Servbot
2012-04-18, 05:36 AM
'Any application of the visual arts and creative writing'-so why not combine them?
To those not in the know: a Visual Novel is a program that runs, basically, a story with pictures and music. It's like a digitised picture book, except rather than illustrations, you get 'sprites' on screen talking and things. Usually this is done in the Japanese Anime & Manga style - not surprising, considering the Japanese introduced Visual Novels.
The particular story I wrote here is a pretentious work about love, an unfortunate side-effect of being a pretentious and arrogant person overall. It is written in 'NVL' style, which means the words cover the entire screen; those who may know the terms 'Tsukihime' or 'Umineko' probably understand what I mean from that.
The below is nearly verbatim copy-pasted from another site which is entirely about Visual Novels, but I felt the need to pre-amble it here with the above. I appreciate any and all comments, although I would be most pleased to hear how you experienced the story and if you feel you can put a definitive label on whether the couple in the story are lovers or just a couple of friends.
Without further ado:
Of Love and You
http://i.imgur.com/8YyZf.png
"Do you love me?"
An innocuous question asked from friend to friend, and its response is a resounding, "No." Rather than sink into despair, the narrator grins and bears with it.
'Of Love and You' is a story that is about love, and simultaneously it is not about love. It is about love, as the story focuses on the relationship between the narrator and his best friend, Dewi. A relation that, the narrator claims, is entirely based on a platonic and mutual liking of each other. A relation that, viewed from outside, may be construed as a very close and loving bond.
Simultaneously, it is not of love - love in prose tends to be explosive and full of passion. Love isn't a word, it's an experience which you actively enjoy. 'Of Love and You' has no explosive and passionate love to be enjoyed, and it does not in fact even include any professions of love. Indeed, it only talks about the impossibility of love between people who aren't family.
Yet it is a love story.
The story is about 6,400 words in length, providing a reasonable reading time. Prepare to spend some time clicking.
'Of Love and You' can be downloaded from my web site here (http://applegate.seacats.net/visual-novels/of-love-and-you/) for Windows and a combined Windows/Mac/Linux distribution. It is licensed under Creative Commons, the details of which can be read here (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/legalcode) or in the licence.txt file included in the distributions.
Credits
Artwork: lordcloudx
Backgrounds: Flickr photographers, refer to in-game notes for names
Music: Marc Conrad Tabula (http://marc.mctabula.com/)
To those not in the know: a Visual Novel is a program that runs, basically, a story with pictures and music. It's like a digitised picture book, except rather than illustrations, you get 'sprites' on screen talking and things. Usually this is done in the Japanese Anime & Manga style - not surprising, considering the Japanese introduced Visual Novels.
The particular story I wrote here is a pretentious work about love, an unfortunate side-effect of being a pretentious and arrogant person overall. It is written in 'NVL' style, which means the words cover the entire screen; those who may know the terms 'Tsukihime' or 'Umineko' probably understand what I mean from that.
The below is nearly verbatim copy-pasted from another site which is entirely about Visual Novels, but I felt the need to pre-amble it here with the above. I appreciate any and all comments, although I would be most pleased to hear how you experienced the story and if you feel you can put a definitive label on whether the couple in the story are lovers or just a couple of friends.
Without further ado:
Of Love and You
http://i.imgur.com/8YyZf.png
"Do you love me?"
An innocuous question asked from friend to friend, and its response is a resounding, "No." Rather than sink into despair, the narrator grins and bears with it.
'Of Love and You' is a story that is about love, and simultaneously it is not about love. It is about love, as the story focuses on the relationship between the narrator and his best friend, Dewi. A relation that, the narrator claims, is entirely based on a platonic and mutual liking of each other. A relation that, viewed from outside, may be construed as a very close and loving bond.
Simultaneously, it is not of love - love in prose tends to be explosive and full of passion. Love isn't a word, it's an experience which you actively enjoy. 'Of Love and You' has no explosive and passionate love to be enjoyed, and it does not in fact even include any professions of love. Indeed, it only talks about the impossibility of love between people who aren't family.
Yet it is a love story.
The story is about 6,400 words in length, providing a reasonable reading time. Prepare to spend some time clicking.
'Of Love and You' can be downloaded from my web site here (http://applegate.seacats.net/visual-novels/of-love-and-you/) for Windows and a combined Windows/Mac/Linux distribution. It is licensed under Creative Commons, the details of which can be read here (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/legalcode) or in the licence.txt file included in the distributions.
Credits
Artwork: lordcloudx
Backgrounds: Flickr photographers, refer to in-game notes for names
Music: Marc Conrad Tabula (http://marc.mctabula.com/)