Definition: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_novel

I got into them with Umineko no Naku Koro ni and Fate/Stay Night, on the recommendation of the residents of the Anime and Manga: Other Titles board at GameFAQs. I enjoyed both of those immensely, though I lost interest in Umineko a short way into the first "answer" story arc (the fifth of eight total.) Fate/Stay Night I played in its' entirety. I've played a decent number since then.

I think what caught my fancy about visual novels is that I love interactive fiction, in all shapes and sizes, and I'm also a big fan of anime.

I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that many visual novels have explicit sexual scenes, and yes, that's sometimes a draw. But even when that is the case, it's not hard for the VN to stand on its' own aside from them. For example, the story told in Cross+Channel was a fascinating take on its' subject material, and I'd've probably read it even without the sexual content. (And because I wanted to see where the characters in the Flash game Nanaka-Crash came from, but that's neither here nor there.)

At present, I'm reading Katawa Shoujo, which was done by some guys from 4chan. It's surprisingly good.

So do you guys read 'em?

I played the demo of Katawa Shoujo a while ago. It was fairly enjoyable...although the full version is on a long list of games to try out. (and the list doesn't get shorter)

Is it free? I can't remember if they're selling it or not.

Apart from that I haven't ever been attracted to a visual novel before....I'd be more inclined to go for a point & click adventure.

Yeah, it's freeware. http://katawa-shoujo.com/

I pretty much despised the whole dating sim/visual novel/eroge genres for a really ****ing long time. And while I still couldn't care less for eroge -- especially considering the damage they've caused to PC gaming in general here -- I have at least warmed up to the dating sim/visual novel genres.

I'd say that was pretty much due to Shira Oka, Koenchu, Ore imo portable, Haganai portable, and Analogue - A Hate Story. As such, those are the ones I would recommend. Although Koenchu, Ore imo portable, and Haganai portable all need to be played in Japanese (Koencu does have English available, but it's kinda buggered up in places).

How do you mean that eroge have caused damage to PC gaming in Japan?

I usually stay away from them because I quickly get tired when reading on the screen (I still prefer the oldfashioned paperbacks and comic books). But I recently tried this free one that was featured on indiegames.com, Juniper's Knot. I haven't read all of it yet (I got tired again, heh), but I like the presentation.

Damn, that one is heavy! My laptop doesn't like it one bit, cursor lagging far behind the mouse movements.

Yup, I have read quite few visual novels but only handful of them.

I would love to get Ever 17 because I heard that it's pretty epic visual novel but unfortunately, it's out of print so it's no go for me.

Katawa Shoujo is very quality stuff and I dig it a lot.

I will hit up cons to see if they have more visual novels.

I'll look into Juniper's Knot once I've finished a few routes in Katawa Shoujo.

As for preferring real books, I have to agree with that myself, but personally I've never had any issue reading on my computer.

I got into visual novels through my familiarity with the people at insani.org. Sadly, they seem to have been defunct since 2008 or so, and I think the issue was connected to problems with their release of an English translation of a Fate/Stay Night eroge that got ripped off.

Some of their stuff is simply stellar, even after all of this time, especially the VNs they translated as part of their al|together VN translation festival. My personal favorites in terms of art, story, and writing are A Midsummer Day's Resonance and Red Shift.

Does Digital: A Love Story count? I played that a while ago and enjoyed it immensely. I've been meaning to try some more traditional visual novels, so I'll have to look up some of the names in this thread.

Probably because they're super cheap to make and pretty much any idiot could make one (well other than Satou and Yamazaki. ;) ) as long as they can spit some text and a couple pictures out to the screen. So you have a lot of crappy studios squirting out as many crappy games as they can in order to stay in business, flooding the market. Not a lot try to do anything different other than some hobbyists in the doujin market, and there's probably a lot of crappy vns the west doesn't see in that market too due to the relatively low difficulty/costs in making them.

However I doubt they're the reason the Japanese PC market collapsed. I get the impression that it's more because it existed in a bottle/bubble on their own specialized machines like the PC88/98 or the MSX because western computers and software at the time didn't support Japanese language very well if at all. When later versions of Windows and cheaper hardware became more standardized worldwide, they simply got crushed out of the market by the competition.

Yeah, that was a good story - and my first and only visual novel so far too (I've tried a couple dating sims and didn't get very far, but that's a different story.)

Do you know what "otaku" means? The original, Japanese connotation, that is. Not the connotation that self-proclaimed US "otaku" have given it. Here's a hint. It's not a label to be proud of, unless you like people assuming you're totally depraved. Well, PC gaming is viewed as worse than "otaku". And that can only be down to the reputation of eroge.

Basically, eroge have cast a negative light on anything to do with PC games (and those who play them). The immediate reaction of most, when it comes to PC games, is that they are nothing but deviant porn. This is one of the reasons (the whole console cartel theory being the other main one) why the larger (console) game selling stores refuse to sell PC games. For the record, VN's on consoles always have the pornographic content removed. Those on PCs, sometimes have both family and adult versions, but that doesn't matter, the "family" versions may as well not exist.

PC gaming as far as the majority are concerned equals porn "played" by sexual deviants who are likely to abduct and molest young children as a result, regardless of the reality. That, ultimately wouldn't be a problem if stores simply refused to sell games in the VN genre -- easy to spot too, considering they have a whole different ratings body; CERO won't touch them. But no. Every single PC gaming genre is tarnished with the same brush.

Outside of Tokyo and perhaps Osaka, it will be almost impossible to find B&M stores that sell any non-adult/non-eroge PC games - with perhaps the sole exception of PC depot that sells a small handful of Capcom and EA titles. And if you do find a PC game store, it's most likely only going to filled with the pornographic VNs.

Now, I've been in Japan for over a decade and in all that time, I've only ever found *one* store that actually sold non-eroge games (most were naturally imports but they also had a fair amount of localised ones too) but sadly, even they don't do that anymore. They have gone from two entire floors of PC gaming goodness, down to two shelves, hidden in a corner - with the rest only available online.

Just don't tell the creators of Katawa Shoujo that :-) They explicitly mentioned many times that while the idea of KS was born on 4chan, Four Leaf Studio has no affiliation with that site anymore.

I would suggest anyone to play EVE: Burst Error - one of the greatest if not the greatest mystery/crime visual novel. It has been out of print for almost ten years and has been brought back from the obscurity only three days ago by MangaGamer.
You can buy it for 9.95 € and completely DRM-free.
The only bad thing is that the source material has been lost and MG could only acquire the old translated English version. That means that no edits or translation corrections could be made and the old translation is not the best, but you just can't have the cake and the candles at the same time.