:TITLE:Adding/Editing a Visual Novel
:INC:index
:SUB:When to add a visual novel
To be included in this database, a game needs to use the novel narrative
consistently for telling its story. Examples include describing visuals, events, character actions or thoughts. This storytelling needs to
be employing one of the known Visual Novel presentation methods such as ADV, NVL and their variations.
A game that 'feels' like a VN even though it has another function than strickly
narrating a story (such as, highly interactive simulation) may qualify if it's
either told entirely in ADV/NVL style or has its other gameplay elements
clearly subordinated to the textual elements (presented in ADV/NVL style) (ie.
action scenes in 3D games cannot be argued to be subordinated to their textual
elements as the visuals are clearly the 'point' of the game; The completely
optional low-graphic 'dungeons' in Princess Maker games would be).
:SUB:General info
- Title (romaji)
-
The title should be based upon the title of the original release.
If the title uses the Latin alphabet, use our capitalisation guidelines.
Otherwise, romanise according to our guidelines.
- Original title
-
If the name is officially under a different title (usually because of different
character sets), put the original title here.
- Aliases
-
Visual novels can be known under several names, use this field to add any aliases
and acronyms used around the net. Official titles of releases should not be added
here, as these are already listed in the releases.
- Description
-
Short description of the main story.
- Length
-
Very rough estimate of the time required to finish all endings of the visual novel.
To determine the length of a game, it's often better to ignore this time indication
and instead compare it with other games you've played. It's all relative, after all.
- External links
-
Links to external resources about this visual novel. To get the URLs, go to the
sites (Wikipedia,
Novelnews.net, Renai.us and
Visual-novels.net),
search for a page about the game, and determine the ID or name of that page to fill
out in the text boxes. Do not specify the full URL, we only need a small part of
it!
- Related anime
-
Some visual novels (e.g. Clannad and Utawarerumono)
have anime adaptions, and some visual novels were adapted from an anime series. Use
this field to specify these related anime for the visual novel.
Anime should be specified using AniDB IDs. To add an
anime, just search for it on AniDB and add the numeric ID of the entry (found in the
aid=xxx part of the URL) to the edit field. Multiple IDs should be seperated
with a whitespace.
If the visual novel already has a relation with an other visual novel, and both games
have an anime adaption, the same anime does not have to be added to both games. For
example, Da Capo has two anime adaptions
(837, 2832),
and Da Capo II as well. (5419,
5652) But the relations for Da Capo II do not
have to be added to Da Capo and vice versa - the internal visual novel relations will
take care of that.
After submitting a new AniDB ID, VNDB will automatically fetch information about the
anime and will present that on the site. This action can take a few minutes to - in the
worst case - hours. In that time you will see the ID of the anime, but not the title
and links to AnimeNFO and Anime News Network. It is not possible to manually add this
information, this will be fetched automatically!
:SUB:Categories
The category system has been replaced with tags. This section is a placeholder to preserve
numbering.
:SUB:Image
Every visual novel should have an image, preferably one of the official cover
art of one of the releases. In some cases, especially with doujin games, if there is
no official cover art available, a general image from the game's homepage or a
screenshot of the game itself could be used instead.
Images can be uploaded in JPEG or PNG format, and should not be larger than 500kB.
All images larger than 256x400px will automatically be resized to fit on the page.
Keep in mind that this resizing is done in a seperate process, so you will not
immediately see the image after uploading. This processing often takes just a few
seconds, and the image should be available shortly after you've submitted the form.
The NSFW warning should be used in cases where the cover art is not safe for work.
To determine what is safe for work and what is not, use the following guidelines:
- Nudity is only safe if the sexual characteristics are covered or hidden
- Bikini, pantsu and other underwear are only safe if they contain no implicit
indication of sexual anatomy
- If the characters pose is overly sexually suggestive, it's NSFW
- If multiple characters are portrayed and they are engaged in physical contact
that may be considered as (a precursor to) sexual contact, then it's NSFW as well.
Even with these guidelines it may not always be easy to determine whether an image
is safe or not. When in doubt, it's often best to go for NSFW.
:SUB:Relations
Visual novel relations can be used to indicate what games are related to each
other.
When adding a relation, the reverse relation will automatically be added to
the other visual novel. E.g. if you add game x as a sequel to game y, then game
y will automatically be added as a prequel to game x. You do not have to edit
both games.
Only specify direct relations. If one game 1 is listed to have a relation
with game 2, and game 2 has a relation with game 3, then game 3 does not have
to be added as a relation to game 1. This may sound a bit confusing at first,
but you will understand when you look at the relation graphs. When editing relations,
always try to think about the relations between all related games - as shown in
the graph - instead of only looking at the specific visual novel you're editing.
There is a static list of relations to choose from (as described below). As with
many things, the relations between games can in reality be more complex than these
options could describe. Simply choose the option you think is closest to describing
the actual relation when you're not sure which one to choose.
- Sequel
-
Continuation of the story. <=>Prequel.
- Prequel
-
The story happens before the original story.<=>Sequel.
- Same setting
-
Same universe, world, reality and timeline, but completely different characters.
The definition of "setting" is not always easy to define, but usually it
means that if places or items not existing in the real world described in one
game also exist in the other game, you could use this relation.
- Alternative version
-
Same setting, same characters, but the story is told differently.
- Shares characters
-
Different story, but shares some characters.
- Side story
-
The story takes place sometime during the parent storyline. <=>Parent story
- Parent story
-
Opposite of Side story.
- Same series
-
The games are part of the same series.
- Fandisc
-
Fandisc.
- Original game
-
The opposite of fandisc.
:SUB:Screenshots
Each visual novel entry can have at most 10 screenshots. Screenshots can be uploaded in JPEG
and PNG format, and should always follow these guidelines:
- All images must be in the highest native resolution of the VN. The native resolution
is the resolution for which the bitmap images are made, this is 640x480 or 800x600 for most
entries. Any upscaling or downscaling, whether done by the game engine itself or by manually
using an image editor, is not allowed!
- All images have to be screenshots of the game itself, this means that any window
borders will have to be removed before uploading. We are neither interested in your heavily
modified window borders nor in your awesome AGTH setup.
- At least half of the images should be actual screenshots of the game. That is, they should
include character sprites or some form of dialog or user interface. Plain event CG images
without any text or interfaces are allowed to demonstrate the drawing style, but should
not dominate over the other screenshots.
- Uploading screenshots with erotic content is allowed, as long as the ratio of erotic/non-erotic
screenshots is somewhat in line with the actual erotic/non-erotic ratio of the VN itself. For example,
if a 10 hour VN has only 2 H-scenes of 10 minutes, it wouldn't be appropriate to upload more than 2 or 3
erotic images. On the other hand, if a VN is mostly about sex, it wouldn't make sense to upload only one
erotic screenshot. It is advised - even for the sex-only games - to have at least one non-erotic screenshot.
- Keep the spoilers to a minimum. It's impossible to upload screenshots that are completely devoid
of spoilers, but it is possible to keep this to a minimum. I.e. screenshots early in the beginning of
the VN are prefered, and shots later in the game are fine as long as they don't reveal any major information
about the plot.
- Images that are NSFW should be flagged as such, see the image guidelines above.
- Screenshots have to be unmarked: they shouldn't contain any copyright information, website URL,
or other text that's not present in the original screenshot.
- Screenshots should preferably be of the English or original (Japanese) releases. Other languages are
allowed, but the number of images should be kept to a minimum.