Animes/Webtoons that would make great interactive stories

Interactive stories are stories you engage with. The storyline is not predetermined, and the reader experiences a unique story based on their interactions. Visual novels and Otome games are popular interactive stories. It seems like more mobile games are adopting this format.

Any story can be an interactive story with a few tweaks. But there are some stories that I think would work better for this format.

Death Note

Death Note is about an intelligent high school student, Light, who finds a mysterious black notebook that can kill as long as the user knows the person’s face and name. After verifying the notebook’s god-like abilities, Light begins to consider the notebook’s possibilities.

Under the alias Kira, He sets out to create a utopian world without crime and kills numerous high-profile Japanese criminals and later targets international criminals worldwide.

Light is a protagonist turned antagonist, depending on how you look at it. But imagine playing Light and making choices on who to write in the notebook. Would you succeed in creating this whole new world? Who would you trust or betray?

You would get an ending where you succeed in becoming God of this new world or get killed by the police/L. I think playing Light in an interactive game would be super fun.

On the contrary, though, playing the police or L would also be equally exciting. You’d be making choices to try and prove the Light is Kira. You would get an ending where you catch Light. Or, you could get an ending where Light kills you, and you gaze upon this new world Light creates from the afterlife.

Pyramid Game

Students at Love High cast their votes in a popularity poll that ranks the school’s hierarchy system.

It would be fun to play as the protagonist in this game. Who do you vote for? How do the people you vote for influence the rest of the story? I think this would be a difficult storyline to plan if it was interactive because of the number of possibilities.

I could see this also having mini-games. Something like dressing up your avatar and getting points to advance the storyline. Or, it would turn into something like Persona, where you have to level up your characteristics.

This story would have a lot of potential for an interactive game.

Attack on Titan

Humanity was driven to extinction after the emergence of Titans, who attack and eat humans on sight. The story mainly follows three characters in the military who fight for humanity.

I can see Attack on Titan becoming a full-fledged interactive game. It would be one of those games for PS5 or Xbox because of how many storylines you could create with this plot.

You could choose life inside or outside of the walls, each with very different paths. Of course, even if two people choose the same path, the outcomes could still be very different because of how they respond to circumstances.

Would you live to see the Titans extinguished? Or would you die for a loved one or for honor?

While I dropped the anime and manga for a while now, I would definitely play this as a game.

Sweet Home

Humans are turned into monsters. And a group of reluctant heroes must try to save the world before it’s too late.

As much as I ranted about the drama, I see a lot of potential for this interactive story. It’s like you’re trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. Would you befriend or turn away people you meet? Who do you trust and choose as your allies?

There’s already a lot of zombie survival games for all platforms. But the monsters in Sweet Home make it more fun. Each monster is different, so your tactics to survive would change depending on the monster you meet.

Like I said in my drama review, it’s an interesting spin on the zombie fab… that would turn into a great interactive game.

Sports Animes

Sports anime but also with some slice-of-life and romance, please. One of the main reasons I loved Prince of Tennis was its great balance between sports and slice-of-life. I would love to see this happen in an interactive game.

I’m sure there are games like this already, but it would be super fun if it was with your favourite characters. I know that Prince of Tennis has something like this already. But it was strictly romance.

I’d like to see “you” play the sport and attend tournaments. The choices can reflect how well you know the sport and respond to your opponent’s attacks.

But, a little romance never hurts.

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Creating an interactive story definitely takes a lot of thought and time.

Like I mentioned earlier, any story can be interactive. If you have a beautiful user interface, it would really bring the story to life. But if you only put in minimal effort, it could become predictable, dull, and ruin a good story.