlooked. Games like
Hotel Dusk: Room 215,
Jake Hunter,
Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors,
Virtue's Last Reward, and the
Ace Attorney series are bringing this style of gameplay into markets outside of Japan, where they are much more recognized. It is also not uncommon for acclaimed
Anime to be based on Visual Novels, such as
Kanon,
AIR,
CLANNAD,
Fate/stay night, and
Steins;Gate, for example.
Visual novels that are also
eroge tend to tie every storyline to a specific romanceable character, a habit which has carried over to much of the rest of the medium.
Because the market for
Dating Sims is virtually non-existent outside of Japan, people tend to assume that any Visual Novel that is a
Romance Game should be called a Dating Sim, when they are actually quite different. (It doesn't help that most
Visual Novel-style
eroge are marketed as "Dating Sims" when they are translated for the US market.) Using well-known examples, the
Ace Attorney series has very much a
Visual Novel style of gameplay, while the
DOA Xtreme series is probably the game closest to a true
Dating Sim with mass-market appeal in the US.
Most Japanese visual novels
never get an official release outside of Japan, though this is beginning to change with companies such as MangaGamer and JAST licensing more and more visual novels. Still, the bulk of visual novels are
translated by dedicated fans if they are translated at all. Many of the novels on this list have an existing
Fan Translation, partial or full.
Within Japan, Visual Novels make up around 70 percent of the PC gaming market, according to
The Other Wiki, but are divided into two different categories: the VN (Visual Novel) proper, which contains little to no gameplay other than decision-making, and the ADV (Adventure) game, which contain puzzles or other forms of gameplay (the form most Western tropers are familiar with, such as
Ace Attorney or
Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors).
There are also a small but growing number of English-developed visual novels, generally created by indies and not sold through mainstream channels. Some of these have garnered critical acclaim, such as
Katawa Shoujo and
Analogue: A Hate Story. In recent years, there have also been some acclaimed Visual Novel influenced Western
Adventure Games, such as
Dear Esther,
The Stanley Parable,
Heavy Rain, and
The Walking Dead.
Whether or not "visual novel" is a genre, a sub-genre/modifier for other genres, or a pejorative term is unclear, as connotations differ by community.
Public Medium Ignorance, particularly the
Animation Age Ghetto and
Girl-Show Ghetto, may be responsible for quite a bit of the confusion. Some of the games that
do make it across the border, like
Time Hollow, have been decried by reviewers for having "no gameplay", which to a fan of VNs is
Completely Missing the Point.
VNDB
is a database dedicated to visual novels, in the vein of IMDB. It also lists any existing fan translation a novel may have.
See
Visual Novel Tropes. If you want to take a crack at creating one of your own,
we've got you covered.
Visual Novels are not to be confused with
Light Novels (see page for more information).
Games in this medium:
By Genre:
By Interactivity:
Major VN Developers:
Other examples of Visual Novels:
Discussion 