“IS IT A BOOK? IS IT A GAME? YES, IT’S VISUAL NOVELS, AND THIS FEST IS PACKED WITH DISCOUNTS ON THEM!” You may open up Steam to see the Visual Novel Fest read this slogan across the banner, but it didn’t always read this way. For the first four hours of the event it read “IS IT A BOOK? IS IT A GAME? NO, IT’S VISUAL NOVELS, AND THIS FEST IS PACKED WITH DISCOUNTS ON THEM”. Which many VN developers, including myself, were not happy with. Let’s take a second to talk about why, what happened, and the conversations I had with the VN community when I reached out.
Part One: The Blacklash
I am the Site Lead of Press SPACE to Jump, but I am also a game developer and voice actor, working on titles such as the action RPG, Ink Inside, the platformer, Wunderling, and also visual novel games, such as Coaster Kisser, and the upcoming Himbo Hunter. I was the one who noticed the Visual Novel Fest banner and shared it on social media, and I got a bunch of replies to the post to which I have embedded below.
Developer Responses to the Banner
“Man i did NOT work 5 years on a game just for it not to be called one. VNs, especially ones where choices can affect the gameplay, are games” said Eros, creator of Repurpose (also known as #RepurposeGame) a visual novel game about the afterlife, in reply to my post about the original Visual Novel Fest banner.
The official account for Black Tabby Games (Scarlet Hollow, Slay the Princess), run by Tony Howard-Arias, quoted my post “oh no” and also replied saying “I think there’s an argument that kinetic vns (where there’s no branching or interactivity, you’re just clicking to advance) aren’t games. But that’s a fairly low percentage (?) of VNs. Anything that uses player input as a mechanic is a game, imo.”
Andi Santagata, creator of Slasher U: An 18+ Horror Movie Dating Sim, said “even on a super basic technical level, how on earth would a VN NOT be considered a game? do conversation trees not count as game mechanics?”
First-hand Discussion
I also discussed the situation over voice call with Kristi Jimenez, the Narrative Designer at Snowhaven Studios and our Editorial Lead here at Press SPACE to Jump. We both said it would at least be a bit better if Visual Novel Fest had said ‘yes’ instead of ‘no’, which they eventually did flip to. She also joined in on the Bluesky discussion as seen below.
A few others shared in the sentiment such as Katie Cofield, a voiceover artist best known for Fallout 76 and Zenless Zone Zero, and prikarin, the creator of Potion Pleasing.
Aenne Schumann, the co-creator of two well-loved visual novel franchises: Arcade Spirits and First Bite, also summed up a lot of our frustrations when saying “Why is it so hard for VNs to be called games!? I mean I know why, but URGH.”
Just as Aenne replied though, something had changed. The Visual Novel Fest banner had updated from ‘no’ to ‘yes’. I wish we lived in a perfect world where that meant visual novels had infinite respect as a medium and we could all sing and dance together. That said, there is more to the story, as we will discuss later. But also, I will take this as a small victory.
Part Two: Nuance in the Discussion
I am a game developer myself. I’ve worked on platformers, RPGs, beat ’em ups, and yes, visual novels. And from my perspective as a developer, there isn’t a big difference with the development process. And as someone who plays games, I play visual novels the same way I play any other game with narrative elements.
Though, I also talked with some visual novel developers who had a different point of view, including Ebi, creator of Blackberry Honey, who said “Personally I think visual novels are just visual novels. I don’t mind if other people want to classify them as games, though. This is just my personal opinion as a vn dev.
While I don’t agree with Ebi, I don’t discredit her either. I think it is perfectly fine if a visual novel creator doesn’t consider their own visual novel to be a game. But to say that visual novels as a whole are not or cannot be games, isn’t right.
I think of games as an umbrella term, and visual novels as something that falls under that category. If a creator wants to stray from that definition for their own visual novel, that’s okay. If someone wants to call another developer’s game not a game because it is a visual novel, we have a problem.
While some folks also said a discussion about medium and category with visual novels was important, a majority of those people still said that a Steam banner for a festival about the medium wasn’t the place for that. Which is what we are going to talk about next.
Part Three: Celebrate VNs C’mon?
Uplifting and celebrating visual novels as a medium is what we want from Steam’s Visual Novel Fest, but even beyond the fixed banner, is the event even really doing that?
I briefly talked with Arimia, a developer at Crystal Game Works, a visual novel studio, on Discord about the banner and the festival, and she also has an in-depth piece about the other issues with the festival. I haven’t embedded it, as it embeds the whole piece, and I would rather her get the traction for her work, but do give it a read.
Some key points she highlights are that the sale seemingly has strange, strict requirements that exclude some games that are clearly visual novels such as of the Devil, which a reply from the game’s illustrator to my Bluesky post also mentioned.
Visual Novel Fest requirements were:
- Reading is the primary gameplay
- The player cannot walk around, and can typically only look around from a static position
- There is no combat – if there is fighting, the gameplay loop is a small portion of the game. Multiple outcomes leading to different plot events is allowed.
Another issue with the festival Arimia highlighted was that the festival was more of a ‘Steam Sale in disguise’. Aside from the free-to-play tab in which devs wouldn’t make money from a download, tabs were only showing games on sale and not full-price games that otherwise met the requirements. It doesn’t show any full-price games in the festival except under a tab called ‘All’ which has no filters with the most popular games at the top. Even upcoming releases put the most popular games at the top.
Part Four: What is the Alternative?
Arimia’s deep-dive into Visual Novel Fest highlights two major issues: one, the medium is not in-align with the requirements. And two, if your game isn’t popular or on sale, you’re basically invisible.
Otome Games Celebration
On Discord, Arimia also contrasted it with the upcoming Otome Games Celebration she is working on personally, saying the the tools to do it the right way are there. I have seen some examples of the upcoming festival, and it looks a lot better than this current one. Though again, just for Otome games, not all visual novels.
The Storyteller’s Festival
Another festival brought to my attention by Velvet Cupcake Games, the creator of the Robin Hood-inspired Visual Novel, Made Marion, is The Storyteller’s Festival run by Two and a Half Studios. While it isn’t exclusive to visual novels, the festival does include them under their narrative game umbrella. I’ve reached out to Gabby, the director at the studio, for comment, and if there’s anything of note, I will update this piece after we talk.
Though note that while Velvet calls visual novels as ‘genre’, it is a medium rather than a genre, a distinction important to a lot of visual novel developers.
Lastly, I think a key thing going forward is: have people in the visual novel game development scene run or at least advise Steam events like Visual Novel Fest if they want us hyped about the events like we are the games.
It could be awesome! We want it to be awesome! We have the tools!
Part Five: What is a Visual Novel?
To me, a visual novel is a game. While some individuals may disagree, or some visual novel developers may choose not to identify their VN as a game, the medium as a whole, is.
The Reasoning
Why does this matter? It matters because game development is an industry skill. To say a visual novel dev couldn’t claim their years of experience as being part of the games industry is harmful to their careers. Voice Actors voicing characters in visual novels have protection via things like interim agreements and SAG-AFTRA contracts because visual novels are legally video games. It also ensures that visual novels are eligible for thing like grants, awards, expos, and even school assignments.
This doesn’t mean individual visual novels, or kinetic visual novels (VNs with no choices) cannot bill themselves as something else. And for kinetic visual novels, I think there is more nuance, but that is a small subsection of the medium as a whole. “Visual novels are games though there may be some exceptions” is a lot better than “visual novels aren’t games”.
My current visual novel game, Coaster Kisser, took a lot of programming knowledge. While one person replying made the argument that visual novels are interactive storytelling software, but not games, I would say playable interactive storytelling software is a game. Programming a visual novel takes a lot of the same skills as programming any other game, take it from me who makes a variety of games.
Could Visual Novels be Something Else?
In a perfect world where all mediums and platforms are equal and all of them have a chance to shine every day, I think there would be more room to discuss other definitions of visual novels. Even beyond my and many other developers personal beliefs that a visual novel is a game, and before going into the technicalities, considering the industry, work experience, unions, grants, awards, and platform options: a visual novel is a video game.
From a technical standpoint, visual novels require programming, are playable, in most cases have choices, and in most cases have endings you played to get to. Honestly, a LOT of early video games, especially in the 90’s, would probably be classified as visual novel games if they came out today, such as typing adventures and point-and-click adventures. So then, what is a video game?
Oxford dictionary calls a video game “a game played by electronically manipulating images produced by a computer program on a television screen or other display screen.” and defines game as “a complete episode or period of play, ending in a definite result.” I would say MOST visual novel have endings, in fact, in many cases those endings define the game.
Is this article defined by it’s ending?
