How many words in an hour of a VN?
- Thread starter craanbery
- Start date
That depends on so many different factors...
-How many characters.
-How many places/environments.
-How far do you go into explaining things/people/relationships
-Is there more than 1 path available.
-How deep do you go into the dialogue
-How deep you go into the story.
And so many other factors.
You can make a simple visual novel with minimum dialogue and explanation and don't even touch 1000 words for an hour of gameplay.(akubar Games for example)
But you also can make a Story based novel that explains everything and everyone, that's going deep into detail with everything ... And you will easily reach 10000 words in an hour for that (Reincarnotica for example)..
So in short,
Depends on what you want to make
Ha, totally get that. Thanks for the feedback!That depends on so many different factors...
-How many characters.
-How many places/environments.
-How far do you go into explaining things/people/relationships
-Is there more than 1 path available.
-How deep do you go into the dialogue
-How deep you go into the story.
And so many other factors.
You can make a simple visual novel with minimum dialogue and explanation and don't even touch 1000 words for an hour of gameplay.(akubar Games for example)
But you also can make a Story based novel that explains everything and everyone, that's going deep into detail with everything ... And you will easily reach 10000 words in an hour for that (Reincarnotica for example)..
So in short,
Depends on what you want to make
- Sep 18, 2017
- 1,047
- 1,892
Pacing is very important. You don't want to put walls of text in the first few minutes. Spreading out background stories and stuff like that works out better.
There is no easy rule. You need to find a right mix. This is not a homework where you have to reach a certain number of words.
There is no easy rule. You need to find a right mix. This is not a homework where you have to reach a certain number of words.
- Nov 16, 2017
- 1,393
- 2,674
It really just boils down to what you want to do, and what the point of your VN/Game is... I've tried pure text based games in this market, with very large walls of text... Some were good and some were bad... Same thing with the average VN/Game... I see people now and then complaining about too many walls of text... I believe that in a mostly porn fest focused VN/Game, where story is really just there as filler between the sex stuff, that really is not meant to be all that purposeful or meaningful or immersive, then sure, lots of text in the beginning and elsewhere would just feel like a pointless wall of text... But in a story rich VN/Game, where the story is the focus, and sexual stuff is either just a side benefit and/or entrenched into the story narative, then depending on your story telling prowess, lots of text here and there is not so bad, as long as the overall pacing is even and you are telling the story bits well... In a story focused VN/Game, you really only get people calling "wall of text" when they are only interested in masturbation, and could care less about the story stuff, or when the story telling is poorly written and/or is far too longwinded when trying to get a point across to the reader...
Hope that didn't sound too confusing...
I love a good story, especially a good romance story... If it is being told well, I could care less if it was 1000 words or 1000000+ words in a 1 hour period (if only I read that fast)… If it is poorly written/designed, then too many words could feel like agony, sifting through it all, in a feeble attempt to find salvation, where the text might improve at some point... If the point of the VN/Game is simply not story, then I might think pointless and longwinded amounts of text, is in fact just a wall of meaningless text...
Zip
Hope that didn't sound too confusing...
I love a good story, especially a good romance story... If it is being told well, I could care less if it was 1000 words or 1000000+ words in a 1 hour period (if only I read that fast)… If it is poorly written/designed, then too many words could feel like agony, sifting through it all, in a feeble attempt to find salvation, where the text might improve at some point... If the point of the VN/Game is simply not story, then I might think pointless and longwinded amounts of text, is in fact just a wall of meaningless text...
Zip
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The opposite to a full based text game is a VN without any text, the pictures could tell the story, like a painting does, you would have to be very fucking good at it though. So it's subjective really. when I write dialogue for a scene, I know what they are going to say, how they say it depends on the scene, if the picture does not convey what I am trying to get across I'll put in the dialogue, other times few words are needed. I thought about making a small VN with 20 pics and no words but I am not Vincent Van Gogh.
I've seen some short porn comics like this before, and I think I particularly like it when it's an international comic and the author's not particularly great at English. With the right action, emotions and symbols you can get across a story a lot better than you would with garbled machine translated text. Don't think I've seen anything long-form in that style though.
wow, a lot of good advice here. Seriously appreciate you taking the time to explain all that
I've never even thought about making a VN without any words, but that really does sound interesting. Gotta know what you're doing though, like you said
The average reading speed is 200-300 words per minute, you should calculate the length based on this.
It goes without saying that the playtime is only to give an idea of how long your game is, many games that give an estimate of 30 hours can be completed in much less or after much longer depending on the playstyle.
When it comes to visual novels, it is basically like reading a book "Almost", so as far as you keep in mind the average reading speed, you can make a pretty accurate estimate.
It goes without saying that the playtime is only to give an idea of how long your game is, many games that give an estimate of 30 hours can be completed in much less or after much longer depending on the playstyle.
When it comes to visual novels, it is basically like reading a book "Almost", so as far as you keep in mind the average reading speed, you can make a pretty accurate estimate.