Essay: Common Ren'Ai and VN Patterns

This is a list of known patterns that may be useful to use.

Day Planner Pattern
The player plans their day by choosing where or what to do in time intervals. Examples of this are Tokimeki Memorial, True Love and Da Capo.

Point Based Endings
The game keeps track of points which contribute towards an ending. Certain events will increase or decrease these points. Typically, the ending with the most points will be what the ending would be. However, the evaluation of the points may be more complex. An examaple is Kana Little Sister, Hourglass of Summer, Tsukihime.

Stats System
The game keeps track of the player's statistics. A well known example is Tokimeki Memorial. Typically combined with the Day Planner Pattern, the player improves their stats depending on which character they would like to persue.

Event Loop
The player is replaying a series of events in a loop. The loop slowly changes each time the player plays through the cycle. Sometimes, this pattern takes advantage of the nature of Visual Novel and Ren'ai games.

The original article was written by PyTom.