Time Travel discussion

So has anyone heard of Visual Novels (VN)? In all honesty, neither have I but its all the rage in Japan for the last couple of decades and has a niche following in the rest of the world.

These are basically interactive semi-animated novels with voice casting and music. Its interactive by means that you make choices for characters in the novel and the narrative will take different paths. Also the novels can be played from the perspective of different characters. But in most cases there is one true intended path that fulfils the author's narrative and moral messages.

These VNs can be played on different platforms, PC, playstation, Xbox, PSP/PS Vita, Android, Iphones. Depends on the publisher.

There is a huge database of VNs of which 99 are time travel VNs. But only 28 of them are English (if I counted correctly). Still thats plenty to choose from. I'll try playing one of them to see what its like. They have a distinct Japanese Anime feel to them, going by some of the trailers.

So here is the complete list of Time Travel Visual Novels if any of you are interested in playing any.

https://vndb.org/g249?fil=tag_inc-249...

Oh, nice. I've always wondered when such a thing would come into existence with our current technology. I'm surprised it's taken this long. And of course it was the Japanese that got them going. I've read/listened to a few interactive children's novels with voice narrators and interactive elements on the page, but I think what you're describing here is what I'd envisioned as the future of novels.

Have you read/played any yet?

Wow. Some of these were released as early as 1986? As a choose your own adventure computer game I'm assuming?

Interesting, although I find it peculiar I never heard of such things. What manner of sorcery is this?!

Ha, Japan has a lot of cultural technological fads that are totally alien to us! I spoke to a Japanese friend about visual novels yesterday and he corrected my perception that VNs "are all the rage" in Japan. He said its a niche even in Japan! But of course it is a far bigger niche than the rest of the world.

I havent played/read any VN yet but it is rather similar to those Choose Your own Adventure books. I think I will start with one that is familiar to me, Steins Gate! Which the animated series was actually based on and I just recently seen. Be aware that all of these VNs are all Japanese voiced but some have English subtitles. None of these are dubbed in English. That's not to say there are no English made VNs but I havent found any that have time travel in them, that's all. Many of the VNs have free demos. I suggest trying those demos to see if its your cup of tea :)


In all honesty we do have something similar in the way of choose your own path story driven games such as Heavy Rain, Beyond Two Souls, The Walking Dead and most recently award winning Life is Strange (highly recommended!). But I suppose they would be classed as play your own movie rather than novels with movement control of the protagonists and puzzle solving. VNs look to have that lovely simplicity of simply just choosing paths without moving a character around a game scene and puzzle solving which understandably may appeal more to non or casual video gamers.