VN Survey POLL : What is it that you look for in a VN? Let's make the perfect VN.

[SomeGuyWithNoImagination]

For me personally, what makes a great game is building a relationship with the characters.

I find that spending hours learning and building relationships with the characters, especially if they open up and show their weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Emotions are key. If I can empathize with and feel emotions with/for the characters, then I can consider the game one of the greats.

I think great examples of this are Leap of Faith and STWA.

 

[262177]

Challenges, missions and puzzles here. Subjective breakdown:

- Storyline usually has a lot (and I mean a lot) of typos and various grammar derps. If you are in it for the story and only the story, this will likely ruin your experience. From the creator's point, it takes massive work to fully focus on getting rid of the occasional mistakes. Having a proofreader and QC can help with this. Being a native speaker is a must, or at least fluent in the language(s) your localization revolves around, so you can stay away from the ones that clearly are not accidents...

- I'd leave H scenes to pure eroge because this can get out of hand really quickly and drastically increase the filesize. Some art for base assets (faces, stands) is all good to help make your visual novel more lively, but going overboard may actually cause more damage if you wanted to focus on the story.

- I'd leave the "naked only" part to those who don't know what VN means but can read and comprehend at least one word:

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[woody554]

first and foremost it needs to challenge me as a player. doesn't have to be the gordian knot or dead souls, but the ones that overexplain or flat out tell me what's next make me drop the game very quickly.

almost as important is that the story must revolve around my specific tastes or a pack of wild horses can't drag me through the text. basically this means thicc milfs with big asses. I'm a man of simple tastes.

third is it should have sexual tension. if pussy is just thrown at me I might just drop the game then and there. this is kinda the same thing as the first one.

plot, schmot. rarely matters if these other things are satisfied. and can even be a massive source of groans if these other requirements are NOT satisfied. it's the trouble with porn in stories, the second you know smut is gonna be there you won't give a fuck about the mafia plot, magic empire lore or the dark ages parallel timeline with vile betrayal.

the least important is the quality of graphics. we see a lot of polishing turds here, and what they all have in common is it's just not enough. it's nice to have, but it can't fix a shit game. you need to have those other things in place first. a challenge, the right audience, tension.