Essay: An Introduction to ADVs

ADV is an abbreviation for "Adventure" originating from Japan. The term is used to denote a certain genre of video games.

In the West, ADV games are often called "dating-sim games," as a common theme of ADVs is romance. However, not all ADVs center on romance, and real romance simulation games have a difference gameplay style than typical ADVs. ADVs are also sometimes called "Interactive Visual Novels" to distinguish them from the Western Adventure games. Examples of games in the West considered "Adventure games" are Myst and the Monkey Island games.

Most of the gameplay of ADVs always is experienced through reading novel-style writing in textboxes and making choices that affect storyline, though many commercial ADVs have gameplay features to distinguish them from other ADVs. For example, some ADVs have gameplay elements from dungeon-crawler Role-Playing Games and card-battle systems.

Immersion is the aim of the game. ADVs are designed to immerse players into the storyline, the music, the characters, the art, really, the game.

The original article was written by N0UGHTS.