machomuu
Stuck in Hot Girl Summer
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- Take a left, turn right at the next stop, bear lef
- Seen Nov 1, 2023
Hm...I think we may be on different sides of the same track, here.
Let's rear back around to Steins;Gate. The VN doesn't stop for decisions in that VN, and the actual decisions are based around the reader pushing a button or pushing nothing. Either way, you get an ending (with no game overs). It's quite similar to the Blu-Ray- but my point there wasn't exactly the interactivity (which is part of why I call it semantics later).
But that isn't really what I was getting at. I wasn't arguing the lack of choice- quite the opposite, actually. I was saying that there is choice in choosing an ending, regardless of whether you're playing a game, reading a VN, watching a movie, or reading a book, and as a result, merely having choice isn't what makes the VN a VN. It's not an inherent trait.
But to answer all of this at once, I'll just kind of go back to the very first statement of the post. At no point was I arguing what a video game was and the importance of choice in terms of what defines a game. I've been over that in the link I posted above.
The point of all of this was to deny the idea that VNs without choice aren't VNs at all, but are instead movies. Though them being called movies wasn't really all that important, that was just likening them to the same medium as the various TV media. The reason I likened them to movies (and briefly, games and books) in the way of choice was to show that they can be very, very similar, and as a result, VNs can't simply be defined by the fact that the reader has choice. Saying that would be the same as saying that Steins;Gate without choice wouldn't be a visual novel. This being in spite of the fact that it has all of the other elements of a visual novel- the notion's just silly.
But really, games weren't inherently a part of the discussion. Or, rather, they were- since there was another reason I mentioned choice. Tangent:
^ There's rambling for you
But to close this, I'll basically say that what you're saying on most of this isn't completely far off from what I actually think. Or thought when I wrote that post regarding what a game is at least. I'm not going to go into what's changed about my opinion since then, but this video makes a nice, short little tl;dr to the whole thing:
We weren't arguing the same things or even really about the same topics, which is why what counted as semantics in my point didn't count as so in your counter-y'know, different sides of the same track.
That's not quite what I was getting at there. If you put a Blu-Ray in, you come to a menu. A menu is inherently interactive, but let's disregard that and say that the movie starts playing automatically. There's still a menu, but when you put the disc in the movie just plays. But let's say you don't want the regular ending. Let's say you want the alternate ending. For that, you have to (possibly stop), navigate the menu, and pick it. In some cases, it has to be unlocked. It's interactive in a pretty similar way.
Let's rear back around to Steins;Gate. The VN doesn't stop for decisions in that VN, and the actual decisions are based around the reader pushing a button or pushing nothing. Either way, you get an ending (with no game overs). It's quite similar to the Blu-Ray- but my point there wasn't exactly the interactivity (which is part of why I call it semantics later).
That isn't exactly what I wa- well, no, there's no real game over. Just different ends.
But that isn't really what I was getting at. I wasn't arguing the lack of choice- quite the opposite, actually. I was saying that there is choice in choosing an ending, regardless of whether you're playing a game, reading a VN, watching a movie, or reading a book, and as a result, merely having choice isn't what makes the VN a VN. It's not an inherent trait.
Huh? My argument was that Steins;Gate is no less of a game because of the fact that you don't have to interact with it. Hell, in this link I used it as an example.
Rambling? Please, have you read my posts? This is concise and brief by comparison.
But to answer all of this at once, I'll just kind of go back to the very first statement of the post. At no point was I arguing what a video game was and the importance of choice in terms of what defines a game. I've been over that in the link I posted above.
The point of all of this was to deny the idea that VNs without choice aren't VNs at all, but are instead movies. Though them being called movies wasn't really all that important, that was just likening them to the same medium as the various TV media. The reason I likened them to movies (and briefly, games and books) in the way of choice was to show that they can be very, very similar, and as a result, VNs can't simply be defined by the fact that the reader has choice. Saying that would be the same as saying that Steins;Gate without choice wouldn't be a visual novel. This being in spite of the fact that it has all of the other elements of a visual novel- the notion's just silly.
But really, games weren't inherently a part of the discussion. Or, rather, they were- since there was another reason I mentioned choice. Tangent:
Spoiler:
^ There's rambling for you
But to close this, I'll basically say that what you're saying on most of this isn't completely far off from what I actually think. Or thought when I wrote that post regarding what a game is at least. I'm not going to go into what's changed about my opinion since then, but this video makes a nice, short little tl;dr to the whole thing:
Spoiler:
We weren't arguing the same things or even really about the same topics, which is why what counted as semantics in my point didn't count as so in your counter-y'know, different sides of the same track.
