[games_access] Are there already interactive novels/books?

[P Hogan]

The video game genre known as "visual novels" are essentially choose your
own adventures, with voice and sounds accompanying static imagery.

Visual novels are particularly popular in Japan, so many are styled like
Japanese anime (cartoon), however this does not limit them to a young
audience.

You can find visual novels that are about adventure, or horror, or
relationships. Many of the most popular ones have sexual themes, however
they often have a family friendly version you can buy and experience.

Many of the popular Japanese ones also have unofficial or official English
translations.

People often think visual novels are just "porn games", but I can guarantee
you there are interesting family friendly or non-porn visual novels.

As for accessibility, I'll say a few words in regards to the most popular
visual novels (as those with lower production budgets may be lacking in
certain aspects)

Not hearing the sounds is rarely a problem, as all conversational is also
displayed as text, often along with sound effects and a narrative
description of the mood, etc.

Controls are usually limited to single button interaction, and the novel
pauses after each 'block of text', allowing you to take your time to read,
and there are rarely any timed events

Not clearly seeing what is happening on screen is a bit trickier. While
audio voicework often accompanies the text, the 'narrator', who often also
explains what is happening in the images, is not usually voiced. Usually
neither are the decisions you have to make. However, for many of the
popular novels, amateur translators have been able to extract the text from
the games on the fly, which suggests using a screen reader could be
potentially possible.

I used to be part of a small community that worked on unofficial ports of
PC visual novels to the Nintendo ds, and I remember an action/horror story
about a midnight tournament between heroes from Greek, Irish and Japanese
mythology to win a chalice of immortality. It originally had sex scenes,
however an all ages version was released that (un) surprisingly was a great
read without the smut.

Apologies to everyone for the long email, any questions let me know,
although I haven't been part of that 'scene' for a number of years.

-Pat
On Mar 8, 2012 4:11 AM, "John Porter" <jrporter at uw.edu> wrote:

> Choose Your Own Adventure books, or "gamebooks," have been around for
> decades, though admittedly they fell out of popularity in the 1990s. These
> were second- or third-person branching narratives where the reader was
> faced
> with decisions at key points. Depending on the choices they make, they
> would
> turn to the appropriate page to read the outcome. I'm not sure how
> successful the attempts have been, but I know several publishers have been
> trying to reignite interest in the genre within the last couple years by
> releasing CYOAs as iOS apps.
>
> Also, in many ways, the text adventure can be thought of as the spiritual
> successor of these books. The medium is obviously very different (a
> computer
> program instead of a paper book) and there is a much higher degree of
> interactivity (i.e. free-form wayfinding, item management, environment
> interaction etc.) than just making "A or B" decisions. That said, the
> fundamental nature of the experience is very much in line with what the
> early CYOAs were going for.
>
> -John
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: games_access-bounces at igda.org [mailto:games_access-bounces at igda.org]
> On Behalf Of Sandra Uhling
> Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2012 8:54 AM
> To: 'IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List'
> Subject: [games_access] Are there already interactive novels/books?
>
> Hello,
>
> are there already interactive novels/books?
> For example interactive audio drama?
>
> Best regards,
> Sandra
>
> _______________________________________________
> games_access mailing list
> games_access at igda.org
> http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access
> The main SIG website page is http://igda-gasig.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> games_access mailing list
> games_access at igda.org
> http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access
> The main SIG website page is http://igda-gasig.org
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist7.pair.net/pipermail/games_access/attachments/20120308/80cfb11f/attachment.htm>