Before the advent of military first person shooters, gaming’s narrative well was firmly entrenched in the dystopian/alternate history subgenre of fiction. Starting with the release of System Shock in 1994, dystopia games have influenced some of the most important titles in gaming history; including Half-Life, Portal, Deus Ex and, of course, Bioshock. Its influences are […]
A question for you; why do so many visual novels start the same way? There have been many think-pieces and commentaries on how to start a narrative and for all the literary methods at a developer’s feet, VNs usually start one of two ways: either arriving in a new town OR waking up from a […]
Oh looks: it’s Pillow Fight. We’re starting to build a history with these folks. To date, they’ve been involved with three visual novels I’ve either reviewed or featured here on VNs Now and those pieces have a habit of ending…poorly. If you’ve read my feature on Who We Are Now, the mini-rant about groups using […]
Well, we couldn’t avoid this conversation forever, could we? Let’s start this one off by me putting myself on the record, shall we? Diversity in writing is good. Having more than one race, sexuality or gender in your cast of characters can often bring different dimensions to a narrative. I believe it also helps to […]
Okay, I named this feature ‘A Quick Look At’ for a reason. Originally, it was supposed to be a way for me to get my thoughts out about a demo and any possible notes for improvement within one thousand words. Now, because I’m long-winded, I pushed the limit to two-thousand words and that has been […]
I first heard about Mazjojo in 2009, I believe. Back then, he was just an artist with some potential, an interesting style and a lot of fandoms. He started just as the Indonesian market for original manga and visual novels got on its legs. Now, I can’t speak for their manga. But Indonesia, and the […]
One of the most important decisions a visual novel developer will make is how any choices that can be made by the audience will affect the overall game. Interactivity is one of the core draws of a visual novel, after all. Even going the kinetic route means that it becomes incredibly vital to have a […]
This reminds me of Jacob’s Island. You’ll be forgiven for not remembering Jacob’s Island. If you do, you know that means to lay out the tarp. Jacob’s Island was the first demo feature I ever did for VNs Now back in 2013. It was a story set in a fantastical world with a human protagonist […]
Let’s talk the thin red line between holding contempt for a character, and holding contempt for how a character is written. For the most part, it comes down to the writer themselves. A good writer knows how to build a pathological case for why a fictional character does what they do. When an audience has […]
Oh, my children; I have some good eating for you today. This is in large part to the subgenre Date or Die it has chosen to work in: the death game scenario. Beyond its current levels of market saturation, the death game scenario can vary in execution, but there are certain…let’s call them ‘structural necessities’ […]