Ask!

[Cerabix]

First time here and I know its cliche but thank you so much for developing this and making it free. This was art through and through and after spending a year (unknowingly) grayed out this brought a level of emotions out I had forgotten about. Seriously, thank you.

This question is kinda aimed at everyone but as a fellow developer I know from experience and everyone I've talked to that for every "successful" project there are usually hundreds of "unfinished" ones lying about. What were some of your favorite projects that will/maybe never see the light of day. For instance what was Kamifish's favorite project while he was still learning his craft or does Hivemind have a massive sci fi project he keeps in his desk?

[Aura]

We don't have an awful many dead projects within 4LS that were attempted seriously. I think we have better than 50% success rate for projects, if you count KS, our two other released visual novels and the five artbooks we've made as individual projects (and why wouldn't you). A couple things come to mind, and obviously now that we don't have KS on our backs it's easier to fail at stuff more.

Most notable I guess is Measuring Shadows, a visual novel that was attempted twice and somewhat weirdly, with different premises each time. The only common factors between the different incarnations are the name (that was stolen from my text in KS), the character designs and names (but not actual characters) and climatic (who is commonly blamed for the implosion of both attempts)

Delta will be forever salty about the death of Blobster, a comedy visual novel about the love life of lobsters. He was the only 4LS member in that project so it's not "genuine 4LS", but I'll count it anyway.

I wrote a comic script for weee once but she never drew it. She wanted to make a Touhou doujin but that never materialized despite the awesome script (it wasn't awesome).

There's probably other stuff that I forget, but not THAT much. It's of course very possible that I just am not aware of whatever megalomaniac ideas people have had and tried.

[Cerabix]

We don't have an awful many dead projects within 4LS that were attempted seriously. I think we have better than 50% success rate for projects, if you count KS, our two other released visual novels and the five artbooks we've made as individual projects (and why wouldn't you). A couple things come to mind, and obviously now that we don't have KS on our backs it's easier to fail at stuff more.

Most notable I guess is Measuring Shadows, a visual novel that was attempted twice and somewhat weirdly, with different premises each time. The only common factors between the different incarnations are the name (that was stolen from my text in KS), the character designs and names (but not actual characters) and climatic (who is commonly blamed for the implosion of both attempts)

Delta will be forever salty about the death of Blobster, a comedy visual novel about the love life of lobsters. He was the only 4LS member in that project so it's not "genuine 4LS", but I'll count it anyway.

I wrote a comic script for weee once but she never drew it. She wanted to make a Touhou doujin but that never materialized despite the awesome script (it wasn't awesome).

There's probably other stuff that I forget, but not THAT much. It's of course very possible that I just am not aware of whatever megalomaniac ideas people have had and tried.

50% is absolutely incredible for an organization. I was thinking more along the lines of personal stuff though. After I read the story of how this game was created I realize that its one of those things that only comes about because of where everyone was at in their life at that point. I hope to see your team, or some combination of some of the devs do other things. There is a lot of synergy here.

Here is another one that might be a bit too personal but have any of you had people close to you play your game and then open up to you about it? When I was playing this I felt like if one of my friends had made this as a side project I would have had to invite him over for drinks and a long talk.

[Kon22]

Do any of you guys speak japanese? No reason, just curiosity.

[Lightspeed]

I think we have better than 50% success rate for projects, if you count KS, our two other released visual novels and the five artbooks we've made as individual projects (and why wouldn't you).

I'm I missing something here? What were the two other visual novels? (Please ignore my stupidity)

[Aura]

Do any of you guys speak japanese? No reason, just curiosity.

Yea. Crud is fairly fluent, Suriko at least used to study it too. Mine has rusted to the point of uselessness.

[Cerabix]

Criticism against the Weeaboos are a bit ironic then.

I think thats a bit misplaced man. I know a bit of Italian and Japanese and love both of their cultures. I don't want to be italian or japanese though. The whole principle behind Weeaboo is they love japanese culture at the exclusion of everything else. You'll never get someone to admit that the katana isn't the best sword or that perhaps there are parts of art or poetry that any other culture did better.

Anyways, not sure if my other question will get answered but I had one more and then I think I'm all out. Do any of the development team put KS on their resume or have gotten other gigs because of it? I would never work on something like this for monetary gain as well but I've noticed that when people do art like this that others will respect that and be more opened to working with them.

Damn I keep getting all teary eyed every time I listen to the soundtrack.

[Aura]

Criticism against the Weeaboos are a bit ironic then. :lol:

What criticism?

[Aura]

Anyways, not sure if my other question will get answered but I had one more and then I think I'm all out. Do any of the development team put KS on their resume or have gotten other gigs because of it? I would never work on something like this for monetary gain as well but I've noticed that when people do art like this that others will respect that and be more opened to working with them.

Damn I keep getting all teary eyed every time I listen to the soundtrack.

I don't think anyone has KS on their resume, except Raide as he has something of a career in indie game development. I'm sure some of the artists have been getting commissions from KS fans. That's about it.

[Blank Mage]

I hope it hasn't already been asked, but how many instructors and staff know sign language? In a school as prone to life threatening accidents as Yamaku, I would assume basic proficiency would be a job requirement, but we never see it used outside of the JSL classes and the student council.

[AaronIsCrunchy]

When were the animated shorts for each character made? Emi looks to me like she's in her 'Act 1 release' guise as opposed to the revised one for the final cut, and I was just curious to know if they were made for the Act 1 release.

[Aura]

I hope it hasn't already been asked, but how many instructors and staff know sign language? In a school as prone to life threatening accidents as Yamaku, I would assume basic proficiency would be a job requirement, but we never see it used outside of the JSL classes and the student council.

I don't know what kind of life threatening accidents you imagine are an issue for the deaf students, but I'd expect most staff members knows at least basics.

[Aura]

When were the animated shorts for each character made? Emi looks to me like she's in her 'Act 1 release' guise as opposed to the revised one for the final cut, and I was just curious to know if they were made for the Act 1 release.

They were made in 2010-2011, so well after Act 1 was released.

[bhtooefr]

Also, quite relevant to this story, is that one of the causes of congenital deafness is LQT1... which is the most common form of long QT.

Essentially, you could quite easily have someone who's deaf and also arrhythmic at Yamaku...

Which actually leads to the next question... what variant of long QT does Hisao have? And how did Shizune's congenital deafness happen (or was that decided)?

[Kibaro]

how come some 4LS dev's are still on the KS forums after so much time after finishing the game? im guessing the forums is mostly a pain in the arse for you guys, having to tame ppl like me and others from doing stupid stuff. but what made/makes you want to keep on going with KS( even in forum form ), i know you didn't hate KS despite the headaches it gave you but from what i gathered(but i might be wrong) you guys were really happy to have finished it and forget about it as soon as possible being fed up with it after so many years of developing