Visual Novels: Narrative Design in Virtue's Last Reward

[Music] so I'll be honest in my script it says oh my gosh I'm so happy to see so many of you in the audience today but I don't know if I can call this a lot of people either way I'm so grateful and honored to be a speaker this year at GDC I think the interpreter and the booth is not sure which reaction I was supposed to take because I didn't tell her but hopefully she got it right so thanks for showing up for my session today for such a niche creator like myself so I'd like to know did any of you attend the GDC Awards last night oh cool so nice to see

that and you are well aware of who the winners are then the best narrative at the 13th annual game developers Choice Awards went to drum roll drum roll The Walking Dead that's weird you know I think it was supposed to say virtues last reward and now it says The Walking Dead [Laughter] I promised my wife that I bring home an award so I don't know what excuse I have now I myself obviously have played the

walking dead so I can completely understand why it won the award and I'm a huge fan of the game unfortunately we didn't win four virtues last reward a title which I directed and wrote the story for but I'm so honored to have been nominated for such a prestigious award alongside some fantastic titles I like to thank all of our staff at Spike Chunsoft the localization staff at axis and all of our fans who supported our title and thank you all here for your support I was fortunate to attend the

award ceremony last night and all the nominated titles are fantastic in their own way any of them could have taken home an award but of those the ones that I'm most interested in or I've always been interested in I already have played our journey The Walking Dead and the room do you know what these three have in common yes they're all adventure games so as we

just said The Walking Dead took home Best narrative the room took home best handheld and mobile and journey they were nominated in six categories and won all of them and of course the game of the Year award also went to journey as you can see from these results adventure games are on a roll it seems as though the fun and adventure games were rediscovered last year thanks to these wonderful games so visual novel is is sort of an adventure game adventure it's sort of an adventure game kind of a sub-genre

within the adventure game genre our virtues last reward or I'm going to say vlr is for sure is a visual novel technically speaking VLR features a lot of puzzles so it may not be a visual novel in the purest sense but it's safe to say that it falls into the genre so then what's a visual novel how many of you have played a visual novel oh great so glad to see so then perhaps I don't need to explain what a visual novel is but for those who

may not be familiar a visual novel is the answer is is that there isn't a clear definition of a visual novel a video game what visuals sound and narrative displayed and text-based form that could be one possible definition but even without sound or narrative displayed and text on screen you can still call some games a visual novel then what about a game without any visuals that wouldn't make any sense how can you call a visual novel if it doesn't contain any visuals but it is possible to create a piece that essentially is the same and possesses

the same principles as a visual novel even without using any visuals here's an example of a visual novel without any visual expressions this is real sound winds of regret released back in 1997 this game contains no visuals whatsoever the player spends his or her time listening as the story unfolds when there's a fork in the plot it's up to the player to choose which course to take once the selection is made the story continues the structure is essentially the same as a visual novel and I just use the word essential or essence so then what is the central quality or principle behind a visual novel [Music] watch on screen the essential quality of a visual novel a video game with visuals

sound and narrative displayed and text-based form and now you just saw that the two words that remain our narrative and video game but simply a video game with narrative is essential quality of a visual novel a game what narrative sounds like pretty much any game out there from Super Mario Brothers to I mean pretty much anything well maybe Tetris is an exception you're all probably thinking so then let me rephrase what I meant it's a video game that weighs heavily on narrative the essential quality of a visual novel lies in heavy narrative however just because

it's narrative heavy you can't call it a visual novel since that would also apply to film anime manga novels and so on at the same time you can't just add the word game or the game element to something and call it a visual novel as would also include things like paperback adventure gamebooks and some there are two elements that make up the central quality of a visual novel a heavy narrative and a video game so let me step away from visual novels for a second here and talk about sports our football and baseball sports of course they are then what about darts and pool how about motor racing shooting and fishing and yes fishing

what about lingerie football I don't know about you guys but I say these are all sports because they require to be athletic however some people may disagree in a similar way that some people think visual novels are not games so is a visual novel a game or not if it isn't I would have to go back and re-examine the essential qualities of what makes a visual novel I'm going to go ahead and answer the question for us a visual novel is a game similar to how

darts and fishing are sports a visual novel is a game but why and how and what exactly is a game then it being athletic and having great reflexes defines what a sport is then what is a game a game is something with selectivity is what I think to be more specific something where the selection made by the players decision changes the history of events or outcome that takes place within a given set of rules does that make sense well let me just give you an example [Music]

InTouch hrus the player selects how to move the falling blocks based on a specific set of rules depending on the selection made by the player the blocks below changes it changes its form this outcome you see is a result of the players decision coming into play with the events that are displayed on screen it's the same with a game of chess the player selects how to move the piece based on a given rule and by doing so the events or the history of what's taking place on the board has changed so that is why chess is also a game dartz Poker tennis boxing Call of Duty assassin's creed Metal Gear all these are games oh of course and so is lingerie football

and why because the selection made by the players decision changes the history of events taking place within a given set of rules if that's the case we can say that life is a game - because in life there are rules and selectivity it looks like you guys made the right choice or decision because you are here today listening to me speak a game specializing in selectivity that's a visual novel in that sense I believe it's a category of games in its purest form a primitive game as you know except

for some rare ones the majority of visual novels have some form of selectivity they are generally displayed in the form of a selection or choice this is where visual novels novels differ from film anime manga and novels they might all have narratives but they don't have selectivity the viewer or reader is unable to step into the story at will this is the biggest strength for visual novels over to our new home book in Japan visual novels have naturally evolved and developed over time similar to the giant tortoise in the Galapagos Islands it has evolved in its own unique way domestically in a closed environment and like Charles Darwin's theory of evolution perhaps someone in the

audience will uncover and it's eccentric idea as well the first example is jane's gate a visual novel released in 2009 by five PB games this game does not have any selections or choices instead there is a selectivity element where you can either choose to send an email from your mobile phone or not depending on your selection the plot changes the following year and 2010 our company released a game called dangan ronpa academy of hope and high school students of despair it is a murder mystery adventure game with a school trial at the center of the story the game manages to perfectly blend the action and the heated debates and aside from the trial section of the game the game progresses in a visual

novel manner there are many other visual novels with great stories philosophical ones emotional ones well-written mysteries and human drama so many to name that there is one work that pioneered the visual novel movement and that is kamaitachi know yoda translated as the night of the sickle weasel this is a Xie game developed by chintsov before we merged with Spike and became the current company the original release was in 1994 about 20 years ago on the SNES it is a visual novel and the plot revolves around two characters who are suddenly drawn into a horrible murder mystery at a skiing lodge you are

to solve the mystery and find the murderer there is one unique thing about this game that is that it doesn't use any flags I'm sure everyone here knows what I mean by a flag yes it's the flag used in computer programming are you going to flirt with Nomi if yes the variable is true if no it will be false soon after you find out know me as your boss's mistress so if you chose false you'll be promoted but if you chose true you'll be fired that's a quick example of a flag

[Music] after asking around the development team members who worked on kamaitachi know yo dude it looks like they didn't really use any flags if so how were they able to create branching storylines without losing consistency well in fact there are a couple different ways to approach this but today I'm going to talk about the most interesting method in kamaitachi no Yoda the flags were embedded into the players brain so what exactly does this mean you're probably thinking don't worry I'll explain what it means here's a snapshot of the branching narrative structure a point X the dead body is

discovered next at Point y this is where you enter the name of the murderer this comes up pretty early in the game if you have the correct answer in other words if you're able to guess the murderer and you're right you'll get the good ending which is a however in most cases you haven't collect enough clues to guess the murders murderer on the first try so players will end up passing through Y and get two endings B C D and so on unfortunately those have tragic endings where all the characters are murdered or

you end up killing the heroine by mistake and even vice versa in order to avoid these endings the players must return to point y and enter the correct answer but to do that the player must collect hints and clues along the way that lead to those tragic B C and D endings once you've gathered enough clues and are ready to solve the case you return to point y that's the basic flow and come my touch enjoy Yoda the interesting thing about this flow is that they're not using a flag at point Y in any ordinary visual novel it would

work like this you have a flag up B and a flag at C and a flag at D once you've gotten through all the flags point Y will unlock and you'll get the good ending at a however that's not how it works in this game in an extreme case if you're able to guess the correct name during your first playthrough you'll get the good a ending without having to have to go through endings B C and D so if there is no flag at point why what took its place the answer is the memory that was embedded in the players brain

once the player gathers Clues clues on path B C and D the main character of the game was able to go back to point y and give the correct answer thanks to the players own memory normally in visual novels that memory is stored onto the computer's memory as a piece of data for example for the clues picked up in path be true what about in path C true and D true once those conditions are met the main character is able to proceed to path a however in this game the developers of kamaitachi know to use the player's brain to store the memory and not the computer

using the players brain as the computer's memory this is what's unique about kamaitachi no Yoda and what differentiates this game from other visual novels that came after it I sense a lot of old-school gamers reacting to this telling me that all adventure games from the early days did the same thing and they're 100% correct it is true that back in the days when playing adventure games you would have to take notes of passwords or clues or even draw a simple map for yourself the memory capacity needed to play those games existed in our own brain however as consoles and Technology evolved that information was stored on the computer I mean who

wouldn't want that playing games become a bit easier less stressful fun and accessible don't you think for visual novels we're seeing more games adapt that style where they're frequently using flags therefore from our standpoint kamaitachi no Yoda is different and at the same time feels very fresh there is a Japanese proverb on gold teaching which means to discover new things by taking lessons from the past kamaitachi no Yoda is exactly that it is a game that teaches us the importance of own position so I talked in length about

kamaitachi no Yoda and you're probably wondering what it has to do with vlr well there is a connection and if you've already played vlr you may have already noticed something and vlr you are prompted to enter a password at certain points like when you need to start up a computer or you have to deactivate a bomb and so on take a look at this flow you pick up a password on path B and enter it into device why do the same on Patsy and enter into Z one path D and enter into Z two eventually you will have unlocked Y and Z's and proceed further into the game this isn't throughout the entire game but it comes at plenty of times and we're not using any flags at these points

the player embeds the information he or she collected on these paths as memories in their brain and enters them into devices y and z the original idea of this comes from kamaitachi noi Yoda and the method they used so as with that game if a player ends up searching for passwords for y&z somewhere online or a strategy guide they can simply enter that and advance in the game without going through B C or D what do you think pretty interesting since the title of this session is narrative design and virtues last reward I assume many of you

here today have an interest in story writing and storytelling so using the remaining time I like to share some of my techniques it's nothing extraordinary or special so I don't know if you call these techniques but for me it begins with a sense of discomfort this is what I use as a foundation for whenever I design a game or write a narrative I'm inspired by it and everything begins from here I'm going to bring back on my touch annoy Yoda for a second here

here's a flowchart for con my Dutch no yo do when I was explaining this earlier did you notice anything I said this the player will pick up hints and clues along paths B C D and return to Y and enter the murderers name however if you think about it that can't be right point why exists above path B C and D it existed in the past therefore at point y the main character of the game his name is toto doesn't know or rather can't know what happened in past B C and D those events happen in the future but Toto is able to enter the name at point Y when he returns why is that I'm sure

you know the answer it's obvious it's because the player not the main character in the game knew about the events in path B C and D interesting right the player had information that the main character total didn't have therefore total the players alter-ego knew the answer so then how do you solve this it's simple what you do is you give the main character in the game the same ability you have in other words you allow the character to move freely between the past future and different timelines in the past

this is how the VL l VL our flowchart came to be well to be honest I see other way around in the prequel nine nine nine nine hours nine persons nine doors we didn't have a flowchart some of our fans didn't like that so we decided from the beginning that VL r would have one but it's no fun just including a flowchart just to have it in there right so I started thinking of ways to incorporate a story element into the chart that's when the confusion or discomfort of kamaitachi Nyota became the source of inspiration in addition in

both vlr and $9.99 there are various elements in which in the game which were inspired by this element of discomfort or confusion for example the discomfort you feel in let's say first-person perspective and third-person perspective I won't go into the details as I know not all of you may have played Valera and 999 however I will say that the discomfort you get from playing a third-person perspective game and seeing yourself in the screen is what creates the unique qualities in these games you probably know what I mean by this if you played the game pretty cause she's not even on you like on what I hate to keep repeating myself but that sense of discomfort is very

important it's a trigger point for me in writing the story I suppose you can say it's very similar to having doubts about the conventional thought or me telling you do not blindly trust the common knowledge for example in most action-adventure games in RPGs your main character carries several weapons along with other gear and equipment even though visually and on-screen you can only see one type of what they have equipped and in various parts of the map you can pick up ammo healing items and will get coins or money when you defeat your enemies in reality that doesn't happen and it's not natural but in games it's typical it's a given and we don't question that and that's the standard it's right here where there's actually a hidden trick does anyone know that does anyone know who I'm or what I'm talking

about so I just said that equipping several weapons and picking up ammo at specific locations is unnatural in real life it just doesn't happen that way but players have accepted it without questioning why why is it so in games simple answer because the game is much more fun that way there are people who argue that these settings are not realistic and you wouldn't encounter such situations in real life but I think that's nonsense we shouldn't be that obsessed with reality in games where it becomes too excessive a real world where true reality exists is the world we live in and this world

is a world where the level design is broken and there are all kinds of bugs all over the place don't you agree that it's a pretty boring world what's so entertaining about recreating a world full of absurdity in games what's more games are fun because they are set in an imaginary world what's important to games isn't the real reality but a reality for games it's the reality that is according to rules and games in closing I like to circle back to the top of this session of the games that were nominated this year at the

game developers Choice Awards I'm most interested in these three titles journey The Walking Dead and the room and what do they have in common all three are adventure games but I think there's one more thing they have in common they're all digitally distributed games the room is available on the iPhone an iPad the Walking Dead is a multi-platform title that's also available on the iPhone and iPad and journey is a downloadable ps3 game I think it's safe to conclude that adventure games work well on smartphones [Music]

most people these days all own smartphones and I believe that adventure games is a game genre that is very well-fitted or fitting to smartphones adventure games similar to novels films TV drama manga and anime is a new way to tell a story I'm hopeful that we will see amazing adventure games a court released across digital platforms in the future I'm looking forward to them and hopefully one of you guys here will help us create that amazing game in the future if I can be of any assistance that would make me very happy thank you

for listening to my session today [Applause] so we have about 15 minutes for a Q&A session there are two mics there two mics so please walk up step up to the mic and ask the question hi my start now yes go ahead hi I'm a big fan girl too soft then I play four to eight nine nine and there are I love all Oden so my question here is about why you're decided to make we are a sequel to 99 it sounds the since that the ending of 99 is almost perfect but he decided to expand the universe of that game and it

says now you're making a trilogy right now so what is the reason not that [Music]

so a tour soon and not think of them at [Music] to Kyoto it's good t : how many can write aa nothing got to go to Cuba it is master token who could be no holding his own attack I know who can attack you master hey Seung ho detto Kyoto you cottony not on the scale the more torture diesel to the cord scrotal naughty Arriba so to

study what those units put the Holga code is ready to go today to toss the heck was that Scott oh you must turn on a sunshiny re-mastered idiots beta-gamma attersee peloton Madeline did [Applause] oh ho ho Tom tied it's good territory sciutto you hope to stay come on oh stop the no they're 300 also stated talking emailing is open to anyone what's good TV Tokyo State there once it to that so

no not tomorrow still not not on there yeah so did I mom c20 escape disgusting nothing okay sorry about that that was a long answer so I wanted to listen to the entire answer first so 999 was released in Japan both in Japan and North America and it was very well received out here in North America thanks to everyone here and and our fans but and as a result it was natural for us to start thinking about a sequel

originally we were planning on developing the sequel on the DS and in doing so we had an idea that we would go ahead and sort of work on second one and a third one simultaneously that you know developing it would be a lot more efficient that way when while we were doing that obviously the 3ds was announced and came out the Vita was also announced so we had to sort of make a decision as to which platforms we were going to release this game on and at the same time even though we had you know planned for two and three slowly but surely we started thinking of that as a set and so that was in my head two and three sort of became a two-in-one type of setting or a package I guess a combo and so it was a natural sort of

way for us to that this was going to be our next step and then from there it's sort of continued on the same path that okay now we can you know support this as a series good afternoon it seems to me that a lot of the more recent visual novel hits things like he gurashi no naku koro nee come from the doujin seen sort of Japan's equivalent of the indie gaming scene I'm wondering do you think that the observation is accurate and what do you think doujin games can offer to visual novel the whole visual novel genre going into the future

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yeah no thank you I could stay either you're a macho God so the consumer game unimodularity become more sweeter dosing him very hot district connoisseur to Nevada Cotton Club you know where we talked since me the

hotel stay calm [Music] [Music] welcome Peter please cover your critical eye that became the comic market even

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car operate according to German it's good to Hodgins the photons we must see so he not ticked OMA at Tokyo not a local Enoch the motive in there it's critical to ha take it engine I cannot - no more death no no no no Nick ajidasu who constellations on the day - sorry Locker there goes into car body muscle to see cause India not stop that's more so in Japan as you may know

there's a comedian at the comic market and you know the participants in the community is is growing I think get a pretty nice pace and a lot of new ideas and games and stories are coming out from that community and as you just mentioned you know the Japanese sort of indie game development scene can probably or that scene is probably getting a lot of influence and maybe even you know ideas are being exchanged so from there there may be games ideas that may even prove to be commercially successful and not just in a very small you know tight-knit community in addition to that you know as we now know

on smartphones tablets and whatnot we can all if we want to release content we don't have to go the route of finding a large company or publisher to publish our creations and so in that sense you know even without the company's support Indies or dojin whatever there are new creations new ideas in unique you know games and stories however they want to push it out it is becoming a very you know possible scenario for many people and so not limited to visual novels the genre I think you'll start to see I think we're going to start to see a little bit more movement and so with that yes I think the visual novel genre will will grow and see potential but at the same time other genres will hopefully grow and have some new ideas new fresh

ideas come from the dojin and indie community okay this is gonna be the last question dis come first thing that you were talking about while writing VL are my question was there is a part at the end without spoiling it where you realize an interesting part about the main character that and the fact that you also realize something interesting about the previous games main character which is also kind of discomforting to the player was that kind of going in with your theme of discomfort when you were writing about those things

this man I know that you could say ain't gonna he'll get not on the schedule that

I indicated the more the short answer is yes that was definitely where I wanted to take the players that was my intention and so if you sense that discomfort and and it was communicated then I've probably done my job where I've achieved my goal so yes I definitely wanted that to come through so say when I was on the sidewalk all that they noticed I'm just like yeah so

thank you for listening [Applause] [Applause]