Genre: Visual Novel

Branching narratives, meaningful choices, and quality-of-life features define visual novels.

Core Loop

1. Read: Consume narrative text and character dialogue
2. Decide: Choose at key moments
3. Branch: Story diverges based on choice
4. Consequence: Immediate reaction or long-term flag changes
5. Conclude: Reach one of multiple endings

NEVER Do in Visual Novels

• NEVER create illusion of choice — If all options lead to same outcome immediately, player feels cheated. ALWAYS provide dialogue variation OR flag changes, even if plot converges later.
• NEVER skip Auto, Skip, and Save/Load features — These are MANDATORY in VN genre. Players replay for all routes. Missing QoL = low-quality VN.
• NEVER display walls of unbroken text — 6+ lines of text = intimidating. Limit to 3-4 lines per dialogue box. Break with character reactions or pauses.
• NEVER hardcode dialogue in scripts — Writers aren't programmers. Use JSON/CSV/custom format. Hardcoding = iteration hell for narrative changes.
• NEVER forget rollback/history — Player missclicks choice or wants to reread. Missing rollback = frustrating. Store state before EVERY line, use history stack.
• NEVER ignore BBCode/rich text effects — Plain text = boring. Use [wave], [shake], [color] in RichTextLabel for emotional beats. "I [shake]HATE[/shake] you" > "I HATE you".