I mentioned the “spirit of Modern Visual Novel rule #2” in my previous blog in order to indicate the intent that low resistance on progression is a key factor in my mental model for what modern visual novels can be.* Here I will extend this thought.
A feel I’ve been looking for since the start of my theorizing about interactive media was replacing task lists with flow. There’s nothing innately wrong with task lists (go here, do this, etc.), and it is inevitable that all interactive media does this on a micro-scale (press space to continue, talk to someone, etc.), but I always longed for something else. I love the interactivity of interactive media (duh), but I always preferred the “flow-y” nature of a film or novel. It seems a more natural way for us to consume narrative. This is the spirit of MVN rule #2.
But when designing, this desire has always been stifled by my lack of imagination until this point. “Choice must be present”, I would think, “and if there is choice, I must make the pursuit of each branch engaging for the user.” The act of completing all these paths must be comprehensible and engaging, but this is restrictive and enforces suffocating constraints on structure.†‡
How does one then achieve this lack of desire to “close the loop” of what the novel has? The answer is to obscure branches not taken.
In order to achieve this lack of desire to “close the loop” — that is, see every path — we must obscure alternate paths to the user. If they do not know alternate paths are present, they will not feel as though they are missing content. They got their complete experience with a single readthrough. No more is really necessary.
Even on further readthroughs, once they start experimenting and testing the novel’s flex§, this principle still holds. If there is a particularly hidden branch, a user searching will not feel that they “missed out”, since they don’t know that the missing element exists.¶**
*Very much worth noting that I quite like resistance, just not resistance that halts or reverses progression, hence the rule #2’s wording.
†Namely, branching structure must be consciously understandable and telegraphed.
‡Attempting to fit Everything I Know, and Everything I’m Ever Gonna Know was a development headache and ultimately led to its structure being muddied.
§I actually really like this jargon word of “flex” in modern visual novels…
¶Achievements as a roadmap for completionism is, thus, incompatible with this concept.
**Note on this article as a whole: This “flow vs task list” concept is not a requirement for something to be considered a “modern visual novel”. It is, instead, a best practice from my own taste. Rule #2 is the rule as it stands. Listening to the spirit of the rule is up to the author.