Yay, 🙄 Another Hunie Bundle!

[Shalandir]

I would actually like to intellectually argue that visual novels (vn) aren’t games, for one important reason: but I’m going to briefly sum up all entertainment forms first so you can see how generalized these categories can be.

Movies are a passive form of visual media typically an hour plus long and made to be standalone usually.
TV can be episodic or serial (mostly) passive visual media typically an hour or less.
Music is a solo or group aurally stimulating art form, with or without instruments. It can be enjoyed both actively (by dancing, singing along, humming, karaoke, etc.) or passively listening.
Books are stories, both true and fiction, that are (mostly) passive - asking the reader to follow a specific train of thought by turning the page.
Comic books would be a subcategory of books that place an emphasis on pictures to accompany its story, still passive obviously.
Games (mostly) require active engagement from their audience, with board games, card games, and video games all necessitating varying degrees of engagement and choices to entertain. They must include a fail-state, some potential loss that is the challenge to be overcome (to win), regardless of how trivial.

Finally, vn. They are effectively a choose your own adventure book at best, and in some cases are just a comic book meant to be read using a computer. They are almost entirely passive in nature, requiring minimal input from their audience for users to appreciate them. And most critically, they don’t have fail-states. I would agree that whether you like the bundle or not, if it only included VNs Humble miscategorized it as “games”. However, there are actual games in the bundle that fit the theme they were going for; with such a hodgepodge mixture of entertainment in one bundle, it doesn’t lend itself to easy categorization. This forced HB’s hand since they like to include a simplistic icon in the top left to indicate the entertainment type, but hey, life is messy sometimes. Just like my pants after a playthrough of HuniePop.

All jokes aside, I don’t have a problem with any form of entertainment including visual novels. Everyone has their own personal tastes as the Chinese say. Even genre definitions are flexible with rare exceptions to each group I listed (like some reality TV shows including voting to influence the show, making a slight shift from passive to active media). The point should be this - when it comes to entertaining yourself, play what you want, watch what you want, read what you want, listen to what you want be happy and don’t ruin others’ experiences.

DISCLAIMERS. I do not own HuniePop. I have not played HuniePop. I just like to make jokes about HuniePop and buy it for friends so they can explain wtf HuniePop is to their concerned loved ones. Yes, I also realize HuniePop is not a VN, it just lent itself to the perfect segue between two paragraphs. Yes, I just wrote an entire novel and you read it, clearly you should go try a visual novel as they are much more interesting than my somewhat readable posts. Seriously. Stop lurking on a game deal forum. I love you all. Except Bob.

[nebula7]

@Shalandir

And most critically, they don’t have fail-states

I don’t play visual novels but I’ve watched other people play a couple and from my understanding, a big part of quite a few of them is who you wanna date/mate.

I would consider having to choose the correct response to be able to date/mate X instead of Y to be a fail-state.

In other I Have Nothing Better To Be Doing News…

[GarbageFox]

They’re very niche for sure and while I’d never touch them in my life (I despise fan service in games, these are for the most part fan service AS games) I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Humble making a niche bundle.

Nothing is for everyone after all.

[Fraggles]

@Shalandir

Finally, vn. They are effectively a choose your own adventure book at best, and in some cases are just a comic book meant to be read using a computer. They are almost entirely passive in nature, requiring minimal input from their audience for users to appreciate them. And most critically, they don’t have fail-states.

While I agree with your main idea here you have a few factual errors going on. VNs as I’ve said has never really pretended to be “games” as compared to walking simulators which devs and jurnos have desperately tried to convince us all are just as much a game as anything else. Saying that though please do not make the mistake of thinking that’s a value judgement in any way. Walking sims, games, VNs can and should all be allowed to exist side by side and serve the audience that enjoys them, the problem for me is when you’re marketing a product as something it is not. Don’t try to sell me a walking sim by talking about what a great game it is.

Now about your false assumptions here. VNs do come in a variety of forms, some are very straight forward and offers you a mere handful of choices that brings the story to a few different conclusions. Some offers quite a lot of choices that both decides your endings but can also lead you into fail states. Make too many mistakes and you’ll end up at a bad end halfway through. There are VNs with full RPG mechanics and turn based tactical combat thrown into them but are still clearly a visual novel and then there are some strategy RPGs that use the VN format to deliver story segments, which are clearly games. There exists also of course a few sitting right in the middle of the gradient which could be argued either way.

My point is that visual novels is a pretty established genre of media with it’s own subcategories and no one was bickering about what to call them until they were available on mainstream western markets. They’re visual novels and that’s all they need to be.

[Kalotan]

@Shalandir

Finally, vn. They are effectively a choose your own adventure book at best, and in some cases are just a comic book meant to be read using a computer. They are almost entirely passive in nature, requiring minimal input from their audience for users to appreciate them. And most critically, they don’t have fail-states.

@Shalandir

And most critically, they don’t have fail-states.

While I mostly can’t disagree with the rest of what you said about Visual Novels, I can argue that most visual novels DO indeed have fail states, since most of them have multiple possible endings. As such you CAN end up obtaining a different ending than the one you were hoping for. No matter how easy (or hard) it is to get that different ending, the fact that it IS possible to get it means that you can FAIL to get your desired ending. It may be an expressed fail state (straight up game over, you died, ending) or implied fail state (you simply failed to get your desired ending) but it is there.

[WikiTora]

I think that @DanosaurJr is more than anything upset by the string of not so appealing Bundle offerings. Of course its a matter of preference, but I can understand the concern.

[Vindace]

ugh, I’m afraid can’t really do horror. I’ve tried, but it’s just not for me. when I say ero, I do still quite enjoy romance stories, but I could take or leave the sexual stuff in them, so if you have good recommendations for romance or even more action oriented stories (clannad, Fate, Steins:Gate, even if I haven’t played them they seem interesting.) even if they have “stuff” here or there I’ll certainly take a look at them.

[Fraggles]

@Vindace

clannad, Fate, Steins:Gate

There you go.

[Vindace]

Ah. Thanks then.

I was just wondering about possibly lesser known ones, but I think that’s a topic for a different thread.

[Kalotan]

For romance, I say try Snow Sakura (by D.O.). It was the first VN that made me skip ‘certain scenes’ just to see the next parts of the story. (opening here)

For action, I’d recommend Tsukihime (by Type Moon). It’s set in the same universe as the Fate series, and has a similar writing style (it’s the same author, so duh). Similarly to Fate, you have to do the “good” routes (aka the ones where you don’t die horribly) in a certain order: first the “Near Side of the Moon” routes of the 2 main characters, before unlocking the “Far Side of the Moon” routes of the side characters.

And for something in between the two, there’s the Muv-Luv games I mentioned. The first game, Muv-Luv Extra, is a standard high-school romance VN. Once you complete the routes to two specific heroines, the game can be ‘advanced’ into Muv-Luv Unlimited, which starts on the same day as Extra and features mostly the same characters in a wildly different universe, with the twist of the MC remembering what happened in the previous game. This one is mixed with both action and romance. There are basically 2 VN’s in one game package, but I recommend getting all the endings of Extra before going into Unlimited.

Once your have all the routes of both Extra and Unlimited, I recommend downloading Muv-Luv Alternative, which is a direct sequel to Unlimited. It’s more action focused, and it explains many of the ‘plot holes’ remaining in the previous game. It also introduces a number of extra side characters.

Besides the spin-offs in the Unlimited/Alternative universe (of which I know nothing about besides that fact that they exist and feature a completely different cast) there IS one more game: Muv-Luv Altered Fable, which as far as I can tell is a retelling of the original Extra with many of the characters introduced in Alternative included. It however never got a complete English translation patch, only for 3 of the character routes.

[xist]

Ultimately I thank heavens for demo’s in the case of VN’s. I was unsure how I’d feel about them myself, being very doubtful, and decided to try the demo of The House of Fata Morgana. Needless to say after trying it for several hours, I don’t really see the appeal. I’m not going to never try again, but I generally feel I’d rather spend the time reading a book.

Possibly something less anime romance would appeal to me more…I don’t know, but maybe something that stretched the boundaries of just reading speech bubbles.

[Vindace]

Thanks for the details and recommendations!

[Culdra1600]

@nebula7

Excuse you with this ageist bull, I will fully admit to still having crushes on people, crushes are a lot of fun.

Sorry I’m dying with fever and was literally just typing faster than I can think. I was speaking more for myself about an innocent FIRST crush kind of experience every time I wind up choosing a new character to “romance” etc. I agree though, crushes are an all age experience!

[Culdra1600]

I think a good Steam Free VN that I’m actually going through (NO FAN SERVICE EITHER) would be this one Cinderella Phenomenon:

There are bad endings if you fail to choose the right options. It’s a pretty well made game and hope to see more from this dev. It’s basically an interesting twist on fairy tales etc.

[Waycores]

I will be…

[Shalandir]

To clarify, yes, every genre can have exceptions. However, at least 6 different people over the last 8 hours have been claiming that because most VNs have different endings some of which aren’t the reader’s preferred ending that that constitutes a fail-state. In the vast majority of cases, that is incorrect. Just because you don’t like the ending to a game (Mass Effect 3) or book (Great Expectations) or movie (Signs) doesn’t mean it contains fail-states it just means you didn’t like the ending. How would that make sense to say, oh, Emilia-Chan wouldn’t date me, so I had to stare at Rem’s fan service instead? (Totally random names of course) It could still be a comic book/manga/visual novel/anime/live-action TV show/music video/movie that I’m describing. If there is no in-game prompt to try again, no explicit need or drive explaining that the game is incomplete and you must continue, something, anything to incentivize a lack of completeness - there is no game. If it does have that (and some VNs do), objectively you could argue it has one aspect of a video game.

Obviously some of these VNs would fall into the exception rule where they casually have one element of choice like a game. This doesn’t change the facts that they’re mostly a passive medium with little to no options for the user to choose. Same goes for walking simulators, I agree, some could argue they’re better categorized as a slightly more engaging movie versus a game. But since they’re sold on game distribution platforms and because the audiences of VNs and walking simulators tend to play “real” games also, labels became lazy lumping them all together.

Blurred lines is more than just a Robin Thicc song - it’s the entertainment industry standard to cultivate engagement. It’s to a writer’s benefit to incorporate game elements to distinguish a PC-based manga from a “book with pictures read on a computer” as they mesh different mediums. Do some VNs have a musical score? Sure. Books usually don’t. Do most VNs have art? Absolutely gorgeous many times. Books, rarely except in comic form. We could go point by point through dozens of characteristics but VNs are exactly what I mentioned in my original post - a hybrid. They’re an amalgamation of ideas, mostly using words (hence the novel part of visual novel) but also accentuated and punctuated with art, sound, music, choice, and fan service.

[Culdra1600]

@Shalandir This is an amazingly thought out reply to this whole debate.

@Shalandir

Just because you don’t like the ending to a game (Mass Effect 3) or book (Great Expectations) or movie (Signs) doesn’t mean it contains fail-states it just means you didn’t like the ending.

I never really thought about it that way. You do make a really good point. This actually has me leaning more towards the debate should these be “games” vs “novels”.

If one were to think of it ONLY as a media perspective they are games. Video + Audio + User Interaction. The definition of a video game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device such as a TV screen or computer monitor.

So classification wise, I can see how Humble would put visual novels into the “game” category. But you’re correct, once you dive deeper into what some people would classify as “a game” it becomes really open ended with preferences, opinions, etc.

[Kalotan]

@Shalandir

people over the last 8 hours have been claiming that because most VNs have different endings some of which aren’t the reader’s preferred ending that that constitutes a fail-state. In the vast majority of cases, that is incorrect.

I heavily disagree with that statement. Fail-states do exist in any game/ medium that has multiple possible endings.

@Shalandir

Just because you don’t like the ending to a game (Mass Effect 3) or book (Great Expectations) or movie (Signs) doesn’t mean it contains fail-states it just means you didn’t like the ending.

This is true, whether you like the ending you get or not does not constitute a fail-state. What DOES constitute as a fail state is that, out of all the possible endings/ progress paths in the game, you get a different one than the one you AIMED for. That is what, at least in my opinion, constitutes as a fail state.

For example: in Fate/Stay Night my absolute favorite ending is in fact a Dead End, because of what happened after the route was locked in and before the protagonist died. The Good End I was aiming for, as it later turned out, was my least favorite of the 5 possible Good Endings in the game. This does not, however, mean that the Dead End was not a fail state, regardless of the fact that I enjoyed it. It is a fail state because it was not the ending I was aiming for.

@Shalandir

If there is no in-game prompt to try again, no explicit need or drive explaining that the game is incomplete and you must continue, something, anything to incentivize a lack of completeness - there is no game.

Again I have to disagree with you. In my opinion, if it has a fail state, it is a game. And just because the game doesn’t taunt you with a ‘GAME OVER’ screen when you do fail to achieve your objective, doesn’t mean you didn’t fail.

[LordAo]

I watched that anime. Never again

[LordAo]

I am looking forward to amassing and playing all the Grisaia games. Really enjoyed the anime (even when it repeatedly kicked me in the feels)