Ask!

[bhtooefr]

Out of curiosity, were you aware of the age rules for admission to Japanese school?

http://www.esri.go.jp/jp/archive/e_dis/ ... dis162.pdf is my source:

For example, primary schools in Japan accept entering students on April 1 and children who are age 6 by that day enter primary schools for that year. Thus those who are born in March (including April 1.) enter primary schools at an early age 6, while those who are born in April enter primary schools at almost age 7.

The Japanese school system is similar to that of the US. Compulsory education consists of 6 years of primary school and 3 years of junior high school. After junior high school, students can choose to attend 3 years of high school or 5 years of technical college (Kosen). After high school, the choices are 2 years of junior college or 4 years of college. There are graduate schools for advanced degrees afterward. For an illustration, see Figure 1. The school system is legally defined in the School Education Law (SEL) enacted in 1947. SEL article 22 requires parents to send their children to primary schools once their children will turn age six before the school starting day, which is April 1. Article 23 allows a delay in school entry due to children’s illness or underdevelopment, but this exception is rarely applied.

(The comment about "before the school starting day" is due to a quirk in Japanese age law - your age is incremented the day before your birthday, according to that article.)

This creates a problem with three characters, and also requires Hisao to have been born 1989-04-02 or later.

Lilly turned 18 on 2007-02-07 (and this is confirmed by Hanako in Lilly's route). Working backwards, 1995-02-07, she'd be 6, meaning she'd enter primary school in 1995, junior high school in 2001, high school in 2004, and her third year of high school in 2006. So, she missed a year somewhere. Where did she miss it? I doubt she'd fall under article 23, if it's rarely applied (unless her parents pulled strings in high places to get her start of school delayed for some reason or another).

Rin turned 18 on 2007-03-13 according to the website. Same thing, her third year was 2006 in that case, or she's 17 (it wasn't stated that she was 18). This one is easier to explain, though - she may well have fallen under article 23, as she could quite easily appear developmentally delayed.

Emi turned 19 on 2007-03-14 (she says she's a year older than Hisao, who's presumably 18 (Hisao implies that he's 18 in Lilly's route, although he doesn't outright state it), although she could've been mistaken). She also says that she was held back one year, but for her to be 19... yep, her third year would still be 2006. Was she held back another year, or is she actually 18?

[Silentcook]

...East Asian age reckoning?

Anyway, no we didn't, or not to this degree. You can chalk this one up to localization, use some or all of the motivations you thought up yourself, or mistreat Hisao's age as required.

[TheHivemind]

Out of curiosity, were you aware of the age rules for admission to Japanese school?

http://www.esri.go.jp/jp/archive/e_dis/ ... dis162.pdf is my source:

For example, primary schools in Japan accept entering students on April 1 and children who are age 6 by that day enter primary schools for that year. Thus those who are born in March (including April 1.) enter primary schools at an early age 6, while those who are born in April enter primary schools at almost age 7.

The Japanese school system is similar to that of the US. Compulsory education consists of 6 years of primary school and 3 years of junior high school. After junior high school, students can choose to attend 3 years of high school or 5 years of technical college (Kosen). After high school, the choices are 2 years of junior college or 4 years of college. There are graduate schools for advanced degrees afterward. For an illustration, see Figure 1. The school system is legally defined in the School Education Law (SEL) enacted in 1947. SEL article 22 requires parents to send their children to primary schools once their children will turn age six before the school starting day, which is April 1. Article 23 allows a delay in school entry due to children’s illness or underdevelopment, but this exception is rarely applied.

(The comment about "before the school starting day" is due to a quirk in Japanese age law - your age is incremented the day before your birthday, according to that article.)

This creates a problem with three characters, and also requires Hisao to have been born 1989-04-02 or later.

Lilly turned 18 on 2007-02-07 (and this is confirmed by Hanako in Lilly's route). Working backwards, 1995-02-07, she'd be 6, meaning she'd enter primary school in 1995, junior high school in 2001, high school in 2004, and her third year of high school in 2006. So, she missed a year somewhere. Where did she miss it? I doubt she'd fall under article 23, if it's rarely applied (unless her parents pulled strings in high places to get her start of school delayed for some reason or another).

Rin turned 18 on 2007-03-13 according to the website. Same thing, her third year was 2006 in that case, or she's 17 (it wasn't stated that she was 18). This one is easier to explain, though - she may well have fallen under article 23, as she could quite easily appear developmentally delayed.

Emi turned 19 on 2007-03-14 (she says she's a year older than Hisao, who's presumably 18 (Hisao implies that he's 18 in Lilly's route, although he doesn't outright state it), although she could've been mistaken). She also says that she was held back one year, but for her to be 19... yep, her third year would still be 2006. Was she held back another year, or is she actually 18?

[Konstantinov]

I have a question I'm not sure has been answered yet.

In regards to mental disabilities, why was it pointedly made a fact that Yamaku did not admit those with mental disabilities alone? Was there a line of thinking to this, or just something sewn into the storyline?

[Aura]

It's just a detail about the setting that has no bearing to the story: Yamaku isn't that big of a school, and people with mental disabilities require different educational methods than those without. Yamaku isn't a kitchen sink of defective children, it's a specialized institution designed to accommodate already a pretty wide range of special needs, and would need a completely different set of internal infrastructure to be able to provide for kids with any significant mental disability.

[Comrade]

What's with this yellowish colorscheme?
More specifically, who chose it and why?

[delta]

What's with this yellowish colorscheme?
More specifically, who chose it and why?

I did that. Originally it was going to be surgical appliance pink, but my monitor at that time was badly calibrated so it ended up more beige than pink. The next prototype played around with old anatomy manuals scans, which fit the paper look nicely, but people thought it was too gruesome. But it just so happened that at the time we didn't have any good production art, only sketches, so I threw those in and decided that those fitted the paper look just as well, the rest of the UI (fonts, textures, lines etc) ended up being built around it. We never ended up changing it. I am not sure I like it a whole lot anymore, but that's probably from looking at it for 5+ years. At least it doesn't look extremely generic, only a little.

[gullim92]

Aura-senpai, will you marry me?

[sanduba]

Is delta this delta? It's Kagetsu Tohya's credits.

[Aura]

Same delta.

[Rikabro]

Do your parents or loved ones know about KS?

[brythain]

I had a lot of questions, but two years and 233 pages of Q&A have answered most of them. Except…

1. Did any of you have specific 'voices' in your head when scripting the various main characters? This includes Shizune, because while she's mute, I'd guess it might be hard to think of things for her to say without any 'mental voice', so to speak. What did they sound like to you?

2. Did you ever wind up with a script 'bible' — a set of canonical material for each character, perhaps? From what I can tell so far, path writers acted as custodians of some main characters, but 'planning, documentation and communication should be more meticulous' and need for 'internal consistency' were mentioned. What form (if any) did such 'master' documents take?

3. Aura, you mentioned Rin's keywords as 'artistic' and 'hard to understand'. You also said that her persona was 'complete fabrication' and scripting her thoughts 'never really became natural to [you]'. What artificial process did you use to make Rin's thinking so… consistent? She's very literal-minded, for a start.

4. Why are Akira and Hideaki such good friends? The family dynamics are awkward in some ways, but those two appear mirror-images just as Shizune and Lilly also seem to be.

Thanks very much, all of you, for KS and being good-natured enough to answer questions!

[TheHivemind]

Do your parents or loved ones know about KS?

See this post for the amazing answer!

Yeah I answer shit on Tumblr sometimes. NOW YOU HAVE TO CHECK SEVERAL PLACES FOR ENLIGHTENMENT.

I had a lot of questions, but two years and 233 pages of Q&A have answered most of them. Except…

1. Did any of you have specific 'voices' in your head when scripting the various main characters? This includes Shizune, because while she's mute, I'd guess it might be hard to think of things for her to say without any 'mental voice', so to speak. What did they sound like to you?

I never really had any specific voices, really. Or at least, the voices I had do not have any easy celebrity analogue for me to point to as a way of explanation.

2. Did you ever wind up with a script 'bible' — a set of canonical material for each character, perhaps? From what I can tell so far, path writers acted as custodians of some main characters, but 'planning, documentation and communication should be more meticulous' and need for 'internal consistency' were mentioned. What form (if any) did such 'master' documents take?

Somewhere, there's a map of Yamaku, which I failed to pay attention to. Every path started, in theory, with an outline (I wrote summaries for Emi and Rin, crud and Suriko I think worked together on Lily and Hanako(?), and A22 (I think) did Shizune's all on his own). There was never a big 'bible,' which really we should have done, because that may have helped with the game's internal consistency. Essentially we counted on each path writer to have figured all that stuff out on their own, and to read other paths to ensure 'their' girl was written somewhat consistently.

4. Why are Akira and Hideaki such good friends? The family dynamics are awkward in some ways, but those two appear mirror-images just as Shizune and Lilly also seem to be.

As I recall, we stuck them together because they both dressed like the opposite gender, and that was about the long and short of it for a while. If you want a better answer you'll have to wait for someone who actually used them.

[brythain]

Thank you, TheHivemind!

And since you dropped by, a question for you:

Emi is both the oldest and the shortest of the main characters; did you ever see her as a motherly type or a 'Yoda' type personality? *grin*

[TheHivemind]

Thank you, TheHivemind!

And since you dropped by, a question for you:

Emi is both the oldest and the shortest of the main characters; did you ever see her as a motherly type or a 'Yoda' type personality? *grin*

A motherly sort of Emi never really crossed my mind. She'll take care of Rin, because they're friends, but that's as far as it really goes. Certainly she's not likely to have a desire for children any time soon.