discussion If you were a creator of visual novels, what elements should the plot include?

[manjaro4]

If you were a creator of visual novels, what elements should the plot include?

 

[cocopaaa]

A good twist and a slow burn

 

[eezergoode]

I would say it really depends on what type of story you are telling. Plot twists and the slow burn have their place, but they aren't absolutely needed for a good game. I can think of a few games that were actually ruined by plot twists. If I'm playing a game to get the "Pokemon: Vagina Edition" experience in a school setting, I don't need to find out halfway through the game that my parents were not really my parents, and I was created in a lab with 14 other versions of me in reserve in case I failed as an experiment. I mean, yeah, if the game was laid out as some form of sci-fi, that works, but if the entire first half of the game comes across as a slice of life, or a meet'n'fuck, stick with it, don't upend everything just to throw a plot twist in there.

Don't get me wrong, plot twists can absolutely work, and work well, to enhance a game, but it needs to make sense, and be consistent with the world that has been built so far.

 

[JACKOAT]

I addressed this in another very similar post.

Conflict and/or Suspense.

As the writer of a story you must give your audience a reason to want to continue reading. The genre is inconsequential as each genre has its own fan base and following so if I were to write the story for a horror VN and the science fiction fans said, "that's dumb, you didn't include any laser beams or aliens." they would be missing the point. If I wrote a science fiction story without any elements of horror the inverse would apply. If, however, I wrote either without any conflict or suspense regardless of basic genre specific content, there would be no compelling reason for my audience to remain engaged in the story and I have failed in the basic principal of story writing.