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When it comes to presentation in VNs, one discussion that i've seen is that VNs are more like plays than novels. I'd agree with this take because authors that become overly descriptive with every action as if writing a novel makes the reading more tiresome than if a visual or sound effect was used. Thinking about it a bit more, i went a step further and now i think that sprite presentation in VNs may be akin to puppet plays, because the art limitations make it to that the characters can't have the same amount of expressions as regular plays do. Add that to my tiny experience with messing with VN engines where if you're making a conceptual script beforehand, making it in a play format feels more confortable than in a novel format. Finally, the way CGs and sprites are combined work similarly to comic books, where the cooldown moments make more use of certain angles and tricks that the present medium has to make the scenes more interesting while the big key moments have more complex imagery, with the definition of a big key moment being up to the narrative genre. I'd like to know more thoughts about it. What storytelling media would you compare VNs to from a presentation standpoint?

I would like to say before anything else, that this project is first and foremost an open love-letter to the visual novel medium. I've officially been reading visual novels (granted, on an on-and-off basis) for 10 years now. Hell, I've been posting on these forums for over 7 years. It's safe to say that visual novels are an ingrained part of me at this point. Whether across discussion threads here or blog posts, I've written a lot about my thoughts on visual novels, especially about those that I like. However, even with blog posts that I took lots of time to carefully write up and polish, I never felt like I was able to truly convey my genuine love for the medium. I think with this visual novel, Digital Seclusion, I've finally been able to do that to some respect. Plot Synopsis: Isolated in a room repurposed into a personal shrine to esoteric Japanese media. Our nameless protagonist has dedicated himself to a collection of retro Japanese computer games, with a particular fondness for early visual novels. Although decaying in a slovenly existence to the untrained eye, his retreat into digital life is enriched by the scripted interactions with various charming 2D girls. His one purpose in life is to chronicle his thoughts and reflections on each of the digital worlds he immerses himself in. However, one day while pulling out another visual novel to review, a girl leaps straight out of the cover art and begins interacting with him, face to face. But perhaps most shocking of all, in a completely unscripted manner. Information: Digital Seclusion is completely free. In terms of its length, I would estimate it to be between 1.5 ~ 2 hours long. The current and most likely final version of this VN is version 1.20. Download: https://thezalor.itch.io/digital-seclusion

Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After is out on Steam, but it is quite expensive and they sell each part separately. Maybe there will be a discount during the seasonal sales. Another problem is the font size. I have no idea why they didn't stick to the one that was in MLA.

Just finished 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, and, well, I'm kinda underwhelmed. The overarching plot was pretty decent, but the presentation; not so much. I mean, you're just dropped in the middle of things without any idea what's going on, and then you're expected to keep track of a ton of characters and their relationships while the game jumps back and forth between different timelines in basically every scene. Things obviously got clearer as the story progressed, but the hours leading up to that point weren't very enjoyable and I don't feel like the conclusion to the story was satisfying enough to make up for it. I found the characters completely uninteresting, in large parts due to the sheer number of them, which effectively counteracted individual character growth. This is a common problem for me in games with a large cast, and this one was no exception. I could barely keep track of their names, much less care about what happened to any of them. Now that I'm done, I can say that not a single one of them left much of a lasting impression on me, save for maybe Miwako, who wasn't even part of the main cast. In conclusion, I wouldn't say this is a bad game, but I had quite high expectations diving into it and that ultimately ended up making this a lackluster experience for me when it didn't live up to them.

We believe that video games are meant to push the boundaries, both technological and of the way we experience stories and beauty. We are passionate about every magical gem that comes from our fiery forge. The road from an idea to a final product requires patience and hard work but what an adventure it is! Hello everyone Most of our graphics are made on Procreate - our artist Michalina simply can't imagine working without this splendid tool. In previous articles, we wrote a bit about the process of creating graphics for our game (mostly backgrounds and renders), but today we will show you the process of creating cutscenes - it's not complicated, but the graphics must meet several requirements to be ready. Of course, the initial phase is to prepare a description of the graphics. After that our artist creates a concept. The goal is not to create an accurate frame, but just a simple graphic. We also want to see shadows and lights. Wonderfully we have it! But is it finished? Actually, it's the beginning of the fun After the initial concept is done, our artist gets some tips and she can create a comic book line art without shadows and lights. Another portion of tips and our artist again refines the frame. Looks much better, right? Great! The graphic looks good. The face expresses cold emotions, the room has taken shape. Ready! It's time to send the graphics to the next artist, who will color it. The artist sends us a frame with a question if the choice of colors is appropriate - we agree. Michalina starts improving the picture and sends us the final version. Finally, it's ready! We animate the frame and the final version is presented as below: We are very happy that we could show you the process of creating that frame. We believe that video games are meant to push the boundaries, both technological and of the way we experience stories and beauty. We are passionate about every magical gem that comes from our fiery forge. The road from an idea to final product requires patience and hard work but what an adventure it is!

It doesn't really have multiple protagonists, as far as I understand from playing the fan-translation of ep. 0 and all the information I've seen online. Episode 0 is pretty much a standalone story on its own, which pretty much introduces the setting and has different characters than the later episodes. Starting with ep. 1, it's pretty much one VN split into parts, and these parts all have one single protagonist. If you are confused by the vndb pages, then, like I mentioned in my previous post, the Japanese release of Alternative Chronicles consisted of multiple non-connected stories, and most of them were already released in English, while this release only consists of TDA, which was only a part of the original games. This is why this release is marked as "incomplete" on vndb. PS. Also, for the same reason, the length tags may not be accurate. For reference, as far as I remember, episode 0 on its own was somewhere in the lower "short" category, maybe even "very short". The later episodes may be longer.

It's just kind of hard taking other routes seriously when they skip out on everything and suddenly the last deals route with everything the common route presented.

I dont like the concept of true heroines, feels like other routes waste of time and have to treat them like "what if?" and of course one cant help but disappointed if not fav girl got that status