VNs and Mobile Gaming

The Muv-Luv Kickstarter is promising an Android port of Muv-Luv and Muv-Luv Alternative. Sounds great, right? You can play really cool games whenever you feel like it. You don't need to be at a computer or a console to boot up a fun game: you always have your smartphone with you so you always have games with you. What's the problem, then?

Simply put, mobile gaming is traditionally a passive activity instead of an active activity. With most mobile games, you don't sit down and decide to play them. You play them because you want to pass the time, whether you're in line, on the bus, or waiting for commercials to end. In a given context, mobile games don't command your attention. You don't focus on them. In a sense, they're secondary to any given activity. (Of course, there are exceptions - very notable exceptions. But the market as a whole produces games that you play when you want to simply pass time.)

This paradigm just isn't innately compatible with traditional storytelling. You watch movies in order to be immersed in new settings and situations. You read books because you want to see what happens to the characters. It doesn't matter that these activities are punctuated by periods of other activity: what matters is that when you sit down with a book, the book commands your attention.

Visual novels are the same way. Reading visual novels is an incredibly consuming activity - they can last up to 100 hours of reading! It's comparable to reading a book (a very, very, very long book). It's also cognitively demanding, so it's not something that can adequately be done passively.

What would happen when a behemoth of a VN like Muv-Luv Alternative is read on a phone? That's hard to say.  I can't stand the thought that someone reads MLA in five-minute chunks. I don't think anybody would want to only read MLA when waiting in line. It's more engaging than that. I would like to say that the player turns a traditionally passive activity and turns it into an active activity. But if this is the case, why does it necessitate a port? If you're going to sit down and commit yourself to this activity, why does it need to be on Android?

A few answers come to mind:

• Not everyone has a laptop. 
• It's inconvenient to carry a laptop around with you and you might find yourself in situations where you want to commit to reading but don't have the bulky computer. 
• The developers widen their audience by having a game on a more accessible platform.

Admittedly, this isn't totally different from having Netflix and eBooks on your phone. I think it's kind of a shame that enjoying film and literature is sometimes treated like a passive activity. But I do think (and dearly hope) that even though they are "treated" like passive activities by developers, users will mostly engage with them in an active manner.

My Problems with Virtue's Last Reward

Kotaro Uchikoshi is pretty great. A lot of his stuff is pretty great. But he's also the first person who convinced me that you can actually plagiarize yourself.

Spoilers for 999, Virtue's Last Reward, and Ever17 ahead.

Virtue's Last Reward is essentially "Ever17-lite." Instead of being surprised by the big twists, I kept thinking "this again?" There is exactly one point in the game where I was surprised -- and that was just because it turned out that they were on the moon the whole time. That reveal was kind of clever. The other twists? They weren't clever. They weren't satisfying. To see why, let's take a look what the other games did right.

Ever17
What is the twist?
One of the protagonists looks into a mirror to find out that he doesn't recognize the image in the mirror. We don't, either. The significance of "we aren't who we think we are" is twofold: first, obviously, we thought we knew who we were playing as this entire time. Most important, however, is the revelation that this character is not somebody who can possibly exist in the game according to our current understanding of the game's rules. This reveal puts into question everything we thought we knew about the story so far. We are shown through Takeshi's perspective what The Kid is supposed to look like. Now, we have somebody ELSE calling themselves "The Kid", someone who everyone ELSE acknowledges as "The Kid". This image does not match our expectation of what "The Kid" is supposed to look like and, furthermore, seemingly violates one of the fundamental rules of the game: that there are only 6 people allowed on LeMU.
How does the game frame the narrative to allow for the twist to happen?
The first scene of the game establishes the setting for us. The underwater theme park LeMU begins collapsing and a few visitors are trapped. We are rapidly shown scenes of the collapse from two perspectives: one of Takeshi and one of "The Kid." Both perspectives seem to be describing events describing the collapse of LeMU, so we are tricked into believing that both perspectives are actually happening at the same time. Of course, we discover that these two perspectives are actually happening 17 years apart. In short, the narrative structure of the prologue intentionally frames the scenario incorrectly.
What's really clever is that this is the only instance of narrative fuckery in the entire game (save for Coco's route, where the reveals happen). The story occurs in a strictly linear fashion after you select your character. The game doesn't keep throwing confusion at you (unless you're really clever and can identify the incongruencies between the two common routes). The game only needs to trick you once: at the very beginning of the story, the part where we piece together the scenario!
What are the character motivations for the plot?
The characters piece this plot together so that they can rescue Takeshi and Coco from the depths of the ocean. This works because we already care about Takeshi and Coco -- we've spent 20-30 hours with these characters already! There's tension because we want them to survive. It works because we are emotionally invested in the characters.

999
What is the twist?
We thought that we were playing as Junpei, but we were really playing as June influencing Junpei from the past.
How does the game frame the narrative to allow for the twist to happen?
The twist is largely similar to Ever17's, but the "trick" is different (and still clever!). The trick lies in the nature of the Nintendo DS: two screens both show text, but we are led to believe that the bottom text describes events in limited third-person perspective while the top screen describes dialogue and first-person narration. This is a very natural way to understand how the game is presenting information to you --- but it's wrong! The bottom text belongs to June, who ultimately is an observer but is still invested in Junpei's happenings. What's pretty masterful about this twist is that, fundamentally, it relies on the console itself, not the medium or the narrative.
What are the character motivations for the plot? The characters produce this plot in order to save June in the past. Again, this works because we care about June. Our motivations are aligned because we want to see her survive.

VLR
What is the twist?
The protagonist is old instead of young. This questions our perception of the narrator and the setting -- namely "when" the events are happening.
How does the game frame the narrative to allow for the twist to happen?
The protagonist told us through flashbacks that he was young. The "trick" here is just textbook "unreliable narrator." This is a big step down from the previous stories. Additionally, it tries to shoehorn the Blick Winkel character in the last ten minutes of the game, which is only a cliffhanger if you've never played E17.
What are the character motivations for the plot?
Again, the plot was constructed by characters in the game in order to save other human beings. My biggest problem here is that I just don't give a shit about those human beings. Who are they? Why do I care? I've never seen them before. There's no reason for me to care because these characters don't appear on-screen. It's reminiscent of a "saving the world" plot, but worse because we don't even get to SEE the world we're saving!
Presumably, there was this virus that wiped out most of humanity and we ultimately want to save some people down there. Great. This is noble, but I don't have ANY emotional connection to ANYBODY "down there." This point fails simply because it never gave me the opportunity to give a shit.

So what's the problem with VLR, then?
TL;DR: All of these games rely on their plot twists. E17 and 999's twists are clever and defy simple "trope" classification - they're groundbreaking and change the way we view our understanding of the medium's narrative patterns. VLR's plot twist is like E17's if you removed all creativity from it. The "cool" elements of VLR are less good versions of things that E17 and 999 did really well.