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Visual novels - gaming or reading?
| Who cares? Play them if you like. Don't play them I you don't.
| Considering that:
1.) CYOA novels exist.
2.) Games used to be text-only.
Yes, it's a game. Visual novel isn't even that fully loaded with texts to begin with; that title goes to those interactive novels where you don't even get a picture of what the character looks like.
But why worry? A game can have lots of reading and it'll still be a game.
| If zork is a game vn's are a game
| Games are a great way to tell a story, games like mass effect have some game mecanics, but it also has choices and cutscenes. I think that visual novels have a lot of reading in them, but they also express things in ways books can't or make it more easy to interpret.
Visual novels are more pleasing than reading for some because of how they interact with the reader and the kind of stories they present.
So, I would say that anything can be a game as long as you enjoy the time spent.
| It's dependant on the VN, you got your dangan and ace that have explicit game overs if you don't pay attention to the mechanics.
Then you have umineko or kinetic ones that are just a story with visual and auditory aids to give you context.
| http://dangeru.net/no-es-un-juego/
Fernando Damas, writer of VA-11 Hall-A, posted this a couple years ago. Basically, a reduction to the absurd of the arguments used against VN.
I recommend reading it. It's on spanish, but Google translate should do the work, the only word that won't translate is "Jarcor", which is hardcore.
| Makes me glad I can read Spanish. Thanks for the link. Good read indeed.
| I think the phrase reading VN is more suitable than playing VN.
Excluding Va11halla, Danganronpa, and Ace Attorney; many VNs have minimal player input and interactions.
If light novels are basically short novels with artworks and pictures to make it more interesting/aid the reader. Then Visual Novels are basically artworks with text to aid in telling a story.
That said, if VN are tagged as games and being sold at game marketplaces like steam, I won't lose sleep over it.
| I still say they're games. But if they have minimal player input and lack a fail state like for example a kinetic novel I'll say I read them. Still games though.
| I like to call them interactive books. Which in my opinion is better than "game". The definition of game implies the idea of win and fail states, not every VN has those, like the so called Kinetic VNs and many of them are very similar so CYOA books. They're an oddity for sure, but I don't really stress over if I play or read them.
| vn are games, kinetic novels are just light novel with images.
the difference between them is that usually in a kinetic novel you dont have to choose between options that may lead you to a completely different ending or play some minigames to progress or fuck up your schedule to get friendzoned by the cute office lady (thanks cheritz)
| I think VNs are games since they are synthetic of text, sound and visuals to various degrees and also interactive, so, GAMES
Kinetic Novels are very close to the book category but are still games just lack a lot of interactivity. The other side of the spectrum would be "choose your own adventure" printed/digital books, which have enough for some people to call them games but it's still a gray area.
| As for the term use:
Kinetic novels and adv.books -> exclusively "read"
Regular VNs -> any term
VNs containing rpg-elements, puzzles, inventory, other adventure segments - in other words, genuine game mechanics besides choosing a dialog option (like Zero Escape, Ace Attorney, Danganronpa series) -> exclusively "play"
>>wire chop deity
| >>493545 If a game requires both win and fail states, then what is Dwarf Fortress then? It has no proper win state. The player can try to reach a self-imposed achievement, but in the end, all your dwarves will die, no matter what.
| Masturbating
| >>493572
Dwarf Fortress is an open-ended game, the player "creates" his own win state. Same thing with SimCity, The Sims, Rollercoaster Tycoon and so on.
| >>493548 man I feel you they were so close to a well done yuri route which was surprising for an otome game
| >>493622 Then by that logic, I can create my own fail/win state in a VN with no proper fail/win state, for example, if I don't like the VN and don't ever continue it, then it failed, and if I reach it's end, then it didn't fail.
| Getting right into semantics here so think it's best to agree and say that calling it a game is fine for general talk, and for the health of VNs in general that they appear in a bigger marketplace.
(Just to undermine wht i said)
There are toy/sandbox games where you have to make an external goal derived from the mechanics. Technically not a game but the win state is implied enough that you don't need one. However, it ends up being a "wht is a true rogue lik arg"not useful sofck.
| >>493650
Of course not, an open-ended game gives, in it's core design, the choice of the player to play the game in any way he wants to. There's no win or fail state in SimCity, for example, the player creates his owns conditions, but it also follows the concept of game: a competitive activity between two people, with rulesets and at least one fail and win state, the second player in this case being the computer.
| >>493650
That's where the argument for whether or not a VN is a game originates from, certain VNS, like Ace Attorney, Danganronpa, Rance and etc fall into this category. But then you have stuff like Higurashi, which doesn't have a win and fail states, nor a competitive aspect. It's interactive, yes, but it doesn't fall within the proper definition of game. That's why I prefer to call VNs, most of the time, interactive books, like a CYOA book.
| >>493650
Correcting what I said on >>494896, a game is any competitive activity between AT LEAST two people, with clear rulesets and at least one win and fail state.
Which again, for example, applies to stuff like tabletop RPGs, where the players decide their win and fail conditions. This doesn't apply to something like Higurashi, because there's only one outcome, regardless of what you do. Some VNs also only have win states or fail states.
| >>494900 What about Calvinball, from Calvin and Hobbes? It has no clear ruleset.
And people isn't quite the rigth term.
If someone is playing Solitaire, either against a computer or with real cards, there is one person against luck and it's own skill. Something more accurate would be "one person and a force of opposition, be it another player, or some abstract element, like luck".
| >>494900 And I want to bring again Damas' point on what classifies as a fail state.
If I have infinite lives, is there really a fail state? The game will continue until I reach the end or leave it out of boredom. Those are the two final outcomes, which are the same outcomes as in VNs, without the "deaths" in between.
| Everything that you eat will also have the same outcome: it will turn into poop. So, we can conclude that everything is food.
| >>494915 Not really. If it can't be digested, it won't come out as poop. Worst case scenario, it won't come out at all.
Heck, if you don't chew corn properly, it comes out intact, and corn is food.
| One last thing for today.
SQIJ for ZX Spectrum
Long story short, the programmer gave the publishers a game which cannot be played unless you fix the code of the game, and the publishers didn't check anything beyond loading the main menu.
So a game was sold with no way to play it without modifying it.
Since you don't waste energy because you can't move, you can't reach the fail-state, and the objective is points, which are won by time survived, and there is no timelimit.
| And a more well known example would be Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing.
Depending on the version, the other truck can't move or won't finish the race, and there is no timelimit. So there are at least two games where you can't lose.
Yes, their code is awful and all that, but they are recongnizable as games even when they lack the fail-state.
So if a visual novel isn't a game because it lacks a fail state, then Big Rigs is not a game.
| >>494909
No idea what Calvinball is, but according to Google, the players have to create it's rules every time they play and they can't be repeated. So in theory, it DOES have a ruleset.
And, yes, you could say that about solitaire, but what I cited was the original definition of a game, that applies to classic games such as chess or card games. Games evolve, but you still have the basic premise of player vs. opponent.
| >>494909
In regards to infinite lives, in more recent platformer games you have infinite lives, but you still have fail states where if you get hit by an enemy and die or maybe fall into a pit you still have to go back and replay a section. That's by definition a fail state. There are modern tabletop games where you can "lose", but continue to play the game. It's still a fail state, just not a "game over".
| >>494922
>>494934
You're confusing programming issues with game design. As awful as Big Rigs is, in the DESIGN of the game the player is supposed to race against the AI with the endgoal to get to first place, etc. If it's doable in the end product, that's another thing, that's why people say it's a broken game.
What we're discussing is game design, how a game is played and it's rulesets, it doesn't encompass programming.
| Time travelling and fucking yourself in past - masturvation or sex?
| >>494979 They knew those issues existed, if they wanted to sell a racing game, they would fix them. Instead, they didn't, and what could have been a racing game became an "explore this glitchy mess" game. Design doesn't stop after you have the idea, it continues until it reaches the customer, and sometimes, never ends.
Has been fun trying to think of exceptions to those definitions of what a game is, but I can't be here 1 to 7 AM everyday. If someone wants to continue, fine.
| >>495067
Design is ever constant, but programming issues aren't part of design issues. They're two different things. If the original design was indeed broken, then it should go back to the game designer to fix it, it's his job. If the issue is on programming, then it's on the software engineer. We don't know how the development of the game went, but I'm pretty sure the game designer never intended for these issues to exist. If it did, then sure, it never was a game.
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| I used to tell myself it's reading. I sure wouldn't like to read novels in my gaming time, just to go for books after. My eyes can only look at letters for so much time. That kind of supports the reading argument. But it's a game at the end of the day.