5 Things That Every Visual Novel Should Have

Last month was right after the Spooktober Jam, so naturally, I spent a large chunk of the month playing different submissions, since I’m always on the hunt for great games! I found more than a few, but for many of the other games, I found some recurring issues in them, which affected the quality a bit in my eyes. 

Had these issues not been present, then I definitely would have looked more fondly on some of the other entries; at the very least I would have had a much smoother and more enjoyable experience. With that in mind, I’ve identified five features which I think every visual novel should have, and why. 

Before I get into this, a quick disclaimer: I’m a Ren’Py developer, and so it’s an engine I’m very familiar with. Ren’Py automatically supports most of the issues I’m about to discuss, but that doesn’t mean that I’m advocating for it to be the only engine that visual novels are made in. Personally, I don’t really care what engine a game is made in - as long as it plays well, that’s the important thing. But as I said, Ren’Py avoids most of the issues I’m about to discuss, so if you do plan on making a visual novel, take at least a bit of a squiz at it and think about why it includes the functionality that it does, please?

Sound Controls

This one is hopefully self-explanatory, so I’ll try to keep it brief. I can only assume that for the visual novels I played that were missing this feature, they weren’t able to implement them due to the limited time of the jam.

Anyway, in brief: if I’m playing a visual novel, I don’t want the music or sound effects to deafen me through the playtime. Similarly, I don’t want to be struggling to hear a sound effect over the sound of the music, or unable to hear voice lines because they’re drowned out by another noise. Adding in controls for the volumes of different types of sounds will make the experience go much more smoothly, and will keep sound the way it should be - atmospheric.

To assist your players with finding the right level of sound for them, you should ideally also include some way of playing a sample sound effect or voice line as necessary, so they can gauge what volume level works for them.

Rollback Functionality

Visual novel gameplay typically consists of a lot of reading. Your players are going to spend large chunks of the game reading text, clicking to reach the next textbox, and repeating ad infinitum. That’s what they’re here for, and that’s what they like.

You know what sometimes happens when people read in an interactive work? They miss information. Or they click without meaning to, and advance before they’re ready. Or, they realise that something said a few lines ago is important, and they want to double-check what exactly it said. In other words, somebody needs to re-read a line.

Rollback functionality is when a game allows its players to roll back at least a few lines, so that they can re-read text for whatever reason. It’s really useful, and it means that users can quickly clarify something, rather than being forced to move forwards while simultaneously trying to remember what they missed or forgot. (If you’re thinking, “Wait, Ren’Py has this functionality?”: it works by scrolling up on your mouse wheel).

Sometimes, of course, there are good reasons to remove or reset a game’s rollback functionality - you want a choice or outcome to have impact, and the player rewinding it will take away from that. Thankfully, the next feature enables players to re-read dialogue in a different way, while still restricting them from changing the decisions that they’ve made.

History Log

Providing your players with a history log - that is, a scrollable list of all recent textboxes - has a few notable advantages over simple rollback functionality. Firstly, players can skim through the text and find the information they’re looking for much faster. They won’t have to wait for a line to play out while rolling back, then roll back another line to see whether the information is there, ad nauseum. Instead, they can quickly find the information that they’re looking for, then resume playing.

Secondly, as mentioned above, a history log will allow players to check past information without undoing an important choice that they made. This might sound controversial, but I’m generally of the belief that if a player has an important choice to make in a game, they shouldn’t be able to undo it through trivial means. Removing the ability to undo choices trivially - while still allowing players to read past text - will make choices more meaningful, and will have players taking your game more seriously.

A third feature of history logs isn’t actually something that I’ve experimented with or experienced myself, but I think that it has potential. Namely, using the history log to add to the story of the game. You could insert the player character’s thoughts in-between historical messages, showing what they’re thinking at each time. Alternatively, you could alter the messages in the history log slightly, showing the player characters’ biases and how they’re interpreting what they experienced. Admittedly, this is moving the history log away from a useful feature and more into a core part of gameplay, but whether they’re used traditionally or not, history logs will do nothing but enhance the experience of a visual novel.

Text Speed Controls

Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: you’re playing a game that uses a visual novel interface for its story, and it’s taking so damn long to get through. Each line is moving at a snail’s pace, and you’re fairly certain that you could speak the entirety of the game’s dialogue faster than it’s appearing. As a result, you’re finding it difficult to stay engaged with the story.

All of this can be avoided by adding in text speed controls, and allowing players to control how fast the dialogue will show up on the screen. It’s a simple feature that will let them control the pacing of the story, and if you’re thinking that a player being able to do that will ruin the experience you’ve crafted, consider the fact that people can read regular stories at their own pace and that’s never affected them negatively.

If for some reason you’re really insistent on not adding in text speed controls, then at the very least, add in something that will cause the line to display in its entirety immediately, and allow players to proceed to the next textbox. Respect your players’ time, and let them move forwards at the pace they want to - if you’ve really crafted a good story, they’ll take their time to savour it and take it in regardless.

Skip functionality

On the note of players moving forwards at their own pace, let’s talk about replaying a game. If somebody is playing a visual novel that they’ve already played before, I’d argue that they’re likely doing so for one of two reasons:

• They are trying to find content which they haven’t experienced previously

• They want to replay a story which they greatly enjoyed

Let’s focus on the former. If somebody wants to experience new content, there’s a good chance that they might not want to see the existing content again. This will vary depending upon the level of engagement that players have, but I can guarantee that you’ll end up with players who want to skip parts of the game. Hence, the necessity of a skip functionality, to fast forward or completely bypass sections of the game.

While this might sound a bit offensive to some (“Players, skipping my carefully crafted story? Not if I have anything to say about it!”), the fact is that being able to skip content will keep players more engaged, not less. Skipping content means that players can get to what they want to see faster, which they’ll be excited for. Not including the functionality will lead to less players being willing to replay your game - they’ll be turned off by the idea of seeing the same content again, and will consider it to be more work. Of course, if a player greatly enjoyed the story, they might not even utilise the skip feature, which is fine - it’s not like it’s being forced on them.

The important thing to get right with skip functionality is ensuring that it won’t skip over dialogue that players haven’t seen before - I mentioned this in my review of Baldr Sky, and how I had the choice of either seeing the same text as I had previously, or skipping over new information. Neither option was appealing to me, and it hurt the experience of the game overall (on top of numerous other flaws, mind you).

By reading this post, you can hopefully understand why lacking several of these features can hurt the enjoyment of reading a visual novel, even when the story and presentation themselves are done well. Lots of little things are needed to make the experience of a visual novel go smoothly, since everybody has different standards for what makes the flow of reading enjoyable.

Did I miss a feature that you consider to be essential? Is there a major flaw you’re aware of in multiple visual novels, that you think more people should hear about? Let me know by contacting me, or by chatting on our Discord!