Comic-Con 2014

Japan has long had a history of "visual novels", which are highly evolved story-based games for PC as well as game consoles like PS2/PS3. These games simulate interaction between the player and various characters, often with romantic elements. While many games are adult, the genre is well represented by both adult and nonadult games, and many of the top games are made into mainstream anime series. Peter Payne, owner of JASTUSA, will outline the history of these games from the 1980s to now and will include discussion of the growth of the genre, as well as covering subgenres. Examples of these are "otome games," or girl-centric romance Sims for female players (one of the hottest kind of games for girls in Japan now), and games like Steins;Gate, a hardcore sci-fi/time travel visual novel (all ages) with romantic themes. Steins;Gate was recently released in the USA in English.