charmianland because random is good enough for most

I was having a discussion with several people about a) why are visual novels VISUAL, b) why don’t novels have multiple endings, but games often do, c) why we still read purely textual stories but don’t play purely textual games anymore (well, some people

have abandoned pure text)

1. Novels, as a form (in the West), derive from fictional (first person) memoirs and accounts. Thusly, they are in the past, because after all, to tell a story and write it down, it needs to have happened. And normally it needs to be finished to some extent before you, the reader read it. (Serials and epistolary novels complicate this to some extent) Whether fiction is inherently of the past, or just conventionally so, we normally use the past tense in novels (at least in English and the other language I know) for this reason. Also, what is simulated is turned into words. Words mean that it is filtered through someone’s head, more obvious than a picture or a simulated sound. Textual narrative is generally in the past.

2. A. said to me “the whole point of a game is a feedback loop; multiple endings is a logical extension of that feedback loop.” In other words, what makes a game a game is that your actions influence the game (there is feedback). And so it is logical that there may be multiple endings (even if only a “Game Over”) in response to your actions. Thusly, games are more of the present, because our actions can only affect things in the present. Our present actions cannot affect the past (if we are playing a game right now, we are in the present anyway). So, could games be more effective and more game-like the more they appear to be in the present?

3. Becoming more and more speculative:  pictures, to some extent, and especially sound, are more immediate, more of the present, than text. Film gives the appearance of a simulation of reality, like a dream (showing). A novel is someone telling a story. If games are more effective if they are more of the present, they’ll be more effective with pictures and sound. That is why text-only games have been largely abandoned.

4. Then, this is also why even in commercial fiction, multiple endings are not often seen? Because they would deviate from the illusion of invoking the past? To say “now as the author I have two endings for you” is to break the fourth wall, as John Fowles does in the French Lieutenant’s Woman, an book which does have multiple endings. In this one, the author literally appears on the page at that moment, and acknowledgement that to do this reminds us this is a (meta) fiction. Or why the attempt to use the novel as a game medium (with multiple endings) has not achieved success?

5. As for Visual Novels/Ren’ai Games/Otome Games, they actually are often not only visual, but also aural (sound, voice acting), and times being more like an illustrated drama CD than a novel. (the ratio of dialogue to narration, for one thing) So perhaps you can say that they aspire to the condition of an interactive anime? Or do they? If the creators has the budgets to animate the scenes, would they? Some also include more conventional game elements.