Visual Novel Glossary
New to visual novels? Start here. These guides cover the fundamentals of interactive fiction, from what a route is to how AI changes the format.
What Is a Visual Novel
A visual novel is a story-focused game format that combines written narrative, character art, background music, and player choices. Unlike action games, the core experience is reading and making decisions that change relationship dynamics or route outcomes.
What Is an AI Visual Novel
An AI visual novel uses language models to generate selected parts of dialogue or scene text while keeping core route structure authored. The goal is to increase replay variation without losing narrative coherence.
What Is Interactive Fiction
Interactive fiction is a broad category of narrative experiences where player input influences story progression. Visual novels, parser adventures, and choice-based text games all sit under this umbrella.
What Is an Otome Game
An otome game is a story-driven romance game traditionally targeted at female audiences, usually featuring a female protagonist and multiple male love interests. Many otome titles use visual novel route structures.
Dating Sim vs Visual Novel
Dating sims and visual novels overlap, but they are not identical. Dating sims emphasize stat management and scheduling systems, while visual novels emphasize scene-based narrative and branching story routes.
How AI Visual Novels Work
AI visual novels work by combining authored story structure with model-generated scene text. Behind the scenes, systems pass character context, scene setup, and relationship state into prompts, then validate output before showing it to players.
Visual Novel vs Choose Your Own Adventure
Visual novels and choose-your-own-adventure (CYOA) stories both involve decision-driven narratives, but they differ in presentation, pacing, and route design. Visual novels add audiovisual framing and often deeper route systems.
What Is a Dating Sim
A dating sim (dating simulation) is a game genre centered on building romantic relationships through stat management, scheduling, and event triggers. While it shares surface-level overlap with visual novels, the core loop is fundamentally different because you are managing systems, not just reading and choosing.
What Is Isekai
Isekai is a genre where a character is transported from their ordinary world into a different one, usually a fantasy realm with its own rules and power systems. The word comes from Japanese and literally means 'different world.' It has become one of the most popular storytelling frameworks in anime, manga, light novels, and increasingly in visual novels.
What Is a Yandere
A yandere is a character archetype defined by an obsessive, often dangerous devotion to a love interest. The term combines the Japanese words 'yanderu' (sick or mentally ill) and 'dere' (lovey-dovey). On the surface, a yandere appears sweet and caring, but their affection can escalate into jealousy, manipulation, or violence.
What Is a Tsundere
A tsundere is a character archetype where someone acts cold, hostile, or dismissive on the outside while gradually revealing a warmer, affectionate side. The term comes from the Japanese words 'tsuntsun' (aloof or irritable) and 'deredere' (lovey-dovey). It is one of the most recognizable and enduring character types in anime, manga, and visual novels.
What Is Slow Burn Romance
Slow burn romance is a storytelling approach where the romantic relationship develops gradually over a long stretch of narrative. Instead of early confession or instant chemistry, characters build connection through repeated interactions, misunderstandings, trust-building, and small moments of vulnerability. The payoff is proportional to the wait.
What Is Enemies to Lovers
Enemies to lovers is a romance trope where two characters start in opposition, whether through genuine conflict, rivalry, or mutual dislike, and gradually develop romantic feelings. The emotional arc moves from friction to understanding to attraction. It is one of the most popular tropes in romance fiction across all formats.
What Is a Kinetic Novel
A kinetic novel is a visual novel with no branching choices. The story follows a single, linear path from beginning to end. You still get character art, backgrounds, music, and the scene-by-scene reading format of a visual novel, but without decision points or multiple routes.
What Is an AI Story Generator
An AI story generator is a tool that uses language models to produce narrative text based on user prompts or settings. These range from simple text generators that output paragraphs on demand to more structured systems that maintain characters, settings, and plot threads across longer sessions.
What Is a Route
A route is a distinct story path within a visual novel that a player enters based on their choices. Most visual novels contain multiple routes, each following a different character relationship, plot thread, or thematic arc. Routes are the primary structural unit that gives visual novels their replay value and narrative depth.
What Are Branching Stories
A branching story is any narrative where player or reader choices create divergent paths through the content. Instead of a single fixed sequence of events, the story splits at decision points and follows different trajectories depending on what the audience selects. Branching is the foundational mechanic behind visual novels, choice-based games, and interactive fiction.
Visual Novel vs RPG
Visual novels and RPGs (role-playing games) both deliver story-rich experiences, but they do so through fundamentally different mechanics. Visual novels center on reading, choices, and narrative branching, while RPGs build their experience around character progression systems, combat, and exploration. Understanding the differences helps you pick the right format for the kind of experience you want.