Are Visual Novels considered as dating sims?

[AMMSY]

Heres why I'm posting this question, I was watching "The World God Only Knows", the protagonist plays lots of 'dating sims' ( for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_God_Only_Knows ).

 

At start I thought I was a completely different games than VNs, but the way it portrayed in the anime and manga reminded me of VNs so I look it up.. But weirdly enough, I couldn't find a single game. No 'dating sims' games (except some pretty weird online games).

 

After looking around I found an article pointing out some "weird" 'dating sims', although I didn't recognize most of them, "Katawa Shoujo" and "My Girlfriend is the president" were listed with them.

 

Never thought of them as such, but are VNs considered as dating sims? <(._.")> I love VNs because of the characters and their stories, not the "conquest".. 

 

Also, They were constantly talking about parameters or what not, which I never saw in the few VNs that I read.

 

[shigufumi]

hmmm the only VN that i played that is more like a dating sim is Love Plus and Oreno imouto

 

well VN's is also considered dating sim cause you conquer a certain girl...

[Guest]

The use of the word is moslty due to bad/incorrect translation in order to allow a wider public to have a general idea of what they are talking about. Say "Visual Novels" and only a few people will understand.

 

So to answer : Dating sim =/= Visual novel

 

These are sub-varieties of sim (simulation) games based on romantic relationships. Dating sims include a gameplay element and often a skill set which allows you to raise specific stats to win over the different heroines.

 

This is how we definied it in the lexicon.

 

Visual novels are interactive storytelling games.

[Vokoca]

No, dating sims =/= visual novels. Dating sims have more 'gameplay'-- stats management and such.

[AMMSY]

Can you give me an example of a dating sim? not online something serious

[Nosebleed]

You're confusing terms here.

 

In The World God Only Knows, Keima refers to his games as Gal Games (ギャルゲーム), AKA Bishoujo Games. These are games where the sole purpose is to get in one of the heroine's route and fall in love with her or make her fall in love with you and there's usually a story and setting that has a role within these routes with a branching plot and a common route. The usual play style is, you raise flags with one of the girls during the common route and then in the branching plot you go to the route of the girl you raised the most flags with.

 

In a dating sim however, the purpose is to give you a dating simulation with a certain heroine. Meaning there'll probably be plenty of choices and these choices are not like the ones you see in typical eroge, they'll be more focused torwards what action to make on that girl and what exactly to say to her to raise her love for you usually while you're already dating her. They also often have gameplay elements with statistics and such about your skills and the girl's affection for example. It's much more random and focused solely on the dating factor. Basically the purpose of a dating sim is to give you a full dating experience without focus on a story.

 

Common moege and eroge are Gal Games because of the amount of cute girls and elements and (usually) not so great story. So you can say a Gal Game is a variant of a visual novel which is why you thought what Keima played were visual novels, they were indeed, the word they used for them in the translation was just in correct

 

Whoever translated Gal Game into Dating Sim probably did it because most people are more familiar with the latter term whereas if they put Gal Game they would most likely need to put a TL note every time.

Because Keima always focuses on the dating and conquering girls aspect, saying he plays Dating Sims wouldn't be a completely incorrect translation, it would get the essential point across, but it's not the literal one.

 

Can you give me an example of a dating sim? not online something serious

http://vndb.org/v2099

[Darklord Rooke]

Can you give me an example of a dating sim? not online something serious

 

Not many dating sims are translated from Japan. True Love is a classic. Persona 3, Persona 4 and Sakura Wars are RPGs with Dating Sim elements. Shira Oka is a good English made Dating Sim, and so are Roommates and Nicole by Winterwolves.

[Freestyle80]

Things like Love Plus are dating sims not visual novels like My Girlfriend is the President

[khoasin]

That manga does make a lot of ppl confuse between Gal-game and VN

 

Gal-game: girls conquering

Visual novel: choose your destination book but not in the real "book"

[AMMSY]

I see. Thanks a lot everyone!

[Clephas]

Dating sims, in the classic sense, are almost unknown today... pretty much because they got supplanted by actual virtual dating (for people that wanted realism, lol) and moege (for people who just wanted a pretty fantasy without the actual effort).  The ones that remain are mostly indie or made as a one-off by a company testing the waters. 

 

Edit:  This is mostly an assessment of the Japanese situation.  It isn't that they don't exist, it is that they only exist in very small numbers or in very low-quality now because of a lack of demand over there.  I'm not interested in English-language moe-culture, so I don't know about the English-speaking end of things.

 

Edit2: Also, most of what Keita is playing would be considered moege or eroge.  Dating sims is just the translation non-otakus gave it, lol.

[Vokoca]

Dating sims, in the classic sense, are almost unknown today... pretty much because they got supplanted by actual virtual dating (for people that wanted realism, lol) and moege (for people who just wanted a pretty fantasy without the actual effort).  The ones that remain are mostly indie or made as a one-off by a company testing the waters. 

 

Edit:  This is mostly an assessment of the Japanese situation.  It isn't that they don't exist, it is that they only exist in very small numbers or in very low-quality now because of a lack of demand over there.  I'm not interested in English-language moe-culture, so I don't know about the English-speaking end of things.

 

Edit2: Also, most of what Keita is playing would be considered moege or eroge.  Dating sims is just the translation non-otakus gave it, lol.

Would you have any actual examples of this? I'm assuming the main platform for these are smartphones nowadays? I'm just really curious what it's like.

[InvertMouse]

In the 90s, there was this game named Tokimeki Memorial. It was massively popular at the time and spanned a lot of spinoffs and sequels. That game I would very much call a dating sim. In the original game (I think), you had to date all the girls regularly to keep them all happy. Dating was the key feature.

 

I feel like that game contributed at least a little bit to the visual novel = dating sim notion. Rather, Tokimeki Memorial was a very well known dating sim, so it brought the name to light.

 

I've showcased Unhack to exhibitions, etc. Every time I attend, at least one person would see the trailer, or one image, and say, "Oh it's one of those dating sim games.", even though there's no dating at all in the work.

 

Visual novel definitely does not mean a dating sim, but yes, a lot of people do think they are the same thing.

[Clephas]

In Japan, portable systems are still the chosen non-PC platform (PSV, PSP, and 3DS) for moege.  It is relatively rare for a VN to make the transition to smartphone or to be developed for smartphone.    I've heard of pirated voice-cut versions going on smartphone, but other than that...  As for the one-off dating sims, unfortunately most don't get on vndb, so I don't have a handy link available.  I'd suggest looking up 同人　ゲーム and 'dating sim' on google for the indies. 

 

Generally speaking, to justify a port to console or smart phone in the first place, a number of factors have to coincide to create the belief such a port can succeed in the company's eyes.  One of these factors is popularity/sales (obviously), as many people prefer to play their games on the run over there.  Another is the technological capability... most VN companies, frankly, don't have this capability.  Only the large ones can generally afford to hire someone to port their games to a non-PC platform, generally.  The average VN company either uses an established engine such as Kirikiri or develops a single engine that they reuse for all their games, usually specialized for a single platform (PC, PSP, 3DS, etc).  In other words... the question comes down to money and the belief that they can make a profit. 

 

Since most VN gamers are either PC-gamers or have a portable console in Japan, most VNs, dating sims, and the like go there.  Japanese gaming companies tend to be conservative, and as a result, many hesitate to make transitions to new platforms, which is one of the reasons for the relatively weak smartphone application market for games over there.

[Chronopolis]

This is a dating sim.

[Narcosis]

As mentioned above, people on the west got the wrong impression. A lot of non-otakus think that visual novels are or can be called dating sims, while they currently retain very little in common. Real dating sims are a dead genre; most of the confusion comes from the fact that a lot of visual novels incorporate dating sim elements, just like galge; it's not the same, though.

 

Best modern example of a dating sim is Love+. Tokimeki Memorial was the game that started it all back in the past. Then, there's Pia Carrot series; they can be considered decent dating sims as well.

[Zakamutt]

Hmm, not sure if they're completely dead, this got a sequel (admittedly, sequel released 2011) and even an anime. I've actually seen Dizzy_Ziddy stream it.

 

Tokimemo moved to significantly more VNish gameplay eventually from what I remember, to the point where some entries are listed on vndb these days.

[Darkshine]

To answer your question = NO

VNs and dating sims are not the same they're completely different.

That's like comparing anime to cartoons.