discussion Why are VN games so common?

[xghuresh]

I’m all for every genre out here but I’m not the biggest fan of VN and I feel like I see them more than anything else. No hate or negativity towards people who do like them or their devs but I’m just wondering why if there’s even a reason?

 

[misterfluffums]

I mean... the obvious reason is that they're so much more easier to make than other games lol

Especially Ren'py makes it so easy to create a game. Easy as in "doable for a solo dev", it's still incredibly time consuming, mind.

If we assume the least amount of skills you need for a VN you need almost no coding skills, you can use static 2D images instead of animated 2/3D, and you need no team because you can do the coding and assets on your own because it's so easy.

Obviously if you like coding, you can do incredible complicated things with a VN. If you like animation, you can go wild on the visual aspects (looking at you zdagoat ). But that's optional. Any dev can play to their strengths and kind of avoid their weaknesses (up to a point of course).

If you look at lisland (unreal engine), the baseline skills required are so, so much more. So hobby devs that want to release a game similar to that are more likely to quit before releasing any kind of demo because the demo they have isn't even remotely playable yet.

That's at least my quick and dirty analysis.

 

[Faddles]

It's for sure the smallest barrier to entry if you don't have experience and have an idea you want to turn into a game. Many don't have any sort of gameplay beyond the VN portion, that alone takes away a huge burden of stuff to work on or think about. Otherwise yeah pretty much everything fluffums said.

 

[highlrecommend]

because anything that's a "get rich quick" scheme is going to be way over done.

 

[AliceBrooklyn]

A game designer, a story writer and an artist are all it really takes to make a great VN. All three of those positions aren't necessarily hard to fill by someone talented enough. There are those who can do more and be a great engineer too, and they likely will make a different type of game. DAZ assets lower the art barrier (or even AI), and RenPy guides (or even AI) can walk through most challenging aspects of the game development. Before this, RPG Maker was the rage (and still is used a lot) by the indie developer, but VNs require a lot less game design. The one aspect it does require some skill from that I don't truly think AI fills is story. It does require a good writer to make the most of it.

 

[kavvil]

Others in the thread have already pointed out the low barrier to entry for devs, but it also has a key advantage for players too, in that gameplay is unobtrusive. An adult VN at its core is simply text to establish the characters and their relationships, choices to choose how those relationships develop, and art for the adult content. Almost no one playing an adult game is going to have a problem with those elements and they are very likely expecting them, whereas no everyone is going to be on board with platforming, turn based combat, or a rhythm game. By essentially stripping the game down to bare essentials, you have the widest appeal for gamers, even if it can make that appeal shallow and hard to stand out in the sea of other VNs.

 

[MattShizzle]

Most of us don't like the other sort. RPGM is a walking simulator mostly (and RPG is a bad thing for an adult game period.) HTML sucks as a form and is usually poorly done anyway (and usually uses real porn, which is lazy and the same character looks different....) Unity and UE crash like every 15 seconds...

 

[salat]

I will assume (based on my own experience as well) that VN is preferable due to the fact that they do not burden the head, and also do not require special gameplay (with the exception of sandbox and the like).

When playing VN of this nature, they are made for one-hand gameplay, which is why this is the preferred style of games ;|

 

[Shad007]

It's easy to make VNs, it's as simple as that..
Mainly the time taken to make the game comes from the amount developers work on art and animations for their VNs.

 

[toedemon]

I think alot of people have stories they want to tell, and dont want to have to come up with grindy gameplay loops to tell them.

 

[tetoprepo]

If we are talking about quality vns, I just think that that kind of genre makes it easier to tell a story. As with isometric games in "normal" videogames.

 

[Rusted]

easy to make, easier to show a narrative, to show art and animations, etc

 

[MattShizzle]

I think alot of people have stories they want to tell, and dont want to have to come up with grindy gameplay loops to tell them.

Also, most players hate that grinding shit.

 

[WeeaWeeaboo]

Come to think of it, this goes back to the technical limitations of Japanese microcomputers. They were better at displaying graphics than the equivalents you'd see in the Anglosphere, because you need more pixels to display kanji properly. But they didn't have the processing speed to match, so action games were out of the question. Thus, visual novels. (Well, technically sound novels came first.)

Not to say you couldn't make action games for the PC-88 if you really knew how, (see: early Falcom) but if all you had was a few artists and someone that could kinda understand a beginner programming book? A VN's probably your best option.