The damsel in distress is a narrative device in which one or more men must rescue a woman who has been kidnapped or placed in other peril. Kinship, love, lust or a combination of those motivate the male protagonist to initiate the narrative.
A visual novel (VN) is a form of digital interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with static or animated illustrations and a varying degree of interactivity. The format is more rarely referred to as novel game, a retranscription of the wasei-eigo term noberu gēmu (ノベルゲーム), which is more often used in Japanese.
Hanako Games is an independent video game development company founded by Georgina Bensley that develops PC games mostly involving female protagonists centered on fantasy- and anime-inspired style. Games on the site include Fatal Hearts, Cute Knight, Summer Session, and Science Girls. The website provides free demos for all of the games along with downloadable wallpapers. Hanako Games is an affiliate of Winter Wolves, Tycoon Games and sakevisual.
Cute Knight is a casual life simulation role-playing video game with many possible endings and careers featuring a single female character. Gameplay is similar to the Japanese Princess Maker with a more traditionally Western first-person perspective dungeons.
Yume Nikki is a 2004 adventure game created by pseudonymous Japanese developer Kikiyama. The player controls a girl named Madotsuki and explores her dreams, collecting 24 effects that change her appearance and equipment. Random events also occur throughout the game in the form of cutscenes and unique gameplay sequences. The game was developed using RPG Maker 2003 without a traditional plot or battle system. Gameplay instead focuses on exploration of the dream world.
999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors is a visual novel and adventure video game developed by Chunsoft. It is the first installment in the Zero Escape series, and was released in Japan in December 2009 and in North America in November 2010 for the Nintendo DS. The story follows Junpei, a college student who is abducted along with eight other people and forced to play the "Nonary Game", which puts its participants in a life-or-death situation, to escape from a sinking cruise liner. The gameplay alternates between two types of sections: Escape sections, where the player completes puzzles in escape-the-room scenarios; and Novel sections, where the player reads the game's narrative and makes decisions that influence the story toward one of six different endings.
Date Warp is a science fiction visual novel video game developed by Spiky Caterpillar and Hanako Games, and published by Hanako Games for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and Linux in 2010. The game uses anime-style graphics and is written in English and tells a story of a young Indian-American college female student who goes on a date and disappears.
Sakevisual is a developer and publisher of interactive story games such as visual novels and otome games, well known for their otome game RE: Alistair++. Their games are for Windows, macOS and Linux. Sakevisual is a partner of Hanako Games, Winter Wolves and Tycoon Games.
Magical Diary is a visual novel video game series taking place at a magical school. The first game in the series, now known as Magical Diary: Horse Hall, featured a young freshman magical girl. It was released on June 19, 2011 for Windows, macOS and Linux. It is a fantasy game with elements of romance. The game uses anime-style graphics and is written in English. It was developed and published by Hanako Games. The game was later released on Steam with some bonus content.
Planet Stronghold is a visual novel, sci-fi role-playing video game with a turn-based combat system, developed and published by Italian studio Winter Wolves on February 28, 2011 for the Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, and Microsoft Windows platforms.
Cinders is a visual novel video game based on the Cinderella story that was developed and published by Polish indie studio MoaCube for Windows, Mac OS in 2012 and Nintendo Switch in 2019. The game was developed and published by MoaCube.
Loren The Amazon Princess is a Fantasy RPG visual novel by Italian independent studio Winter Wolves. The game was released on April 30, 2012. The game works for the Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows platforms. The expansion The Castle Of N'mar was released on September 28, 2012. A spin-off titled Tales of Aravorn: Seasons of the Wolf was released on November 15, 2014
Vera Blanc is an Italian mystery visual novel video game series for the Android, iOS, Linux, Mac OS, and Microsoft Windows platforms, with art in the comic style. The games were developed and published by Winter Wolves. The first game Vera Blanc: Full Moon was released on June 30, 2010 and the sequel Vera Blanc: Ghost In The Castle on September 1, 2010. There are currently no plans for another sequel of the series.
Long Live the Queen is a simulation role-playing video game developed by Hanako Games and Spiky Caterpillar, published by Hanako Games. The story of the game follows a young princess who is training to become queen after the death of her mother. The objective of the game is to keep the princess alive for 40 weeks until she turns 15 and is crowned. The game was released on June 2, 2012 for Windows, Mac OS and Linux. The game uses anime-style graphics and is written in English.
The Princess and the Queen, or, the Blacks and the Greens is an epic fantasy novella by American novelist George R. R. Martin, published in the 2013 Tor Books anthology Dangerous Women. The novella is presented in the form of writings by the fictional historian Archmaester Gyldayn, who is also the "author" of Martin's 2014 novella The Rogue Prince, a direct prequel to The Princess and the Queen. The plot of both The Princess and the Queen and The Rogue Prince is later expanded further in the 2018 novel Fire & Blood, which also spawned a television series in 2022.
Fault Milestone One is a visual novel video game developed by Alice in Dissonance and published by Sekai Project. It was first released in Japan for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux in 2013, with an English version localized and released by Sekai Project the following year. Versions for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 were later released in 2020.
Doki Doki Literature Club! (DDLC) is a 2017 freeware visual novel developed by American independent game studio Team Salvato for Linux, macOS, and Windows. The game was initially distributed through itch.io, and later became available on Steam. The story is told from the perspective of a high school student who reluctantly joins the school's literature club on the insistence of his childhood best friend, and is given the option to romantically pursue three of its four female members. Doki Doki Literature Club! features a non-traditional plot structure with multiple endings and unlockable cutscenes with each of the main characters. Although the game initially appears to be a lighthearted dating simulator, it is in fact a metafictional psychological horror game that extensively breaks the fourth wall.
Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly and Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk are two otome visual novel video games developed by Otomate. They were published for PlayStation Vita by Idea Factory in Japan in 2015 and 2016, and by Aksys Games in North America and Europe in 2018. Intragames and Idea Factory released Black Butterfly for Microsoft Windows in 2018, and Ashen Hawk in 2019.
