Comments on: Thoughts: “Playing” vs. “reading” eroge

By: How I see an artist: what they do. « Calamitous Intent

How I see an artist: what they do. « Calamitous Intent — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:54:23 +0000

[...] facing the reader/player (hmm…it feels kind of odd because neither titles feel correct, Reikon talked about this too). When event CGs appear, there is also an overwhelming focus on the character [...]

By: Moriken

Moriken — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:15:23 +0000

Use the verb you want ^^
I happen to use both…although the act of reading definitely dominates the visual novel experience…

By: Reikon

Reikon — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 10:25:08 +0000

@Micchi: Well, books aren’t the only type of media that people enjoy for the story. Movies and (rarely) normal games can have good stories too.

@Asceai: But I chose to only play that route. Without interactivity, I could have been forced to play other routes first. Interactivity allows me to provide some feedback. Just as in games, your interaction dictates what your experience will end up being. In an open world game like GTA, someone could just run out blowing stuff up. Their experience would be vastly different from someone who followed the story. Each method of playing would be like a route in an eroge.

And I think you’re misunderstanding me. I’m not arguing people enjoy them differently. It’s something much more simple: what verb should be used what talking about enjoying it. I simply went through the logic behind each argument and tried to determine what I thought was most appropriate.

Arguing how people enjoy them depends too much on the person and is beyond the scope of my abilities. It’s like that for any type of recreation. People enjoy them differently and what they get out of it varies.

By: Asceai

Asceai — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 03:18:36 +0000

But if you only play the route of the heroine you like, what’s the difference between Tenshin Ranman and one of many good VNs that lack choices altogether? I mean, it’s not as if you had much choice while playing the game if you were only going to read one route.

I think the ‘reading’ and ‘playing’ groups are the same. VNs are a medium you execute to gain insight and entertainment, whether that is gained from the variety of choices (especially in things like France Shoujo where the choices you make are very important and have a very obvious and continuous effect on the story – very few of the choices you have to make are obvious at all), the scenario or writing (in 神ゲー like イマ and 何処行く), the art and atmosphere in extremely visual stories (such as ef and eden*), the gameplay in titles like the 戦女神 games or a combination of some or all of these. I don’t think there is a large fundamental difference in the way people enjoy VNs.

By: Micchi

Micchi — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 01:14:26 +0000

I’m on the ‘playing’ side since not only do you see it (like a book), but there are sounds too. Although the experience is similar to reading a book, for the story. Unless you’re Hemi.