Why are there are so many Visual Novel style games?

[hgameartman]

I think there's a lot that can be explored in the non-VN space.

Games that already blend real-life relationships with fantasy, action, or other engaging gameplay are great places to start, from a developer standpoint, drawing inspiration from. Games like harvest moon, rune factory, and the persona series have great basis in combat and relationships that could easily be extended into a Hgame with more interesting mechanics than the standard VN.

In terms of already-existing HGames, someone mentioned Illusion, who do make great sandbox-style games, but I also look at games like VH and modded skyrim for interesting gameplay elements in a sandbox-style enviroment.

For more action-oriented games, a lot of japanese-only releases get this right. The UnHoly series (before torture) did great platforming, as did games like Iris Action and Lab: Still Alive (1, 2 seemed to fall flat to me)

Eluku does great fighting-style gameplay with Fairy Fighting, and the combat in Wolf's Dungeon isn't bad either, but it's admittedly a lot more niche in terms of sexual content.

Even using a standard VN interface, you can still get a bit more creative. Look at Monster Girl Quest (the first set) for an example there. The gameplay, while simple, was engaging, the visuals varied and often changed based on enemy skill used, and it still kept storyline and character development as a forefront.
Why aren't more VN's like that?

Overall, it takes more work to build these styles of games, and they tend to be shorter and with less content because of it, but there's a lot of potential in my opinion still left to be explored.

 

[Kinderalpha]

From a technical and development level: The delivery and implementation of narrative and lewd content is much simpler. It requires significantly less design, time, and effort. Not to say it's easy, but most people would rather focus on the quality of their renders and their story than designing how they will deliver adult content, their game loop, how to code a game to finish, and much more. Visual Novels already have paved the road for their development. You already know the game loop, what content you wanna see, how the story will be delivered. It's all laid out.

On a monetary level: It's proven to be one of the most profitable formats for adult games in this community, and everybody loves get-rich-quick schemes. Even outside of that. If you make a visual novel with decent art, you're almost guaranteed some amount of downloads and ROI. This is objectively an appealing model for newcomers or those that want to see results quickly.

On a practical level: Because RenPy as a tool was specifically built for ease of use, and quick deployment times. You don't need a lot of knowledge in programming to start. This (rightfully so) attracts a lot of beginners because of the low investment of time vs the high return of quality. If the community was filled with more proficient programmers outside the scope of RenPy and in more creative tools like Unity or Unreal, this wouldn't be a question. Being as a lot of us are amateurs, it's more appealing to use a tool that is quick and true vs learning a tool that is slower and requires more time to learn.

That being said, I'm not belittling those who make games with RenPy. I fully recognize and respect those who make that choice. It's quite an obvious choice for most people here, and just because you use it doesn't mean you're an amateur or you lack the knowledge to do something better. Not to say it's easy either. There is a lot of leg work involved, and comes with its own technical challenges.

 

[Hagatagar]

For the most part I agree with the OP.
If you mainly want to see sex or need fap material, VN are a bad choice.

Why are these games so popular? Why do you like them?

We all know that sex sells. Many only get VNs because of the girls or the tits on the cover.
Even if you may know it better, the cute girl on the cover or the screenshot looks so nice...

From the developer's point of view, VNs are the easiest way to make a game if you have the software.
Although VNs shouldn't be called a games, they are (interactive) stories.

I personally don't really like them that much.
Based on personal experience.

It's not easy to find good VNs, most of the time the story is mediocre, badly written or nonsensical and it feels like the creator is just putting in what comes into his mind without having a real storyline.
Very often everything between the sex scenes is filler material and can be thrown away.
This is not so much the case with Japanese VNs, but they do have an even larger amount of text.
That may be good if you want to have an entertaining story with depth, not so for erotic stories.

Even if you occasionally find real gems among them, I find it tedious to work through the multitude of VNs.
If I find myself just clicking away the text and don't get at least good and sexy scenes as compensation, I usually delete the game.

EDIT: Sorry if it sounds too negative.

 

[Onedge]

There are many reasons to make a VN.

1. Linearity = you don't require coding!
Well, you require a *little bit* of coding. In non-linear games, if you want to test how something looks like, even something simple, coding might take an entire day, just to find out it doesn't look as you imagined it would. Coding also goes for huds, on-screen buttons, layered images, whatever you can think of.

2. You can get right to the point.
Since it's story-based, and you can get rid of all the parameters that affect the protagonist's mind, there's nothing stopping you from making a scene where it shouldn't belong, and just write the story around it justifying its presence there. Also, getting right to the point means every new update can have new art (my 4th point).

3. Limited player freedom = limited bugs.
Especially if you add routes to your game, you simply don't have to think about all the different combinations of things that the player might do or not do. This greatly affects the bugs in your game - you pretty much know exactly where the player is in the game while making an update. You can also pretty much bug test it yourself.

4. New art per update (for supported VNs).
This is a big thing to consider. New art per update means more people will be interested in supporting you, which you will need to pay for that art - or for the time spent making that art if you can make it yourself. On the other hand, games with more parameters will have updates that consist coding-related things like balancing, new mechanics, etc. This on its own might mean fewer people will be interested. New mechanics can take ages to make and test.

I could write more but you get the point. By the way, this doesn't mean that VNs are easy to make. It's just that a VN is more about the story and scene writing than it is about the 'game' aspect. Personally, they are not my cup of tea, but there's definitely a market for them so...

 

[Pretentious Goblin]

On the player side of things, I suspect it's simply because that genre is suitable for people who want a story to their porn, but don't have the time/patience for serious gameplay when they're trying to get their rocks off. Not me though, my best experiences with ero-games have been 6-hour overnight edging sessions.

 

[Taboo-Sho]

I mean, I've never heard anyone saying "Hey, that Visual Novel is real hard!"

Havent heard of Long live the Queen have ya?

 

[woody554]

Havent heard of Long live the Queen have ya?

someone thinks it's hard?? :O (edit: ohhh, I only now realized from zachy's comment below that it was long live the QUEEN, not the PRINCESS. right, right, I get it now.)

I wish at least some people would make hard games. not badly designed, but hard in the way that you'd have to pay attention to what characters say, details around you, and actually think a little to solve the situations. deduce your next move instead of brute forcing every choice or save scamming.

it's so disappointing when a game literally tells you who to talk to next in order to advance the quest. the info should be in the dialog buried somehow. and when you get stuck, big whoop, ask on forums. and the collective hunt for clues, easter eggs and clues will form a community around the game. it gets people involved.

 

[Adabelitoo]

someone thinks it's hard?? :O

I wish at least some people would make hard games. not badly designed, but hard in the way that you'd have to pay attention to what characters say, details around you, and actually think a little to solve the situations. deduce your next move instead of brute forcing every choice or save scamming.

it's so disappointing when a game literally tells you who to talk to next in order to advance the quest. the info should be in the dialog buried somehow. and when you get stuck, big whoop, ask on forums. and the collective hunt for clues, easter eggs and clues will form a community around the game. it gets people involved.

I'm totally not agains that, but do that and the players that are here just for a quick fap (which are the majority) will say that your game is bad designed and/or decisions feels too random.

The most absurd thing I read about that was a guy saying that "by doing that, you're rewarding those who read". I mean, it's a fucking visual novel, of course those who read should be rewarded. Why is that even a problem? And why that comment already has 3 likes? It makes no sense.

 

[Zachy]

Havent heard of Long live the Queen have ya?

I'm glad you brought that up. I didn't think about it when writing my post ^^'

Long Live the Queen is a good example on how to make a "hard" visual novel, not because it's demanding on reflexes, muscle memory, or any tactics whatsoever. Just because you have to pay a lot of attention to your surroundings and take a lot of time on thinking about possible solutions to problematic situations. There's even some people that call it the "Dark Souls of VNs", because if you're not cautious you'll die a lot of times lol.

I don't really think that would fit a porn game, though.

 

[woody554]

"by doing that, you're rewarding those who read"

that's hilarious. reminds me of the bill hicks bit about "readers".

fuck those guys. I'm sure there's a pokemon with dicks or something they can play instead. not every game needs to be for everyone, even if that rules me out. bold choices are always better artistically than trying to please everyone.

 

[Carpe Stultus]

VN's are a thing that one person can create content in a more or less reasonable amount of time, depending on the hardware if something like DAZ gets used (that takes a lot of time).

Most players don't want actual gameplay they just want fast updates with a lot of fapping content, a good story and high quality visuals are also appealing for a bigger part of the players but thats not the majority. A game can't get to complicated, look around in threads of pretty easy games where people scream for walkthroughs and/or mods just to get to their fapping material faster.

When i look at it from my personal perspective, i prefer VN's too because if i want to grind the shit out of a game or have actual gameplay i'm simply gonna play a rpg or something else but for sure not a game that rewards me with a H scene after hours of grind.

 

[Manaflask]

We play already tons of other style of games in Steam, some devs maybe for the lack of knowledge or good ideas, can't add a interesting "gameplay" together with good renders and good story, not like is a "must", some devs use the grinding and that's hard to fix with something unique or code a new thing, remember that's tons of work, and you depends on donations and those who donate have the last word on how is focused the game/VN, personally I have my favorite VN and sadly things are being slow this year due the pandemic.

Spoiler

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The reason about people getting spoilers instantly to get fast to the "good content" is because there is no interesting gameplay behind it, or interesting minigames (not like i saying all games must have it), and frankly, even I like alot of RPGs back in the days, the RPGM is pretty dull engine (but it's functional) and tried to avoid all those games unless they have something I really want and it's not censored

 

[Adabelitoo]

that's hilarious. reminds me of the bill hicks bit about "readers".

fuck those guys. I'm sure there's a pokemon with dicks or something they can play instead. not every game needs to be for everyone, even if that rules me out. bold choices are always better artistically than trying to please everyone.

I agree with that, but we still have incest games where some players ask if they can avoid/remove the incest and brothel managment games where some players ask if they can avoid sharing/prostituting the girls.

I think the idea of "not every game needs to be for everyone" at this point is widely accepted for most devs, but not accepted for most players.

 

[aattss]

I would say that rather than calling them games, it would be more accurate to thinks of VNs as books with lots of pictures. Though CYOA books can be not not games, but I digress.

Like, I don’t have a problem with books or other people enjoying them, and I do enjoy them myself sometimes, but yeah, they typically don’t give me what I’m looking for here. Though not every game here containing both gameplay and porn is able to blend them together to create a whole better than the sum of its parts.

 

[BlackStarUK]

It's a very popular niche genre. Also, it's the best visual presentation to present certain stories, themes and characters, without having gameplay elements that may slow it down.

It's like an advanced novel, in that you're reading but seeing everything pop into life. Now yes what you see if the developers vision and this can make or break your decision to "play" a VN, but for a lot of fans, this seems to be a minor issue or even a non-issue.

Two of my fave franchises are Danganronpa and Phoenix Wright. While they may have gameplay elements not seen in VN, they are at heart VN's and if they were done in any other way, I might not have enjoyed them.

This doesn't mean I like ALL VN's. Romance stuff turns me off (but that's true of films and books to be honest.) but again, a big draw of VN's is that its able to do almost every kind of concept without being too controversial or twisted, dumbed down or hollow (when done right.)

 

[Onedge]

I would say that rather than calling them games, it would be more accurate to thinks of VNs as books with lots of pictures. Though CYOA books can be not not games, but I digress.

Like, I don’t have a problem with books or other people enjoying them, and I do enjoy them myself sometimes, but yeah, they typically don’t give me what I’m looking for here. Though not every game here containing both gameplay and porn is able to blend them together to create a whole better than the sum of its parts.

I agree but I think most devs' mentality comes down to how much time you're going to spend versus how much money you're going to make - a logic I can't argue with, since, at least from a business perspective, that's exactly what you should be thinking. And coding, it does take time.

 

[Hadley]

NOBODY wants to play shitty RPGs or Adventures. Making a Game with good Gameplay isn't easy, especially if you have to fit a good Story into it.

People don't play Adult-Games for the Gameplay, they wan't what they don't get in other Games - a good Adult-Story with some Romance/Sex-Scenes.

And in a VN Devs can focus on the Dialogue, Characters and Story and don't have to waste time on Gameplay that wouldn't be good anyways.

 

[Carpe Stultus]

We play already tons of other style of games in Steam, some devs maybe for the lack of knowledge or good ideas, can't add a interesting "gameplay" together with good renders and good story, not like is a "must", some devs use the grinding and that's hard to fix with something unique or code a new thing, remember that's tons of work, and you depends on donations and those who donate have the last word on how is focused the game/VN, personally I have my favorite VN and sadly things are being slow this year due the pandemic.




The reason about people getting spoilers instantly to get fast to the "good content" is because there is no interesting gameplay behind it, or interesting minigames (not like i saying all games must have it), and frankly, even I like alot of RPGs back in the days, the RPGM is pretty dull engine (but it's functional) and tried to avoid all those games unless they have something I really want and it's not censored

There are enough players who skip games with really great stories because they are simply not interested in anything besides sex scenes. Sure some like "porn games" with actual gameplay but many just play it for the fap and so they skip to that if they are able to. Yeah i honestly hate RPGM games, i don't like this useless running around in a adult game. I like reading my Novel and seeing some pics or good animations, but they are already very rare.

 

[lonelyloser]

I just wanted to say thank you for all of the thoughtful replies- I posted that not expecting anyone to really give it a thought but this site has some pretty dedicated and straightforward people. I haven't yet found "the" visual novel for me yet but i'll try some out with an open mind and see.

From seeing the conversation and looking at what some of you have built I admire the amount of legwork that goes into all these things (smut related or not lol).
I've even thought of making a game too (I'm ok-ish with coding and illustration so I thought why not give it a go).