Visual Novels and their form of narrative

A visual novel is a primarily text and image based style of game of which the vast vast majority come from Japan. As the title implies, they are almost entirely story, with the interface tending to be nothing more than text and a still image of a character that will changed through different frames to show some degree of motion. It’s typically done from the point of view of the player, who “plays” it by clicking through dialogue. However, at certain points in the dialogue, the player will be called upon to make a choice, which affects the overall outcome of the story. Choosing different choices over the course of the game (and there can be a lot or very few depending on length) the player will receive a different ending. The replayability of the genre comes from playing through multiple times to get the different endings. An excellent (and free!) example of a Visual novel is “don't take it personally, babe, it just ain't your story”, written by an American named Christine Love.

What I find interesting about this kind of game is how strictly defined they are, even though the player is given an illusion of “choice” The different choices given will result in the same outcomes every time no matter what, with no ability given to the player to change what they see. Indeed, what the player reads is exactly the same thing as each other player of the game will see. This to me makes a visual novel much much closer to a, well, novel than to a game. Which begs the question, can a visual novel be considered a “true” game. I’d argue yes, as even though there is little of it, there is some amount of interactivity given to the player, in spite of how rigidly defined and controlled it is.