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Well, as it says on the tin, this week I mangaed to reach the 90%-mark. This is pretty good news, as now there's just one last push for this game to be fully translated. I'm pretty excited. Anyways, this update is going live one day before the normal because of VNTS. Other than that, some slight editing progress was made, but sadly no QC progress. Other than that, I'll be gone for almost a week with my family, starting next Monday and I'll return late Sunday, so there most likely won't be an update next week, unless I manage to make a mini-update on Sunday or Monday. This of course depends on if I'm fast enough to do such a thing and/or am just lazy or not. Progress: Translation: 7/8 script files finished, 8th script file 37,7% completed (~90%) Editing: 9,9% QC: 3,1% Proofreading: 0% Later!

A couple blog posts back, I argued that the story exploration game Gone Home can be considered a visual novel. After some great discussion there, it seemed only logical to tackle the much bigger question: “What is a visual novel? Which is why I’m not going to. That’s a spike-filled, snake-infested pit of a question if I ever saw one — and I already had spikes and snakes for breakfast. Instead, we’re going to attempt to answer a more nuanced question: “What are the minimum requirements something must meet in order to be usefully discussed as a visual novel?” That’s a slightly different but way more useful angle. Just about anything can be used as a chair, but not everything is a “chair.” As a society, we’ve agreed on a certain set of characteristics that chairs share in common. This lets us discuss chairs with one another and be pretty sure we won't be given a pineapple to sit on. We’ll do the same here. But for the sake of brevity, we’ll shorthand that question back down to “What’s a visual novel?” It’ll be our little secret. The VNDB standard The most obvious place to start looking for answers would be The Visual Novel Database (VNDB), home to info on more than 18,000 VNs. Here’s their answer, found in the VNDB FAQ: As a working definition, this leaves a lot to be desired. There are an awful lot of cans, mays, typicals, and usuallys. Worse yet, you could easily dream up a VN that meets almost none of the assumptions laid out here — perhaps an extremely short text-based story in which the words run around the outside of a woodcut illustration. There’s absolutely no background music and the player answers no questions, which results in the same plot every time she plays. A somewhat more satisfying answer can be found in VNDB’s list of requirements that titles must meet before being added to their database. For something to qualify as a visual novel: Better, but still somewhat problematic. For one thing, it conflates the commonly accepted with the essential. What if someone wants to present a story in a manner other than ADV (text in box below image) or NVL (text overlaying image)? What if they thought of a more innovative configuration of text + art? Tough luck, Billy; go suck eggs in the corner. (They don't seem to strictly enforce this, by the way. Digital: A Love Story is on VNDB, even though it eschews both ADV and NVL for a diegetic presentation.) Moreover, these guidelines can’t seem to decide if no gameplay is allowed at all, as the first two sentences suggest, or if up to 1% simple gameplay is okay. A title can also be added to the database if it’s a “visual novel/game” hybrid that meets the following requirements: Again, problematic. The ADV/NVL issue is still there, of course, but now a new wrinkle’s been added: the privileging of narrative over dialogue. The assumption here is that a novel can’t consist entirely (or almost entirely) of dialogue, so a title that doesn’t “consistently” rely upon a formal narrator doesn’t qualify. In truth, there are any number of novels that take this form — The Awkward Age by Henry James, for one. Besides, if Key suddenly dropped a 50-hour all-dialogue school drama that looked and played exactly like Clannad, do you doubt for a second that we'd all consider it a VN? Or that FuwaReviews would give it one star? But I don’t blame VNDB. They’re not looking to define the visual novel. They’re just trying to set up some semi-reasonable guidelines to help streamline their submission process. Without this, every staffer there would probably be eating gun-barrel sandwiches for lunch. Fine. Let’s build something better. I’ve sketched out the beginnings of a more general-purpose test for discussing something as a visual novel. I don’t consider this to be at all authoritative, and in fact, I invite you to critique it and build upon it in the comments below. It’s a starting point, nothing more. A 7-point test for visual novels 1. It must be “read” on a digital device that outputs to a screen. Fairly self-explanatory. Computers, consoles, handhelds, phones, e-readers — hell, even a smart watch would qualify. A printed VN would be considered a graphic novel (or a choose-your-own-adventure book). An audio file of a VN would be an audiobook. 2. It must convey a recognizable narrative. Again, fairly self-explanatory. A VN must be a spoken or written account of connected events. In other words, it needs to tell a story, fictional or otherwise. The entirety of the Detroit phone book displayed in Ren’py is not a VN, even if it’s accompanied by a whole chorus line of catgirls. 3. It must use on-screen text as the primary avenue for conveying that narrative. At the heart of any VN is the act of reading — eyes looking at words and turning them into meaning. If any significant portion of the story is delivered as voice-over or action without on-screen text, it isn’t a visual novel. Watching Game of Thrones on your laptop with subtitles doesn’t suddenly turn it into a VN. 4. It must have visuals paired with that narrative. A visual novel must have visuals. Crazy talk, right? It doesn’t matter if those visuals are 8-bit pixel art, hand illustration, 3D renders, photography, or video. Ideally, these images would be germane to the narrative, but even that’s not technically necessary. Having unrelated images wouldn’t keep something from being a VN; it would just make it a *bad* VN. 5. It must be authored. In other words, the story must be an act of creative intention by its author(s). A VN cannot rely upon sandboxes, emergent gameplay, or similar mechanisms to generate its narrative arc (though they may be used to flavor it). Such experiences, while highly interesting, result in something other than a novel. 6. Reading must comprise the majority of one’s experience with the title. This one gets tricky, because it cuts deep to the heart of another unresolved question: “Is a visual novel a game?” For the purposes of this discussion, I’d suggest there’s a continuum that looks roughly like: not a VN >> game w/ some VN qualities >> game/VN hybrid >> VN w/ some game qualities >> VN Roughly past the halfway mark, we can usefully consider something to be a visual novel for terms of discussion. Below that, we can consider it a game but usefully discuss its VN-like elements (or lack thereof). 7. It must offer a deliberately framed reading experience. This one’s a little tricky. Here’s the problem: a plain old Word doc containing a short story + embedded images could technically satisfy requirements #1 through #6, but we’d be hard-pressed to call that a visual novel. I’m still tweaking the language for #7, but the general idea is that just as a film director frames a shot, controlling what the audience can see and hear at any given moment, so too does the creator of a visual novel. This is unlike our hypothetical Word doc, in which you could widen the window to see more text than intended, skip around the story out of order, scroll the window so that you can read a passage without seeing its associated art, etc. I briefly considered adding an eighth bullet point, but chose to leave it on the cutting room floor. Why did this get dropped? Well, I imagined a traditional novel that was rigged to turn its pages at pre-defined intervals. You can’t speed it up, you can’t slow it down; all you have is an on/off switch. Would that lack of agency suddenly keep this particular book from being a novel? I couldn’t think of a good reason why it would, so I removed the requirement. But I'm open to good arguments for bringing it back. Closing thoughts, for now You might note that I’ve avoided any mention of things like: story genre, branching narratives, art style, country of origin, sexual content, sound/music, etc. That’s by design. These things help inform what type of VN a title is, not whether it can be discussed as one. You might also note that my 7-point test would disqualify Gone Home from being considered a visual novel, invalidating my earlier argument. That’s also by design. Kill your darlings, amirite?

[WARNING] [This entry has great amounts of spoilers from Miu's route, which you most likely haven't played, so if you wan't the best experience for the obvious best grill, turn around now. If not, go ahead and enjoy.] Miu is a so-called 'senpai' to Yuuto in their workplace. When Yuuto gets attacked in the very beginning of the VN, Miu feels responsible for this because she couldn't stop it and Yuuto got dragged to the ambush pretty much unnecessarily. Afterwards, Miu swears to protect Yuuto to right this wrong she did. Miu is pretty much a shy girl, hiding behind a wall of a 'experienced woman'. She's also listed as a Modern Tsundere, but I really don't see it that much in her. As I've said countless times already, Miu's route is my favorite, and the same goes for the heroine itself. Honestly, I realy didn't like the heroine, but this is the case for most of my favorite heroines in VNs. In the beginning, she just seems like a sadist tsundere, which was rather annoying, but when she really cared for Yuuto's sudden transformation to a vampire and that her 'sadist experinced woman' side was just an act, I started to warm up to her. What made her shine the most in the Common Route was how she acted when Yuuto saved Azusa from the speeding car, thus revealing his lycanthropy. The genuine emotion was something that was missing from the Common Route, and as such, shone through even more. This kind of behavior made her stand out from just a regular moe-blob heroine, and although heroines in Dracu-Riot aren't this kind of heroines, Miu stands out with actual character development in the very beginning. Needless, to say that she made the biggest expression on me. The start of Miu's route is pretty much the same as everyone else's. Some event triggers Yuuto and the heroine to get closer. In this case, the unfortunate conclusion that was in the Common Route, causes Miu to getting confused and sort of going to a boob-groping streak. I'm not even kidding, it's quite hilarious. Afterwards, after they conclude this, Yuuto asks Miu to go on sort of a date with Miu, to buy gifts for everyone, which causes more funny and rose-colored events to happen, like that one with a dressing booth. They also get put together to smoke out some criminals hiding in the shadows, so they have to act like a couple. This start of the route is pretty nice and fluffy, very well done for a moege. It also has those undertones I adore in VNs, no matter the genre. Miu and Yuuto's ever-growing consciousness of each other is really heart-warming to watch. Also Miu's reaction to these are something that you won't see that often, at least for me, that is. After these events, Yuuto starts getting conscious of his feelings for Miu, and proceeds to keep his distance, mostly because of his lychantropy. Their fake-couple acting is also getting taxing for Yuuto, so he's getting more and more akward by the minute and keeping his distance to Miu. Miu of course notices this, and gets more and more depressed. It all cluminates in an amazing kiss in an alleyway. Thye start dating right afterwards, but get one week of house-arrest for illicit behavior in work-hours. This final part before dating is, well, okay. I never liked this trope of getting farther and farther even if it's really, really obvious that they love eachother, but it was actually bareable. That might be because of Miu's fear for lychantropes was established in the Common Route, and as such there was legitimate reason for Yuuto's actions. That doesn't make it that much better, however. It was just okay, but the climax of this part was more than worth it. It felt very Miu-esque. You really can't describe it without reading the route yourself. The dating part is pretty good. The week-long house arrest is quite funny, as Miu's more than ready for them to become one, but Yuuto's just nerveous. So all they really do is hold hands. However, it all culminates with Miu staying home under the guise of being sick. She asks for Yuuto's room's key with the explanation of 'wanting to borrow manga', although she wants to find a reason why Yuuto hasn't done anything at all. In the truest reoge fashion, she ends masturbating while sniffing Yuuto's boxers. And of course Yuuto comes back when she's still masturbating, and thus the first H-scene happens. There's some normal couple-like events afterwards and another H-scene. This start and mid-part of the dating part is quite... different, if I say so myself, well at least the beginning-part is. It's been a while since I saw a scene like that in VNs. The following part though, is just your standart 'couples doing couple-like' things, which isn't bad in my opinion. They bring out Miu's somewhat special character out more. The two H-scenes present are amazing, I really did like them. Then the meat of the route begins to form, earlier on than other heroine's route's by far. How Yuuto gets kidnapped by the researchers who produce L and how that specific drug feeds the lychantrope genes, ultimately leading to Yuuto basically becoming a super-vampire, trashing everything and everyone. Only the combined efforts of Azusa, Miu and Hyouma can fell him. Also the way how Miu found where Yuuto was kept captive was touching, to say the least. Somehow hearing the screams of Yuuto's consciousness in her mind and chalking it up to 'power of love' is somehow cheesy and romantic at the same time. The after-effects of L and how it makes Yuuto's thirst for blood that much stronger makes Miu go jealous by just Yuuto feeling bloodlust and sexual arousal towards his fellow dorm-mates triggers the 3rd H-scene. All of this makes for a great meter on how much they long for and love each other. The date afterwards is your standart mushy-mushy lovey-dovey stuff, but I must say that the sound effects in this route are amazing. In the middle of the date they get called by Hyouma and hear that there's a riot outside of the school. This riot marks the finale of the route. Vampires have grown weaker and ill because of the lack of blood-packs distributed thanks to the drug L's own distribution in blood-packs in its own completely authenticated trade route. After Saya fails to quell the flames of the riot, the only way out of Aqua Eden, the monorail-bridge, gets blown to pieces by a so-called terrorist attack. This all especially lets Anna and Saya shine to their maximum potential, outshining Elina's route and Azusa's as well to some extent, which I can appreciate. This final part gives life to the rioters, introduces two new characters, Yuka and her mother, and establishes a brand-new villain, goverment's peace-keeping agency, who want to sink the artificial island in its entirety. Everyone works nicely together, be it Saya and the rioters, the dorm-mates all pulling together, or Yuuto and Miu. The point where Yuuto shields Yuka from the crashing warehouse, making everyone, humans and vampires, to work together manages to do something that no other route could, bringing in the problems of other more minor characters and thus making the more 'alive'. The ending too, was wonderful. Yuuto decides that he has to destroy the missile aiming towards Aqua Eden in an attempt to destroy it, not for his or Miu's own good, but for everyone's future on the island. The way it all gets resolved was fantastic, definitely deserving the title of best ending in Dracu-Riot! All in all, the route's great. There definitely is more effort put into this than say, Azusa's route, but the balance of everything, the icha icha, charactrr ane romantic development, the effort put in the side characters, the underlying themes and the grand finale is all that makes Dracu-Riot! my favorite moege and Miu my favorite route in moege. Thanks for reading my heroine impressions in Dracu-Riot!, review coming soon.