About Visual Novels
6 years ago
Mexico

Some days ago a friend submitted a visual novel to the site, since there were a couple of runners on that game and also he made a run of it to submit the game. Today he got the answer to his submission, and it was that the submission was rejected since "Visual novels are not accepted"

This caught my attention, since in the site there're leaderboards for "Danganronpa" series, also it has a game series section, and this games are visual novels too (except Ultra Despair Girls)

So, my questions are, why other visual novels are rejected but Danganronpa visual novels has their own leaderborards?? Is not supposed that visual novels are not accepted?? If all visual novels are rejected, why Danganronpa leaderboards exists on the site??

If any kind of visual novels are not accepted, Danganronpa leaderboards need to be removed from the site (except UDG one since it's a kind of action game)

Rejected game: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/345724779409440770/392745575130333188/unknown.png

Danganronpa series on sr.com: https://www.speedrun.com/danganronpa

Info about a Danganronpa visual novel (actually this game has it own leaderboard on the site) http://danganronpa.wikia.com/wiki/Danganronpa:_Trigger_Happy_Havoc https://www.speedrun.com/drthh

Edited by the author 6 years ago
Valhalla

Beats me, probably has to do with them tightening up what types of games are allowed on the site though.

Also (I'm not 100% sure), but visual novels often have nudity? Or maybe that's just the crap I see pop on steam from time to time.

Not sure what the rule there is.

European Union

[quote=KomradeKontroll][...]up what types of games are allowed on the site though.[/quote] yep, it's because of that. VN speedruns are like taking a book, then opening the last page and saying "done". You can't really improve on the maybe... 20 inputs you have to do over the ~10m of just auto-skipping dialogue.

personally, VNs don't even qualify as "games" - they're, as the name suggests, a form of novel, akin to comics or manga.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
MrGreen745 and Mavik like this
United States

Generally the line is drawn at mashing spacebar vs actual actions. Probably a little more than selecting multiple choice items as well. You'll probably find a few games on the site that don't even meet that metric.

For a while I was doing "If it's a Steam game, add it", then Steam lowered the bar drastically on everything.

I would rather archive boards (take them out of the search bar or something?) than outright delete them. Deleting boards on a whim will make people mad.

"If a visual novel exists all visual novels need approved" is not the case. We're not adding them. We're still figuring out what to do with the old ones. The form says we're not adding them, because we're not adding them.

MrGreen745, 607 and 4 others like this
Esperanto

Just a couple of things to note as well.

  • The games in question appear to be official PS releases.
  • The games in question is part of a larger game series in which not every game is a visual novel.
  • The series moderator added the games - they weren't requested and accepted.
  • Trigger Happy Havoc at least, appears to feature some degree of movement in 3D space.
MASH likes this
Germany

I personally don't know the series, but the 3 main games are listed as Adventure/visual novel and google spits out quite a few non-text-reading gameplay screenshot for the query "danganronpa gameplay screenshot", which leads me to the conclusion that those games aren't 100% Visual Novel, but rather Adventure games with lots of text.

Texas, USA

If you watch a Danganronpa run, there is a lot of activity in it (i.e. mini-games, movement in an environment, etc.). Same with Life is Strange and other games that act more like stories. If your visual novel has interactivity, then I would resubmit and note at which points the visual novel becomes a game.

607, MASH, and NihilistComedyHour like this
England

What Oxknifer said; Danganronpa has actual gameplay in the runs. They're not at all my cup of tea, but you still have to actually be able to play well in order to go fast. Most visual novels by comparison are literally just advancing text and choosing the correct menu options.

Mavik likes this
Germany

A dating simulator I submitted also got rejected for being a visual novel.

England

[quote]and this games are visual novels too[/quote]

this is facetious on the face of it and I feel like this'd be extremely obvious to anyone who's played Danganronpa and other VNs to know they're not remotely of the same breed

The genre classification itself isn't all that helpful here, but Danganronpa plays more like a traditional adventure game that just happens to have a shitload of talking in it. Traditional adventure games don't make for the most exciting speedruns because it's like basically all menu'ing and the odd minigame, but I don't think anyone would seriously argue they're not speedruns. Nobody would blink twice at runs of Shadowgate, for instance even if it's not the most thrilling thing ever.

edit: It's also worth pointing out that Danganronpa 2 and 3 both have action/RPG based extra postgame modes that make for complete valid speedruns.

Whereas VNs like Doki Doki Literature Club are characterised by the absence of gameplay, you just read and advance through words and that's it.

[quote]A dating simulator I submitted also got rejected for being a visual novel.[/quote]

What game? Because "dating sim" gets used to mean everything from "basically a VN where you choose your girl" to "something resembling an RPG where you date girls" and the difference is a crucial distinction to draw when deciding if its worth a board IMO.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
ShikenNuggets likes this
Esperanto

Side note I'm still claiming Doki Doki Literature Club WR anyways, even though that's how I found out with visual novels weren't allowed (which, I'm actually pretty grateful for).

New Jersey, USA

now a game like Sakura Spirit actually has a run with multiple runners! the fact that Doki Doki doesnt have a run by comparison is fucking bonkers! and Sakura spirit doesnt even have minigames like Doki Doki. But to be fair i guess its also because thats simpler to moderate because theres alot of antics that can be done with Doki Doki in the sense that technically it can be the fastest speedrun in history by messing with the files and everything, and just by opening the game, technically the game started so theres no way to figure out when the timer starts. because everything in that game is a part of the gameplay, including the games directory, so by opening and touching whatever, what starts the timer? If you wanna justify it, theres a way to get 0.00 time on Doki Doki because you can mess with the files, but would that start the timer. its a difficult game to make a case for. saying its a VN is a shortcut to not make my explanation.

Germany

[quote]saying its a VN is a shortcut to not make my explanation.[/quote] Yet you make arguments that the game is in theory finishable by manipulating files (can easily set up a batch file for that to do it in 0.01second and open the game for free) and that it's allowed by the game's gameplay rules (which in return also allows adding files that have nothing to do with what the game is looking for, example a batch file). This makes the game entirely uncompetitive, because it's only limited be the response time of your storage, not anything of human interaction at all.

EDIT: It also still is a Visual Novel no matter any of your arguments.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
United States

I'm sure if a community were to form around Doki Doki they'd set up rules that make sense and make it competitive. e.g. 100% could require a person to start from the beginning of the game and then see the best ending.

All categories where you're not beating the game as fast as possible is arbitrary anyway. Humans love making things arbitrarily harder for fun

European Union

[quote=Eggwink]that make sense and make it competitive[/quote] VNs can be about as competitive as SPSTWARPG - as in: not really. let me explain it in the words of Axman13 (years old): ALL YOU DO IS PRESS 1! BUT-TEN! THE ENTIRE TIME! explain to me EXPLAIN TO ME THE ATHORE COMENTS AL TOTOL LIES

Edited by the author 6 years ago
Valhalla

Short version: if the people running src don't want your game on the site, then too bad

United States

No yeah sorry, my intent was very unclear in my previous post. I completely agree, I don't think Visual Novels should be allowed.

I was just responding to Mitsunee who was implying that because you can just delete the files and immediately get the ending, it's not a competitive game. I guess my point was, that doesn't prove that it's not competitive, because you could set whatever categories you wanted that could take hours and hours. The reason it's not competitive is because... its a visual novel.

607 likes this
United States

[quote]Short version: if the people running src don't want your game on the site, then too bad[/quote] Please don't try to simplify the reason with something draconian like that. That gives the misconception the site reject games they simply don't like.

607, Quivico and 2 others like this
Scotland

I know this was 5 days ago but I did want to add, on the game request page they say no visual novels before you even submit the game ^-^ hope I was allowed to post this sorry :) "At this time, we are not adding the following: Visual novels, short/trivial flash games, non-video game activities."