But this does not. The interactivity you have is to click to see the next text. This may be the first visual novel I try and kind of disappointed with this kickstarter. If I rate it as a novel then it is kind of interesting, but as a game......

If all you do is click to read the next part, then it's nothing more than simply a book. The visual novel, 428, however is a totally different matter.

Depending on each person's definition of game, sure!

I always see these type of discussions going the same way that "is such and such a TRUE metal band" discussions go. Some people only consider metal bands that feature pig squealing style vocals, quick low tuned guitar riffs and blast beat drumming to be "true metal" even though that style is relatively new in the history of metal. Others are willing to even include bands like Motley Crue in the circle of "true metal", considering they were very heavy for their actual time period. Which side is right? Both or neither or one or the other, it all depends on your own personal taste and views.

Personally I have a bit more loose definition of games than many "true gamers", to me anything with interactivity (within reason, I'm not talking about DVDs with interactive menus) can be a game. Most visual novels (from what I understand) offer you choices that affect the story, the ability to raise stats similar to RPG games, and choice and consequence. Sounds like a game to me...

By strict definition, Visual Novels are considered games. The fact that there is no gameplay in most VNs aside from making choices is what causes the confusion. The way Visual Novels are gotten is still the same way as any game one would play, through downloading it digitally or buying a physical disc to install on your computer.

There are also Hybrid Visual Novel/RPGs that have gameplay elements from jrpgs with examples being Yumina the Ethereal or Aselia the Eternal. They are still considered Visual Novels because the heart of visual novels is the story and your interactions (choices) with the characters in the VN which lead to one of several possible endings.

Yeah, I misspoke. Instead of "story" I should have said "game": there's not really a game at all, all you do is click everything in your view until you move on to the next view and click everything there. No figuring out, nothing to "play", just things to click on and I don't consider that "playing", though some do which is why this thread was created and why I posted what I did in it. I love adventure games, Syberias are not adventure games, they're photo albums.

Someone should go and tell GOG that visual novels are indeed games. Maybe then we would see more of them here.

Honestly, the only difference between Tell Tale games, game books, point and click adventures and visual novels is the way they are presented, otherwise they are very similar. And if truth be told, visual novels are even less linear than most point and click adventures, because there is no one true path but several valid parallel paths and alternate endings.

But moving away from 90% of all visual novels having a manga art style wouldn’t hurt either.

I'm curious (and this isn't only directed to the previous post), what do you guys mean by manga? Because it's unfair to judge that medium based on the majority of the crap that is released nowadays.

If anyone is willing to give it a try:

Shin Angyo Onshi (or Blade of the Phantom Master)
Pluto
Monster
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
20th Century Boys
GTO
Angel Densetsu
Akumetsu
Alive
Deadman Wonderland
Eden: It's an endless abyss
Battle Royale
Parasyte
Blade of the Immortal
Bokurano

As for Visual Novels, there's stuff like Policenauts, Snatcher, Hotel Dusk, 999 (and sequel), Ace Attorney, etc.

The Syberia series consists of two point-and-click adventure games. In fact, two of arguably the best point-and-click adventures ever made. You have puzzles to solve and story to move along, they might not be the most open-ended of games but, then again, that's not exactly a feature of the point-and-click genre (with some exceptions, of course). Your "clicking on everything to see things happen" applies to pretty much every point-and-click game ever made; in fact, they ackowledge that downright to the name of the genre: point and click. You point your mouse, you click things (be it NPCs, items in your inventory, objects in the world or a combination of all or some of these) and, usually, yes, things tend to happen. That is the gameplay of a point-and-click adventure game, and they have been around for quite some time.

I'm really sorry, but all the hate point-and-clicks have been getting here on GOG as of late is starting to get on my nerves. I honestly dislike most cRPGs and strategy games, and you don't see me complaining and belittling them. I grew up playing point-and-click adventures and action-adventure games, and I feel a bit annoyed when someone attacks a thing I really care about. Perhaps we're not "geek" or "nerd" enough for all you min-maxing LARP fans out there, but there's room in the video game scene for everyone to enjoy what they want to enjoy without having to see the things they like being thrashed by others simply because they dislike it. If you don't like point-and-click adventures, well, more power to you, I guess... but they *are* video games, they *do* have gameplay elements.

I could have understood if you said you didn't like the art style in the Syberia games as opposed to, say, the one in the first two (and the fifth) Broken Sword titles, but you can't say the Broken Sword games have gameplay and Syberia doesn't, because they all play pretty much the same, they're all point-and-click adventure games.

[EDIT] As for the question being asked by the OP, yes, I do consider Visual Novels to be video games. Then again, I consider "walking simulators" to be video games, and I have to say some of them have provided me with awesome experiences, actually better experiences than what other people think are "proper" video games.

Like others before me have said, if a Visual Novel is basically a novel with still images and all you do is click to advance the text, well... I don't think I'd consider it a video game, since all we seem to be doing is reading an illustrated book on a screen, clicking to move text along as if we were flipping pages on a physical book. But most VNs actually present players with some gameplay elements, such as branching paths in storyline, or even some sort of mini-game or other. Most Japanese VNs, even outside of the Dating Sim genre, often feature some kind of RPG element. I think there's a big difference between "real" Virtual Novels and those... illustrated digital books you get to read on the computer while looking at some manga/anime still and clicking to advance text. To me, the latter isn't exactly a videogame, but the former is.

It depends on the level of interactivity, but for the most part yes.

I am not that much into manga and might have been using the term in a very general sense. What I wanted to express was that most visual novels that I see seem to follow a rather narrow art style that in my mind is connected to the term manga, regardless of whether it actually fits the definition or not. So I’m not saying that these games should stop using this style, I just would love to see more games using a different art style. More diverserty would certainly help the genre open up and get more accepted in the western parts of the world.

Essentially, Tell Tale games are visual novels that use moving 3D art with a cartoony touch, and they showed that these games can be successful here. And it does not have to be 3D. Take Cinders for example, which uses somewhat cartoony 2D graphics but (in my opinion) is dripping with ten times more atmosphere than most other visual novels.

Yeah, i kind of figured that people were generalizing the manga based of whole ovesexualized teenage girls.
The mangas and VN that i mentioned shows that there is also more mature content on those, the problem is that they are in minority and old.
Besides, most of the stuff that shows up on steam (from greenlight) are made from westerns and in my opinion, those are more cringe worthy...

I used to not. Until I actually played a couple good ones. They are.

If you consider point and click adventures games, you must include visual novels.