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CYOA means "choose your own adventure", right? What makes it different from a visual novel?

Jaeger wrote:CYOA means "choose your own adventure", right? What makes it different from a visual novel?

Correct, CYOA means "Choose Your Own Adventure."

This is my understanding of the difference, but bear in mind this is just personal observation. Realize that many Visual Novels certainly qualify as CYOA's, though.

The biggest difference is CYOA's are usually considered text with few or no pictures. The games put out by Choice of Games is a good example of this. Meanwhile, you can't have a visual novel without pictures (otherwise it would be a CYOA).

The other difference is that CYOA's need to have elements of choice...and in some Visual Novels, they don't have any at all, just seeking to tell a story with pictures (and often get labeled Static Visual Novels).

And if you wish to muddy the waters further, some people prefer to use the term Interactive Fiction (IF) to encompass both genres. At least in my experience, more people are familiar with CYOA (from books when they were kids) or Visual Novels, or both.

In this specific case there's going to be RPG elements that will influence the choices/story. One could say that VN are a bit like that too, but I think the game once finished will be obviously different from a "standard VN"
We're also planning some battle system but obviously very simplified vs Loren/SOTW.

Miakoda wrote:

Jaeger wrote:CYOA means "choose your own adventure", right? What makes it different from a visual novel?

Correct, CYOA means "Choose Your Own Adventure."

This is my understanding of the difference, but bear in mind this is just personal observation. Realize that many Visual Novels certainly qualify as CYOA's, though.

The biggest difference is CYOA's are usually considered text with few or no pictures. The games put out by Choice of Games is a good example of this. Meanwhile, you can't have a visual novel without pictures (otherwise it would be a CYOA).

The other difference is that CYOA's need to have elements of choice...and in some Visual Novels, they don't have any at all, just seeking to tell a story with pictures (and often get labeled Static Visual Novels).

And if you wish to muddy the waters further, some people prefer to use the term Interactive Fiction (IF) to encompass both genres. At least in my experience, more people are familiar with CYOA (from books when they were kids) or Visual Novels, or both.

I read one or two CYOA books as a kid. However, I'm limited in my exposure to visual novels thus far. Thanks for the clarification.

jack1974 wrote:In this specific case there's going to be RPG elements that will influence the choices/story. One could say that VN are a bit like that too, but I think the game once finished will be obviously different from a "standard VN"
We're also planning some battle system but obviously very simplified vs Loren/SOTW.

RPG elements too? I can't wait to hear more about this!

Writer should finish the base plot at end of May. By then should have a better idea of what will be included. But we already agreed on some classic roleplay element, in the sense that you can finish a quest in multiple ways/using multiple skills.

I read one or two CYOA books as a kid. However, I'm limited in my exposure to visual novels thus far. Thanks for the clarification.

I think there are a couple of factors which have some people downplay visual novels. Arguably, the biggest one is story presentation. If you are mostly writing text, you can certainly create much more varied scenes than Visual Novels which is usually limited to in budget. To illustrate everything could be cost prohibitive for the average studio, and that is money which can be used for other projects.

Jaeger wrote: RPG elements too? I can't wait to hear more about this!

Actually, there was a series or two of pen-and-paper books back in the 80's and 90's which had similar elements as well. Fighting Fantasy was one such series, and TOR actually had some books out based on popular fantasy & rpg books of the time as well. Basically, you had to use six sided dice, and there was a bit of a self-imposed honor system (especially where combat was involved)

By then should have a better idea of what will be included. But we already agreed on some classic roleplay element, in the sense that you can finish a quest in multiple ways/using multiple skills.

And this would make it more expansive than early CYOA's I certainly am looking forward to it :D

jack1974 wrote:In this specific case there's going to be RPG elements that will influence the choices/story. One could say that VN are a bit like that too, but I think the game once finished will be obviously different from a "standard VN"
We're also planning some battle system but obviously very simplified vs Loren/SOTW.

So something like Radical Dreamers where the battles were part of the text?

There is some involvement of story/text, like on each round you can "negotiate" or talk to opponent. However we haven't even started coding it so not sure how the final result will be!

SO thrilled for this game! is one of my favorite genres with all the replayability value!!