Mikan is a simple engine to read visual novels in .story format.
.story format is a simple JSON-based format designed with an idea to
make a high-level engine-neutral storage format for visual novels.
As of now, there are no novels natively published in .story format, but
there are several converters available to convert existing commerical
visual novels running popular engines into .story format. Using such
converters one can potentially run any visual novel using Mikan
engine.
Pros of using Mikan engine to read visual novels:
Portability. It is written in HTML5+JS and thus can run virtually anywhere. You can read novels on Android tablets / phones, iPads, iPhones, Linux desktops, Mac OS X desktops, smart TVs, etc.
Web access. One can publish a novel online (using regular web server) and there would be no need to download anything for a reader to read it - one would just open a link and start reading.
Better UI. If you don't like an UI (looks or interactions) designed by novel authors, you can use a custom UI - or basically any other UI from any other ported novel.
Language learner. If you want to learn languages reading visual novels, there are plethora of options to do that using Mikan:
Automatic translation. If you want to read untranslated novels, you can plug in any automated translator.
Cloud-based saves. You can use either saving states of your games in local storage (using it only in one device/browser), or you can opt for saving/loading games in/from the cloud. The latter allows you to start reading a VN at home PC, continue reading it (loading reading state) on the go using your Android tablet while commuting to your work/school and continue to read it at your work PC there ;)
Proprietary platforms (and engines targeting them) that run visual
novels come and go, open standards (like .story, HTML or JavaScript)
are here to stay. Take a look at history: there are thousands of novels
published for PC98 platform, yet you can't even buy the hardware
nowadays. Mikan engine and .story format are meant to preserve creative
objects (i.e. visual novels) for ages to come.
Free/open source. Engine is free and open source, licensed under AGPL.
Of course, there are also several cons of using Mikan engine:
Obviously, one can run only novels converted to (or written in)
.story format. If the engine is unsupported, you can either dive in and
implement converter for it (that would require some reverse engineering
skills) or wait/request for someone else to do it.
In some cases, there would be differences between original engine and Mikan port. Mature, polished conversions keep this differences to minimum (or zero), but using early versions of converters will likely to result in missed animations, misaligned sprites, messed up layers, etc. Your mileage may vary.
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There are a few projects that share similar ideas. What's different about
Mikan and .story?
ViLE is a universal virtual machine for visual novels. Compared to
Mikan, which uses complex converters + very simple .story format + very
simple unified engine, ViLE uses original data files + complex virtual
machine to process them. Unfortunately, project seems to be dead since
~2011.
VNDS uses the same principle (i.e. converters + simple engine), but
.novel format used in VNDS is much lower level than .story format.
Roughly comparing, .story uses concepts like "dialogue line", which
involves a defined "character", text (probably in multiple languages),
voice for that line, character facial expression associated with line,
etc, while .novel uses much lower level stuff like "output text in the
window", "put graphics N at place M", etc. And, again, unfortunately,
VNDS seems to be abandoned since ~2013.