What category is games like Life is Strange and Until Dawn? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 months ago by turnerpike20@lemmy.ml to c/games@lemmy.world

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So both Life is Strange and Until Dawn have what's called the butterfly effect something that's kind of a questionable concept at best but it's somewhat real. Telltale was famous for games like this as well. But yeah it's like depending on your actions it can change the story and thus play more like a movie with a different possible story. What type of game is this?

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[-] TotesIllegit@lemmy.world 14 points 2 months ago

They're effectively visual novels with light gameplay mechanics for navigation or making some narrative path choices. At least, that's how I felt about Until Dawn.

[-] activ8r@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 months ago

When a Visual Novel and a Point & Click Adventure game love each other very much they have a special hug and a baby genre is born.

[-] turnerpike20@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 months ago

Visual Novels basically involves reading as a requirement.

[-] all-knight-party@fedia.io 5 points 2 months ago

It depends. There are visual novels in which you can set them on auto and just let voice acting play out. I think there's strong similarities there, though I don't think anyone could get away with calling a Telltale style narrative game a visual novel, flat out.

But I do think they are doing similar things, they may scratch similar itches.

[-] lorty@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago

Although certainly similar, the fact that these games have every scene fully animated does add to it in a way that simply reading descriptions about what's going on doesn't.