"This is a game, not a novel" What?

[Astor Reinhardt]

Quoting directly from the greenlight page:

"An important point to note here is the absence of what is commonly called choices and forks. This means that you are freed from the tedious saving and loading, the searching for events and routes, and can instead enjoy the story from the beginning to the end.

Nevertheless, this is a game, not a novel. "

That sounds like a novel to me. I mean nothing against visual novels but don't call it a game. A game is when you make choices to advance the story...to tailor it to you. I guess I went into this game expecting it to be a visual novel with choices...like do I go help Rena get the Sanders statue out of the dump or do I go home...stuff like that. As in it would give me several choices to sort of "pick my own adventure".

I'm a fan of the anime and when I saw this game was on Steam I jumped on it but...I'm a little let down. They shouldn't call this a game when you have no choices or options to make/choose.

I guess this is just a rant...meh.

[Yirba]

It is a game in the sense that there is a challenge (the mystery of the strange events that occur in the story), and it is up to you to overcome it (by finding the solutions). If that's not a game, then I don't know what is. :-)

TL;DR: "Game" does not necessarily mean "video game".

[Ohagi-Chan]

Personally I call it a game, but the same way you call a riddle a "game" or maybe more accurately, a "challenge". This series had many "challenges" written into it, and throughout the course of the story, the biggest challenge was deciding what the "game" really was: I went through 2 different ideas for what I was being challenged to do, and then the final staff room scene of the series revealed a third challenge I had never considered.

[kilicool64]

I agree that it makes no sense to claim that Higurashi is a game, not a novel. If a work of fiction that presents you with a puzzle you're supposed to solve automatically qualifies as a game, then a lot of mystery novels would qualify as games as well, despite very clearly being novels.

Higurashi is not even close to what I would consider a game. There are very few VNs that I would call games. For that reason I always try to avoid referring to VNs as games.

[黒猫]

Most of visual novels are just a modern type of book.

[SuperVolcano]

I'll agree that MangaGamer's... "marketing" could try and resemble a product of intelligent thought, but the intended meaning is "game", not "video game".
Higurashi is not a video game, but it (and Umineko to an even greater degree) is a game between you and the author. Keep in mind that "game" is a word that has existed long before the medium of video games. And then slap MangaGamer for being so terrible at marketing.

[NotAfan]

I agree the marketing was very misleading on this one. I don't particularly call VNs games, it just makes no sense to me, even when there are choices. It's simply a fancy book. Not that this is bad, I love visual novels. But marketing it as a "game, not novel" is just misleading. It's called visual NOVEL for a reason. A game has to have some form of interactivity, and kinectic visual novels have literally none, unless you count "clicking to advance through the text" interactivity.

[marakeusz]

I would not say the marketing was very misleading. I mean they were clear about what they mean by word "game". We can agree or not with that definition but no on should be mislead by that.

I guess the real reason is mangagamer wanted to be on steam and calling the product "game" is helping.

[[LUE] Miles Prower]

Originally posted by marakeusz:

I would not say the marketing was very misleading. I mean they were clear about what they mean by word "game". We can agree or not with that definition but no on should be mislead by that.

I guess the real reason is mangagamer wanted to be on steam and calling the product "game" is helping.

Even that doesn't really make sense because there's visual novels on Steam right now.

[marakeusz]

Yeah, I know but I don't remember how it was few years ago (when the greenlight was on). Nevertheless I don't see the problem - the game (or whatever) has the accurate description.

[Yirba]

Maybe I can clear up some of the confusion. The text on the Greenlight page (which is now obsolete since Higurashi is now available on Steam) is a translation of the prologue written by 07th Expansion. It is available in the original Japanese here[07th-expansion.net].

The line in question is as follows:
ですが、本作品はただの小説ではなく、やはりゲームです。

I won't comment on the translation used on the Greenlight page, but suffice to say, my interpretation is a little different. If I had to give a rather literal translation, it'd be as follows:
However, this work is not only a novel, but also a game.

So the argument of whether Higurashi is a novel or a game is rather meaningless. Ryukishi07 is saying here that it is both.

The prologue then goes on to mention the mysteries in the story, so it's quite clear that the word "game" is being used to mean something like a challenge or puzzle, as opposed to a video game.

[kilicool64]

Originally posted by Yirba:

Maybe I can clear up some of the confusion. The text on the Greenlight page (which is now obsolete since Higurashi is now available on Steam) is a translation of the prologue written by 07th Expansion. It is available in the original Japanese here[07th-expansion.net].

The line in question is as follows:
ですが、本作品はただの小説ではなく、やはりゲームです。

I won't comment on the translation used on the Greenlight page, but suffice to say, my interpretation is a little different. If I had to give a rather literal translation, it'd be as follows:
However, this work is not only a novel, but also a game.

So the argument of whether Higurashi is a novel or a game is rather meaningless. Ryukishi07 is saying here that it is both.

The prologue then goes on to mention the mysteries in the story, so it's quite clear that the word "game" is being used to mean something like a challenge or puzzle, as opposed to a video game.

Just because someone calls their creation a game doesn't automatically make it one. Otherwise, even this post I just wrote could be classified as a game as long as I (being its creator) claim it is one.

The prologue doesn't seem to specify whether or not it's talking about games in general or video games here, but Higurashi is most certainly not the latter. I don't understand how anyone could claim that it is. If it's talking about games in general, then we face the problem of that being a very vague concept that can refer to very different things depending on its interpretation. Since I don't know Ryukishi's interpretation of it, I can't say for sure whether I agree with him on that or not. But if Higurashi is a game, despite not being a video game, than a whole lot of other non-video games containing mysteries would qualify as such as well.

[SuperVolcano]

I'll just reiterate what I said before - Higurashi is definitely not a video game, but Ryukishi considers it to be a 'game' between himself and the readers. He has stated this time and time and time again regarding the When They Cry franchise as a whole.

I don't know whether or not people in this thread are new to WTC or not, but both Higurashi and Umineko are designed to be (largely) solveable by the halfway point, though they're both very difficult. The nature of the game tends to shift with each novel, to the point where you could call it a series of games (the Matsuribayashi-hen Staff Room should help explain what I mean).

Umineko is MUCH more blatant about all this than Higurashi, but it's still been a prevalent aspect of the franchise since the beginning.

[Ohagi-Chan]

If a riddle is not a game, then I guess Bilbo would be challenging Gollum to street fighter, because "game" is exactly the word used in the Hobbit book, written so long ago.

[Heatth]

But you are participating. You are making guesses and comparing to the answer. That is how a riddle works. The fact you don't have to right or speak out loud your guess means little. The thing is, the story is deliberately crafted so you can try to answer correctly. It was deliberately created to be a game.

Not to mention you can actively participate by discussing with others in the Internet. The series was also crafted with that in mind, which is why mystery is so hard. Umineko, for example, seems almost impossible to solve, but what turned out to be the correct answers were things people have been discussing since the 3rd and 4rth episodes (out of 8).

Sure, you don't need to read When They Cry as if it was a game. You can just read the story and never try to figure it out on your own. That doesn't change the fact it was created as a game.

[Magusverborum]

The creator originally intended it as a sort of ARG (Alternate Reality Game) in novel form. You can tell by the way the description is written that Ryukishi07 intended the story to be discussed among many people, he didn't just want to tell his story, but wanted to encourage those who read the story to try and figure out what the hell was going on. Unfortunately we can't really recreate that because the whole story is already out haha.