Visual Novels: Design in Virtue's Last Reward

Kotaro Uchikoshi Director & Scenario Writer, Chunsoft Co., Ltd. 13th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards Best Narrative, The Winner is...

The Walking Dead

1/29 GDC Award nominees that caught my eye:

 Journey  The Walking Dead  The Room >> These are all Games.

2/29 A is a sort of .

What exactly is a Visual Novel, then?

3/29 What's the definition of Visual Novel?

A text-based featuring a narrative using graphics and sound...?

4/29 Visual Novel without Visuals

Real Sound: Kaze no Regret

Developer : WARP, Inc. Publisher : Designer : Kenji Eno Platform : , Release date (JP) : June 15, 1997

5/29 What's the essence of Visual Novel?

A video game featuring a narrative

6/29 What's the essence of Visual Novel?

A video game with an emphasis on narrative. Are these sports?

8/29 “A Visual Novel is not a game.”

Is it true?

9/29 A Visual Novel is a game.

10/29 What's the definition of a game?

 Something with selectivity

 Something where the selection made by the player's decision changes the history of events or outcome that takes place within a given set of rules.

11/29 For instance...

12/29 “A video game that specializes in selectivity” is what we call a Visual Novel.

13/29 Visual Novels in :

Steins;Gate : Academy of Hope and High School Students of Despair 14/29 The pioneer Visual Novel in Japan:

Kamaitachi no Yoru (Night of the Sickle Weasel) (The Howl of The Banshee)

15/29 Unique of Kamaitachi

There are almost no flags in this game.

16/29 In Kamaitachi, the flags are embedded in the player's brain.

17/29 Kamaitachi's event flow example: Start

X : Dead body found

Y : Enter the suspect's name The brain's memory is used instead of the flags

A B C D E FG... Good End 18/29 The player's brain is used as computer memory.

19/29 on ko chi shin

Discovering new things by studying the past

20/29 Relation between Kamaitachi and VLR

Start

Z1 : Enter the Enter the password : Y Z2 : Enter the password

A B C D E FG... How I write a story:

It begins with a sense of discomfort.

22/29 What's discomforting in Kamaitachi? Start

X : Dead body found Past

Y : Enter the suspect's name

Future

A B C D E FG... Good End 23/29 That's how VLR's flow chart system was invented

24/29 Another example:

What's discomforting about The Person's Point of View

25/29 elements of writing a story:

 Have doubts about conventional thought  Do not blindly trust common knowledge

26/29 Reality in video games

What video games need is not reality in real , but reality for video games.

27/29 Future of Adventure Games

 Journey  The Walking Dead  The Room >> These are all digitally distributed.

are a good platform for Adventure Games.

28/29 Thank you for listening.

29/29