Seeking Selecting games with VN features only

[novamarauder]

Hello, I am looking for guidance in selecting games with VN features only. As much as I love the immersive story experience of adult VN games, I tend to be rather annoyed by the intrusion of stuff like minigames, level/stat grinding, map wandering (esp. if I have no precise walkthough clue what to expect or look for), timed/random events (ditto), and repetitive actions. I have long tried to understand how to select my games at the DL stage to avoid these elements, and so far I have concluded my best chance within the existing tag system is to avoid anything tagged as sandbox.

Hypothetically speaking, I have nothing against the sandbox concept per se, quite the contrary, I like rpg games in different contexts. but I noticed sandbox games are often chock-full with the features I dislike (grinding, map wandering, having to look or wait for events). For the same reasons, I strictly avoid rpgm games like the plague and I usually prefer to play ren'py games only (another reason I prefer them it is often easy to customize your path by console and get an effective walkthrough by looking at the code). However, I noticed there is no easy way to avoid minigames and games with a map structure are not always tagged as sandbox.

I am also concerned that in my drive to avoid any of the stuff I loathe by shunning everything with the sandbox tag, I might be unwittingly giving up some great stuff that would not be so bad for my preferences. On the other hand, I am persuaded rpgm stuff is irredeeamable from my PoV and I usually look for a ren'py conversion, if available.

I welcome advice on how to refine my selection criteria, if possible.

 

[Gummiel]

If I understand you right, what you want is basically "Kinetic Novel" (ie. an electronic picture book basically), which "kinetic novel" is indeed a tag here as well.

 

[novamarauder]

If I understand you right, what you want is basically "Kinetic Novel" (ie. an electronic picture book basically), which "kinetic novel" is indeed a tag here as well.

Nope. It seems I mis-explained my intent. I do not have any issue with VNs with multiple choices and paths. On the contrary, I tend to prefer them. What I cannot suffer is the uncertainty and aimlessness of map roaming and having to search for timed or random events, the bore of grinding and repeated actions, and the intrusion of minigames. I was wondering if there was a better way to shun these play elements rather than avoiding the sandbox tag.

 

[Mario4don]

In "LATEST UPDATES" click on "Prefix Other" and select VN and the map is usually only in sandbox games and of course it can happen that someone has not added the "sandbox" tag to the game but such cases should not be many and when it comes to mini-games the only thing I can think of is the "puzzle" tag but not every game that has mini-games will probably have this tag.
So to sum up, when looking for games choose "VN" and avoid games with tags "sandbox" and "puzzle" and then you have rather small chances to find games with elements you don't like.