40 Fun Facts About Visual Novels

Which publisher of Resident Evil and Street Fighter also makes the Ace Attorney courtroom visual novels?

Capcom gave one of its designers six months to make any game he wanted, and he chose a courtroom mystery starring a rookie lawyer.

Which free visual novel by Team Salvato poses as a cute school dating sim before turning into psychological horror?

Doki Doki Literature Club hides its horror behind a deliberately cute façade that breaks down as one character seizes control of the game from the player.

Which black-and-white robotic bear traps students in a deadly killing game throughout the Danganronpa series?

Monokuma was sketched in about 15 minutes after the series' writer asked for a bear that was half white and half dark.

In Steins;Gate, which kitchen appliance do Rintaro Okabe and his lab friends rig to send text messages into the past?

A microwave oven wired to a mobile phone becomes the lab's accidental time machine, and the texts it sends into the past are nicknamed D-mails.

In the dating sim Hatoful Boyfriend, a human girl enrols at an elite school where every classmate is what?

A bird is every possible love interest in the game, which manga artist Hato Moa first made as an April Fools' Day joke.

Which fast-food chain commissioned a free dating sim in which players woo its founder at a cooking school?

KFC recast Colonel Sanders as an attractive classmate, part of a marketing push to make its founder a pop-culture figure.

Which Metal Gear creator also wrote Snatcher, a cyberpunk detective adventure heavily influenced by Blade Runner?

Hideo Kojima wanted the game to feel like cinema, and it took more than twice as long to develop as an average game of its day.

Which programming language underlies the popular free open-source engine built specifically for making visual novels?

Python underlies Ren'Py, the engine in question: Python blocks can be dropped into its scripts, which otherwise read much like a screenplay.

In Fate/stay night, the armoured swordswoman Saber turns out to be a female version of which British legend?

King Arthur becomes Artoria Pendragon in the game, raised as a boy because her father feared his subjects would never accept a woman as ruler.

Which studio, later famous for K-On!, adapted Key's tearjerker visual novels Air, Kanon and Clannad for television?

Kyoto Animation started with Air, then decided to give Kanon a brand-new adaptation before moving on to Clannad.

The Great Ace Attorney sends a Japanese law student to Victorian London to befriend a comic version of which detective?

Sherlock Holmes keeps his real name in the Japanese original, while the English release renames him Herlock Sholmes; in both, his rapid-fire deductions keep going wrong.

Which YouTube channel developed Dream Daddy, a dating sim about a single father romancing other dads?

Game Grumps members also lent their voices to the game, whose datable dads include a goth devoted to Victorian fashion and a married youth minister.

In Fate/stay night, mages and the legendary heroes they summon fight a secret war over which wish-granting relic?

The Holy Grail is the prize of a to-the-death tournament that hardworking teenager Shirou Emiya enters without knowing it.

In the cyberpunk visual novel VA-11 Hall-A, which job does the player do while customers share their stories?

Bartender is the whole job: the game began at a 2014 cyberpunk game jam, and its Venezuelan makers liked the idea enough to build it out in full.

The 'Higurashi' in the horror visual novel Higurashi When They Cry is the Japanese name for which insect?

Cicada is the creature in the title of a story set in a quiet village where murders have marked the local festival four years in a row.

Which word, Japanese for 'maiden', labels romance games aimed at women, a genre pioneered by Koei's Angelique?

Otome caught on after women readers used the word for themselves in magazine letter pages; Angelique was first sold as a 'Neo Romance' game.

Mystic Messenger, a mobile romance game played through a fictional chat app, was developed by Cheritz in which country?

South Korea is home to Cheritz, whose game runs in real time, with text messages and group chats arriving as the player's day goes on.

Which Dragon Quest creator first made his name with The Portopia Serial Murder Case, a pioneering mystery adventure?

Yuji Horii set his whodunit in real Japanese cities, chiefly Kobe, and it is credited with defining the Japanese adventure game.

Which visual novel set at a school for students with disabilities grew out of a sketch discussed on 4chan?

Katawa Shoujo was built by a multinational team recruited from the image board, years after a Japanese artist's sketch first set out the idea.

Which puzzle-solving hero of Level-5's games shared a crossover adventure with courtroom lawyer Phoenix Wright?

Professor Layton handles the puzzles while Wright defends townspeople put on trial as witches, in a game made jointly by the two series' studios.

Which thriller series by Kotaro Uchikoshi began with Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors?

Zero Escape ran to three games written and directed by the same man, closing with Zero Time Dilemma in 2016.

At which huge Tokyo fan convention did Type-Moon first sell Tsukihime, its visual novel about vampires?

Comiket is a market for self-published works that began with about 700 visitors in 1975 and grew into the largest fan convention in the world.

In Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, which high school becomes a deadly prison for Makoto Naegi and his classmates?

Hope's Peak Academy lets a student leave only by murdering a classmate and then escaping the blame at a trial.

What label did the studio Key give Planetarian, its tale of a malfunctioning robot that offers readers no choices?

Kinetic novel was Key's name for a story with a single ending, and the label spread to any visual novel that never asks the reader to decide.

Clannad's lead writer Jun Maeda borrowed the title from an Irish band, wrongly believing the band's name meant what?

Family is the story's central theme, but the Irish word for it is 'clann'; Clannad is simply what the band called itself.

Instead of drawn artwork, what does the Tokyo-set visual novel 428: Shibuya Scramble use to present its story?

Live-action photos, about 120,000 of them, were shot for the game, which went on to earn a perfect score from Japan's Famitsu magazine.

Which visual novel plays out inside a mock Windows XP chat client styled on AOL Instant Messenger?

Emily Is Away begins in 2002, in the protagonist's senior year of high school, and tells its whole story through typed messages.

In one visual novel series, pastry chef Kashou opens the patisserie La Soleil with help from which kind of characters?

Catgirls Chocola and Vanilla follow him to the new shop in Nekopara by hiding in cardboard boxes, then talk him into letting them stay and work.

Which Tokyo district, chosen because hardware parts are easy to buy there, is the setting of Steins;Gate?

Akihabara landmarks such as the Radio Kaikan building can be spotted in the game, whose story unfolds over the summer of 2010.

Because reading is their main activity, visual novels are often compared to which series of books?

Choose Your Own Adventure books also branch on the reader's decisions, though researchers argue that visual novels add more game-like rules.

The parody dating sim Hooked on You lets players romance four serial killers from which horror game?

Dead by Daylight lends its antagonists to the parody, which strands the player with them on an island.

On which handheld console did the first Phoenix Wright adventure debut in Japan, years before reaching the West?

Game Boy Advance owners in Japan got the game in 2001, but the West had to wait for a Nintendo DS port in 2005.

Which writer created the Danganronpa franchise and later left to found the studio Too Kyo Games?

Kazutaka Kodaka left his employer in 2017 with other staff, years after an early death-game pitch of his was scrapped as too gruesome.

Which director, known abroad for the horror films Audition and Ichi the Killer, made the live-action Ace Attorney film?

Takashi Miike spoke of plans to release the film abroad with dubbing and subtitles, but the dubs were never produced.

In the romance series Hakuoki, heroine Chizuru is taken into custody by which real band of swordsmen in 1860s Japan?

Shinsengumi fighters cut down her attackers, mistake her for a boy and hold her for questioning while she searches for her missing father.

Which Japanese studio trademarked the label 'Sound Novel' for its games Otogirisō and Banshee's Last Cry?

Chunsoft's two early-1990s titles are credited with directly shaping the style of modern visual novels.

Which Japanese studio's game Shizuku was the first commercial release to be described as a visual novel?

Leaf listed the 1996 game as part of its own 'Visual Novel Series', and the name outgrew the brand to label a whole genre.

In visual novel jargon, which abbreviation describes a text box that fills almost the whole screen?

NVL is short for 'novel', while the more familiar ADV format, short for 'adventure', keeps the text in a box over only part of the picture.

In Butterfly Soup, four Asian-American girls in Fremont, California, grow close after joining a club for which sport?

Baseball brings the group together in a coming-of-age story that jumps between their first year of high school and their early childhood.

Which prosecutor with a perfect record starts out as Phoenix Wright's cold-hearted rival before a change of heart?

Miles Edgeworth is introduced as a man who would do anything to win a trial, then returns as a friendly rival in most later games.