Ask!

[Aura]

What sort of challenges did you encounter when creating and deciding on each character's personality and respective path? Was each one formulated through group discussions or where specific people sent out to write out a number of potential ideas? How were ideas eventually narrowed down to what we have now and was it difficult to do?

Difficult to answer just because it's so wide in scope. The main workflow was the writer thinking up ideas and working on them until he was confident to present them for review, then everyone else giving feedback on those. Rinse and repeat until done. Bits that were too hard to overcome solo were talked over in brainstorm sessions.

[Aura]

Why in the end no proper Misha route?

Or any other hidden route for that matter?

This has been talked to death years before the release. No Misha path because we didn't want to make one. Period.

[「ユウキ」]

Last question really.

How does it feel to have spent so much time on this, and it turn out so well?

Because this game is beautiful, quite frankly.

[Fronzel]

Someone in the Rin thread posted that they felt the choices in her path were difficult to make, that the "right" answer was hard to get at and hard to understand and that this made sense given what a hard time Hisao has trying to understand Rin.

Was there an attempt to affect the player through the way the choices were structured or worded in Rin's or any other route?

[Aura]

This question might be awkward because I'm not quite sure how to phrase it, sorry. This is directed at the writers mostly, but how does it feel when people say they were personally affected by your work? Like, for example Emi's path made me realize that I've been dealing with the trauma of losing someone the same way she had been, and how much that was hurting the people in my life. I'm taking steps to improve myself now because of this realization, and I'm pretty grateful that I read this game. I've been reading similar reactions for other people, so I'm really wondering- What's it like knowing that your work might have changed the people who read it?

Those kinds of comments are my favourite kind. Like, at this point I don't really care that much about literary analysis or reviews of the game, but people commenting how they were emotionally touched feels very special.

[Aura]

Now that the game had been released, are the creators going to stay active on the blog, forums, and IRC? And how long are all of the Katawa Shoujo websites going to stay up, like the forums/blog/shimmie/etc?

Blog will pretty much die after some time, I imagine. The rest will stay up for as long as they need to. Some 4LS members will probably fade sooner, some later, some might stay in the IRC channel alone for another 5 years. Who knows.

[blazinator]

How many times did Emi have sex and with how many different partners did she do it with?

Does it matter?

Also, does she cheat on Hisao?

No.

Yes, it does matter.

You say she didn't cheat on him, but what about when they had their little break up? Did she get in with the track captain or any of the other athletes during that time? She seems like the type that would.

[Yo-yo]

At the time of the Act 1 release, how much of the current storyline was set in stone? I'm curious about whether any of the major plot points in the current game were complete changes from whatever the plan was several years ago.

[Aster Selene]

How much of this do you think was inspired by real life experiences?

As in, your own personal experiences, not scholarly research/hearsay off other internet stuff?

[Esper]

Curious as to the absence of Shizune's mother. She's never mentioned and never present. Is she off somewhere doing things, dead, or something else?

[Aura]

Last question really.

How does it feel to have spent so much time on this, and it turn out so well?

Because this game is beautiful, quite frankly.

Feels good man.

[Aura]

Someone in the Rin thread posted that they felt the choices in her path were difficult to make, that the "right" answer was hard to get at and hard to understand and that this made sense given what a hard time Hisao has trying to understand Rin.

Was there an attempt to affect the player through the way the choices were structured or worded in Rin's or any other route?

A couple of the paths have certain experimentation going on with the structure. Rin is one of them. (of course, the entire game is experiment-o-rama, as we've done nothing like this before)

[Aura]

At the time of the Act 1 release, how much of the current storyline was set in stone? I'm curious about whether any of the major plot points in the current game were complete changes from whatever the plan was several years ago.

With KS, nothing has ever been set in stone. We did have a draft of the entire game, or at least most of it, at that point, but many parts of it have been rewritten since.

[Aura]

How much of this do you think was inspired by real life experiences?

As in, your own personal experiences, not scholarly research/hearsay off other internet stuff?

I can only be sure on my own part, but I think it's pretty safe to say pretty much none of it. Imagination is a powerful thing.

[Yo-yo]

How tempting was it to quit before finishing?