I'm a fan of point-and-click adventure and visual novel games, so I'm really enjoying the influx on the DS right now :D
I bought LifeSigns thinking it's a doctor sim too. But it does have operations so I didn't feel too cheated. It's “visual novel” aspects were a little weak a have to say.

I'm a fan of point-and-click adventure and visual novel games, so I'm really enjoying the influx on the DS right now :D
I bought LifeSigns thinking it's a doctor sim too. But it does have operations so I didn't feel too cheated. It's “visual novel” aspects were a little weak a have to say.

I'd definitely buy visual novels if they get localized. Preferably on portable systems, so I can play them while lying on my couch or bed, just like how I usually read books.

Well ok, Majority of them are eroge. there ^^
It amuses me that Garnet Cradle has an 18+ tag while a lot of (all?) other games are at least as explicit.

^Considering that nowadays it seems there are more eroges being released each year than normal games in Japan, I don't think it's wrong to say the majority of them are really porn games.

Of course I don't know how accurate those numbers actually are, but they don't seem to be wrong seeing there are always a lot of eroges being released each month, as you can see here:
http://erogamescape.dyndns.org/~ap2/ero/toukei_…

The look is special enough because the design was done by an artist who illustrates for a fashion magazine, instead of an anime character designer.

I suppose the above factors make the game even more niche than the other regular visual novel / adventure games for it to be localized here.

Princess Ai is out in Japan, and if I'm not mistaken, there has been talk of make these downloads available in the U.S. Nintendo Shop Channel. That could result in some very interesting synergy among the “otaku” installbase.

And games like Time Hollow, Lux Pain and Ace Attorny show that, at least as long as there is some sort of interaction besides reading text, there is a chance for visual novels here too.

2. There are various games that border on the line of visual novel and something much more interactive. Developers are trying to add elements of other gernes as well. Many incorporate RPG elements, and recent examples like Hotel Dusk, Time Hollow, Lux Pain and now Last Bullet show that there can be more to them than just clicking away text.

3. Can't argue here actually.

Visual novels aren't just targeted at otaku's though. Anata wo Yurusanai is an example of a game being targeted at young women, and Akai Ito was aimed at normal teens I think? (and looking at it's sale numbers, did quite good). I fact, I think that most visual novels that aren't dating sims do not target otaku.

That said, I'm a fan of the genre, despite being mostly what people nowadays call a “core gamer”, and I don't see why the genre could not succeed outside of Japan. It's just a matter of cultivating the market, making more people aware that its even there.

It is true that a lot of them are dating-sim (Hgame or not) but outside that there are a good amount of other visual novels too. And a lot of dating-sims aimed at girls (otome games) are so pure they hardly even feature a kiss. I think these kinds of games might have potential actually.

1. Visual novels are mostly dating-sim games and often with erotic graphics (this include the most popular ones that are turned into anime).

2. visual novels involve few user interaction, where you get to pick options of certain routes. the story changes based on the decision you make.

3. visual novels are mostly dialogues (and in recent years, completely voiced), but with limited amount of graphics. (whereas in a real book, the actual writing would be 3-10x of the dialogues or in a movies/anime… the 'pictures' also exceed the dialogue by a lot in ratio).

So then, with 3, we're established that there is a gap in visual novel that does not few in the narrative element a user necessarily want… though, visual novel is still major in Japan because it is targeted to one-kind of audience — the otaku. The thinking of otaku is assumed to be that of the protagonist of the visual novel/eroge. And 2, The few selection of path-choice is usually determined by the protagonist characteristic (though mostly, the options the audience will want to choose at those moment). And 1, well.. .the dating-sim element makes selection more narrow for easier audience-targeting.

There are games that tried to stretch the limitation of visual novel that i listed. One of which that I could immediately think of on the spot is School Days. Being a traditional dating-sim game, the game is not only fully voiced, but fully animated. In this case, the game strays itself from being a visual novel a lot but more to an actual anime (whereas if it were the reverse, it'd be more like a book). But visual novels in majority are in-between the two and require the “right” audience to fill in and connect with the protagonist.

I forgot my point. Ok, this being japanese novels, being aimed to a specific market that doesn't quiet exist in large outside of Japan, it is no wonder it doesn't get translated much. Also, it takes really good translators to translate literature well (though, i wouldn't call visual novels literature anyways, but still, you know what i mean).

You just had to dig up those old memories, didn't you…

@NickyD: I agree, publishers outside of those in the games industry should start taking a look at visual novels as part of an effort to expand. Really, how far is a visual novel from those old Disney cassettes where you'd listen to the story on your stereo while reading the book that came with it?

As for programming…I'm not entirely certain, but based on my tinkering with some visual novel engines (Renpy, Novelty etc.) there is a fair amount of scripting required if you're creating something from scratch. And a great deal of asset management.

@Tin_Man, Aoshi00 & ToruHideo: You guys touched upon a great point there. There's always some incentive outside of scrolling through pages upon pages of text for people to play through visual novels. Whether it's court drama or investigation or ecchi scenes, it does seem like the games with that extra bit of variety have better chances of being localized. Unfortunately, the console companies will never allow h-games to be published on their system, and I doubt that Valve would allow them on Steam either. I do think that h-games will eventually start to become more acceptable in the eyes of people as the industry matures though.

Perhaps we can use this “variety” theory to make some educated guesses as to which titles publishers would be interested in and which they wouldn't?

@Trickless: Yea, there is a LOT of shovelware on iPhone. I'm sure that as a platform is going to go through the exact same thing Wii did when it first launched. Loads of shovelware, with the platform eventually becoming more stable in terms of quality and variety as developers learn not to shoot themselves in the foot.

Another point we need to keep in mind is that retailers are a big part of the problem. In a lot of cases, games like Anata wo Urusenai can't be picked up because retailers outright refuse to give them any shelf space. This is why it's so important to look to other outlets for distribution.