It is fascinating how some similar niche genres of games have managed to mostly ignore each other, from what I have seen.

Interactive fiction has https://ifdb.org/.

Gamebooks ("CYOA" to outsiders) have https://gamebooks.org/.

I think there is some community around branching browser text stories like (mostly) Twine games that have their own database somewhere?

And then there is always some overlap and discussions around what games to allow where, with each community gatekeeping to some degree what games are allowed in their database or not.

So, for example, I never heard about VNDB and never really crossed paths with VN players online, even if I have been around communities for IF and gamebooks since last century and the similarities are obvious.

>similar niche genres of games have managed to mostly ignore each other

That's only because they are only "similar" on the surface. It feels like saying "football, volleyball and basketball are similar" just because they are all team games played with a ball.

VNs are not games. They're a kind of ebook.

But only people who are really into computers read them, so they like to use game terminology to talk about them.

(also, none of the creators of "VNs" call them "VNs".)

thank you for sharing this! I never heard the two website you mentioned while being very familiar with vndb. I guess there will be always another corner of the internet that you don't even know existed.

If you are curious, vndb has a guideline you can see about what can be added here: https://vndb.org/d2

I think IF games tend to be more puzzle games with some story segments. Gamebooks are much closer, but still often have proto-RPG mechanics. (I remember tracking inventory and HP for the ones I played/read through). VNs are much closer to pure story, with some tracking of earlier decision flags for callbacks later in the story.