What counts as a Video Game or a Visual Novel

Is this the page you're referring to? If so, then yeah, the description looks pretty bloated. Maybe it should be trimmed a little.

I cut the length roughly in half if anyone wants to take a look. Visual Novel got checked out while I was writing this out and I didn't want to risk wiping out someone else's work or having mine erased, so it's visual novel 2 instead.

The illustration doesn't really help, well, illustrate what visual novels are for. I feel like two images next to each other would probably show it off better. One with just text, the next your basic choice window showing different things you can choose to do.

Edited by Arha on Feb 15th 2024 at 5:43:25 AM

I've moved the page contents back to the video game namespace and temporarily redirected the visual novel namespace to it before putting them into the cutlist. After that goes through, I'll submit a request to fix the page history.

Do we want to update the description while we're at it?

If you're referring to that of the Visual Novel page, I have no objection.

Man, this discussion came to a crashing halt didn't it?

~animuacid, you're a big VN player, right? What do you think about all this?

I think some narration is essential to be considered a novel, and it's one of the criteria of VNDB. A game with only dialogues has it harder to qualify as a VN, unless it's pure text.

Why don't we use the criteria they use

Form what I've understood by their page

• Almost no interactivity other than the overlay menu, path selection, and maybe occasional minigames. Even if it has gameplay elements, it should almost entirely be about reading text.
• The majority of the story should be in the format that is either POV with sprites and a text box, or a sideview with slides and a text overlay, or something close to those.
• The major portion of the writing should contain a Tell Dont Show narration to describe the scenes, not Show, Don't Tell.
• Some retro adventure games are Grandfather Clause as visual novels.

Edited by Amonimus on Mar 26th 2024 at 10:32:57 PM

I don't think a Tell Don't Show style is that common unless you're reading something crappy. It's basically a book with occasional pictures, so there's no need to get that heavy handed with the narration.

But yes, interactivity is, generally speaking, no more than turning the page of a book would be. A choose your own adventure book where you decide what page to go to sometimes.

Edited by Arha on Mar 26th 2024 at 8:25:13 AM

Where would the "visual" part be, then?

Regardless, we shouldn't hold ourselves to other sites' standards.