Overview (What are visual novels?):
(Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_novel)
Visual novels are not new in Japanese culture, starting from the early 1980s, with novels created by Square, Enix, and Nihon Falcom. Traditionally and even through stereotypes, visual novels that are on PCs contained adult scenes, even if the overall theme of the visual novel is not erotic in nature. "The vast majority of console ports do not contain adult material, and a number of recent PC games have also been targeted at the all-age market; for example, all of Key's titles come in family-friendly versions, and two have never contained adult content at all." This is generally known as the 'eroge' genre of visual novels. There are other genres like science fiction, 'nakige' (crying game / melancholy game), and horror.
Visual novels are basically "choose your own adventure" books with more depth and story with each path. What makes this a game? Visual novels don't say "go to page xx for choice y," rather, they make it so the player would interact with the characters of the novel. The amount of choices vary from novel to novel but they usually have vastly different paths that lead to different endings. There are also one or two "true" routes that are usually more fleshed out than other paths.
Why is this not "just" a book? Visual novels add a layer of depth by adding in music which changes at key points, by adding animations, backgrounds, and the characters themselves visually so the player can see and interact with them. This is not a movie, since the player has a choice of paths to take, and the majority of a visual novel is words. Basically it takes the good of both worlds and adds in interactivity with the player.
Social Media's Influence:
(Sources:
http://www.original-gamer.com/article/3489-4-visual-novels-for-the-curious
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/650003-katawa-shoujo/61708358)
Through the rise of social media, and anime adaptations to a minor extent, areas outside of Japan started to hear about visual novels. People fan-translate some novels while companies started to create and/or bring the Japanese titles officially to their countries. How did social media help? Due to the rapid nature of social media, word spread fast - friends that learned this told other friends that might have been interested, and so on and so on. Visual novels are still a niche thing within the American gaming circle, but it is slowly growing. One popular visual novel that may not seem apparent to gamers would have to be the Phoenix Wright series for the Nintendo DS.
One amazing visual novel that I would like to discuss is "Katawa Shoujo" (or the English Translation, "Disability Girls"). It is a free (http://katawa-shoujo.com/download.php), 18+ rating game due to some scenes, however this visual novel is categorized in the nakige genre. The scenes are, for the most part, "few and far between, and the general consensus is that they are very tastefully handled. Very little is seen in the way of genitalia (with one notable exception), although breasts are somewhat more common." As an analogy, this is like a movie that happens to have a tasteful love scene, not some porno. Also as an added bonus, there is an option to turn the 18+ content off so everybody else can enjoy the visual novel.
Katawa Shoujo's story revolves around the male character, Hisao Nakai (through the player's eyes), who is forced to enroll at Yamaku Academy because of an event. This high school is a school for people with disabilities. "While there, he makes friends with some of the students and staff and through them (depending on your choices), learns to live with his disability and the disabilities of others." If the player chooses the right paths, Hisao can even fall in love with one of his female classmates.
The amazing thing about this novel, compared to others, is that "once you get to know these girls, you feel for them, and want to protect them and help them as much as you can despite your character’s condition." This visual novel is not a stereotypical dating sim with disabled girls that are nice as choices, however, this is a deep novel about dating nice girls that happened to be disabled. "The difference is that the story doesn't glorify the disabilties, but rather presents a positive and accurate take on how a person affected as such can still experience love and relationships and what not." Here is a review (spoilers), and Kotaku has an in-depth review with minor spoilers as well
How does this relate to social media? The studio, Four Leaf Studios, was formed through the /a/ board of 4chan. 4chan, for those that don't know, is a social board where people can post topics based on the thread (/a/ for anime and manga, /vg/ for general video games, and even the notorious /b/ random board). One person usually starts a thread, and people can anonymously reply back to the thread, or start one of their own. "The writers, programmers and artists that made up Four Leaf Studios joined together after seeing an image from doujinshi (self-published) artist Raita showing a group of disabled girls." After communicating through the board, they created the the studio and started to communicate through other forums. Visual novels may not have been spread through word of mouth by social media in this example, but this shows that people can get together using social media and create something amazing and "how the power of the internet can have individuals from different walks of life come together to create a tear jerker."
To be continued in part 2...
Part 2 will cover another Visual Novel (DTIP), a program to create visual novels, and more!
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