Visual Novels / Semi-adventure games?

[a_v]

Hi, newbie to this forum here -

Anyway, I saw that this is a adventure game forum, and I just thought I'd bring up Visual Novels as a topic just in case anyone was not familiar with them.   

They tend to be the only "commerical" type adventure game I still see being produced (Sierra having dropped their entire adventure wing among others...) Though most of them seem to be in japanese/chinese etc.

Regardless, here's a link to a group that was actively subbing some free ones http://www.insani.org/   

(NOTE: the majority of the titles they have done have few if any choices... Other commerical games have far more options.)

Putting this up as a topic, feel free to agree/disagree, and if anyone knows of any newer old school style adv. games, feel free to suggest them.  At this point in time, Visual Novels are about the closest thing I can find that are still being mass produced.

[evenwolf]

Hmm,  I browsed a few pages.    Not too familiar with them.     Welcome to AGS.


You might find some peeps who enjoy that genre, but you'll typically find alot of us are nostalgics for the old school Sierra/Lucas Arts days.     I would have to download one of these "novels" to see what they're about.     Part of me expects japanese manga.

[Cino]

I've been wanting to give a visual novel a try, since some of them look stunningly beautiful, but most seemed to be in japanese so I didn't download any. I didn't even know if translated ones exist, so thanks for the heads up. I'll probably check out a few.

[LimpingFish]

Yeah, Visual Novels tend to be less about interaction and more about storytelling. Having said that, something like Hotel Dusk is classed as a Visual Novel and it contains far more interaction that most other VNs.

Visual Novels/Sound Novels are uniquely Japanese in origin, and rarely make the transition to the West. The DS has seen a few, in the form of the Phoenix Wright games and such, but that's about it. A number of Hentai titles are translated and released for the PC in the US, but these are hardly a fair indication of the medium as a whole.

Policenauts and Snatcher are probably some of the best examples of Visual Novels, along with the "EVE" series of games (excluding the sole Hentai title ADAM: The DNA Factor).

I think that adventure fans sometimes drift into Visual Novels simply because they offer a narrative-led style of "gameplay", something in common with tradional adventure games.