Way to miss the point completely, I'm afraid. While shelf space may not be limited for digital goods, the "can't find the worthwhile products because there's so much crap to wade through" factor applies just as much (Desura says hello - while it still can), and even if GOG no longer stands for "Good Old Games", the notion that you don't have to do much crap-wading here to find good games is still very much part of GOG's corporate identity.

That's not to say that visual novels are crap, but then you didn't advocate for a sensible (i.e. curated) inclusion of them, you called for GOG to drop all standards.

Not to derail too much, but when I realized Steam had opened the floodgates to anyone and anything, I was actually happy. But then it has become almost a nightmare trying to find games on there. I just recently found out several games I had been waiting for had been released...one of them a few months ago.

Hm. Tricky, as there are not too many visual novels with decent gameplay and good story in the first place, let alone in English and on the PC. Without sexuality disturbing the prim and proper. Or the necessity to import the game and apply a patch. You can probably see how fans of the genre have a rough time...


Anyhow, can I suggest allowing the iPhone or iPad to enter the picture? That is because the Phoenix Wright Trilogy is available on those platforms. The series is about defending clients in the court of law, examining their testimony and putting together the truth of things. Aside from the platform (DS and iProducts), I expect the game would be an ideal pick for you.


While lower quality, there is a visual novel with gameplay available on GOG. Long Live the Queen has you playing as a princess, and generally directing her life choices. Depending on what lessons she takes away from these choices, she can end up in a variety of roles or simply dead. In my opinion, the game is decent but won't blow off anyone's socks.

Ditto with Shira Oka: Second Chances. The game has the protagonist stuck in a time loop, where he is trying to create an ideal life for himself before he can proceed. Similar in gameplay to Princess Maker and Long Live the Queen, you build up stats in order to unlock various events and overcome issues.

Thanks for the suggestions! I always seem to forget about Phoenix Wright when mentioning VNs, but yeah, I've played them and love them. Except the newest one on the 3DS...I should look into it!

Again, thanks!

+1. Same here. No reason to get down-voted for it.

I don't think finding games is a problem. That is what word of mouth, reviews, and search engines are for. Access is more important than curatorship, because curators do not know what I want - and I can't negotiate with companies to gain legal access. Further, GOG's mandate against DRM is eroded every time they refuse a developer from using the platform. Should an indie developer become a whale, they are apt to remember who did (not) help them get there.

Curatorship is toxic by nature. In my opinion, GOG is not qualified to wield such a dangerous tool.

No problem. If you don't mind overlooking the lack of gameplay, Analogue: A Hate Story might be worth a shot.

This thread isn't about whether or not you find visual novels appealing. The GOG catalogue is not based on your tastes or pimpmonkey's tastes. Hence the downvote. But if you really think it is important that GOG should reject all games you don't like and only accept games you like, more power to you I guess.

Well, I do think finding games is a problem. I don't like being bombarded with a hundred game releases per week and know that 95 of them are crappy, broken and /or unfinished. I like coming to GOG and knowing that every game is worth it. It's one of the things I like from the way GOG operates. You don't like it, I do; no matter what GOG does somebody will not like it. But IMO, that's why there are different stores: you can go find every game in existance in Desura, I'll stick to a curated GOG store. Except Desura is dying, but that's the idea.

I thought you've said before that you're resistant to allow games to go on sale pricing. Do you imagine that could be part of it?

Come to Asia and eat seafood at McDonald's. ;) Multinational corporations tend to localize their menus. You wouldn't sell a whole lot of beef burgers in India. =P

In regards to curated collections, I'd like GOG to continue doing that. I'm fine with them having VNs, just like they have movies -- they're not for me, but no one is forcing me to buy them, so it's all good. I just wouldn't want them mixed into the games category because, like P1na says, finding games in a massive release stream would be a problem.

Well, according to the developer of HuniePop they do supposedly have this policy:
"Before we released HP I reached out to GOG but unfortunately we were turned down because they have (or had) a general policy against carrying visual novels, which is totally understandable. I tried explaining that HP isn’t a visual novel but I never got a response back. No big."

Fate/Stay Night is a great one if you're into a modern day 'fantasy' sort of story
Clannad is a great romance/slice of life VN, but it can get pretty sad. I even backed the Official English release Kickstarter.
Grisaia, as others have mentioned.
Higurashi (aka 'When they Cry') is good if you enjoy horror.
Steins; Gate is probably my favourite VN - a time travel scifi adventure that gets better and better as you progress.
There are countless others, and it really all depends on what you like.
Check out this list from reddit that has a bunch of great recommendations! :)

Hey OP or somebody else, I suggest making wishes for the visual novels in question, and encouraging people to vote for them IF they would buy them here on GOG: http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games

Perhaps GOG is concerned visual novels wouldn't sell well. This might help to give evidence to the contrary.

Plus most indie devs that I talked to or had spoken on the matter generally prefer not having their releases buried under a mountain of other titles as that means more work for them since they have to work even harder to get their stuff noticed. It was one of the things many of them fought to get on Steam for since back when Steam was still heavily curated meant that if/when a dev got their game on there their game would be seen by Steam's large customer base which was a big deal for sometime, now your lucky if your game stays on the top of the new releases for more then a few minutes.

I'm not much for horror but other than that most are interesting to me. There seem to be a lot more of these novels than I thought existed. I found this list that mention most of novels https://vndb.org/v/all?q=;fil=tagspoil-0;o=d;s=pop I think it's a good start for me.