One of my favourite “stories” is Yearning: A Gay Story (YAGS), a gay visual novel developed by Bob Conway. If you haven't played it, I highly suggest you do - feel free to do so before reading this.

In this blog post, I want to talk about something that bugs me about in the universe that it takes place in.

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First, the basics, in case you’re not familiar with the terminology I will use here. Feel free to skip this section if you know what I’m talking about.

A visual novel is a type of video game originating from Japan which is essentially a “choose-your-own adventure” book but in game form. You are taken through a story from the protagonist's point of view, and you make choices along the way which affect the plot. Because of this, visual novels often have many different endings.

For example:

Here, two characters are present in the scene – Carlos and Adam. Carlos is currently speaking, as indicated by the dialogue box at the bottom.

After advancing the dialogue, a choice is given to the player. Each option will move the scene in a different direction and potentially affect the plot as a whole. In this scene, doing homework will cause the protagonist to hang out with Adam at their dorm room, and choosing to get lunch will have Carlos bring them to a frat house to get something to eat.

YAGS is a visual novel with four different guys to romance with an additional guy in a secret route. To successfully romance a character, the player must choose a certain number of options that the target character prefers whenever a choice is given. As a very simple example: if someone says their favourite type of sandwich is a ham sandwich in an earlier scene, and you are prompted to choose a sandwich to get for them in a later scene, then you should choose a ham sandwich. One must also avoid the options that the character dislikes.

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OK, now that we know what a visual novel is, what YAGS is, and how to play it, let’s get on to the meat of the matter. (I will avoid spoilers for YAGS as much as possible.)

I played YAGS and loved it. I was perfectly happy with the protagonist ending up with the guy that I liked the most. Let’s name this character “Person A”.

Now, here’s the thing: after releasing YAGS, the developer decided to make a sequel – Zen: A Gay Sequel (ZAGS), which takes places after YAGS. I tried playing it and I was disheartened to find out it did a couple things I didn't really like. First, the game gave the protagonist from YAGS a defined look and name (you give yourself a name in YAGS and don't ever see what your character looks like). I think that's not optimal, but fine. The second thing is what I have the most problems with: it takes place in a universe where the protagonist ended up with a different character – “Person B”. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m pretty sure that ZAGS is a fine game. However, I found myself completely unmotivated to play it after finding out about this detail and uninstalled the game. 

I also later found out that there is a whole series of separate stories (written like stories you’d find here on GA, not games) which takes place post-ZAGS and have the protagonist continue dating Person B. In addition, Person A appears to start dating someone else in the latest installment. There’s even a ZAGS sequel being produced using the content in these stories.

Needless to say, I find this whole situation incredibly disappointing.

In a visual novel, you’re able to take the route you want and get the ending you want. You’re able to project yourself onto the protagonist through the choices and actions that you pick.

I suppose the issue I have here is that my choices and my version of the protagonist in YAGS were not “respected”, and now the “canon timeline” is completely different from what I envisioned.

I really don’t want to come off as childish or unappreciative here. The developer even wrote two "alternate universe" stories and produced a small sequel visual novel that all take place in the route that I played. I’ll be forever grateful that those were released. 

Of course, the game developer is completely entitled to write what they want to write. Maybe they had more ideas for the route they gave their blessing to versus the others. In addition, developing a game is hard. (I’ve tried.) I’m pretty sure making a sequel would be many times more difficult if they were to consider the route played in YAGS. The amount of stuff to consider as they write the plot would be enormous.

But I can’t get this voice out of my head that says “hey, this stuff isn’t really canon” whenever I read any of the stuff released for my preferred route. And that sort of diminishes the enjoyment I get out of it. (There is also one other route - where the protagonist ends up with "Person C" - that had no additional content produced for it. I feel very bad for those who are fans of that route.)

If you have any thoughts on this topic, I’d love to hear them. Though, be gentle