Sunday, September 21, 2025
Beginning On The Right Foot
A
game’s opening determines much about how a player is going to
perceive and engage with its content going forward. Since visual
novels are particularly susceptible to this influence, due to their
focus on narrative and longer play times, making those first few hours
critical to hooking the player in as they know this is what they can
expect for the entire duration. As a medium visual novels have
developed tools to try and control this perception, such as the
common route, but this article will not be looking at them and
instead will investigate the way the broader idea of pacing shapes the
experience as a whole. Regardless of whether the game begins with
dramatic battle or a walk to school, these moments must work to set
up the seeds of future beats around which everything will rotate. If
the opening is slow in nature then there is a good chance the player
might begin to lose interest so it has to be carefully curated to
drip feed just enough engagement to prevent that response. The temptation to front load the drama and excitement in a bid to capture
the player’s attention without a means of maintaining this style of
narrative over the long term risks hurting the their trust in the
game. Let’s pace ourselves and see exactly what a good opening has
to do.
Setting Up For The Long Haul
When
constructing an opening and its pacing there has to be consideration
for how it will relate to future plot events and reveals. It can be
easy to fall into the trap on simply establishing characters and
setting in their most immediate manifestation, this is still important
when it comes to setup, but only doing this fails to set the right
expectations for later sections while not giving the player anything
to latch onto. Setting up long term plot elements requires the use of
narrative breadcrumbs which act as subtle hooks to gain the player
interest and gesture towards what might be coming in a vague enough
way so as to not give anything away. How these breadcrumbs are
distributed decides the pacing of each scene in the opening hours as
the intrigue they generate helps even out the story’s momentum in
between larger plot beats. The fact they are so subtle in nature
works in their favour when placed in a section where they can
compliment rather than distract from the main ongoing events. A title
capable of establishing this long term promise with the player will
be rewarded with a passive ability to hold their attention due to the
investment created through these breadcrumbs and the player wanting
to see the way all of this plays out.
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| What a strange man, I wonder if his backstory will somehow be important |
If there is one game which
absolutely loves breadcrumbs in its opening then it is Fate Stay
Night. Over the course of its first few hours hints are dropped about
almost every character such as Sakura’s family situation, Saber and
Archer’s motivations and the identity of other masters are all
liberally sprinkled wherever there is space. It promises the player a
wild ride of character centric drama and conflict as all these
elements focus on them rather than being related to the setting. One
key feature to note is how the path which the player takes through
the common route determines what breadcrumbs they will see. This is
important in not overloading them with hints which may not be
relevant for anywhere up to twenty to thirty hours later and keeps
things focused on the route the player is about to enter. It also
allows the opening to feel fresh with each new pass through it
since there will be different hints on display to be digested and
considered within the context of the knowledge gained from the
previous route. Umineko uses its entire first episode as its opening
and uses its nature as a mystery title to fully take advantage of the
benefits of breadcrumbs. It uses this space to establish the
foundation of the ongoing puzzle box around which everything will be
based, but it has to balance the feeling of this being solvable and
not actually giving way enough to make it possible. Here the
breadcrumbs provide the sense of what
solutions might exist without presenting anything with substance
which could hurt future revelations. They tempt the player into
continuing to play for the long term by putting the truth so close
the player can almost touch it if only they keep playing.
Maintaining Interest
If
a visual novel opens in a slow burn style then there is a risk the
player may lose interest since it appears on the surface as if little
is actually happening and there are no stakes. For some games this
may be an intentional choice to create a cosy and low stress
atmosphere, but for many others it is a major issue they do their
best to mitigate. This is often achieved by moving the focus away
from the slower pacing and onto the moment to moment events on
screen. Having strong characters and selling the build up on their
interactions is the most common way to go about implementing this
idea. It gives the player something solid to grasp onto in what
appears to be a sea of minor events and provides them with a genuine
reason to care about what happens to the characters which in turn
leads to them sticking around to find out. Much of the content of
these interactions is banter or comedic in nature since laughter can
be an effective way to humanise someone by showing them to be flawed
just like the player. In addition, recurring gags can be used to create a
structure of humour and provide its own brand of narrative pacing to
compliment the main flow. If there is one game which embodies this
approach it is Steins;Gate with its long and slow opening. While a
lot of plot build up does happen in the background, its progress has
long gaps between jumps and these have to be filled with something so
character interactions and scenarios are used to establish the cast.
These are important for establishing all the individuals who will
later on come to define the conflict and the various timelines. Of
course the player is not aware of this significance at the time so
instead a focus is placed on create a believable group who gradually
come together into the lab members they will come to love. This forms
the connective tissue between plot beats and acts as the main reason
to progress during those opening hours before the twist.
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| Kurisu's lecture is a fun way to introduce her and her future interactions with Okabe |
Another way
to hold the player interest in a slower paced opening is to plant the
seeds of intrigue. Rather than big plot beats these are small events
which show a breaking of the facade in small ways from character
behaving strangely for a moment to a sudden time skip which goes
uncommented on. These clues are all player facing with the characters
often ignoring or dismissing them and they are instead designed to
get the player thinking about what they mean in order to keep them
invested in the narrative. Little Busters uses this approach
alongside the previous character centric one to add some variety to
its opening. Individually its hints do not appear significant and it
is only as they compound that the player sits up and takes notice
when the off words of certain characters and Naoe Riki’s abnormal
narcolepsy start to ring alarm bells. This works well for the emotion
centric narrative Little Busters is trying to tell since big reveal
this is all building towards is not all that surprising, but instead
gains its potency from what it means to the cast. As such the
feelings of intrigue are the important part of this approach since
they bring the player into an emotional mindset around which the rest
of the game can create an environment for heart-wrenching moments.
The Risks Of Front-Loading
At
first it might seem a good idea to front-load all the drama and
action in a visual novel since this is the kind of content which can
easily ensnare a player. However, the opening is a type of promise
between game and player about the experience the latter is for and if
the game cannot maintain this content then it can lead to a feeling
of disappoint on the part of the player. Subversion of this
expectation is an option here since some titles may want to play
around with the idea introduced in the opening in unexpected ways.
Yet there are plenty of games which understand the importance of
engaging the player immediately so opt for an exciting start before
shifting onto what they actually want their narrative to be about.
The result is an uneven progression where there is a clear divided
between the two parts of the game with little being done to reconcile
them leading to it distracting the player.
Let’s look at a couple of examples to see the damage this
unrepresentative opening can do. Action and tension are the defining
element of Senren Banka’s opening hours as the cast deal with the
supernatural threat plaguing the village of Hoori. There are multiple
instances of life and death combat throughout to really drive home the
danger and keep the player on the edge of their seat. However, most
of this conflict is suddenly resolved at the halfway mark and the action
and tension almost entirely vanish for the narrative. They are
replaced by the standard Yuzusoft slice of life and romance heroine
routes and these have little in common with the content from just
hours before. It is quite clear the intention was always to have a
story be about the heroine romances but the developer felt they
needed to spice up the usual formula so introduced the supernatural
threat to make the game stand out. This betrayal of player
expectations almost feels accidental since action is not what the
studio is know for and this is just the two parts unintentionally
rubbing up against one another in an unflattering way.
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| This looks like it belongs in an action centric title not a romance one |
From the first
scenes of the opening Futamata Ren'ai pushes over the top drama as
its core appeal. The two timing and character’s reactions to it
supply a steady stream of comedy and they are the pole around which the game
can form plot beats and emotional scenes. As such when it stops the
moment the player enters a heroine route it is like something major
is missing from the substance of the narrative since nothing is added
to replace it while the route trundles along seemingly oblivious to
the empty feeling in invokes in the player. This loss of the opening
promise is a result of the way the two timing has to be resolved
before a heroine route in order to make its romance pure and so the
primary source of conflict must be removed. Yet nothing replaces it
since the title has spent so much time on this one issue it has not
had the room to build up another. However, the end result undeniably
weakens its consistency and hurts the player’s overall impression
of it.
Conclusion
Shaping
the pacing and expression in a visual novel’s opening hours is key
to crafting an overall experience which can capture the player’s
imagination. It is the place where future plot elements can be teased
and set up to allow for the a feeling of excitement in the player
about what is to come. As tempting as it is to make the opening
dramatic and action packed, it still has to represent the rest of the
game since it a promise with the player about what is to come. When
opting for a slower paced opening there is a need to maintain the
player’s interest through other methods and this often means strong
character writing or intrigue to give direction to the downtime. How
a developer starts their game is important no matter what type it is
or what its narrative aims are and so it is the part of it which
needs to be extremely carefully considered in order to get the most
out of it.
