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[cpl_crud]

Did you guys expected that kinda of feedback? I mean, almost everybody really loving the game and even some people that are changing their lives after the experience. Or the game getting in a Top 10 by user reviews.

We expected that people would like the game--I, at least, did not expect the game to be quite this popular.

You mean Poplar, Emi.

[Guest]

Some of you visited 4chan before, have you visited recently ?

There are KS threads, they seem popular, lots of people just talk about feels, there are trolls too sadly. But I have seen quite a few posts where it seems KS really effected people. I know you guys know people are effected, but I think you would be suprised if you saw some of the posts I have seen.

[cpl_crud]

Some of you visited 4chan before, have you visited recently ?

There are KS threads, they seem popular, lots of people just talk about feels, there are trolls too sadly. But I have seen quite a few posts where it seems KS really effected people. I know you guys know people are effected, but I think you would be suprised if you saw some of the posts I have seen.

I think you mean affected, but I suppose you aren't technically wrong there. It's always a fine line between the two. I think becuase we didn't directly take action agianst the people it has to be affected, no effected.

We often get cut-up images of the various posts on the IRC channel, and they seem to have an overwhelming number of good things to say about us. Feels good.

And there are always trolls; that's part of the internet.

[Guest111]

Just out of curiosity. How was the female reception of this game? I know the male reception was positive and really made most players think or at least become introspective temporarily.

[Guest]

Some of you visited 4chan before, have you visited recently ?

There are KS threads, they seem popular, lots of people just talk about feels, there are trolls too sadly. But I have seen quite a few posts where it seems KS really effected people. I know you guys know people are effected, but I think you would be suprised if you saw some of the posts I have seen.

I think you mean affected, but I suppose you aren't technically wrong there. It's always a fine line between the two. I think becuase we didn't directly take action agianst the people it has to be affected, no effected.

We often get cut-up images of the various posts on the IRC channel, and they seem to have an overwhelming number of good things to say about us. Feels good.

And there are always trolls; that's part of the internet.

I always got affected and effected mixed up. So just kept using effected all the time isntead.

Whats the IRC ? I clicked after reading this, but firefox cant open it. But yeah some of that stuff you can see is really touching. Even if some of them can be depressing.

True, just suprising how much time some people are willing to devote/waste, in the hopes of annoying some random people.

[VanDeaM]

I was just wondering have any of the Writers have played Indie game "To The Moon" yet? If so I'm wondering what your thoughts are on it's story.
Personally I thought it was a very touching and sincere. It's story and themes hit home with me in many ways and even got me (a grown man) to cry.
Right now it's my Favorite game of 2012.

[Neon Vanguard]

Good afternoon.

So, some questions to ask. Hope you don't mind.

1. What was the average wordcount per route, including act one? All I know is that it's over 10,000 words, as Cpl_Crud mentioned in his blog.

2. The answer will vary from person to person, but what seemed to be the most difficult aspect of creating a VN? The art, writing, music? Or simply communication, given the time differences?

3. This question depends on each writer, too. Was there much of a desire to make Hisao his own character, or were you more interested in keeping him slightly open-ended, so that the player would be able to relate to him more? I always found it odd how rarely he reflected on his past life. Not in the sense of his happy happy fun fun life before four months in the hospital, I mean like his early childhood. He hardly even mentions his parents, as much as they piss him off.

4. Aura, you mentioned in a blog post that the team approached the VN with some unrealistic expectations at first. What kind of expectations were these, exactly? About the time required to build it, the quality of the product... ?

[anarki]

Third round, still hoping for an answer!

Are there plans for a script/support for unofficial translations?

(Yes I've read the translator topic, I'd like to know if there were any unpublished development in this topic)

[Aura]

Good afternoon.

So, some questions to ask. Hope you don't mind.

1. What was the average wordcount per route, including act one? All I know is that it's over 10,000 words, as Cpl_Crud mentioned in his blog.

2. The answer will vary from person to person, but what seemed to be the most difficult aspect of creating a VN? The art, writing, music? Or simply communication, given the time differences?

3. This question depends on each writer, too. Was there much of a desire to make Hisao his own character, or were you more interested in keeping him slightly open-ended, so that the player would be able to relate to him more? I always found it odd how rarely he reflected on his past life. Not in the sense of his happy happy fun fun life before four months in the hospital, I mean like his early childhood. He hardly even mentions his parents, as much as they piss him off.

4. Aura, you mentioned in a blog post that the team approached the VN with some unrealistic expectations at first. What kind of expectations were these, exactly? About the time required to build it, the quality of the product... ?

1. including act 1, ~140 000 words. Act 1 readthrough is about 65k words and the routes themselves are about the same length. The entire game is something like 480 000 words iirc.
2. For us, overall probably it was organization. As a writer, I can't really judge how challenging the artists found their job, but writing is pretty god damn hard.
3. We wanted to make Hisao more than just a proxy for the player, but could probably have worked even more on that than we did.
4. KS was way too big undertaking for a group of people who had no prior experience nor had never worked together before.

[Aura]

Third round, still hoping for an answer!

Are there plans for a script/support for unofficial translations?

(Yes I've read the translator topic, I'd like to know if there were any unpublished development in this topic)

We are still thinking about how we want to go about that. It's not a simple decision because the consequences will be so far-reaching.

[Guest]

How do you pronounce some of the names ?

I thought Hisao was Hi-so. Apparently its not. Apparently shi-zoo-n is also wrong.

[Pimmy]

How do you pronounce some of the names ?

I thought Hisao was Hi-so. Apparently its not. Apparently shi-zoo-n is also wrong.

Japanese vowels are all pronounced the same for every word (There's exceptions, but not for these names).
A = ah I = ee U = oo E = eh O = oh
I won't get detailed, but all should be pronounced as fairly short sounds.

So Hisao is "hee-sah-oh" and Shizune is "She-zoo-neh".

Also, it's very important that you don't emphasize the middle syllable. English speakers will do that unconsciously most of the time. It's not She ZOO neh, its Sheezuneh. A good way to practice this is by stressing the first syllable instead of the middle one, and then saying it one more time the same way, but without stressing the first one.


Oh, and some discussion reminded me I should point out that nicknames like "hicchan" and "shicchan" are probably not pronounced how the layman might think either! There is no hard "c" sound in them. So avoid "hick-chan" and "shick-chan", if you are inclined to pronounce it that way. the double consonant comes from a way of translating a certain character into roman letters. "Shicchan" in japanese is しっちゃん. and that "っ" you see does something weird to the way you pronounce the syllable proceeding it. I'm not sure how to explain because I mostly learned it by ear, but the double consonant kind of denotes a hiccup between those two syllables. So instead of "Sheechan" you have "She[break]chan".

[DaLadybugMan]

Hey, guys! Congratulations on the game! It's clear that it really impacted a lot of people, and I'm sure that it's a great feeling to know that those five years weren't spent in vain. Anyway, I naturally had a few questions.

1. Seeing Misha's Bush/Cheney 2004 shirt made me realize that I didn't know what year the game was set (obviously, it couldn't have been set earlier than the 2004 election season), and the fact that the development process took place over multiple years doesn't help. I was wondering if you have an idea of what year the events of the game take place, or if it's intentionally left ambiguous.

2. As a semi-related question, where exactly did Misha obtain said Bush/Cheney shirt? I don't imagine there's a lot of overseas campaigning

3. One thing that really stood out to me about the game was the interesting side characters (except Hideaki, who I personally found kind of dull). I was wondering, if you didn't have to worry about story and pacing restrictions, which side character (i.e., apart from the main six girls) you'd like to have been able to explore more in-depth within the game.

4. Were there any characters who received a fair amount of development that didn't make it into the game as anything more than a cameo (like the rest of Hisao's classmates, for example)?

5. Related to the last two points, which character had the most undisplayed development: backstory, personality, desires, and other miscellaneous things that just didn't make it into the game because it ultimately wasn't important?

[Aura]

Hey, guys! Congratulations on the game! It's clear that it really impacted a lot of people, and I'm sure that it's a great feeling to know that those five years weren't spent in vain. Anyway, I naturally had a few questions.

1. Seeing Misha's Bush/Cheney 2004 shirt made me realize that I didn't know what year the game was set (obviously, it couldn't have been set earlier than the 2004 election season), and the fact that the development process took place over multiple years doesn't help. I was wondering if you have an idea of what year the events of the game take place, or if it's intentionally left ambiguous.

2. As a semi-related question, where exactly did Misha obtain said Bush/Cheney shirt? I don't imagine there's a lot of overseas campaigning :D

3. One thing that really stood out to me about the game was the interesting side characters (except Hideaki, who I personally found kind of dull). I was wondering, if you didn't have to worry about story and pacing restrictions, which side character (i.e., apart from the main six girls) you'd like to have been able to explore more in-depth within the game.

4. Were there any characters who received a fair amount of development that didn't make it into the game as anything more than a cameo (like the rest of Hisao's classmates, for example)?

5. Related to the last two points, which character had the most undisplayed development: backstory, personality, desires, and other miscellaneous things that just didn't make it into the game because it ultimately wasn't important?

1. It's intentionally ambiguous in the game, but the year is 2007.
2. A thrift store probably
3. For me, Nomiya.
4. I don't think there were any.
5. Impossible to say. Maybe Akira.

[bradpara]

First, where is Hisao from orginally, the dialouge frequently states the he is from a very large city, so I am thinking prehaps Tokyo?