This is just a blog to inform my readers of the difference between novels and visual novels.
You have probably seen this note somewhere on my story Seven Years of Hope.
This is the novelization of my in-progress visual novel. This novelization follows the true story progress planned for the story right now.
To explain it in simple terms, novels are basically a piece of literature that the author wants you to read as is, without the readers making up their own stories as they wish. Let's not discuss about fanfiction. With novels, you read it as the author intends you to.
Visual novels however are completely different. Visual novels are closer to games than traditional novels. To the western audience, you would likely know this as gamebooks, such as Lone Wolf, Grey Star and Sagard the Barbarian. To the older generation who grew up with eastern computer games, you will probably remember it as hentai games. However, visual novels are much more than just porn now. There has been many visual novels without porn at all. There was even an issue just a few months ago that Steam was going to ban visual novels, a decision which they overturned after a public outcry with this statement:
"We've decided that the right approach is to allow everything onto the Steam Store, except for things that we decide are illegal, or straight up trolling," Valve executive Erik Johnson said.
Examples of popular visual novels include Steins;Gate, Clannad, Tears To Tiara, Doki Doki Literature Club, Fate/Stay Night and Magical Diary: Horse Hall.
One overlooked gem is Academagia: The Making of Mages. Unfortunately not many knows it, because when it first came out, it was quite buggy. Those who played it didn't have the motivation to talk smack about it and it simply faded into obscurity. The programmer did release a patch however, which fixed every single bug reported by the players. However, it was too late for the game. There's a lot of things to do inside this game. The world in this visual novel is more expansive than most games made by triple A studios.
As for Doki Doki Literature Club, although the name sounds like something fluffy, it's not. Don't be fooled. Look for the meme and decide if this is something you want to run. The game is free but I was so scared I threw the monitor out of the window when Monika gained sentience and spoke my real name.
Then there's also sound novels, which are quite similar to visual novels. Instead of telling the story in a way that the readers choose how it ends, sound novels instead tells the story mostly in a way that is quite straightforward, they usually don't offer any story choice but they tell the story using atmosphere and sound. Just like its name, the sound of sound novels are very indicative of the quality of the sound novels. It's almost like watching an anime, but without (many) moving pictures.
If you're interested in sound novels, I'd recommend Umineko no Naku Koro ni / Umineko: When They Cry / When The Seagulls Cry. It's very good and a great read. It also have awesome soundtracks and the opening song is simply beautiful. If you have very short attention span it may be boring, though.
As for graphic novel, it's a comic book to explain it in simple terms.
BTW, Joe Dever, the author of Lone Wolf, Grey Star and Highway Holocaust passed away last year. Peace be to his soul for stimulating my imagination for almost 10 years of my life. You can read all his works, completely free now at ProjectAon.
If you wish to comment to this blog, not that I'm asking you to, but if you wish to comment anyway, please don't be mean. Thank you in advance.