[LOL100]

Apparently, I don't know why visual novels call themselves games. You just press start game and then just read it like a novel. You don't make any decisions in the game.

[Pomelo]

...All the visual novels I've played allow you to make choices

[Azuru]

Pomelo, on 14 March 2012 - 10:19 PM, said:

...All the visual novels I've played allow you to make choices

[Alphonse]

The OP is mistaking kinetic novels for visual novels in general. Kinetic novels are visual novels without choices. True Rememberance is an example of a kinetic novel--for all intents and purposes, it's an e-book with anime pictures. It's also really awesome, so you should go check it out.

Kinetic novels aren't games, but other visual novels are. Barely. Making choices--and collecting CGs and multiple endings, if the game has those--can be considered gameplay.

[Byakuren]

@Alphonse: What about visual novels entitled visual novels by the creators themselves but don't allow choices?

Like Umineko for an example here(The only part in Umineko that allows choices is the very last episode (8), which determines the end of that epiosde(and the overall conclusion), but every other chapter isn't choice given.

[Alphonse]

Um, kinetic novels are a subset of visual novels. [is crap at explaining things] So if you make a visual novel without choices, it's still a visual novel--but if you want to be specific, it's a kinetic novel. It's both, really, and a lot of the time, kinetic novel makers just call their works visual novels.

A visual novel with choices can be considered a game. A visual novel without choices is a kinetic novel and can't be considered a game. As for a visual novel with one choice with minimal impact in the whole game, like Umineko (which I haven't played)? IDK, what to call it is up to the creator. Nothing wrong with Ryukishi07 calling it a visual novel, though.

[LOL100]

One more thing, since visual novels are just pictures and words, right?
So, their size should be small, right?

[Alphonse]

Depends. The music, sound effects, and opening video (if there is one) is what drives up the file size usually. So they usually go from 50 to 300 megabytes. Pretty sure that's still smaller than your average game.

[Raven Vox]

(Was being typed before Alphonse's post)

No, there is no given rule that they have to be small.

I've heard of some that were over 500gigs in its purest form.

Now hear me out before you go crying baloney.

That was at maximum resulution for the images, which would have fit a Plasma Screen TV.
Which is my point, it is the Quality of those Images (and Sound Files in a lot of cases) that determines the overall size of th program.
Now, with modern compression programs, it is plausible to have really high quality image/sound files in a little tiny package.
Yet imagine if your original file was so huge that even compressed it was humongous.
I'm just saying the possiblities.

...
Now, don't get me wrong.
Most Visual Novel's these days are not of that size.
In fact if you find one that is 5 gigs I'd be surprised.

[LOL100]

Apparently, I have a visual novel that's 6GB in size.

In my opinion, I think Hentai visual novels have the best graphics.

[Raven Vox]

Well, there is the matter as Alphonse sated, Videos.

Hentai VNs tend to contain a large amount of high res graphics, and these days in animation forms no less.
In Hentai, the Graphics are paramont, everything else is secondary, otherwise it's not Hentai.
But anyway, with Hentai VNs, you can expect well made ones of today to be several times larger than others.

[GreenKata]

The only form of a novel that I have ever really considered a game are the choose your own adventure style books
Where you read and it says skip to this page for this story or this page for this story
Like it gave you options
As if you were making a decision as the character in the book itself
It always seemed like a game in a way

[Alphonse]

Um... what? I don't even see how that was relevant.

We're talking about visual novels, not graphic novels. Visual novels. They're pretty much choose your own adventure games in software form. Just saying.

[Kit Wistful]

GreenKata, on 14 March 2012 - 10:02 PM, said:

The only form of a novel that I have ever really considered a game are the choose your own adventure style books
Where you read and it says skip to this page for this story or this page for this story
Like it gave you options
As if you were making a decision as the character in the book itself
It always seemed like a game in a way

I've always thought of them more like books, if only because I always looked down every path : P

[Azure_flux]

The answer is absolutely not.
A visual novel is not a game. This is extremely misleading and you need to be careful, unless a case of Dear Esther happens to you when you're about to buy it (but that's another case).

Branch points do not make a game. Don't start with semantics like "but oh, how much of a game does a visual novel need to have to be considered so" because that's somewhat annoying. No need to have a PhD in rocket surgery to make the difference between a game in the traditional sense and a visual novel.

These are a gathering of artistry: audio, illustration and writing, that's it. An e-book with music. There is not enough interaction or control given to the "player" (in VNs, the reader/listener), nor are they dynamic to any degree. When I was a kid I used to read books that branched in certain points. You would get to the branch and it would say "if you choose this, go to page x. If you choose that, go to page y". Ladies and gentlemen, first game in book format. Does that make sense to you?

In my view, there are certain types of games that scrape the line between videogame and "a piece of software with art" (I'd elaborate but that's not the topic here). However, VNs fall outside of the term.

I suggest that people start refering to visual novels as visual novels, its own type of media, and not videogames. Too long of a term? No problem, people often use simply "games" in place of "videogames" which is also long. Therefore, my suggestion would be that you call them "novels".

That being said, LOL500, I'll bet you anything you will be under the impression you're "reading" rather than "playing" when you try VNs.