How to Fail at Interactive Novel Games 

You got it backwards, the way to fail at doing an interactive novel is by making it a game

As a fan of visual novels, this was very accurate

How to fail at creating game based on story? - Simply by writing a plot as nonsensical, strange and illogical as one in this video, another great piece of advice, as always ;)

Some new devs(like past me) often think VN is easier to work on if they got the art situation sorted out. Unfortunately writing good story and interesting dialogues are harder than most other things in gamedev imo.

What the hell did i just watch?! This is some next level humor. Doing the answering the title question in the first sentence and an outro fakeout 20 seconds in, except the video really is over and the rest is just some sarcastic incoherent mess. This entire video feels like a very good April fools joke.

Fine, I'll do it myself A good interactive novel relies on a compelling story and memorable characters, so don't have those. Definitely don't read any books or visual novels, because you might learn things from them and be inspired by their ideas and techniques. Instead, go read reviews of visual novels, preferably by people who don't like them, and note down the most frequently mentioned story and character tropes, and string those together loosely. This will ensure there is nothing about your writing that stands out. If despite all this you still manage to come up with a story and you think it might be interesting or original, don't panic! You can still make a platformer around it instead (see How To Fail AT Platformers episode for more). The medium of interactive novels gives you unique opportunities to grab and direct the reader's attention not possible with a book or movie, so avoid doing those when possible! Sure, you could have a sudden noise play in the middle of a block of text, effectively startling the reader, but it's much easier to write "Suddenly, [Main Character] was startled by a loud noise." Narration is really the key here. Never take advantage of the medium by having things be communicated partly by the visuals or sound. Yes, you *could* have multiple portraits for each character to show different expressions and help in characterization, but that's too much work - just have the narration *tell* the reader they are sad, happy, wistful or ashamed, and then you only need the one image. And even if it seems like this medium is most suited to character interactions, relationship building, and conversations with meaningful choices, that doesn't mean you need to constrain yourself. Narration can do anything! You can describe a long military campaign, or a trek through uncharted wilderness, or a super intense fight between two highly-skilled ninjas, just by having text on a static background! Your reader will definitely be glued to their seat reading about all those awesome things and will not at any point think "you know, I could just go play a game where I do all those awesome things, on this very device that I am using to read this block of text". And of course, make sure your text is hard to read. Most interactive novel engines will make it easy for you to set the text to an illegible font, or turn it eye-searing colors, or make it very hard to make out against the background. And what better measure of whether something is a game then that it has DIFFICULTY? Checkmate, haters!

this video makes me so mad im gonna need to turn off my computer and play a game of sorts to calm down, this choose your own adventure book will do nicely

Short and sweet. I do love your pixel art for these videos, and the meme you took the time to draw was great here. Rapid fire dad jokes assisted by pixel frames = Winning.

at first i thought it was just a troll when the video "ended" but i was pleasantly suprised

I feel like visual novels are one of the genres that really blurs the line between what is and isn't a game. At one extreme are kinetic novels, so called because the story simply moves forward in a straight line, no choices to be made, no challenges to be overcome, no branching paths, it really is a literal "visual novel". Then you have games like Ace Attorney that essentially combine a visual novel with a puzzle game, requiring you to pay careful attention to what's going on in order to solve the puzzles. TBH, a typical JRPG is actually three games in a trenchcoat: you have the combat, the exploration, and then the dialogue, which, you guessed it, is essentially a visual novel. Perhaps visual novels aren't really a genre, but more a method of presentation. Kind of like cutscenes. If the whole game is just one big cutscene, that's not a game, that's a movie. But plenty of games use cutscenes, and some of them use cutscenes extensively (Metal Gear comes to mind). At the same time, visual novels do have a certain "style" to them that seems to set them apart as a unique genre. I feel like they're closely related to RPGs, as both have a heavy focus on the narrative and, in games with multiple endings, both put a heavy emphasis on how the player's choices affect the story. I think "RPG" as a genre is also multiple different genres pretending to be one, as Baldur's Gate, Skyrim, Final Fantasy, Dark Souls, Pokemon, and many other so-called RPGs have very little in common beyond the superficial. I guess what I'm saying is that I think visual novels are secretly RPGs, but a very specific type of RPG. Now that I think about it, western RPGs were developed from tabletop wargames (see D&D), while eastern RPGs seem to have evolved out of visual novels. These two have no business being lumped together, and yet something about them makes them blend together so well. D&D isn't always dungeon crawls, and when it does venture into something with more of a narrative focus, the visual novel format suits it pretty well.

Hmm... Although this was a funny video, I am a bit curious. In what ways could you fail at mixing interactive novel elements into a game? (For example, the persona games have some interactive novel elements for the "normal" sections)

How to fail? at Interactive Novels (less sarcastic edition): An Interactive Novel is, first and foremost, a novel - that is, a story. Therefore a successful IN should be constructed as a well-written story first and foremost. The second point is the interactive element. Now, you COULD simply introduce mechanics and elements that require player skill to execute and progress the story. However, this is getting dangerously close to being a GAME and we don't want that. On the other hand, you could tell the story as it is, but then players might question the "interactive" label, and you end up with a Visual Novel. To be INTERACTIVE, but NOVEL, the reader should be presented with a number of choices allowing them to have an influence over the story. A well made IN would even go so far as to make some choices result in drastic alterations to the narrative, creating multiple routes that are each chapters long. For example, if the opening chapter has the rebellion is raiding an imperial prison to free their leader, and they free the reader in the process, the reader might be given the chance to choose whether to join the rebellion OR to stop the prison break and redeem themselves in the eyes of the empire, resulting in two drastically different stories branching from the same beginning. Naturally, this is the successful option, so the option for failure is to present the player with minimal choices, and to make those choices either inconsequential (like what color of bowtie you wear), or irrelevant (like choosing what girl to be your date to a formal event, only for both options to accompany you anyway). Lastly, remember that what readers want to see with an interactive story like this is how their decisions influence the outcome of the story, most importantly it's ending. So, obviously, the way to fail this is to make the only tangible effect of the ending being that the main character ends up romancing whoever the reader showed the most interest in, with only a single scene of the two characters in frame together to show for for it.

well how about this. no interactive stuff or make the novel bad

2 how to fails in under a month, you are really treating us. Loving the sarcasm.

I mean, I get where you’re coming from, but for me I think that there are definitely many great interactive visual novels out there that simply wouldn’t work if they weren’t games, the first example that comes to mind is doki doki literature club (spoiler warning I guess) in case you haven’t played that, it’s definitely not what it seems, and it takes advantage of glitching in video games and just starts breaking the whole game and messing around with the files of the game, a character even acknowledges they’re inside the game and many other interesting stuff happens, including you having to delete character files and the game crashing at some points it’s just a lot of brilliant stuff that I think it’d be impossible to get the same effect with any other medium, so I don’t really agree with this

These videos are helping me keep motivation so hard rn. The beginning is literally perfect for keeping away the doubts of failure. Can't fail if you dont try! Love these can't wait to see more

This channel is criminally underrated, here is engagement, algorythm do your job.

My first experience with developing any kind of game was making a visual novel for my high school computer science class, and can confirm that I succeeded in failing to make a game for that project

These have all been hilarious to watch! I’d love to hear one on how to fail at making a horror game. I probably need some reverse-psychological advice on that before I begin mine.

People ether gonna love or hate this one.... But don't worry, next episode will be mostly normal... probably.

I'm gonna be honest with you, mate. I find this series one of the most discouraging things ever, and ironically enough, it makes me not even want to try doing game dev. At least my pride will be protected if I don't fail at making a game.

I used to think VN weren't real videogames, until I played katawa shoujo That game simply wouldn't work as any other medium

This channel feels like it should have millions of subs. This content is genuinely great.

THE WATERMELON

Making breaching paths with choices that affect the ending does make a novel a game

just make it a dating sim, make the characters as shallow as possible and don't even bother with a story.

Tutorial really helped me thank you very much

Love your stuff!!

Ace Attorney exists though. And it is almost certainly a visual novel, and almost certainly a game. Just because most aren't games doesn't mean all aren't. (anything that excludes the more game-like visual novels will also exclude puzzle games)

**hits desk**

The best way to fail at indie game development is to not try, but what if you do try? Well, here's how to fail: So the first step is to make an interactive nove-

Loved this, need more

As a VN fan, I don't consider them games either. So I'm happy the video went in this direction.

dang that was fun!

April's fool came early this year...

Well done - you nailed this - now back to my VN - thx

Pain.. I thought it was an opening joke it was not

Telltale's been real quiet since this dropped

Oi! It's supposed to be taco Friday!! 😂

I like visual novels ;~;

pixel art meme genius

Okay THIS will actually be very helpful to me since my rpg is trying to take inspiration from interactive novels

I like the idea of making an IF or VN, but I also hate playing both of them. Is that weird?

good stuff is only in our hearts

To be honest, I wish this was a guide because I'd like to make a game of that nature at some point

Yeah I don't get it. I'm never making or attempting a visual novel ever now

Theoretically interactive fiction games can include any game inside of them (i.e. ChatGPT running a world simulation behind, down to quantum physics). The only issue is that you use text to visualize and control the game.

This wasn't uploaded in April?

Bruh

А будет про выживательные игры

Hmmmmmmmmm...... interesting.... watermelon?

I'm not a graphics person, so I accept that games are text-based.

April fools came early I see.

If you do a video about metroidvanias can you please let the world know that to design a metroidvania all you need to do is make a mostly linear lock and key game because that's all metroidvania devs seem to know how to make these days

I am working against my OCD, self-hatred and anxiety to even start on a visual novel. And I thought I was going to get real help after getting blown off by all the writers on writing forums for help ignored me and made me feel even worse about myself. This could be funny, but it hit at the wrong time when I am effing struggling for real and need something. I don't want to make you feel bad. As I just need a moment to be upset, which is not anything you did. I just thought I was actually going to get help for once.

To me, a visual novel is kind of like making a couple images of hentai, but you want to sell it, so you pad it out with a couple hours of dialogue, hype the fuck out of the characters, and sell it on steam for $2.50 so people can jokingly get it their friends like "haha get it because you're not into hentai 😂 it's funny because you're not even going to bother playing it"

how to fail at stealth games?

1:27 My pet penguin is named Fred :(

How to fail at making a tower defence game

Ok

Имено по этому я делаю ТОЛЬКО визуальные новеллы

it's easy to make a video but it's hard to make a clickbait thumbnail 😅( the easy way to success is thumbnail with hot 🥵 girl's )

I "see" that someone here "played" love at first sight... Ok, the "dev" stated (after "beating" the game on extras) that he Just wanted to Tell a history. But...dude.... C mon....

missed april fool by 4 months

Well, how about no =) Sarcasm kinda has to be at least in a little part humorous, and simply putting someone down, while it may anger some people, does not work as a joke. Even if someone laughs, they are laughing "victoriously" at someone's powerless anger, not at funnyness of any kind.

Damn, this Series made you loose your sanity real quick.

Fine, you earned the two minutes of my life that you stole.

0:13 hard not to agre

what??????????

I knew I should've stopped watching this series three videos ago

that's kind of clickbait🙁 like, i watched a couple of your other vids and expected an actual talk on the topic when i clicked on this

You forgot the (muscular) furry guys whose existence are the whole reason for the novels popularity tho, and everyone else trying to get a piece of the cake. Okay this would probably require knowledge of the furry fandom tho, 99% of Furry "games" are self insert visual novels xD

That's just lazy

This interactive novel is not very interactive.

Well, you know what they say. It's funny because it's true

And you just lost me. I was gonna subscribe. And now I'm not gonna. Given the deep and rich history of interactive novels, this is childish. And above everything, you didn't make me laugh.

As a visual novel, this is very accurate