Otogirisō (弟切草, lit. St John's wort) is a visual novel produced and published by Chunsoft. Marketed by the company as a "sound novel" rather than a video game, it is the progenitor of the developer and publisher's sound novel series and of the format of electronic entertainment now usually known generically as a visual novel. Koichi Nakamura conceived the title after showing his work on the Dragon Quest role-playing video games to a girl he was dating. On finding she did not enjoy them, he was encouraged to make a video game that he described as "for people who haven't played games before." Influenced by the early survival horror game Sweet Home, he developed it into a horror-themed interactive story. The game sold over 400,000 copies in Japan, including over 300,000 copies for Super Famic