Graphical User Interface
A visual novel's Graphical User Interface, also known as its GUI (pronounced either “gee-you-eye” or “gooey”), is any screen that uses clickable images to let a player interact with the game. This includes things such as: the text box and option buttons (skip, save; etc), choice selections, and all menus (ex: main/title/start, settings, save, gallery, extras; etc).
Ideally, GUI is designed custom for the game to reflect its tone and theme. When in doubt, it is recommended you go simple and no-frills rather than detract from the game by being intrusive. Your GUI artist might not be the same artist you use for your sprites or CGs, as the skill set is different.
Splash Screen
A splash screen is an image or movie that appears when the game is starting up and before it goes to the menu. Usually these are logos or opening videos. Sometimes they are content warning screens/disclaimers.
Main Menu
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Textbox
- See More: Textbox
A textbox may contain the following elements:
- Name Plate/Name Tag: An area where the speaking character’s name is displayed. Often located at the top left of the textbox.
- Side Image: A character picture that is displayed on the textbox. Usually head-only or shoulders-up. Many games only use side images for characters who are not shown on-screen or for internal thoughts. May be in a different style from the main sprites.
- Click to Continue (CTC): An indicator that conveys to the reader that there is no more text to read, and the reader should click to continue to the next line of dialogue.
- Action Buttons: Quickly access actions like skip or auto mode.
- Menu Buttons: These allow the reader to access menus like load, save, and options.
Save Menu
This menu allows users to save, load, and possibly delete their save data. Saves act as bookmarks that they player can jump to to quickly access some part of the story.
To help the player remember where the save leads to, a game may use the following elements:
- Chapter or scene name
- Time when the save was created
- Screenshot of the game when the save was created
- Notes that the players write themselves
Settings
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Extras Menus
Sometimes, a visual novel can contain various bonus menus that allow players to view content they have unlocked. Many engines such as Ren'Py have built-in functions for the most common types of extras menus. Some visual novels will only let you access these menus if you've cleared the game at least once.
Image Gallery
An image gallery (often simply known as a "gallery") is a menu that lets players view all of the images they have unlocked. Very basic image galleries will only contain unlocked event CGs, but they can also contain backgrounds, cut-ins, sprite viewers, and even movie cutscenes and opening/ending movies.
Music Room
A music room is a menu that lets players listen to previously heard tracks freely. Many music rooms, upon entry, will either disable the title screen music or have the title screen music playing by default.
Scene Replay
A scene replay menu allows for the player to reread scenes in the game. Often times, these scenes are either ending scenes, are important in some way, or contain sex scenes. Many eroge will often have scene replay rooms purely made up of sex scenes.
Miscellaneous
A tooltip is a message or icon that appears when the cursor is positioned over an icon, image, hyperlink, or other element in a GUI.
