Frullo NDE

The fourth door of The house in Fata Morgana. The contrast between the bittersweet love story (not particularly original, but very well told) and the "meta" element in the backlog which opens up to the "real" story was both crepy and fascinating, hard to find somewhere else.

This. Reviews or analysis of single VNs are fine, but I would love to see more in-depth articles about VNs as a medium.

I love deep and complex stories and VNs are a great storytelling medium. Also I read and evaluate/edit books as part of my job so I am too fatigued to read them in my free time, and I don't care much about "regular videogames" anymore, so VNs stand nicely inbeetween.

Edit: oops wrong thread. I am "scared" of VNs that are famous for being very long and also I don't feel like starting "important" titles when I am quite busy, so yeah.

I don't care much for h-scenes so I would't play a nukige, but it's ok if it is linked to the plot (the main reason I'm interested in VNs) and not just fanservice, otherwise I prefer all-ages versions if available.

The one that gets closer to "once in a lifetime" to me is probably Umineko

My wife tolerates my weirdness and even helps me creating my (SFW) VN with suggestions, image editing and whatever. Though I still prefer to be alone when I get to non-vanilla sex scenes lol.

It can be romantic, sci-fi, mistery, comedy or whatever as long as it depicts an interesting world and has a compelling plot. So yeah, if I have to use a definition, i would say plotges.

I glad I'm not the only one who was weirded out (not in a good way) by that scene in Insects. At least in Invention all the "dissonance" kinda makes sense in the end, where that one scene seemed just random and ruined the emotional mood for me. And yeah, there are indeed too many useless h-scenes but I guess that's just necessary pandering. Overall, I found Subahibi a thrilling but flawed experience. Glad I played it, but the whole "best story in every media ever" that keeps popping around seems kinda laughable to me.

Seasons of the Sakura, Runaway City and other '90s "hentai games" (that's what they were called back then at least in italian forums) in the earlies 2000s. Tried random Vns here and then (inclluding obviously Katawa Shoujo) in the following years, but didn't really get into the scene until I've read Steins;Gate in 2016.

In the past I've played a lot of rpgs and adventure games like Monkey Island which link a well written story to a compelling gameplay. But honestly now I can't be bothered to play games that require grinding or lots of trial and error (or, err, walkthrough-browsing) in puzzles. I just want to enjoy the story. Something like Ace Attorney is the most "gameplay-driven" I can handle now, because it's usually very well integrated into the storytelling. I've had issues with Danganronpa though, it kinda broke the rythm in trials for me. Mini-games can be ok as long as they stay"mini".

To me "old" is pixel art so I guess pre-2000? I guess that low-res stuff of the first 2000s might look "old" to some, not to me tho. I actuallly like pixel-art if well done so no limits for me. Except they are a pain in the ass to play with modern pcs. I've read many of them back in the day when I didn't even know of the "visual novel" term. Totally depends on prospective. I like old stuff but I can understand if a teenager finds something like Clannad or even G-senjou unplayable, at least graphic-wise.

Well, I guess you're right. Let's say i enjoy a bit of SoL in a VN, but not when the cafeteria and classroom banter scenes overtake the rest.

The VNs I like the most are the ones who manage to succesfully build an engaging atmosphere and introduce you to likeable characters before shit hits the fan and drama builds up. Steins;Gate is an obvious example of this. I think it's harder to make you emphatize with characters if you start at full speed, like Root Double. I do hate pointless and redundant slice of life scenes though.

Well I lurk around here a lot so I can imagine that. Also I have no will to try them lol. But even if badly written, their "presentation value" is probably much higher that what an average joe could put out by messing with Ren'py on his evenings.