Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Visual novels

The Visual novels task force is an organized task force dedicated to organize, expand, clean up, and guide articles related to Japanese visual novels. This is a joint task force under both the video games and anime and manga WikiProjects. To indicate that an article falls within the scope of this work group, please add "Visualnovels" to the WikiProject Video games talk page template and "visual-novel-task-force" to WikiProject Anime and manga". For example,   and   . You can also add this to the talk page of images, categories, and templates.

If you would like to participate, add yourself to the members section of this page. Help out by editing visual novel-related articles, making positive changes towards the goals outlined, or contributing to the discussion on one of our related talk pages. If you would like to add some suggestions, ask on the talk page.

Article guidelines

 * For more details on this topic, see the Video game article guidelines, Anime and manga manual of style and Japanese manual of style

Besides the usual policies and guidelines, please make sure you are aware of the specific guidelines related to video game-related articles. Also ensure that you are familiar with the following topics:
 * 1) The five pillars of Wikipedia: a quick rundown of the 5 key rules you need to start editing.
 * 2) Simplified ruleset: 16 rules of thumb to help you avoid problems.
 * 3) List of policies: A comprehensive list of the 42 official policies with very quick summaries.
 * 4) Notability (video games): Not an official policy but a good guideline.

Additional guidelines include:
 * Use naming conventions for video games.
 * Use Infobox animanga for titles with notable anime, manga, etc. For titles without adaptations, use Infobox video game.
 * The majority of the article should deal with the original work. If both the original and any adaptations are notable and there is enough information to create two quality articles, then a content fork may be advisable after attempting to summarize. For adaptations, there is generally no need to repeat mostly redundant plot. In the rare cases where a visual novel is the adaptation, the level of gameplay should follow the same rules.

Goals

 * 1) Create any and all articles related to notable visual novels that have not yet been created.
 * 2) To craft well-written and properly organized visual novel articles and subsequent character articles of characters featured in visual novels.

Scope
It is standard in many games to have a text box with a character sprite to give a visual representation of whose dialogue it is. Due to the widespread usage of this narrative instrument, this alone does not qualify a game to fall within this task force's scope. The scope of the project is that of articles which consist entirely of, or directly relate to, the Japanese original or English adapted form of:
 * Visual novels, interactive fiction games featuring mostly static graphics, usually with anime-style art. This includes visual novels produced outside of Japan.
 * Characters from visual novels.
 * Additional merchandise from visual novels, not including visual novels that have been made into anime or manga; see WikiProject Anime and manga for details.
 * Companies and staff of those companies that produce visual novels and companies that produce licensed English translations of visual novels.
 * Visual novel terminologies.
 * Notable websites that provide reference material relating to visual novels; see WP:WEB for details.
 * Other visual novel-like games such as sound novels, dating sims, and kinetic novels.
 * Games which use visual novel- or dating sim-like features to progress the story as well as character relationships, but also have additional elements of gameplay akin to RPGs. Example: Rune Factory.

The following are not within the scope of this task force when used separately from any of the above:


 * Anime-themed games that are not visual novels or related media. Example: Naruto: Path of the Ninja.
 * Games with minor visual novel or dating-sim elements that do not use those elements to affect storyline in any meaningful way. Examples: Thousand Arms, Final Fantasy VII.

Participants
A list of participants can be found at Category:Visual novels task force participants.

Technically speaking, anyone who edits or contributes to visual novel articles is a participant, and there are no requirements other than that. If one wishes, they can further identify themselves with the project by listing their name as a participant. This helps spread the word about the project and can help other editors see what types of articles that user is interested in editing.

To add yourself to the project listing add the following to your user page.

Or, if you wish to use the userbox, add  to your user page instead as it includes the above wikicode.

Visual novels played
This is a list of visual novels that our members have played, or at least have in their possession. It is an attempt to see which games our members have first-hand experience with, and thus which articles we have the best chance of bringing up to good or better status. Please add your own visual novels to the list, followed by your username.

The list can be found at WikiProject Video games/Visual novels/played.

Parent WikiProject
In addition to the above guidelines and recommendations, follow the guidelines and recommendations of the "parent" WikiProject when they apply:
 * WikiProject Video games
 * WikiProject Anime and manga

Similar WikiProjects
Even if not directly visual novel-related, the following WikiProjects may contain useful information:
 * WikiProject Electronic literature
 * WikiProject Japan
 * WikiProject Literature

Recognized articles
The following articles and lists have reached Good Article, Featured Article or Featured List status, and should be used as references for work on other articles in order to bring them up to the same level.

Featured lists

 * List of Key video games
 * List of Popotan soundtracks

Featured articles

 * Radical Dreamers
 * Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward

Good articles
• Ace Attorney

• Air

• Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

• Chaos;Head

• Clannad

• Cross Days

• Digital: A Love Story

• Don't take it personally, babe, it just ain't your story

• Ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two.

• Ever 17: The Out of Infinity

• Harmonia

• Hatoful Boyfriend

• Kanon

• Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl

• Key (company)

• Key Sounds Label

• Kud Wafter

• Little Busters!

• Moon

• Never 7: The End of Infinity

• Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors

• One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e

• Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru

• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney − Dual Destinies

• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney − Justice for All

• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney − Trials and Tribulations

• Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet

• Popotan

• Remember 11: The Age of Infinity

• Rewrite

• School Days

• Shuffle!

• Snow

• Steins;Gate

• Strawberry Panic!

• Tayutama: Kiss on my Deity

• To Heart 2

• Tomoyo After: It's a Wonderful Life

Good topics

 * Key video games

Needs expanding

 * Visual novels:
 * Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai
 * Dōkyūsei series
 * Gekkō no Carnevale
 * Haruiro Ouse
 * I/O
 * Island
 * Kajiri Kamui Kagura
 * Kizuato
 * Megachu!
 * Miko Miko Nurse
 * PP: Pianissimo
 * Stellar Theater
 * Wagamama High Spec
 * Welcome to Pia Carrot


 * Companies and people:
 * C's Ware
 * Flying Shine
 * Idea Factory
 * Purple software
 * Tactics (brand)

Notability not established

 * Atlach-Nacha
 * Cherry Petals Fall Like Teardrops
 * Hoshiuta
 * Immoral Study (series)
 * Miko Miko Nurse
 * No Fate! Only the Power of Will
 * Nocturnal Illusion
 * Pure Pure Mimi to Shippo no Monogatari
 * Root After and Another
 * Sakura no Uta
 * Season of the Sakura

Former Good articles

 * Fate/stay night
 * Higurashi no Naku Koro ni

Related content

 * Recently changed talk pages in this task force

Categories

 * Category:Bishōjo games
 * Category:Dating sims
 * Category:Eroge
 * Category:Otome games
 * Category:Visual novels

Templates

 * Dating sims and visual novels (what links here)
 * Visual-novel-stub (what links here) - adds tagged article to Category:Visual novel stubs
 * Vndb (what links here) - To easily make a link to the appropriate VNDB page for a VN, producer, release, or character.

Resources
General
 * WikiProject Video games/Sources - Current consensus regarding the reliability and usability of specific video-game-related sources.
 * WikiProject Video games/Reference library
 * 4gamer.net - Articles about console games
 * andriasang.com - Articles about Japanese games. Now closed, but articles still available Considered a reliable source.
 * Anime News Network occasionally has news pieces about visual novels. For console visual novel sales stats, search ANN for "Japan's Video Game Rankings".
 * BugBug.NEWS - Official news website of Japanese Bishōjo game magazine BugBug. It is possible to get a digital copy of the magazine from DLsite and DMM.


 * news.dengeki.com - Articles about console games
 * SiliconEra covers visual novels, both Japanese and English, from time to time.
 * TG Smart - Official news website of Japanese Bishōjo game magazine Tech Gian.
 * VNDB.org - Not considered a reliable source, but can be used to find official visual novel homepages, screenshots, and other information. Can also be added as an external link.
 * /r/visualnovels - Not considered a reliable source itself, but may be useful as users often post links to news and reviews from reliable sources there.

Sales
 * Getchu.com - Helpful in visual novel sales information.
 * Sales rankings
 * User rankings
 * PC News game rankings - National sales rankings for PC games in Japan. Note that the dates in the links are for the issue the information was in, not the dates for the sales ranking, so you should look in the issue about a month after the game's release date. The ranking operated between December 2000 and February 2007.
 * PCpress game sales rankings - National sales rankings for PC games in Japan. Note that the month each issue was published contains information of the previous month, so the first issue (June 2007) contains the ranking of May 2007. The previous sales rankings can be accessed at the PCpress sales log.
 * PCpress game reservation rankings - National reservation rankings for PC games in Japan. Note that the month each issue was published contains information from the middle of that month to the middle of the next month, so the first issue (June 2007) contains the ranking from mid June to mid July 2007. The previous reservations rankings can be accessed at the PCpress reservation log.

Reviews
 * Famitsu.com - Famitsu is helpful in console-ported visual novel reviews.
 * NookGaming.com - Primarily reviews English localized versions of Japanese visual novels. Covers all genres on PC and console, but most often reviews moege. Often includes a lot of detail in their reviews. Also covers visual novel news and runs other related features.
 * Siliconera.com - Sometimes reviews well known visual novels, primarily otome console releases.
 * OpenCritic.com - OpenCritic is a review aggregator for video games that only lists reviews from outlets that are high-quality, influential, and holds professional standards. Use scrutiny on individual sources, but this is a good starting place to look for reviews from professional-quality outlets, especially since visual novels are not typically covered by the biggest websites and OpenCritic assesses all sources as meeting their standards.

Other
 * Moe Game Awards - The "Moe Game Award" is a Japanese award for visual novels by an industry review organization
 * Dengeki G's Magazine: 50 Best Galge - An August 2007 survey of 1,500 randomly chosen Dengeki G's Magazine readers asking them "What was the most interesting galge you ever played?"
 * Getchu.com's user voted rankings

Unreliable Sources
 * NoisyPixel.net - Primarily reviews English localized versions of Japanese visual novels. Confirmed Unreliable as per discussion on WikiProject Video games/Sources highlighting inaccurate information, reviews based on minimal playtime, revision of a contentious claim without comment, clickbait headlines, and other issues.


 * Fuwanovel - Formerly known as a hub for pirated visual novels. Conflict of interest as recently taken over by Ramon Gerhards (known as Hata), a controversial figure in the visual novel community who has worked for visual novel publishers and runs a localization company. There is a very low bar to write for them and they are essentially a group blog with low editing standards observed.


 * LewdGamer - Considered unreliable as per discussion on WikiProject Video games/Sources citing lack of editorial policy or writers with any sort of credentials, and the only notable reference to it being negative coverage in a reputable source.