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tsukikoayanosuke · 2 years

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Captain Talks About Some Writing Things - TWST Otome Game vs the Visual Novel Gameplay

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Currently, in the fandom, I’ve seen some discussion about TWST otome game. It’s more of an imagining of what if Twisted-Wonderland is an otome game or dating sims instead of our current battle/rhythm game. While I have my opinion, there are already great posts of conversations with anons and other users from @pianostarinwonderland and @raven-at-the-writing-desk about the matter, mostly surrounding the story and characters.

So what am I doing here? As I said, I have my opinion, but not about the story and characters (but I’ll probably be touching about it in between). In this post, we’ll be looking through the lens of gameplay, as in the technical parts. Once upon a time, I want to go to the gaming department so the coding and system are always interesting. I made short games before, mostly for college assignments, so I might have little knowledge because most of what I learned is self-taught. Thus, I apologize for any misconception.

In addition, I’ll be comparing TWST to two visual novels, one of them can be count as an otome game. The first one is Asagao Academy: Normal Boots Club, an otome game based on Normal Boots. The reason why I chose this game is that I already had and played it at least for one route, so there’s a familiarity. The second one is Rewrite, a visual novel where there’s a war between humans and the nature-supernatural. Why I chose this because this is also a fantasy/supernatural genre similar to TWST. There won’t be many spoilers for the two games just in case any of you want to play them. However, I do apologize if I ended up making this more about visual novel than otome game because I’m more familiar with the former.

Despite everything I said, I’m not here to bash or offend anyone who wants TWST to be an otome game. You can imagine anything you want, even make your own TWST otome game. I mean, seeing these handsome boys, how can we not fall for them? (I mean, I don’t, but that’s another story) I’m here to open a new discussion on the table. Or you can use this as a future reference for your dating sims fangame.

So, without further ado, let’s discuss.

What is an “Otome Game”? What is a “Visual Novel”?

Before we can go far, we need to know about the definitions of otome game and visual novel. According to Wikipedia, A visual novel, often abbreviated as VN, is a form of digital semi-interactive fiction. They combine a textual narrative with static or animated illustrations and a varying degree of interactivity. You can say that a visual novel is a fancy choose-your-own-adventure-type game because it’ll lead you to various routes depending on your choices. It’s like reading a book, but you can be picky about the pages you want to read. Examples of visual novels are the various works of Key (Clannad, Kanon, Air, Little Busters!, etc), the Ace Attorney series, the Danganronpa series, Steins;Gate and Chaos;Head, and the Fate series.

There are also differences between visual novels: kinetic novel and sound novel. The first one is kinetic novel. Kinetic novel is a visual novel without those branching plotlines. Some examples are Hatoful Boyfriend and Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet. Meanwhile sound novel is a visual novel that has a heavy emphasis on its sound and music. An example is the Higurashi series. A bonus, in my opinion, if we follow these definitions, then Twisted-Wonderland can be counted as a kinetic novel.

Otome game is a sub-genre of a visual novel. An otome game is a story-based video game that is targeted toward women. Generally one of the goals, besides the main idea/goal, is to develop a romantic relationship between the female player/main character and one of the second-lead male characters. Examples of these are Alice in the Country of Hearts, Diabolik Lovers, Amnesia, Uta no Prince-sama, and Mystic Messenger. The opposite of it, the bishōjo game, is a type of video game centered on interactions with attractive girls. Many visual novels are actually categorized under this, especially with the romantic elements. Both otome and bishōjo games can be categorized under the dating sims banner, which is a video game subgenre of simulation games with romantic elements.

The Common Gameplay Elements of Visual Novel and Otome Game

Now, when we’re talking about otome games, or visual novels in general, what is your first thought? Usually, it would be the romantic interests, our wonderful bachelorettes and bachelors. Or maybe we’re thinking about the story, of fairy tale romance, psychological horror, or just simple high school drama. While, yes, both of them are important, very important if I may say, but that’s not what makes a visual novel and otome game... well, a visual novel and otome game. It’s a certain breed of itself.

The Minimal Gameplay and Storybook-like Visual

One thing that separates visual novel and otome games from their peers from the get-go is how it visually looks and the gameplay. Unlike RPG, visual novel and otome game has very minimal gameplay, focusing more on reading the narrative. You can say this is an interactive storybook. This might be the biggest turn-off for many players, because, you know, who likes reading?

But with its minimal gameplay, comes the advantages. The stories of a visual novel and otome game are usually character-driven. While some have a straight plot, they usually are one moment where you get to spend bonding with one of the characters or love interests. Another advantage is that the developers can give more unique minigames or unusual point systems in the game. Some examples are the class trial in Danganronpa series or the baseball minigame in Little Busters!. However, the focus is always on the reading aspect. If there’s a special scene, usually they will be given a CG/picture, or maybe even an animation/cutscene.

Both Asagao Academy and Rewrite have this classic storybook-like format, just like many others. The layout might be different with a little extra spice here and there, but it’s essentially the same thing. In addition, Rewrite has a short goggle-map-like minigame while Asagao Academy doesn't have any.

Common Route & Character Route

Now, starting from here, this is the main discussion for me. Relating to the character-driven story aspect, visual novel and otome game, in terms of story part, can be separated into two: common route and character route. Now, I’ll be honest, I don’t know what the official names are, but for now, I’ll be calling them like that.

Common route is the introduction part of the game. In this part of the game, you’re introduced to the world, your MC, and your cute girls/boys who you will be spending the rest of the game with. The story is usually more simple than the character route because it’s natural for the player to settle down in this new environment. Throughout this part, you will be served with various options that will determine the progress of the story and future route. There might be some hints of drama that you’ll dive into more in the next part. The common route ends at a certain point when it’ll take you to the character you’ve chosen. Some games let you choose the girl/boy, some games just straight up take you after tallying all the points you’ve earned through the choices you picked.

In Asagao Academy, throughout your common route, you’ll meet various Normal Boots boys and you learn about the game tournament. The MC, Hana, has a skill in puzzle games, so after many interactions, the boys agree to accept her as a permanent member of the club if they win the tournament. While that’s the end game, the common route ends with the flower festival, where Hana can choose one of the Normal Boots boys to go with. This also serves as your gateway to your character route. There will be different scenes and interactions depending on which boy you choose.

In Rewrite, it’s more complex. The MC, Kotarou, has been experiencing supernatural stuff, so he goes to the ‘School Witch’, who is actually his senior. Because he wants to find new friends, he joins the Occult Club that is lead by said senior and starts writing articles about the supernatural. The common route ends when a girl from the newspaper club goes missing in the forest where the Occult Club went a few days ago. When they go to investigate on their own on the 13th of November, they get attacked by creatures and find out that there’s a war between two organizations for the fate of the earth. This is the gateway to Kotori Kanbe, Akane Senri, and Chihaya Ohtori character route. However, you can skip everything and get an entirely different common route. The common route reaching Lucia Konohana route focuses on the arguments between Chihaya and Lucia over a misunderstanding of why Lucia wears gloves and is such a neat freak. This common route ends on the 27th of October. There’s even a way to get extra scenes while still following the main common route. The common route reaching to Sizuru Nakatsu route has some extra scenes surrounding Sizuru and everything surrounding her, including a scene of Kotarou and Sizuru visiting her parents who don’t remember her. After that, you follow the main common route again and get extra scenes on the 13th of November rather than fainting like the other routes (except Lucia).

Character route is the next part. In this part of the game, you spend most of your time with your chosen girl/boy. There will be drama, there might be character growth and development. You learn more about the characters, their struggles, and their feelings toward you. Each character has their own story and struggles, and you’ll be there to support your beloved. There might be choices appearing through the arc if there are multiple endings (as in good end, neutral end, and bad end) but there are some that only have one end. Usually, the game ends with either of the characters confessing their love for each other or they already confessed their love in the middle of the route. Unfortunately, I can’t explain all the routes one by one for I haven’t read and played both games fully.

Post-Main Game Prize

While it’s nice to end the game with your first pick route, usually the player wants to see other routes. And what happened after everything is done? This is where the post-game content appears. This is your price after completing everything, whether you open a brand new ending or a new route, it’ll depend on the developer.

Asagao Academy actually has several surprises. It has two extra routes outside the main Normal Boots boys. This can be accessed even before you finish the game. And after you completed both and everything else (with all worst, bad, good, and best endings), you’ll get an extra ending which is a continuation of Jirad route.

Rewrite goes the extra mile and gives you two new routes (technically three). Moon route can be accessed after completing all of the five girls' routes. It focuses on a new girl, Kagari, the same girl that has been haunting Kotarou on the common route, and more nature-supernatural conflict. After completing that, you’ll unlock Terra route, where you see Kotarou’s past, which makes it a prequel for the first part and a sequel to the second part. And after completing everything, including all minigame quests, you’ll unlock a gag route called Oppai route through the common route.

Minor Things (Save, Calendar, CG)

While I call this a minor thing, this is more of a technical thing that is essential to a visual novel and otome game. Because of the nature of having usually multiple choices, the save system is important. If you’re on the road to a bad ending, do you really want to start from the beginning? Usually, the save system is always available, so when an option pop up, you can save first before choosing. And if you want to choose another option, you can just load your last save file. The calendar system is mostly a trivia to mark your progress throughout the route, especially the common route when there are many options. It also acts as a marker whether you’re in the common route or character route because usually, the calendar will disappear when you enter a character route. The CGs are served for important or emotional scenes, something that words aren’t enough to describe it. There are many more quirks, but these three are what I think are the most crucial.

“TWST Otome Game” from a Visual Novel Gameplay Perspective

After everything, here comes the million-dollar question: Is it possible for Twisted-Wonderland to become an otome game from a gameplay perspective?

Short answer: With the current state of story structure, possibly no. Long answer: It’s complicated but I’ll try my best to explain my reasoning.

Well, let’s go down with every point that I made about the elements of a visual novel/otome game: the storybook aspect, the routes, the completion bonus, and the minor things. Even though I mentioned that TWST, by definition, is a kinetic novel, we’ll be taking a more traditional visual novel/otome game style with branching plotlines. And, once again, I apologize if I’m leaning more toward visual novel rather than otome game.

The first aspect is actually already been fulfilled. Twisted-Wonderland has wonderful art thanks to Yana Toboso and her team. They’ve provided us with handsome boys, well-design background, amazing music, and the visual-novel presentation in the main story and card story. If we take out all the lessons, the room decorating, and the test, the main core of TWST is definitely the story-ready aspect with the rhythm and battle more serving as a minigame. There’s not much you can do in TWST other than tap your screen and pick some options.

However, this is where it sort of crumbles. While it’s true that TWST provides us with options, what effect does it brings? Sure the dialogues that follow can be different but remember what I said before. Visual novel and otome game depends on these options to move forward and enter your ideal character route. Not to mention, that most of the options presented is either polite or snarky answers with the same meaning in the end.

But this is easy to fix by adding more dialogues and making them meaningful which would affect the routes onward. But this serves another problem. When do the common route and the character routes start and end? This is my main argument. Remember, the common route and character routes are essential to a visual novel/otome game. Both Piano and Raven had made great points about how the story and characters won’t work, you guys can check them out. What becomes puzzling for me is how would the common and character route works. At the Post-Main Game Prize, I mentioned for both Asagao Academy and Rewrite have bonus endings only if you can complete all the routes. This would mean that you have to replay the game over and over again to get all the endings. How would that work in TWST? One of TWST's weaknesses is the game doesn’t really introduce a new character until we reach the dorm featured in the episode and they seldom call back old characters for an important role.

Many anon implied that the main story is the common route, which begs the question of when the character route ends. Let’s take an example (featuring some bullet points):

Let’s just say that the whole main story is the common route. And let’s say that I want to romance Ruggie. Would this mean Ruggie route is unlocked since the beginning or only unlocked since his first appearance? If we follow this logic, would that mean I have to wait until Pomefiore to even unlock Idia and Ortho? Does the player have enough patience to do that?

Now, how do we get to Ruggie’s route? We barely even meet him in the main story/common route because he’s working together with Leona for Malleus’ murder attempt.

You can say, “oh, Ruggie character route can happen after Savanaclaw ends.” While I can take this because of the aforementioned Lucia Konohana route from Rewrite, then comes another question: what it’ll be about? Again, we barely know the guy, we don’t know his full problem.

“Well, that’s what the character route is for, right?” Remember what I said about the common route being our introduction to the love interests? If you never give us hints of what their problem or interest is, how am I supposed to make the early connection. And don’t say their looks, because that’s a weak reasoning. The common route teases us with the bachelorettes and bachelors, and the character route gives us the full-blown experiences.

To add a point to that, what will happen to the main story after that? Do we just abandon them for one story? If we go through Ruggie route in Savanaclaw, does this mean we won’t get involved with the Octavinelle scam, the Scarabia training camp, or VDC? In Asagao Academy, at the end of every route, you’ll face the tournament which will lead you to one of your four endings. In Rewrite, while you will either join two different organization or stay neutral, there’s one thing that still connects them: the end of the world. For TWST, after we pick a character route, do we just abandon everything for one boy or keep continuing on? If we still continue down the common route, what will happen to Ruggie in Octavinelle, Scarabia, and the story onward? Sure he’s involved in Octavinelle, but he only appear once in Scarabia.

Still sticking with this mess, how will the player and Ruggie’s relationship go after that? Would Ruggie join in with you along the way or does he stay behind? Does your relationship even matters after that? Does it affect the story onward? There’s a reason why the character routes happen after the common route ends in both Asagao Academy, Rewrite, and many other games. The character routes served as a new storyline, a continuation. Both games don’t go back and forth between the character route and the common route.

This might not be what Piano and Raven mean when they say that the current TWST story would be hard to turn into otome games, but even if we look gameplay-wise, it would be a nightmare to code. Jumping between the common route and the character route would be a mess. This is why most visual novels/otome games stick to the classic format of ending the common route first before entering the character route.

As I put an example of both Lucia Konohana and Sizuru Nakatsu, it’s possible to end the common route differently, but they have their own character route that is separated from the common route and they don’t go back to it. You can argue that from the way I explained about Sizuru Nakatsu part that it seems that she has a character route and then go back to the common route. I assure you, all the extra scene for Sizuru in the common route is part of said route. This is actually a clever way to tease us to learn more about Sizuru by the end of the common route and entering her route. As I mentioned, the common route teases us with the bachelorettes and bachelors, and the character route gives us the full-blown experiences.

I won’t argue much about the post-main game prize, but this makes me think. Now, I do admit that I don’t know much about otome games, but the two games I used as an example here are full games with no DLC context. With TWST being a mobile game that would always update, how will the progression go? If every boy is a love interest, how many updates does it take to get the full otome game experience? Again, this is because of the lack of knowledge, so I apologize for not giving a strong argument.

I do, however, think of something that might become another sour topic, but I think I might as well address it: The Main Character Problem.

In the past, I, like many others, praised how TWST’s MC being gender-neutral is a breath of fresh air. This way, everyone can play it without feeling awkward playing as the default gender and we can easily put ourselves into Yuu/Player. Unlike Rewrite which has a male mc named Kotarou Tennouji and Asagao Academy which has a female mc named Hana Mizuno, TWST has a gender-neutral mc named Yuu (but can be changed depending on the player). Now, as usual, I’m talking about game Yuu, not OC Yuu. Got it memorized?

Now, unfortunately, when it comes to the role of the main character, I would say Kotarou and Hana are better than Yuu by default. Why? Because Kotarou and Hana are their own characters, unlike Yuu who is a player-insert.

As I mentioned previously, playing a visual novel or an otome game is like reading a book. Maybe, I need to make this clearer: it's like reading a book from the first-person point of view. When we're reading a story or novel with a first-person pov, we put ourselves in the head of the main character. You know their thoughts and feeling through the words written on the page. You can be frustrated at them and you can separate yourself from them. You can imagine putting yourself like them, but at the end of the day, they are their own character and you're just, fortunately, or unfortunately, sharing room in their brain.

This is the same as playing/reading a visual novel/otome game. You can put yourself in Kotarou or Hana's shoes but there might be a time when your personality will clash with theirs. Kotarou is easygoing, often getting himself in trouble, and a little bit perverted, but is also a kind person and would do anything for a friend (before this, however, he was described as cold and a loner). Hana is a sweet girl but can be timid because of her past. She can be quick to judge and has a tiny trust issue, but eventually comes around and opens up. They are their own person with their own personality, past, and struggles.

I, unfortunately, cannot say the same for Yuu. This is TWST's strength and weakness. Yuu has very little personality, doesn't have a past, and the only struggle they have (wanting to get home) is mostly forgotten. However, this might be intentional because they're supposed to be player-insert. The player can insert themselves into you and fill the blank about their past and personality from the options provided.

Now, why this is important? Short answer: monologues.

As I mentioned previously, playing a visual novel or an otome game is like reading a book through a first-person pov. Thus, you know the main character's thoughts, feelings, and even personalities from what they're saying in their head/what's written on the page/their monologues and self-reflection. Kotarou's monologues flow very easily, sometimes a little bit dramatic. From reading it, the first impression is that he's a chill dude and maybe a little bit of a prankster. Hana's monologues sometimes go long, a little bit deep, and often filled with self-reassurance. You can tell from those that she's a nervous girl who wants to try her best. Unfortunately, unlike these games, we never get Yuu monologues in TWST.

Once again, this is TWST's strength and weakness. With Yuu being a player insert, we have the will to form our own monologues. However, when making a visual novel or otome game, we need the main character to anchor us. With Yuu having so little personality (like even less than Grim), what would their canon monologues be? We don't know. We never know. We never had a moment for Yuu to gather their thought about the situation after a deadly overblot battle. We don't know what they were thinking when they lost Ramshackle Dorm to Azul's deal. The closest thing we had was them worrying about Grim and the injured Ace and Deuce in Ignihyde.

When playing Asagao Academy or watching Rewrite, I can easily separate myself from Hana and Kotarou even if we control their action. But when playing TWST, that line may blur sometimes. We know what we're thinking or feeling, but we don't know what Yuu is thinking or feeling. And because of this, canon monologues seem very hard to write. Because once you put a monologue, you cemented a personality through the words. And that would contradict Yuu's player-insert nature.

This might be fixable if the main character is Yuuken Emma or Yuuya Kuroki who both have clear personalities which makes it easy to create monologues for them, but I have little doubt that they are preferred over the player-insert Yuu.

And one last thing, not related to anything here (though maybe slightly toward main character-ish), but why ‘otome games’? Like, why not ‘visual novel’ or just ‘dating sims’? Remember that by definition otome games are targeted toward female audiences with female mc and male love interests. I'm not saying that males can't play otome games, but the implication that the mc might be a female? Or maybe that's not the intention. I can be wrong.

In Conclusion

There are more things than just a story and characters (and many had said about the matters) to make an otome game or a visual novel. On a technical gameplay level, it takes a lot of work to even make this. With the lack of weight to the options, the unclear line of common routes and character routes, the updates for a mobile game, and the weak main character who can't be separated from the player, it'll take more effort than just pulling the current Twisted-Wonderland and putting in romantic sprinkles.

And that's the furthest I can say for now. As I said, most of my knowledge came from self-taught, so I might get things wrong. Sorry about that. But this is just something that I want to say, at least as a fangame creator myself.

But, once again, this is not me saying you guys should stop making or wanting a TWST otome game. I'm happy that our fandom is going to have fangame contributions and I'll be cheering for you guys.

Well, I hope this little ramble can open a new view or discussion about this matter. Even if it's not, I hope it's at least an enjoyable read. I spent, like, almost a day writing this on a whim, so sorry if it looks messy.

Thank you for reading~!

#the captain's rambling #twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #twst

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