Western visual novels?

Do any ZapDramatic negotiation simulators count as visual novels?

Hierofania was good.

So got russian VN from Steam Sale called Leviathan: The last day of the decade. Would be interesting to discuss that one with someone since it IS pretty interesting xD

I'd second the recommendation for Hierofania!

Also, check out some of Amiralo's games. You can find them on her page on Deviant Art; Reverie's probably one of my favorite games ever.

The Lemma Soft forums have a good 20 pages or so of completed visual novels, most of which are free to download. Any game by Soyasushi Productions (the guy who makes games under that label's username is Coren) is pretty much excellent, although several of the endings may leave you wondering how on Earth he could do that to you. The VN Cupid is also on there, and the topic relating to it was posted by the user ameliori.

Plus, all the games I just mentioned are free!

Some I know about but haven't played:

• Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem
• Voltage, Inc.'s original USA titles
• Christine Love's works

Oh, and We Know the Devil (that one I've played).

edited 23rd Jul '16 9:02:17 PM by Twiddler

Old topic is old but im surprise no one hasn't mentioned "Bernd and the mystery of Unteralterbach". Ignoring its uhhh spicy and sinful contents, its pretty enjoyable and has incredibly satire humor. The VN is infamous(or famous) on 4chan and the now killed 8chan

The VN is made on a german Chan site and the game was made and programmed by almost 1 person i think, which is impressive. Even the soundtracks, which are really good. The VN even had its own website to be downloaded but its gone now.

I would not recommend it to anyone unless you don't mind its stuff and have a "particular" taste.

The line between adventure game and visual novel can be fuzzy. Both Read Only Memories and 80 Days currently have Visual Novel Database entries. The Red Strings Club and Oxenfree are not listed... but as far as I know, they're somewhere between adventure games and visual novels.

When this thread started in 2012, it was quite unusual to see any visual novel in English on a game console. In the last few years, there's not just an increase in localized titles available on consoles. VA-11 HALL-A got released on more than one console. So did Burly Men at Sea, Coffee Talk, and Dream Daddy.

Edited by dorkatlarge on May 9th 2020 at 11:57:04 AM

I want to vouch for Dysfunctional Systems, even though there's currently only episodes 1 and 0 (the latter of which I haven't yet finished reading). Episodes 2 and 3 seem to have been stuck in Development Hell for years now but I'm just going to hold onto faith that they eventually get done.

Also want to mention Sepia Tears is freeware, and you can download it on itch.io. If you like it, there's an OST you can buy. I think the dev is Canadian. Incidentally, so is Dysfunctional Systems's dev.

Also wanted to mention Highway Blossoms. This one isn't free, but it's been pretty cheap in sales, and if you picked up the gigantic Racial Justice and Equality Bundle from itch.io last summer, you already have it. I'm partway into reading it, and I think it's really well-written — and well-acted, too, which isn't something I usually care much about, but the voice acting really brings the characters to life effectively. You can get Highway Blossoms on itch.io too, as well as on GOG. It's also available at JAST USA, which sells a bunch of visual novels, though since most of their offerings are eroge, I won't be linking it due to the possibility of NSFW stuff being on the webpage. Should be easy enough to find that site though, if you want to.

Both of these titles are also on Steam, but I highly recommend buying them (and games/VNs in general) DRM-free, which GOG, itch.io, and JAST USA provide.

This is a little tenuous, so please bear with me:

So, I recently re-played an old game from my childhood: "The Vortex: Quantum Gate II".

Now, this game doesn't call itself a visual novel. (I think that it uses something akin to the term "interactive movie"—somewhat appropriate, given that it's an FMV game.) But then, I'm not sure that visual novels were well-known in the West when it was made.

Furthermore, at the time of my childhood playthroughs I don't think that I was really aware of "visual novels" as a genre.

Perhaps as a result, I had thought of it primarily as a point-and-click adventure—which is fairly true.

But on re-playing it recently, I came to realise that in structure it really was effectively a visual novel: aside from some clicking around to move and some "click on the hot-spot" elements, it's essentially a linear game of talking to people and making occasional choices, with a few internal branches that return to the central plot-line, and multiple endings. There's no real inventory, nor any puzzles, or anything like that.

So, in a sense, it might count as an entry into this thread: it may not call itself so, but "The Vortex: Quantum Gate II" seems to me to pretty much be a de facto Western visual novel.

As to what the game's about... The short version is this:

Earth is dying, its ecosphere on the verge of collapse. Using the "quantum gate" to transport between worlds, a military force—including our protagonist—travels to another universe.

Ostensibly the goal is to gain a mineral that can save Earth, and ostensibly the locals are hostile bugs. Neither of these things is true.

Rescued by one of the very human-like locals, our protagonist must figure out what he's going to do now...

Also, it gets really weird at times. ^_^