A sub-category of Visual Novels that avert the tradition of having Multiple Endings and instead focusing on a singular, linear plot. There are no choices whatsoever, nor is there any form of interactivity involved, except for the player pressing the action button to advance the story. In other words, it's basically a single, linear story accompanied by visuals and audio. Originally used to describe certain visual novels by Key/Visual Arts (notably Planetarian), it has since then been used to encompass other visual novels.
07th Expansion refers to their work as "sound novels," the vast majority of which have no real gameplay options or choices. The name refers to the greater emphasis on using music and sound effects to establish setting and "punctuate" key scenes. Although the first episode of Higurashi: When They Cry was released two years before Planetarian, the name has not caught on outside of 07th Expansion's own work.
Examples of this genre:
- Absolutely Perfect Specimen
- Aster Asks!
- Bad Faith
- Contract Demon
- Dies irae ~Interview with Kaziklu Bey~
- Dimensional Prophecy of Zohar Redux
- Disney's Animated Storybook
- eden*: They were only two, on the planet.
- fault - milestone one. It has one branch in Chapter 3, but it only affects the dialog immediately following it and doesn't impact the overall story in any meaningful way.
- fault milestone two
- fault - SILENCE THE PEDANT
- The Fountain
- Girl of the Bakehouse
- Guilty Gear: In a departure from how previous games, XX and Accent Core Plus in particular, would handle the main story, the Story Modes of Guilty Gear Xrd and -STRIVE- take this approach, featuring a more cinematic experience with no playable battles whatsoever.
- Harmonia
- Harvest December
- Highway Blossoms
- Higurashi: When They Cry
- Juniper's Knot
- Koiken Otome
- Kyon: Big Damn Hero
- Living Books could be considered a prototype version of this, despite coming out way before this term (or its related term, sound novel) was even invented.
- Lovestruck visual novels, with a few early exceptions.
- Malus Code
- Marco & the Galaxy Dragon
- Misericorde
- Morph E
- My Furry Protogen
- Narcissu
- National Park Girls
- Necrobarista
- Nekopara
- Penthos
- Planetarian
- Polyphonica
- Pumpkin Eater
- Red Shift
- Remember The Flowers
- Rise and Fall
- Rose Guns Days
- Sekien no Inganock
- Smoldeps Magickal Adventure
- Star Wars: Jar Jar's Journey Adventure Book
- Stella Of The End
- Songs of Araiah
- Soul of Sovereignty
- Subverse
- Sugars Delight
- Sweetest Monster
- The Smelly Mystery (similar to Living Books but also doubles as a detective game for kids)
- TRianThology ~Sanmenkyou no Kuni no Alice~
- True Remembrance
- Tyrania
- The Unforgiving Flowers Blossom in the Dead of Night (a collection of short, more or less independent stories)
- Warm (2019)
- Witch on the Holy Night
- World End Economica
