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Visual novel

Poster · September 2013

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.5007.6405

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 Visual novel

Katerina Bashova 1, Veno Pachovski 2

University American College Skopje, III Proleterska brigada br. 60,

1000 Skopje, Republic of Macedonia

1
bashova.katerina@gmail.com, 2 pachovski@uacs.edu.mk

Abstract. Until the 20th century, the books were the window to the world and a
way of entertainment and education. However, in the 21 st century, with the
development of the technology and telecommunications, the Internet became
the new window to the world. Even though the books are being adapted into
electronic version, still the youth are more interested in multimedia games,
which have animation, visual effects, sounds and music.
In order to motivate the youth to read, but at the same time to keep their
attention with multimedia elements, a multimedia game was developed – visual
novel.
This paper presents such a game.

Keywords: multimedia, visual novel, Ren’Py, scenario, characters, story

1 Introduction

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and
wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”[1] That may have been true
until the 20th century when the book became more accessible for the common people
and the reading was the window to the world and a way of entertainment as well as
education. However, in the 21st century, with the development of the technology and
telecommunications, the Internet has become the new window to the world. With the
development of the electronic book readers, tablets and other similar devices, the
books are slowly being adapted and/or published in electronic version, so that they
can be read on the computer or using these devices. Still the youth are more interested
in multimedia games, which have animation, visual effects, sounds and music. They
play various computer games, video games for consoles like Sony PlayStation©,
Wii©, Xbox 360© etc, that do not always have educational purpose because of the
significant amount of violence present in some of them.
According to the State Statistical Office of Republic of Macedonia [2][3][4][5][6], from
2006 to 2011, 366 titles from children’s literature were published in Republic of
2 Katerina Bashova 1, Veno Pachovski 2

Macedonia, where 152 were children’s novels, 152 were children’s picture books, 37
were children’s stories and 25 were children’s poetry.

Table 1 Titles from children’s literature

Year Children’s Children’s Children’s Children’s Total per
novels stories picture books poetry year
2006 28 4 14 6 52
2007 29 19 23 2 73
2008 14 5 33 2 54
2009 6 4 7 3 20
2010 26 1 24 2 53
2011 49 4 51 10 144
Total per 152 37 152 25
category:
Total: 366
Source: State Statistical Office of Republic of Macedonia

From these statistical data, it can be concluded that the most published titles are the
children’s novels and the children’s picture books. The largest number of published
novels was in 2011(a total of 49 titles). The same year had the biggest number of
picture books (a total of 51 titles).

Source: State Statistical Office of Republic of Macedonia

Fig. 1. Published titles from 2006 to 2011
But how can these books be accepted by the youth, which grow in front of the
computers and ask for multimedia games? In order to accomplish that, a game is
needed which will have a huge amount of text, as well as music and sounds. Also it
should offer interaction with the player and it should stimulate the creativity of the
 Visual novel 3

player, as well as offer the player an opportunity to make decisions i.e. to influence
the flow of the story. The visual novel has all these elements.

1.1 History of visual novel

The origins of the visual novel date from the 1980s with the game The Portopia Serial
Murder Case (jap. ポートピア連続殺人事件 or Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken),
which was first published in the Japanese market in 1983 by the company Enix
(today’s Square Enix). The genre of this game was adventure and it was made for the
Japanese computer NEC PC-6001. Later in 1985, the company Chunsoft adapted the
game for NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) and this version of the game has
become precursor of the visual novels. [7][8][9]
However, the company Chunsoft published the first novel in 1992 and it was the
horror thriller game Otogirisō (jap. 弟切草, eng. St John's wort) which was made for
Super Nintendo Entertainment System. This game, with 300 000 copies sold, was so
successful that it became a role model for the new genre and the games where named
as Sound Novels (jap. サウンドノベル or saundo noberu). One specific
characteristic of these games is that after the first play, with new start and new
decisions made, a new additional scenario would be unlocked. The company Leaf,
which was one of the many that wanted to develop this type of games, in order not to
use Chunsoft’s trademark Sound Novel, named their series games Visual Novels.
Leaf’s first games were not so successful until 1997, when they published the game
To Heart (jap. トゥハート or Tu Hāto). With its warm and touching love story, as
well as its high quality music, it became instant success. This motivated other
companies to accept this term and since then these types of games are known as
Visual Novels. [10]

1.2 Visual novel definition

The term visual novel (jap. ビジュアルノベル or bijuaru noberu) represents a

multimedia game which has all the multimedia’s elements like text, backgrounds,
characters, music, sounds and it has interaction with the player. According to
Cavallaro (2010:8) “the visual novel typically articulates it’s narrative by means of
extensive text conversations complemented by lovingly depicted (and mainly
stationary) generic backgrounds and dialogue boxes with character sprites 1
determining the speaker superimposed upon them”.
Typical for the visual novel is the branching of the story, because there are
decision points in the game where the player is expected to make a decision about the
next step of the story. Based on the chosen option, the player will reach a certain end
of the story. This way, when the player finishes the game, he/she is motivated to play

1 character sprites are two-dimensional images

4 Katerina Bashova 1, Veno Pachovski 2

it again in order to see the other (alternative) ends of the story. Based on how many
decision points are in the visual novel, it increases its alternative story’s ends as well
as its complexity.
If the given story has only one end and not so much interaction with the player, the
visual novel is narrative and linear and is called kinetic novel.
Another specific element of the visual novel are the backgrounds. According to
Cavallaro (2010:8) “at certain pivotal moments in the story, more detailed images
drawn especially for those scenes and enhanced by more cinematic camera angles and
CGI2 are included” to gain the attention and to move the player.
Beside the dialogue, backgrounds and characters, the visual novels include
background music and sounds, especially composed and made for the game to capture
the story’s atmosphere.
The dialogue box in which all the character’s dialogue goes, can be a rectangle frame
located at the end of the screen or it can be a full screen square-like frame where the
text will overlay the background and the characters that appear in the scene. But
regardless of the size and shape of the dialogue box, the player can always hide it for
a brief moment in order to see the whole scene and admire it.

2. The Ren’Py engine

Ren’Py is a visual novel engine that provides easy implementation of all

multimedia elements with its special Ren’Py script language. According to Ren’Py’s
founder Tom Py, “the Ren’Py’s script language, which is easy to learn, provides
effective writing of huge visual novels, while its Python script allows creating more
complex stimulation games. The engine is open source, which means that it can be
downloaded freely from Ren’Py’s official website, as well its code to be modified and
upgraded. Tom Py named the engine Ren’Py, using the words “Ren’аi (from the
Japanese term for ren'ai shimyurēshon gēmu - romantic stimulation game or dating
sims) and Python, because Ren'Py is developed with Pygame and the programming
language Python.” [11]
Ren’Py’s first official version was released on August 24th , 2004 and it was
Windows compatible only. Later on September 8, 2005 a Macintosh version was
released, while the Linux version was released on April 30, 2006. All this versions
provided development and release of games for all three platforms. On February 7,
2011, a version was released with support for the special RAPT – the Ren’Py Android
Packaging Tool. With this tool, the Ren’Py games could be adapted to be executable
on Android tablets and smart phones. Still the ability to develop and release Ren’Py
games in Android is not supported.
The latest version is Ren’Py 6.15 codenamed “Foreign Policy” and it was released
on March 3rd, 2013. It provides developing games with complex translation system,
that will allow the player to easily change the languages, and provide the programmer

2 CGI stands for Computer-Generated Imagery

 Visual novel 5

with clarity of the translation as well as options for adding new languages. [15][16]

Fig. 2. Ren’Py’s logo [12] Pygame’s logo[13] Logo for the novel on Аndroid[14]
With its multiplatform support, dedicated team that has been upgrading it actively
for nearly nine years, as well as its dedicated forum, the Ren’Py engine is becoming
more and more popular and the beginners as well as the companies have created many
noncommercial and commercial visual novels.

3 Development of a visual novel

When developing a visual novel, it is essential to choose a story, from which the
character’s dialogs will be extracted and, based on them, a scenario is constructed.
When the scenario is defined, and with it the characters, the next step is editing the
backgrounds and the character sprites in Adobe Photoshop. The background of the
character sprites must be transparent in order not to overlay the background that is
going to be used in Ren’Py. At the same time, the voices of the characters are
recorded and appropriately adapted in Adobe Soundbooth. After that, the
backgrounds, the character sprites and the voices are stored in the game folder of the
visual novel. Considering the abundance of data that should be stored and accessed
during the game creation, the game folder has several subfolders (see Fig. 3).

Fig. 3. Game folder diagram

For example, the voices folder has ten subfolders which correspond to the ten
scenes of the story. In each of them, the characters’ voices, based on the scene, are
stored. In the sound folder, all the sounds that appear in the visual novel are stored,
while in the music folder all the background music is stored. In the images folder
6 Katerina Bashova 1, Veno Pachovski 2

there are two subfolders: 01 Pozadini (backgrounds), for storing the backgrounds, and
02 Likovi (characters), for all the character sprites. In the last folder, ‘End credits’, a
small video is stored, crediting all the people that took part in the development of the
visual novel.

3.1 Creating a story for visual novel

For this paper, an original children’s story was created. The story is about a little
snail (Goce) that was very lazy and did not want to get up early to go to school.
Because he always overslept, his friends (the ladybug, the cricket, the caterpillar, etc)
used to mock him and his teacher was always scolding and punishing him. Advised
by his teacher to buy an alarm clock, Goce’s mother bought it and she set it up so that
Goce could get up on time. The next morning the alarm clock woke up Goce and in
the end, Goce got up. He got up early (which means, on time), hence he came to
school on time and his friends joyfully greeted him. The teacher was pleased and
happy for him not being late as usual and for that, she rewarded him.

Fig. 4. Correlation chart (interactions between characters)

The plot of the story is based on the proverb “Early bird gets the worm”.
During the development of the story, to make it more interesting for the players,
two new characters, the Bird and the Tree were added. When Goce goes to school
through the forest, he begins to have second thoughts and wants to go back home and
 Visual novel 7

to continue to sleep. But, in the forest, Goce meets the Bird and the Tree, and they are
the ones that will persuade him not to be truant and encourage him to go to school. As
mentioned before, in order to make the game more interactive, the story has three
decision points, and a certain number of options are offered so that the player can
choose the possible outcome.

Fig. 5. The story’s flowchart

The first decision point is when Goce arrives at school and the player can choose
whether the teacher is in a bad or a good mood. If bad is chosen, an angry teacher will
appear and if good is chosen, then a smiling teacher will appear.
The second decision point is when the alarm clock should wake Goce up. Several
options are offered about how Goce should be awakened:
with a trumpet - a military trumpet’s song will be played;
with an anthem - the academic anthem “Gaudeamus Igitur”, will be played;
with a song - Sony Erricson’s „Tictac classic“ ringtone will be played;
normally - the alarm clock will have a shrill voice to wake Goce up.
The last and crucial decision point, at which there will be branching, is when the
player has to make a decision whether Goce should get up early or not. If the player
8 Katerina Bashova 1, Veno Pachovski 2

decides that Goce should not get up, he will be late for school again and therefore,
punished by the teacher. This decision represents the sad end. But if the player
decides for Goce to get up early, he will arrive on time at school and for that he will
be rewarded. As a bonus for getting the happy ending, the early mentioned credit
video is played as a way to credit all the people involved in the making of the visual
novel.

3.2 Coding in Ren’Py

The story has only three decision points. This branching is made possible by using
the menu and if statements.
The first decision point is when Goce arrives at school and the player can choose
whether the teacher is in a bad or a good mood. If bad is chosen, a string “losha” will
be assigned to the variable mood and if good is chosen, then a string “dobra” will be
assigned. Next, the if statement is used to check the content of the variable mood.
Accordingly, an angry or a smiling teacher would appear. The code should look like
on Fig. 6:

Fig. 6. Using the menu statement and assigning value to the variable mood.

Fig. 7. Tasks to be made when the variable mood has string “dobra” or string “losha”
The second decision point is when the alarm clock must wake Goce up. Several
options are offered to the player, on how should Goce be awakened:
with a trumpet - a string “truba” will be assigned to the variable budi;
with an anthem - a string “himna” will be assigned to the variable budi;
with a song - a string “pesna” will be assigned to the variable budi;
normally - a string “normalno” will be assigned to the variable budi.

Fig. 8. Using the menu statement for choosing Goce’s way of awakening
When a string has been assigned to the variable budi, it will be checked with if
statement, the same way as with the teacher, and the appropriate action will be
 Visual novel 9

performed by the story’s engine.

The last and crucial decision point, at which there will be an actual branching, is
where the player has to make a decision whether Goce should get up early or not. If
the player decides that Goce should not get up, the jump statement is executed and the
player jumps to the label tazno in which the little snail Goce is again late for school
and punished by the angry teacher. This decision represents the sad ending. But if the
player decides that Goce should get up early, the jump statement to the label srekno
is executed in which Goce arrives on time at school and he is rewarded by the smiling
teacher. This decision represents the happy and the true (intended) ending of the
story.

Fig. 9. Using the play movie statement (after the intended happy end is reached))
As a bonus in the happy ending, the credit video is played, as a way to credit all the
people involved in the making of the visual novel, with the play movie statement.
With this statement the video is played only once, it is located before the return
statement. After the video finishes, a text “Happy end” appears on the scene with the
character narrator. When the player clicks on this last scene, he/she will be returned to
the visual novel’s main menu.

4 Conclusion and future work

The visual novel is a multimedia game, which is interactive and stimulates the
player’s creativity, as well as making decisions that affect the story that is being told.
With its breath taking images and cheerful characters, the visual novel can attract the
attention of the youngest readers and of those who are learning to read. Also, through
the story, it motivates them to read and it teaches them ethical lessons. All the
published children’s stories and picture books can be even more accepted by the
children and the youth with the help of the visual novel.
But the visual novel should not be strictly limited to children’s literature. It has the
advantage to be adapted to any genre, from classical to contemporary literature.
The Visual novel can be a challenge for the programmers, because the
development consists of coding in two languages, Ren’Py and Python, designing the
backgrounds, the characters, requires composing the background music, recording
sounds and character’s voices as well as defining coding strategy based on the story’s
scenario. Because of this, a team of programmers, background’s and character’s
artists, authors, composers and voice actors is needed to power the visual novel’s
development.
 10 Katerina Bashova 1, Veno Pachovski 2

The visual novel’s development, depending of its complexity and the team’s size,
can take from half year to year and half, if the whole project is well managed and the
team well coordinated

References

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