VN Tagging

[Dickard]

Why is the tagging so inconsistent on this site for VNs? They make up a pretty sizeable portion of all of the games here, and only about half of them are properly tagged. This is incredibly frustrating for me because I personally am not a fan of VNs and sometimes it can be unclear whether a game will be one or not until after I download it because it's not tagged.

 

[Meaning Less]

They often remove the [vn] prefix the moment there are gameplay mechanics, even if simple sandbox, which isn't correct because many vns have sandbox elements but nonetheless that's what they do here so you have to adapt.

So if you want to exclude all kinds of vns you will have to look into other tags as well, like the engine, for instance [renpy] is a vn engine so obviously most renpy games are just that.

 

[Dickard]

They often remove the [vn] prefix the moment there are gameplay mechanics, even if simple sandbox, which isn't correct because many vns have sandbox elements but nonetheless that's what they do here so you have to adapt.

So if you want to exclude all kinds of vns you will have to look into other tags as well, like the engine, for instance [renpy] is a vn engine so obviously most renpy games are just that.

I'm saying there are even quite a few VNs on here that are literally just a VN, like there's no sandbox elements or whatever, it's just a VN with branching paths and for some reason they aren't tagged as a VN
And excluding things like renpy is tricky because while MOST renpy games are VNs, some aren't. Lab Rats, for instance, is a renpy game but it's a management game and not a VN.

 

[Meaning Less]

I'm saying there are even quite a few VNs on here that are literally just a VN, like there's no sandbox elements or whatever, it's just a VN with branching paths and for some reason they aren't tagged as a VN

When you stumble upon examples that you believe clearly need the tag just report and request for the tag to be added.

Unfortunetely it is a complex issue, because like you noticed it is one of those tags very open to interpretation, each uploader probably has their own view of what is a VN or not while others simply forget to use the tag.