What Is a Visual Novel? Definition, Subgenres, Classics, History
Visual novels explained: their appeal, subgenres like sound and kinetic novels, and classics from The Portopia Serial Murder Case to Ace Attorney and DDLC.
Lines of dialogue appear one at a time at the bottom of the screen, and the story continues with each click. Every so often, a choice like "Follow her / Go home" appears, and the ending changes depending on what you pick. Games like this are called visual novels.
The visual novel is a genre that often faces the question, "Is it a game or a book?" There's little to do with your hands, but it differs from a novel in that the reader chooses the story's direction and lives with the consequences. In this post, we cover the definition and appeal of visual novels, their subgenres, their history from their start in Japan to their spread around the world, and their design characteristics from a creator's point of view.
Definition and Core Appeal: A Game Where You Read and Choose the Story
English Wikipedia describes the visual novel as a genre of video game of Japanese origin focused on presenting a story. You progress by advancing the story with clicks, taps, or buttons, and the atmosphere is created with static character art, background art, music, and sound effects. Narration and dialogue are mostly displayed in text boxes, and you often choose the protagonist's actions or lines through menu choices.
In Japan, they're commonly called novel games. The term "visual novel" emerged in the mid-1990s, and Shizuku (1996), which Leaf labeled part of its "Visual Novel Series," is considered the first commercial game to use the term.
The appeal of visual novels is as follows.
- Immersion: Character expressions, music, and sound effects change along with the text, offering an experience somewhere between film and fiction.
- Choice: Your choices change characters' fates, and making different choices leads to completely different endings.
- Puzzle-like stories: In structures where you have to read every branch to see the truth, the story itself becomes a mystery.
Screen Layout: ADV and NVL
There are two main ways visual novels display text. The ADV (adventure) style places a dialogue box only in part of the bottom of the screen, while the NVL (novel) style fills the entire screen with text. ADV is good for showing large character art, while NVL suits long descriptions and monologues, like a novel.
Subgenres
| Type | Characteristics | Representative games |
|---|---|---|
| Branching novel games | The plot splits through choices, with multiple endings | Kanon, Fate/stay night |
| Kinetic novels | A single storyline with no choices | Planetarian |
| Sound novels | Text overlaid on images, with emphasis on sound | Otogirisō |
| Mystery and courtroom adventures | Game elements like gathering evidence and pointing out contradictions | Ace Attorney, Danganronpa |
| Puzzle hybrids | Escape puzzles and story segments alternate | Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors |
| Romance-focused | Centered on relationships and feelings with the characters | To Heart, Kanon |
| Meta and genre-subverting | Presentation that deliberately overturns the genre's conventions | Doki Doki Literature Club! |
One point to keep in mind: in the West, games like Ace Attorney and The Portopia Serial Murder Case are often called visual novels, but in Japan these games are seen as adventure games, with the visual novel considered a sub-branch of that genre. Even the same word covers a slightly different scope depending on the region.
Landmark Games in History
| Year | Game | Developer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1983 | The Portopia Serial Murder Case | Yuji Horii (published by Enix) | Its direct scene-to-scene transitions became a root of Japanese adventure games |
| 1992 | Otogirisō | Chunsoft | A Super Famicom title billed as a "sound novel," with text over full-screen images |
| 1996 | Shizuku | Leaf | The first commercial game to use the name "visual novel" |
| 1999 | Kanon | Key | Regarded as the game that cemented the market for emotional novel games |
| 2001 | Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney | Capcom | Courtroom mystery; became widely known in the West through its 2005 English release |
| 2002 | Higurashi When They Cry | 07th Expansion | Started as a doujin game and expanded into anime and manga |
| 2004 | Fate/stay night | Type-Moon | Three routes depicting the same events from different perspectives |
| 2009 | Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors | Chunsoft | Combined escape puzzles with a branching story |
| 2010 | Danganronpa | Spike | Mystery in the form of class trials, plus action elements |
| 2017 | Doki Doki Literature Club! | Team Salvato | Meta presentation that subverts the conventions of romance novels |
Branching Off From Adventure Games
The roots of the visual novel are the adventure games of 1980s America and Japan. The Portopia Serial Murder Case (1983) showed direct transitions between locations like a film or novel, which greatly influenced the basic grammar of Japanese adventure games that followed.
The games that directly created the form of the modern visual novel were Chunsoft's Otogirisō (1992) and Kamaitachi no Yoru (1994). The approach of overlaying text on full-screen images, and structures in which you repeat the same story to uncover new truths, emerged from these games.
The Golden Age of PC Novel Games
When Windows 95 came out in Japan in 1995, home PCs became more common, and Leaf's Shizuku and Kizuato (1996) and To Heart (1997) made novel games a central genre of PC gaming. By the time of Key's Kanon in 1999, the novel game market is said to have been fully established. According to Wikipedia, visual novels accounted for more than 70% of the Japanese PC game market in 2006.
Around the same time, free development tools were released, and doujin novel games made by individuals and small teams increased. Higurashi When They Cry (2002) is a prime example of a work sold at doujin events that went on to become anime, manga, and live-action films.
Crossing Over to the West
The genre gained attention in the West thanks to the 2005 English release of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney for the Nintendo DS. Along with the popularity of anime in the 2000s, more people sought out the original novel games, and in the 2010s many Western indie visual novels were made using the free engine Ren'Py. In 2016, Steam added a separate visual novel category.
Design Characteristics
Visual novels can be made at lower cost than other genres, but that means the writing and structure determine everything.
- Managing branches and flags: Each choice records an invisible value (a flag) that changes later scenes and endings. Often, the consequences of a choice don't show up right away but are revealed at the end.
- Route design: Structures are built on the assumption of multiple readthroughs, such as character-specific routes and an unlock order for the true ending. Some games, like Fate/stay night, show a different side of the same events in each route.
- Reading convenience features: Skipping already-read text, reviewing past dialogue (backlog), auto-advance, and saving at branch points are close to essential. YU-NO (1996) displayed its branches as a map on screen and let you return to any point you wanted.
- Rhythm of presentation: Because static images are central, changes in expression, background transitions, music starting and stopping, and sound effects create a scene's tension.
- Mixing in game elements: Many works add mystery, puzzle, rhythm, or combat segments to change the impression of being "a game where you only read."
According to Wikipedia, Japanese novel games were typically made in about one to one and a half years with a budget of 20 to 30 million yen. The fact that they need almost no difficulty balancing is cited as a reason they cost less than other genres.
Who Should Play Them
- People who enjoy stories, like novels, comics, and TV dramas
- People who want a game to enjoy slowly at their own pace rather than one with fast controls
- People who love mystery novels and want to point out the culprit themselves
- People who enjoy rereading a single story from multiple perspectives
On the other hand, if you want a game that keeps your hands busy, you may find them dull. In that case, we recommend starting with works with strong mystery game elements, like Ace Attorney or Danganronpa.
Visual Novels Today
According to Wikipedia, there were 2,272 visual novels on Steam as of 2020, and a fan-maintained database of works passed 50,000 entries in 2024. Visual novel production has also grown in China and Taiwan, and in 2019 the Chinese title The Invisible Guardian briefly topped Steam's global sales chart.
New experiments continue as well. There are now works that show life-size characters through virtual reality headsets, works that combine roguelike structures with storytelling, and even works that use generative AI in development. Though the format changes, the genre's core, "the reader takes part in the story," remains the same.