Newton

Too good, just what I wanted. Something I'd like to add: What makes the ordinary school scenes compelling whereas anywhere else they would be drab and tiresome is exactly for the reasons you've said but I'll translate to screenwriting speak. Stakes. There are things at stake. Hisao's goal is to come to terms with his condition (though he might not be fully aware of it, in the beginning, he just wants to go back to the life he had before) and if he doesn't achieve it, then his life will be marred by sadness and self-pity (or in an incredibly melodramatic turn, he'll get drunk, fall off a roof, and die. Overblown, but illustrates the point). Every conversation is a chance to move his life forward by choosing to connect to people, or a missed opportunity and a reason to hide himself away even more. Combine that with a town and school that seem that attention was paid to how it might feel to be there (many lines concerning how Yamaku is in the country or how the city reminds him of where he used to live, for example) and characters that possess down-to-earth human struggles make it all a successful experience. Anything else that can be said? Maybe a final word on what we've learned story-telling wise?

Palas, thank you for sharing your story. It's wonderful to see how art can have an impact on people's lives. For my part though, I'm a storyteller myself, an aspiring filmmaker. So if there's something that works in a story, I want to know how so that I can incorporate it into my own stories. And if it's something that is so impressive on people from a source that seems like it has no reason to be so meaningful, then I want to know what they did and how. I consider the best stories to live on in people after they're done reading or watching them. What you mentioned about daily life is interesting. I can definitely see that theme present in the work. How what happens in life isn't very important but it's important to us experiencing it. Like playing chess with a shy girl or running daily to improve a heart condition. Something intriguing is how it takes tired anime tropes and breathes life into them by treating them with a sense of groundedness and respect. Like a festival, a student council, and, of course, five different anime girl archetypes. Attention seems to be paid to slight glances and body postures (Hisao narrating of course) and other such signs that show that they seem to be alive. Basically "anime...but if it were taken seriously". I tried to play a bit of "Little Busters!" but couldn't get very far because it seemed to lack this groundedness and there didn't seem to be much going on with the characters other than what one could see of them. Especially the main character who is presented as such a boring, limp noodle just so the story can show his progression to al dente. My first post was thought out poorly. The origin and the music is a part of the effect but the story constitutes the most important portion, by far, and it should be analyzed first. Not reviewed, route by route, scene by scene, but investigated into how the different elements combine to create a holistic work. I'll be back with some more thoughts soon. Hopefully, I've given somebody enough to chew on. Ciao.

"Katawa Shoujo" is the first VN I'd ever played and I imagine that applies to many of us. Also like many of us, it took my breath away when I first played through it, had my thoughts and soul filled up with the content during playing, and was deeply disappointed when it was over. Then I replayed it to see how I would feel towards it after I had grown as a person and I ended up being disappointed (bar Rin's route). The flaws of it appeared so obvious that I was shocked that I hadn't noticed them before. So I'd like to examine the sorcery that this game seems to cast on people and I'd appreciate the help of this community. This first entry is not all in-depth but rather an ice-breaker and I intend this whole thread to be an exploration rather than a thesis since I'm a little mystified myself and I encourage anyone to dispute me on my points. If it helps, you could consider my viewpoint to be "It shouldn't work...but it does". As if the budget constraints led the team to make choices that would hamper other works but somehow bolster this one (possibly). Origin. Frequently, I would repeat to myself the amazing fact that total strangers across the world had united (on 4chan of all places) to create a fully scripted visual novel with CGs, music, and even animations. This fact amplified the already strong feelings I had for the game into a sense of wonder. It makes me wonder that if the creation process were not known, would the game have the same impact? If a professional company had created the game with a greater budget for assets, would we think less of it? Music The music in Katawa Shoujo is good but off. Not off-key or anything, but that it sometimes seems to be at a higher emotional pitch than the scenes usually suggest. But more importantly, it's completely scattershot. By that, I mean that if you took the music and released it on its own album, there would be absolutely nothing to unify the tracks together. It's like each track came from a different composer from a different game. Consider "G-senjou no Maou". All the tracks are unified by the theme of being remixes of classical music pieces. "Muv-Luv"'s tracks are unified by being being in mostly the same genre akin to a movie score and utilizing mostly the same instruments (or synthesized instruments) such as strings, piano, and others that might be found in a film orchestra. In Katawa Shoujo, there is no such unity. There is a bossa nova piece, a weeping strings piece, and Kenji's theme, a completely wacky jaunt, as well as others. And yet...it works? Why? Perhaps because of something Palas mentioned in a review of "Fate-Stay/Night" (I don't have the link so if anyone can post it for curious souls, you're welcome to do so). That, eventually, the repeated tracks come to create a conditioned Pavlovian effect. We like the music not just for itself, but for what it represented and accompanied in the past. These are all the thoughts that I can spare right now. I'll be back to post more in the future but, until then, I'm interested to know what you all think. Ciao.

This particular novel is more of a game. It directly copies the gameplay of the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney series but instead of litigating court cases, you're debating some of the great philosophers of history. The philosophy is well-informed and consistent but the novel's biggest success is establishing a genuine story with engaging characters who have clear backstories and goals and a realized three-act structure that does justice to them. For those who aren't familiar with philosophy of ethics or philosophy in general, it's a charming introduction to the subject. And for those who aren't interested in philosophy (for shame), it's just a good read . It's quite short, a few hours, and 100% free. I'd recommend playing it on Newgrounds rather than Kongregate for the simple reason that the screen is centered. Here's the link. http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/625356

I have trouble with this implied definition of art. It is a strictly consequentialist view, i.e. that the results define the experience. Aristotle defined art as "imitation" and I would go further and say "imitation as to produce emotional effects" (although I would actually define art as a "construction for emotional effect" due to the topic of music but that's another discussion). This is much more of an intentionalist view as art is now defined as what it intends to do. The reason I prefer this ontology is that if we compare two works of art of the same medium, the same subject, the same presentation, but one is successful in producing emotional effects and one is not, from a consequentialist point of view, we would call the former "art" and the latter...what? "Not art"? When it is so similar in every aspect except in inducing of effects? Another reason I prefer this method is because it's in accordance with the common language. If we see an unsatisfactory movie, we still consider it a movie (and movies are implicitly considered by most to be art) but with a modifier: a "bad" movie. We would not say that it's "not a movie". Examining the things which interest us usually results in us appreciating our subject even more. And it incites us to challenge commonly accepted perceptions and stretch the possibilities. There was a time when motion pictures were considered sideshows, to be presented at fairs and carnivals, an amusement, nothing more. Looking at the human landscape now, it's evident to see just how much impact films have had on us in determining not just our thoughts but defining our personalities. Even the most intellectually and emotionally unchallenging mainstream fare like the Marvel movies create an enormous gravitational field in the modern culture. Would you say this is due to a personal difference (like ADD) or a more attentive participation with the medium (do you approach visual novels in an analytic or empathetic manner)? Nice.

True, true. There's a proximity of emotion, a lingering pace to the scenes as you seem to pay more attention to what characters say and how they say it. How to replicate this in film? Most movies just watch but some make us feel like we're living with the characters. What's the technique?

Fair enough. That's something that intrigues me. No doubt, but the fact that we can't name any is troubling. The majority of VNs are male protagonists involving themselves with women. I'll cut the gender discussion short right here, it's something best suited for another thread.

What I wanted was to see if there are any exclusive elements that visual novels possess as compared to other mediums and that doesn't seem to be the case. But you can! You can absolutely have a character who does not speak. Perhaps he/she is mute. Perhaps he/she is psychic. Perhaps he/she just doesn't like to talk. Or maybe it's even a silent movie. People talking in movies is a convention that we take for granted just like characters in games/VNs not talking. It's a reasonable convention that mimics reality much more closely but it's not at all an ironclad rule. And the concept of a male voice destroying the game is just an example of the horrid sexism implicit in this medium, that women are meant to be objectified and the main character is only there as an avatar for the audience to project male power fantasy. I'm afraid that this is already implicit in movies, it just goes unnoticed because it's so naturally conveyed. Using mainstream examples, when all the stormtroopers in Star Wars have the same faceless, interchangeable outfit but Darth Vader gets a unique voice and costume, special-ness has occurred. When all the human-like characters in Guardians of the Galaxy look the same but Peter Quill has a moniker, Star-lord, and gets to wear a mask, special-ness has occurred. When important characters never get hurt very badly except in plot points, when bullets never hit them, when people fall in love with them for not much reason, you've witnessed special-ness.

I'm afraid that that goes against what we've been saying, that there aren't exclusive elements in VNs and films but what is exclusive is how these elements are utilized. I suppose the topic of the thread should shift now. How do the various non-exclusive elements in VNs combine to produce an experience that is exclusive to the medium? By the way, I don't want to come off like I'm shooting you down, Pudding, I appreciate your input.

I just read your review of Fate/Stay Night and I enjoyed it, Palas. Following that link to "Tender Scenery" definitely stirred something in me. It seems evident now that there are no exclusive elements to a visual novel but rather what is exclusive is the particular combination of these elements, the meta-element, you could say. I'd like to know if there're any lessons of artistry that I could take away from VNs and incorporate in films to elicit the same responses in my audience.

, dating scenes, and kawaii. They seemed to be of a much poorer quality than the others. Had I been only fooling myself? Were the previous ones really as good as I thought they'd been or was I just caught up in the thrill of the reading, like a person addicted to a TV show and then comes back and realizes that it wasn't very good in the first place? So, that's why I'd like to figure out the artistic value of the medium, how it produces emotional effects and why we respond. That's all. Eager to hear your reasonings. Cheers.

Exactly what I mean when I say that there might not be anything exclusively essential to visual novels. Exactly what I meant in the first post. Comparing the books of Harry Potter to the movies, most people will tell you that the books are better. The story didn't change but the medium did. What if Harry Potter were a series of Visual Novels? How would the experience change then? I questioned whether or not there might be something essential to visual novels that would determine the change in experience and it seems like there's not. So then, what determines the change? What turns a rather generic plot like Fate-Stay Night into something sweeping and even moving? Is it something intrinsic to visual novels? Could you have done it in another format and elicited the same emotional result in people? Maybe in asking this question, we force ourselves to evaluate individual works instead of the medium as whole but that seems wrong as The Big Ones (KS, FSN, MVA, GSNM, EV17) utilized the same medium in nearly the same ways with varying levels of quality in each element (higher resolution, more detailed backgrounds, larger aspect ratio, etc) and were able to produce nearly the same emotional effect. After finishing one, I felt like I'd had a great experience and wanted to move on to the next after which I felt the same way again. After MVA, though, it seemed like I'd depleted all the interesting ones and now what awaited me was a never-ending torrent of high school students, gratuitous sex scenes, anime-styled characters

Perspective and medium aren't the same thing though. There are many books which are first-person, where you know what the main character is thinking, and many that are third-person where you're on the outside. That visual novels are usually told in first-person is just a convention of the medium, not a necessity, and probably exists as a result of the format's roots (and severe extent) in pornography, in order to enhance the personal sense of sexual gratification. And there are many times in first-person novels such as Fate-Stay Night or G-Senjou no Maoh where the narration changes to third-person in order to give the audience necessary information or background that it wouldn't make sense for the main character to have. Under this reasoning, we can see that first-person and third-person perspectives are not essential to the medium as either are acceptable. If a particular consistent perspective is not essential to the visual novel, then what is? Television sets and movie theaters are not mediums but the method by which mediums are received; interfaces as you put it. But the shows on the TV set and the movies in the theaters are the mediums, in this case, visual images presented in such a manner as to simulate motion. To equate a visual novel to a TV is to equate a play to the constructed stage on which its presented or a novel to the paper and ink that it's published with. The interface of a visual novel is, of course, the computer. The interface is not an essential part of considering the medium as many people read novels on their tablets now instead of physical copies, and watch Netflix instead of going to the movie theater. What about the auto-read function that's present in so many visual novels? Does turning that on diminish the experience? (I personally think so for the reason that you said, there's a sense of participation involved, even if it's just clicking a mouse). What is there were no such option and they proceeded like movies? And, of course, "clicking the mouse" is equivalent to "turning the page" in books so they require the same minimal participation too. This is neither exclusive to visual novels, as traditional novels involve the same form or participation, nor necessary, as you can very well read a novel with somebody and it can enhance the enjoyment. Maybe I should reframe the question. What is essential to the visual novel that other mediums of art do not possess and if there is or is not anything essential, what is the reason for our specific enjoyment of the form? Most art forms proceeded under the limitations of technology of the time and their perceived artistic value was derived later as they came into competition with one another. Paintings were still images because it wasn't possible to produce moving ones. Dramas were enacted on the stage because it wasn't possible to portray the actions as or how they were presented to happen in the "real world" or record them for everyone's viewing. My gut is telling me that there isn't anything essential to the medium though I could be wrong. I'd just like to know the methods by which it produces emotions. Like most people here, I was pulled into the famous VNs like Ever 17 and Fate-Stay Night. But when I realized that Fate-Stay Night is pretty much a conventional anime plot (various magical beings and high school students fight in a contest for a Macguffin), I knew it had to be the presentation that had pulled me in and elevated the plot above its meager status. As a filmmaker, I'd like to know if there's any lessons I can take away from this medium in order to enhance people's enjoyment of me own works. As always, any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Cheers.

Each medium of art comes with its own caveats and working methods and they all serve the purpose of expressing the story as best as possible through this medium. Thus, each medium has its advantages and disadvantages. A traditional book is usually strong in viewing the story through a highly personalized view and/or making statements that may break the strict confines of our perception of reality. A movie's strengths lie in its ability to directly replicate the world as we experience it and to stand outside of a particular character's viewpoint and watch him/her from the perspective we would have were we actually there. So, I come to my main point. I enjoy visual novels quite a bit and I'm glad that I can be one of very few people to experience this niche medium but I wonder...why do I enjoy them? Is there something intrinsic to the medium which allows it to engage an audience in a way that no other medium can? Many of the aspects of visual novels are co-opted from previously existing mediums: voice-acting, painted images, music compositions, sound effects, etc. And, of course, since VISUAL novels are meant to be watched, would there be anything lost or gained if the same story was told with equal prowess as a episodic show e.g., an anime? Many movies based on books are disappointing not necessarily because they left out parts of the story (although that can certainly be the case) but because the makers of the movies couldn't find an artistic justification for converting this particular story to a seen format. The visual novel is under-examined by those who know about it and most people aren't even aware of this medium's existence so there're no good references for me to review and I'm busy at the moment so I don't have the time to engage in a "shot-by-shot" analysis of a particular work. So I'd like to ask members of this community what their examinations might reveal. If you have any insights that can be backed up by example and reasoning, I'd be happy to hear them. Cheers.