A visual novel is a type of interactive game that uses visual elements paired with text, written in a story-like style. Text in a visual novel forms the narration and dialogue, while the visual elements include character portraits or sprites and static backgrounds. Player choice is a staple of the visual novel genre. Designing a visual novel involves constructing the elements and unifying them for an immersive story. Core mechanics added from other game genres define the hybrid visual novel genre. In terms of narrative branching, visual novels range from linear kinetic novels to games with multiple story routes, each having several story outcomes.
The design goals behind creating a visual novel are to make the story, decision points, visuals, and game components fit together to create an immersive visual story. Fitting visual novel components together involves constructing narrative scenes, story routes, and optional additional core gameplay mechanics. Read this guide to learn how to create a visual novel, from drawing up basic concepts to constructing the narrative and world, designing player choice, and applying visual novel gameplay mechanics.
What are the principles of visual novel game design?
The principles of visual novel game design are world immersion, compelling narrative, and player agency. World immersion is created through a thematic visual design, a smooth user experience, and a well-thought-out and detailed game world. A compelling narrative feels believable through being consistent, containing relatable experiences, and having characters that show depth. Expressing a compelling narrative in the visual novel medium involves using both the visual and written components of visual novels to create show, don’t tell storytelling, effective pacing that harmonizes with narrative events, and distinct, memorable scenes. Giving players agency via choices and additional gameplay increases engagement and immersion.
A thematic visual design provides world immersion to players by making the art, audio, gameplay, and UI reflect the story’s themes. Long Live the Queen uses themes of royalty, teenage emotions, and magic girl-inspired aesthetics in the visuals, audio, UI, and gameplay. Thematic gameplay mechanics include managing the young princess’s moods through activities, making decisions that affect the kingdom’s fate, and taking lessons from tutors to inform the ruler’s decisions. To be effective, an immersive and thematic visual design must be part of a smooth user experience.
A smooth user experience (UX) keeps players immersed in the world and gameplay by avoiding confusing, frustrating, or distracting elements and interactions. A UI element is confusing if the function isn’t apparent, or the design implies a different function, such as the location of Infinite Stars’ lore achievements being under Settings. The lore example adds minimal disruption or frustration, however, as it isn’t core gameplay. Disruptions that are significant, frequent, or unavoidable cause frustration. Another frustration is not finding functions the player expects to see, such as a skip option. Attention-grabbing elements that aren’t meant to be focal points, like UI and backgrounds, distract players from the gameplay, while designs that are too bright or busy overall are jarring and break immersion in the game’s world.
Well-thought-out world details make the visual novel game feel real by fleshing out geography, occupants, lore, time, and constraints. Geography describes locations and location contexts like climate and nearby civilizations. Occupants of locations include the non-sentient and sentient species, while lore refers to sentient species’ cultures, beliefs, and histories, with the time period providing context. These world details are applied as either hard or soft constraints when constructing the narrative. Hard constraints are what’s possible in the world: inviolable laws of reality, such as the rules of magic systems. Soft constraints are what’s plausible given the resources, knowledge, customs, and technology available within the geography, time period, and cultures. An example of soft constraint is ensuring clothing is made from raw materials and tools available via local trade routes. World constraints are rules for narrative consistency.
A compelling narrative in a visual novel requires narrative consistency, not just having the story fit the world’s rules and constraints, but making sure that art matches text descriptions, and that the story avoids internal contradictions. An example of art being inconsistent with the visual novel’s writing is a sprite mismatching the descriptions of the character. Avoiding internal contradictions in the story means ensuring consequences are plausible, given the events leading to them, the described characters, and the context. For example, players expect a character raised by wealthy parents to have expensive tastes and difficulty adapting to a budget. Consistency in narrative makes the storyline feel believable, enabling writers to create emotional, relatable experiences in the story that don’t fall flat when their details are scrutinized.
Relatable experiences in a visual novel’s narrative builds players’ investment in the lore, characters’ arcs, and the core storyline. Real-world events and real-life emotional experiences provide inspiration on how to make depicted experiences feel real, even in different scenarios that draw on similar struggles. The scale and consequences of story events don’t have to be something the player has experienced. Infinite Stars’ pandemic, and the emotions of grief and fear from losing loved ones to illness, are relatable human experiences, despite being experienced by aliens in a futuristic era, with higher death tolls than real-world pandemics. Infinite Stars’ depictions of loss, isolation, and mistrust feel real and reveal characters’ depth.
Creating character depth within a visual novel’s narrative keeps players invested and involves constructing and expressing a character’s personality, backstory, and growth journey to be believable. Believable characters respond to situations in nuanced ways, showing personality strengths and flaws, and demonstrating abilities and knowledge, as well as moments of failure. Characters’ responses and growth when encountering a scenarios must feel believable given the characters’ worldviews, goals, values, and experiences. Appearing consistent is just one part of making characters feel believable, however: the other part is making characters feel natural. Observing how real people express themselves through actions and mannerisms gives inspiration on how to express characters’ personalities using show, don’t tell visual storytelling.
Visual storytelling and the show, don’t tell method incentivize players to read into the narrative by describing details rather than giving an interpretation. Ways that show, don’t tell and visuals are used to convey storytelling are through character art, dialogues, descriptions of sensory experiences, and other methods. An example of show, don’t tell is a character sprite moving off screen, a door slam sound, and text “she stormed out the door, slamming it behind her” rather than “she was so angry that she left the room”. Effective visual storytelling makes locations, interactions, and characters distinct in the messages conveyed, such as depicting a shy character’s sprite as looking down, and the sprite movement slow, as if cautious. Visual storytelling and show, don’t tell give players the sense of being present in the story.
Effective narrative pacing furthers players’ sense of being present in a visual novel’s story by affecting tension, tone, and mood. A visual novel’s pacing is slowed by long sections of text between images and choices, complex sentences for players to read, and added delays before text and other elements. Effective narrative pacing in a visual novel avoids excessive dragging or rushing, and harmonizes with narrative events. Harmonizing pacing with narrative events includes slowing for suspense and emotional, reflective moments, and speeding up for fast-paced action. Infinite Stars adds delays to the scroll of narrative text that vary based on punctuation marks, allowing written pauses to be felt within the pacing of the scene itself.
Memorable and distinct scenes keep players’ attention on narrative events by adding new visuals and audio rather than relying on default character and location assets. Atmosphere is conveyed through music changes to locations or character interactions, such as replacing a cafe’s noise track with conflict escalation music. Events and actions are emphasized through sound effects, sprite movements and visual changes, like a phone ringing or a sprite moving closer during a hug. Effects on the protagonist are shown through camera effects, filters, and scene transitions. New designs are a way to make scenes feel significant, like new sprite outfits for an outing, or enhanced visual effects to emphasize narrative milestones or scene reveals. Giving players agency in a scene further distinguishes scenes by adding narrative impact.
Player agency is provided not only through choices that affect the story, but through hybrid mechanics that affect the gameplay experience. A Date with Death creates player agency for immersion, letting players customize the protagonist’s decor and interact with room objects. Player agency in the Miskatonic expands the narrative experience despite not changing the storyline by letting players investigate secret goings-on through optional exploration and character conversations.
How to design player choice for visual novel games?
To design player choice for visual novel games, map the sequences of story events and player decision points, depict the narrative choices in ways players perceive as impactful, and design non-narrative gameplay decisions that give a sense of agency. Mapping player choices in relation to the narrative sequences involves understanding how narrative branches, story routes and minor routes, outcome branches, and endings relate to player choice. Depicting narrative choices in ways players perceive as impactful gives a sense of consequence in the story or a sense of agency to gameplay, even for illusory choices. Visual novels are able to include gameplay choices beyond those that affect the narrative, as well as meta-narrative or meta-gameplay choices.
A narrative branch in a visual novel is a sequence of narrative events following a player’s choice that splits the storyline. Narrative branches are either distinct story routes, outcome branches that alter the story in small ways – such as positive or negative consequences of a choice – or separate endings or final outcomes of the visual novel. Visual novels that have no branches – no narrative choices – are called linear or kinetic novels. The branch structure of a visual novel’s narrative is affected by the types of routes, outcome branches, and endings it uses, which are explained below.
Routes in a visual novel are narrative sequences – including player-chosen branches as well as main or starting sequences – that contain distinct story plotlines. Examples of how player choice affects visual novel route structures are long-running narratives and separate endings. Routes don’t have to be long: small narrative branches from a player’s choice that lead to distinct story arcs are minor routes.
Minor routes are story arcs based on players’ narrative choices that branch off from large or main routes in a visual novel. Minor routes are either optional detours similar to side-quests or mandatory choices between two or more options that split the narrative. Long Live the Queen has optional detour routes that have narrative consequences, such as social events the player is able to attend or decline, with the main story resuming after the attended or skipped event. A split-and-merge choice in the game is being forced to decide whether to arrest your aunt for sorcery, hear her out, or execute her, with the main storyline resuming after the choice, with downstream consequences forming additional minor routes and outcomes. As with large routes, having distinct story plot points is what distinguishes minor routes from outcome branches.
Outcome branches are visual novel branches that are outcomes of players’ narrative choices, which are variations on a single story route rather than containing distinct story plot points to form a new route. Narrative outcome branches either lead to endings as consequences of player choices, merge to the same route, or switch to a different route. Katawa Shoujo’s outcome branches are consequences of the player’s relationship choices, whereas the game’s routes – after the starting route – are unique storylines, each based around a different game character. Outcome branch structures are influenced by the type of endings, or final outcomes, the visual novel or branch allows.
Endings, or final outcomes of players’ narrative choices, are calculated at the end of a story route or final outcome branch. Good, neutral, and bad endings exist in combination or are independent of one another, such as ChronoClock having only good, albeit emotional, endings and Bad End Theatre having only bad ends. Good, bad, and neutral choice outcomes are aggregated to determine endings. Win or loss endings contrast with good or bad endings, as bad endings have completed storylines, while losses feel abrupt and unsatisfying. In Long Live the Queen, one wrong choice ends in a loss, known as a gauntlet structure. Games that have sequels as well as multiple good or winning endings are able to designate a canonical or true end, though this undermines players’ perceptions of the impact of their narrative choices.
The perceived impact of players’ narrative choices is felt through how decisions are depicted and consequences reflected in the story, by contrast with the real impact of choices on the narrative, which are demonstrated through branching. Players are able to perceive narrative choices as impactful even if story routes and outcomes aren’t affected. Acknowledging the substance of a player’s choice through unique and thoughtful character and story responses that take the choice into account increases the decision’s perceived significance. Contrast this with a player receiving canned responses regardless of the decision selected, or filling in sentence blanks with the selected option. Re-referencing players’ decisions later in the story adds to the sense of consequence, for example follow-up conversations about the decision, or the protagonist reflecting on the decision. Perceived impact is also shown via illusory choices.
Illusions of choice appear to provide narrative choices in the moment, while in actuality making no meaningful difference. Illusory choices give players a sense of agency rather than a feeling of being directed. Infinite Stars’ map with selectable locations is a narrative-prompted choice mechanic for deciding where to go. The prompted map’s choices over the narrative start off illusory, only determining the order in which mandatory location visits occur. Later, selecting map locations has real narrative impact, choosing major story routes and allowing character interactions that affect relationships. Not all choices with no narrative effect are illusory – choices are able to modify non-narrative gameplay.
Choices that modify the gameplay experience rather than the narrative are used to add immersion and increase players’ sense of agency. Examples of gameplay features that give players non-narrative-affecting choices include exploration, environment and character interactions, customizations, minigames, and others. Self-expression choices through customizations are a way to build players’ immersion and agency by making them feel like a part of the game’s world and making the story experience more personal. A Date with Death allows players to customize their room and character and to select a pet. Player choices are also able to modify narrative and gameplay outside of the core game.
Meta-gameplay and meta-narrative choices – choices that extend beyond the core narrative and gameplay or the current playthrough – are used to further story and world immersion by adding additional gamification or narrative information. An example of this is in Infinite Stars, where narrative-prompted choices with a personality indicator beside them affect the protagonist’s personality, which is an external feature of the core game, represented by a character’s ID card.
How to structure a visual novel game?
To structure a visual novel game, start by defining the initial concepts: the core game’s premise, art style, and story plot points. Next, refine the concepts to add details of the game’s world, characters, and the sequence of narrative events and decision branches. Create the final design of the visual novel’s story, using the refined concepts as a reference to write the script and map out the scenes, while keeping track of game assets to be added. Once the design is ready, build the game in the engine, developing the core gameplay components and constructing the story. The stages listed are iterative, as it’s common to update previous steps as the design evolves, like changing a premise to match plot changes.
Start by summarizing the premise of the visual novel, which is a brief overview of the type of world it’s set in, what the story is about, and the defining gameplay mechanics. The premise functions as an elevator pitch that explains the visual novel, and as a goal or roadmap during development. Having a roadmap keeps the focus on the visual novel’s core elements, as well as making it easier to identify the themes addressed and the genres and sub-genres. Identifying core elements, genres, and themes makes it clear when new additions to writing, art, UI, and gameplay detract from the intended experience or add scope creep. The premise, themes, and genre also provide inspiration on art styles to use to convey the game’s tone and atmosphere.
Define the art style of the visual novel as part of the conceptualizing phase. Defining a game’s art style involves writers and artists brainstorming on the type of visual world players will encounter and what the characters will look like. Identify the art styles and techniques that will define the game, such as hyper-realistic art, anime-inspired drawings, or others. Looking into art you find interesting online helps to provide inspiration and a reference point for the type of art style and mood you are going for, as well as where to source free assets, if not creating the art yourself. The art style sets the tone and mood in which the story and plot points are perceived.
Write down the plot points for each story route of the visual novel as the next step in designing the concept, including the main events, significant decisions, and consequential outcomes. Note that plot points are key narrative points: structuring the narrative doesn’t require a full synopsis to start, and is easier when starting top-down rather than getting stuck on details. The Three-Act Structure is a story-planning format that breaks narrative plot points into inciting incidents, key points of action and conflict, and the story’s resolution.
Refine the visual novel world from the initial concepts through worldbuilding, adding detail to the story’s locations, time period, occupants, and lore, establishing world constraints, and adding concept or reference art. Describe and contextualize the story locations’ geographical details as needed. Reference the world’s time period, with relation to available technologies and knowledge. List and describe the non-sentient and sentient species, and detail the lore, cultural practices, histories, and beliefs of the world’s civilizations. Identify hard constraints that affect the world’s reality, such as magic systems, and soft constraints such as accessible resources and societal laws, to set rules for narrative events and characters’ behaviours and backstories.
Design the game’s characters as the next stage in refining the visual novel’s concepts, adding detailed profiles that include character backstories, concept or placeholder art, story roles like occupations and relationships, and personality traits, including goals and values. Mention in characters’ profiles how player choices and narrative scenarios affect and grow a character, which character goals are fulfilled, and which relationships are affected. Creating concept art for characters or sourcing placeholder art helps plan base designs for sprites or portraits. Keep a checklist of assets, such as sprite expressions or character theme music, with the character’s profile, to track new requirements that arise during writing and scene-planning.
Expand the story plot points into detailed event sequences as the final stage of refining the visual novel concepts. For linear novels and narratives with few outcomes, a narrative synopsis works for listing events. For narratives with multiple decisions and branches, where a synopsis makes them difficult to track, map the lists of narrative events and player decisions through story sequence maps and flow diagrams as needed, including each story route, decision branch point, and outcome branch. If creating a hybrid visual novel, use dependency diagrams to keep track of how gameplay mechanics besides narrative prompts affect event sequences, in order to integrate them into the writing and scene planning.
Script-writing, scene-planning, and asset-tracking work in tandem as the final design for the visual novel before construction begins. Write the script for the visual novel, taking note of scene events that correspond to the dialogue and narration. Keep a checklist of scene-specific, character-specific, and location-specific assets as you reference them in the script and scene plans, such as location noise tracks, new character expressions, or scene transition effects. Planning scenes isn’t limited to one format: using storyboard art, scene templates, or even photographs of positioned paper cutouts are all effective ways to keep track of scene events. Examples of scene events are sprite expression changes, location changes, or sound effects. If the game contains new core gameplay mechanics, such as stats-building that affects a character’s story responses, keep track of how these dependencies affect scene events to add them once the gameplay components have been developed.
Develop the core mechanics and gameplay components of the game in the engine, if adding functionality beyond what the game engine or templates provides. The core gameplay components are ones that must be integrated within the narrative and gameplay for a functional game. To avoid scope creep, prioritize developing the minimum viable product (MVP), and reserve non-essential or auxiliary mechanics for later iterations of the development, after the core game and story have been created in the engine.
Construct the story within the game engine, integrating the story text and assets, and building the decision branches. If in need of assets, free or placeholder assets are an option that allow you to keep focused on the game creation. Assets are able to be refined in stages if you prefer to focus on the novel’s development. Reference your checklists of assets for scenes, characters, and locations to confirm that none are missing from the narrative flow.
What mechanics are used in visual novel game design?
The mechanics used in visual novel game design are decision selection, decision tracking, and narrative progression mechanics. Optional visual novel mechanics include hybrid visual novel mechanics, enhanced user experience (UX) mechanics, or meta mechanics. Decision selection mechanics are either direct or indirect decisions addressing a narrative event, or are non-narrative decisions. Decision-tracking mechanics affect the narrative in direct or indirect narrative ways, or no narrative impact. Narrative progression mechanics advance the story forward, changing narrative text and visuals, while players receive additional navigation control from optional enhanced navigation mechanics. Hybrid visual novel mechanics add core gameplay to visual novels, while UX enhancement mechanics improve players’ experience. Meta mechanics extend narrative and gameplay beyond the core game.
Decision selection mechanics in visual novels affect the types of decisions players are able to make to affect narrative and gameplay. Traditional visual novels have narrative prompts, which are direct narrative decisions, i.e., addressing a point in the story. Hybrid – or non-traditional – visual novel mechanics provide additional ways to make direct narrative decisions. An example of direct narrative decision selection in a hybrid visual novel is Missed Messages, where players choose between object interactions to respond to the story, like choosing whether to eavesdrop at the door or reply to laptop messages.
Indirect narrative decisions affect the narrative but aren’t responses to a point in the story. Hybrid visual novels are able to include indirect narrative decision selection through additional gameplay mechanics. Skill levelling and mood management in the hybrid visual novel Long Live the Queen are examples of indirect narrative decisions, as the mood and skill mechanics affect the story routes available and the likelihood of success, and are separate gameplay decisions rather than being decisions over a point in the narrative.
Non-narrative decisions are possible through hybrid visual novels and affect the gameplay experience without affecting the story. Hybrid visual novel mechanics that are able to be used for both narrative and non-narrative-affecting decisions are exploration, object and character interactions, character customizations, and others. A Date with Death uses both narrative and non-narrative affecting object interactions as decision selection mechanics, where message choices on the laptop and listening at the door affect the story, while additional room interactions only affect the gameplay experience, existing to give players a sense of agency and immersion in the world.
Decision-tracking mechanics determine the effects of players’ choices on a visual novel’s narrative, as direct or indirect narrative effects, or modify non-narrative gameplay, such as displaying a player’s custom-created character in the game. Narrative decision tracking enables effects on the narrative that are either direct or indirect. Long Live the Queen’s examples make the distinction clear between direct or indirect narrative decision selection, discussed above, and direct or indirect narrative effects. Levelling up magic skills is an indirect narrative choice – it doesn’t address a narrative event – with direct, or predictable, narrative effects: defeating sorcerers. The game’s opposite scenario, direct narrative decisions like executions increment a hidden cruelty modifier, resulting in indirect, or unforeseen, effects like uprisings.
Narrative progression mechanics in traditional visual novels move the visual novel’s story forward through mouse clicks or key or button presses that advance the text and change visuals. Hybrid visual novels are able to include actions like selecting characters, doors, and objects as progression mechanisms, to trigger conversations, location changes, and scenes in games that allow room interactions or exploration. Narrative progression mechanics are able to include enhanced navigation.
Enhanced navigation mechanics aren’t essential for progression in visual novels, but enhance the experience of navigation and add convenience, such as rewind, skip, and narrative-jumping mechanics. Infinite Stars’ Skip button is context-sensitive, only skipping already-played text, and pausing and disabling once reaching a never-played section of the story. Narrative-jumping is sending the player to a specific point in a narrative route. Your Dry Delight uses navigation jumping for a smooth gameplay experience, as the game requires completion of both routes to unlock the ending, so it navigates players to the first decision point after completing the first route.
Hybrid visual novel mechanics add core gameplay beyond traditional narrative prompt decisions and clickthrough progression. Hybrid mechanics aren’t limited to decision selection and decision tracking choices, but are also able to be used as independent gameplay mechanics. Examples of hybrid visual novel mechanics used to enhance a visual novel’s gameplay are the minigames and paint application on the protagonist’s laptop in a Date with Death, which exist for entertainment and immersion, making the laptop seem like a real, functional device.
Optional UX enhancement mechanics improve the user experience, rather than being required or core mechanics of a visual novel, and extend beyond enhanced progression mechanisms. Examples are help systems like Your Dry Delight’s glossary, which provides in-game popups of definitions, and Long Live the Queen’s tutorial and expandable character profiles that remind players of who the characters are and the relationships involved.
Meta mechanics are fourth-wall-breaking mechanics that add gameplay beyond a visual novel’s current or core game. Types of meta mechanics in visual novels include stats that persist beyond the current playthrough, game completion-tracking mechanisms, achievements, and other mechanics. Infinite Stars contains several examples of meta mechanics, including lore items that are unlocked as the player progresses through the story to learn about them.
Where to find visual novel game design templates, assets, and engines?
To find visual novel game design templates, assets, or engines, visit game engine libraries and stores like the Unity asset store, community game development forums such as the Funsmith Club community, public repositories on GitHub, or online marketplaces like Itch.io. Dedicated visual novel engines have the functionality of a template or framework built in, removing the need to extend a game design engine like Unity and or to code standard visual novel features. The most popular visual novel engines and frameworks are NaniNovel, Ren’Py, and TyranoBuilder, according to the visual novel development wiki VNDev. My preference is the design and prototyping tool ArcWeave.
Visual novel templates and assets are available at the libraries and marketplaces of video game engines, such as the Arcweave Library, Unity asset store, and Fab, Epic’s successor to the Unreal Engine Marketplace. For community-provided alternatives, visit game development forums like the Funsmith Club, the GameMaker community, RPG Maker forums, and Ren’Py’s Discord.
GitHub repositories are an alternative place to find visual novel templates that are free, open-source, or not constrained to the engines above. GitHub has template repositories for different game engines as well as engine-agnostic templates. Examples of template repositories on GitHub are Rakugo Project’s Visual Novel Kit for Godot, DRincs Productions’ Pixi VN Template for React, and Diane Landais’ customizable JavaScript-based template.
Online marketplaces like Itch.io are places that have find free and paid visual novel templates, assets, and dedicated engines, such as alexia_smileyface’s Ren’Py Templates, Sanadi’s VN Engines, and others, available for download. The Notion marketplace has templates for world-building, character development, and story development to assist with planning the visual novel’s story.
Dedicated visual novel engines like Visual Novel Maker, Ren’Py, and TyranoBuilder, and frameworks like the NaniNovel Unity extension are out-of-the-box alternatives to templates that are accessible to beginners. Visual Novel Maker, TyranoBuilder, and NaniNovel allow designers to create a standard visual novel without coding, through drag-and-drop interfaces to add assets, UIs, text, and events, with the option to script advanced features. Ren’Py is free and open source, letting designers build visual novels that port to mobile and PC platforms. Ren’Py adds visual novel UIs into games by default, with a tutorial and comprehensive documentation for its scripting language, as well as Python support if you require custom components.
Design and prototyping tools like Arcweave are another place to find templates and assets. Arcweave’s free plan has a visual novel template and free icon library, as well as out-of-the-box functionality for designing visual novels. Arcweave designs are able to be exported as JSON and used in engines like Unity, Unreal, or a dedicated visual novel creator. Designers are able to create complex branching narratives and conversations through the drag-and-drop interface, art and sound assets, and scripted conditions. I use Arcweave to plan out my designs.
What is an example of a visual novel game design document?
An example of a visual novel Game Design Document (GDD) is the images below. Profiles and asset checklist examples are shown below as ways to plan characters, locations, and custom templates. For planning scenes, see the story map and scene examples below. To plan narrative decision branches, see the example story flow diagram below. The specific information to track in a visual novel depends on the planned game’s design, so adapt these templates as needed.
The character template below is an example of a character profile sheet and checklist, which tracks the information and resources required for each character. The information that’s relevant to include about characters depends on the visual novel’s story and gameplay. For example, addresses aren’t required in A Date with Death, which is set in the character’s room and doesn’t elaborate on the protagonist’s city.
The location template below is an example of a location profile sheet and checklist to keep track of information such as where the location exists in the game’s world, the role the location plays in the story, like being the place where the protagonist first meets their rival, concept art, a checklist of assets needed for it – such as close-ups of backgrounds or default noise tracks to play – and other information. Additional details to locations are able to be added as needed, depending on the visual novel’s requirements, such as characters associated with a location, if visiting locations is a way that players interact with a certain character.
Use the templates and checklists above to create custom templates as needed, depending on the visual novel’s requirements. For example, if designing a hybrid visual novel where interacting with objects is a gameplay mechanic, add a checklist of objects with their concept art and asset checklists, and identify what player interactions with the objects do.
Story maps are a way to connect a sequence of scene locations, characters, transitions, and other associated elements at each point in the visual novel’s narrative progression. Story maps keep track of the sequence of events and form the basis of scenes to be constructed, before expanding the scene into individual interactions and events.
The scene planning template below is an example of how to keep track of interactions and events in the scene, assets, characters, locations, and other elements to be added to a scene, as well as the order in which elements appear in relation to story text, and the scene’s number in the sequence. Customize the checklist and categories in a way that fits your game’s features and mechanics.
A narrative route diagram in the form of a flow chart maps the branch structure of a visual novel’s story, including decision points and the narrative sequences. The use case for route diagrams and story maps are different. Story maps as in the example above help when mapping related scene elements within a narrative branch sequence. By contrast, tracking the entire structure of a complex branching narrative benefits from simplifying what elements are tracked to and use a route diagram. Below are examples of simplified narrative route diagrams.
