Reading in different types of media formats

[Josh Lemay]

Just curious, because mostly I've only seen mention of traditional books here, but does anyone enjoy other reading formats?

Mostly what I'm talking about is like... graphic novels are a good one and one that a lot of people know about, but then there's light/visual novels, kinetic novels, and I suppose one could make a point for using cheats in games just to read through the storyline but that's kind of a stretch(though I know a lot of people who did this for Warcraft 3).

I mostly mention this because I just found out about this really cool kinetic novel. Relatively short, took a bit less than 2 hours to read/"play" through it all, but I enjoyed it a lot.

The kinetic novel is titled Juniper's Knot. I'm not really sure on the rules for linking other people's stuff here(checked the rule's thread, so I'm guessing it's alright but not sure so if not feel free to remove this), but the link if you want to check it out is http://junipersknot.dischan.org/ .

I just found it really cool and I thought it was interesting to see something like that. I know it's more popular in Asian countries(I think mostly Japan), but some of them are really high quality, enough to rival animated movies, and have great stories to boot.

Anyone else read this type of stuff(or any other cool story formats), and any interesting new finds if you do? Or I guess if you don't, any reason why you dislike that kind of stuff or haven't tried it? Kind of curious to see what people think about it.

(Random addition: I actually wrote a review about Juniper's Knot on my own website, but I'm pretty sure it's not alright to randomly pitch that. If you're interested in reading it, let me know in a PM, though).

[anthonypero]

As long as you didn't write it, and aren't associated with it, its perfectly alright to start a conversation about something genre related and post a link to it. You'd have to ask a mod, but in context with the conversation, I don't see why you wouldn't also be able to post a link to your review.

However, I've never even heard of this stuff, so beyond general forum etiquette, I've got nothing to say on the matter

[tnh]

Josh, is Juniper's Knot your work, or partly your work?

[Josh Lemay]

As long as you didn't write it, and aren't associated with it, its perfectly alright to start a conversation about something genre related and post a link to it. You'd have to ask a mod, but in context with the conversation, I don't see why you wouldn't also be able to post a link to your review.

However, I've never even heard of this stuff, so beyond general forum etiquette, I've got nothing to say on the matter

If you're curious about what a visual novel looks like(visual novels are more like Choose Your Own Adventure-ish, while kinetic ones don't have options, but both are similar in style), here's a youtube video of the start of Clannad(which has an amazing storyline). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i7vowIn8aY

Josh, is Juniper's Knot your work, or partly your work?

Nope, I have nothing at all to do with it. I actually just found out about it today(it was released in the early morning), and decided to check it out since it sounded neat.

[tnh]

Okay. Thanks.

at least ten characters

[wulfmojo]

I read graphic novels as much as I read 'regular' books. There's some really good stuff out there, and as a medium it allows for some rather original forms of storytelling. Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman are the two giants of course, and well worth reading by anyone, but I'm also a great fan of Mike Mignola's Hellboy and recently got into Mouse Guard (Game of Thrones meets Redwall... seriously).

Kinetic novels are a new one on me, but it sounds interesting. Another great, and woefully under-appreciated story medium is PC Games. There have been two story-driven games that have enthralled me recently. The first is Dear Esther, a story-game about a man wandering alone on a Hebridean island as you piece together the events that brought him there. The other is The Path, a twisted reimagining of Red Riding Hood where the aim is to walk down the path to Grandma's House, but inevitably end up straying into the beautifully creepy woods and encountering some (very upsetting) wolves. I'd strongly recommend both.

[Josh Lemay]

Thanks for sharing those! I like Neil Gaiman's regular novels, but I haven't checked out his graphic novels yet.

I'm totally with you on PC games as a story medium. I think they can be really fun and interesting, story-wise, sometimes. That game, The Path, looks really neat, too. I'm a big fan of Red Riding Hood and fairy tale type of stuff in general, though. Definitely going to check that out.

[scatisu]

i never read any graphic novels, but i agree on pc and browser games as storytellers. i will probably try out swtor just for that matter.

[somedude]

I'm only familiar w/ traditional books and I did listen to an audiobook(..'What Dreams May Come', love it btw!), though I'd certainly like to check out some graphic novels and other mediums/types of reading. I'll check out the classics first, like the Sandman series, then start delving deeper into the obscure.