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"Visual Novel" is a type of interactive medium, typically considered either a subcategory of Video Games or a separate type of medium altogether. The defining feature of Visual Novels is an emphasis on storytelling via text boxes, character sprites and illustrations with little to no gameplay. The earliest examples date back to the early 80s, making them younger than true video games but by less than might be expected.

Mechanically speaking, a Visual Novel's true gameplay will be token, if present, and instead the story will focus on one of two main types of story telling. First is the kinetic narrative where the plot progresses in a linear fashion with no major deviations. The second type is the branching narrative where player input, typically via changing the main character's behavior, alters the course of the narrative into one of several different possible futures, all of which have their own related but distinct plots and endings. The reader progresses the story via simple clicking of the text window and will have some form of artwork to accompany the text, such as a depiction of the current surroundings and events or the characters. There is generally background music as well, but it is not required and many famous lower budget works do not have any at all.

The dividing line between a visual novel and a video game is generally agreed to depend on the amount of gameplay and its level of development: A video game can be very text heavy with many scenes in between each level, but beating the level will be required to advance the story and in order to do so the player must understand the game's basic mechanics and strategies. A visual novel could have some level of gameplay, but it is often token, simple and can frequently be skipped altogether.

Visual Novels can be written in any genre from scifi to fantasy to cosmic horror to tragedy, but are generally best known for a heavy focus on romance and may even be outright Porn with Plot due to the perceived ease of writing, production and higher likelihood of profits.

Visual Novels are not to be confused with Light Novels, a medium that exists in a blurry space between comic books and literature.

Games in this medium:

By Genre:

By Interactivity:

By Engine:

By Decade:

Major VN Developers:

    open/close all folders 

Series and Franchises

    A-I 

    M-Z 

Individual Visual Novels

    #-B 

    C-E 

    F-K 

    L-N 

    O-R 

    S 

    T-Z 

Other examples of Visual Novels:

  • LemmaSoft is an English community dedicated to making visual novels, mostly freeware.
  • Morph E was designed to be a regularly updated Visual Novel with promises of playable installments later. Discontinued as of 2017.

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