Sunday, May 19, 2024
Pressing Fast Forward
A
simple feature like a Skip Button might seem too minor to be worth
covering in any detail, after all most visual novels have one so
they must be a normal part of them, right? It is only when it is taken
away that its impact, both on how the player interacts with the
game and their perception of it, becomes clear. Presenting the option
to skip content is always a double edged sword for a game as it
offers player convenience at the risk of them skipping over something
important to the narrative and in a game so focused around story this
can be a major issue. Then there are the different types of skip
functions from the standard skipping text to skipping between scenes
to skipping to the next choice. A common bed fellow to the Skip
Button is the auto play setting where the player can let the visual
novel progress at a pace set by the player without their input
which presents some odd design considerations. Let's speed through the
game and discover how skipping influences visual novels.
The Standard Skip
Of
all the types of skip functions found in visual novels, the skip read
text and the skip unread text are the most common and shape how the
overall experience is perceived. Skipping text the player has already
seen is the easier of the two to understand the impact of on the game. It is a simple quality of life feature to enable a smoother
transition from one route to another without boring the player with
repeated content. With this their interest can be maintained while
allowing for an unimpeded exploration of the choices and endings on
offer. This reduced barrier does have a slight drawback in that it
brings the player onto a system level engagement with the game rather
than an emotional and personal one making it damaging to the impact
of key moments which the player is suddenly thrust into after some detached
skipping. Take a game with a long common route like The Fruit of
Grisaia as an example. Here the length of time it would take to reach
another route would be an unreasonable amount to ask the player to
put themselves through and so letting them skip the text they have
read is a basic method of avoiding tedium. By doing this The Fruit of
Grisaia runs into the issue of the player’s attention wandering as,
even with the ability to skip, it can take a long time to reach new
content and thus their interest in continuing to play drops. The more
expansive the visual novel, the worse this problem becomes and there
is no way to properly balance it without introducing new content into
the common route based on routes completed, but this expands the
scope of the game and takes a lot of time and resources to implement.
 |
| Sometimes you just need to get a move on |
Sitting
right next to the ability to skip read text is the option to skip
unread text, meaning lines or scenes the player has never interacted
with before. The role this occupies is as a means for players who
have already played the game before to skip to whatever part of the
game they want to go to without having to reread the whole title on a
fresh install. It also serves as a means for the player to skip sections
they might be finding uninteresting so the game can maintain their
engagement rather than having them put it down and stop playing. Of
course this comes with the ever present risk that they could
accidentality skip past a big revelation or key character moment
without which they will not properly understand later events. This
matters significantly more in visual novels which rely on plot as
their primary driving force since a twist can come out of nowhere if its
foreshadowing or setup has been skipped. It also further takes
control of the experience out of the hands of the developer since
they cannot account of any amount of skipping the player does and so
have to assume that they are engaging in good faith in order to pace
their game. However, the convenience offered to the player is seen as
the worth the trade off and so its inclusion has become a standard
feature in the medium.
Jumping Between Scenes And Choices
In
a large visual novel even skipping the text might still result in
long wait times where the mind might wander to what other games could
be played instead of watching text fly by. The solution many titles
reached was to allow the player to jump to either the next scene or
choice. This bypasses the issue of wasting time and quickly puts
them exactly where in the game they want to be in order to progress
down a new route. Jumping features like these are essentially the
logical end point of the convenience of the text skipping options and
so exist to promote a smoother flow of the narrative and keep the
player engaged. As such it suffers an exaggerated version of the same
weakness in its system level interaction drawing people out of the
experience. Using jumps inherently leads to an element of confusion
as the sudden shift between scenes is disorienting and it takes a
moment to remember what happened there. In this moment the player
is made acutely aware of the artificial nature of the game and it
impacts their perception of the title by distancing them for the immediate
and personal strengths of visual novels.
 |
| Skip? |
Fate/Stay Night can be used
as a showcase of how this feature interacts with a game as a whole.
It uses a scene skipping option which presents the player
with a screen showing the current scene name and a choice
asking if the player wants to skip it. Due to the fact that this menu
will also ask about all the route deciding choices present in the
scenes without ever entering the game proper, this detached realm
leads to a sense of nothing really mattering as it highlights the game's
structured nature. This is a larger issue here due to the game’s
use of bad endings that rely on an impact diminished by an awareness
of their place within the greater visual novel.
Auto Play
While
an auto play function is not a type of skipping, it does operate on
the same axis of player utility and often influences them in a
similar manner. This option allows the game to progress through the
text at a set pace decided by the player before it starts. No
further input is required once it has started outside of choice
selection and it will keep going until the credits roll. The main
advantages of this feature are twofold. It presents the visual novel
in manner where the player can do something else at the same time and
lightly engage with it or simply to make it as relaxing as possible.
Alongside this is the role it has in making the titles more accessible as
not everyone can repeatedly click a button and having the ability to
let the game perform this act allows them to be included among its
players. However, there is an interesting design problem introduced
with auto play and this is how it contrasts with the way a person progressing under their own
steam since they do not do so at a constant and even pace. This is mainly due
to the way a game has fast and slow paced scenes and a player’s
progression through each generally matches the style presented to
them and designers can use this knowledge to fine tune the experience
to keep the player engaged. Since auto play moves forward at a
constant speed all of this subtle control is lost and it can in fact be
damaging since its original purpose has been undermined so might feel odd
when viewed at the wrong pace.
 |
| Action needs good pacing to be effective |
Due to its wide spread nature just
about any visual novel can serve as an example of this feature, but
its issues are most noticeable in title focused around action like
Sorcery Jokers. The extremes of emotion that the games based around
action rely on stem from a control over the narrative pacing to express these ideas to
the player in a compelling fashion. Auto Play completely irons out
those peaks and drops into a flat line making their presence feel
awkward and distracting. As such developers have to keep this
possibility in mind and try not to make the visual novel’s pacing
mechanisms obvious when view outside of their intended speed in order
to account for the players using this feature.
Conclusion
Giving
someone the option to skip the content in a visual novel is necessary for convenience and yet it can indirectly harm the overall
experience when not properly considered. Skipping read text is the
most basic tool to avoid wasting the player’s time while skipping
unread text can be a useful feature for returning players to get them
into the action. An expanded version of this is the ability to jump to
the next choice or scene which allows for faster traversal of the
game at the cost of drawing the player completely out of the game’s
immersion. The auto play function exists as a complement to the skip
button and offers the ability to customise the pace of progress in
order to make the title more accessible. Overall the skip feature is
important part of the visual novel and so should be properly
considered when you are making your own game.
