What are visual novels?

A visual novel: Most often confused with and assumed to be manga (Japanese comic books). This assumption couldn’t be further from the truth.

A visual novel can be seen as a combination of a novel and a computer game: they’re computer games with a large text based storyline and only little interaction of the player. A typical visual novel consists of text over an anime-style background image and is accompanied by background music. Throughout the game, the player usually has to answer a few questions which will have an effect on the story, thus playing a visual novel a second time while giving other answers may result in an entirely different plot.

vndb.org

Still don’t get it? First, take a look at this Promotional Video of Steins;Gate, from NitroPlus…