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[Aura]

A question to all the devs who worked on KS;

There has obviously been an overwhelming positive response from people with this game, and for all the right reasons. Most of you have spent ~5 years of your life on this project, slaving many hours during your free time for it to come to completion, and none of you were professionals in your given area. This, coupled with the fact that 21 people from literally around the world managed to pull off a VN of this caliber when most others would fail is unparalleled (to my knowledge). I think it would be safe to say the outcome of this project was better than everyone expected.

Factoring these thoughts in(correct me if I have assumed too much), would you say that this is one of your greatest achievements (if not the greatest) in your life?

As always, Thanks for an amazing read

It's a hard to argue that KS isn't one of the greatest achievements or whatever, but I don't really feel I've achieved something great by making it. Essentially: sure, maybe, but I don't think it matters much. Too blasé?

Well, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little perplexed at how you could be so nonchalant about something that took up a large portion of your life as well as bring about a lot of good to the community (even if you are Hivemind who originally joined because he was literally bored haha), so that does leave me curious as to what exactly matters to you or where you get your motivation as a writer other than the obvious of doing it because you enjoy it, but then again I guess that's all you really need, and as long as you keep churning out work we will happily read it.

There you have it. I do the stuff I do because I like it. While it's really wonderful that so many people love KS, I would've been just as satisfied if it had never been released to public. All this other stuff, interacting with our fans, reading feedback or discussions about KS, it tickles a different nerve that has nothing to do with my creative side.

I think from our perspective, KS doesn't feel like such a great achievement because we view it with different eyes than the people who read it. For most of us, KS was a motor for learning our respective trade, and of course the kind of teamwork a project like this requires. We did a lot of stuff wrong with KS, and we surely could do a lot better, having learned our lessons. When I think of KS, the first thing to come to my mind is not the game itself, it's the time we had together making it, which is hard to crystallize into a sense of a single "achievement". However for me, it's by far the more imporant thing. It was time I spent learning stuff I didn't think I would do, hanging out with some nice people and calling them fucktards daily. Ultimately, I think we loved (and hated) the project a lot more than the end result.

[MrAlexHynes]

Now I suspect (after an initial glance at above comments) that you have been questioned alot about creating another visual novel, whether it be "katawa shoujo 2" or just a game as four leaf studios. I understand what not that you do not have plans to adapt either concept. So my questions are based around a different though equation,

Who owns the rights to katawa shoujo?

Would you allow mabe another section of the internet to create a second katawa shoujo 2, mabe as a follow on or as another game same school but different characters, like one year on or something similar?

Would you allow others to develope katawa shoujo further with mabe some free to download dlc such as the rika or saki characters mentioned "foolingly" before?

If you would allow another group to develope any of the above (respectivly) would you mind the group being called 4 leaf studios themselves, to symbolise the connection to the game, the idea being that the name becomes an adaption for games released by the community to have some sort of cohesion?

If you were to allow the creation of a second katawa shoujo what would you like to see in the game, a continuation of the current cast, so a developing plot scenario, or mabe a new group of girls for a different main character to interact with, and what about character plot lines, would you like to see a certain scenaro play out?

Now the idea of working on a Katawa Shoujo 2 does bring joy to my heart, but I do not have the skills to develope a game, `I prefere to think of these questions as more of an idea of what the rest of the community can do when it comes to the things we enjoy. Basicaly how far our otaku spirit can go, if for instance a new team was made and was going to develope a second katawa shoujo, I would happily voluntere my time to assist in it's production, but with minimal skills I cannot aid acordingly, but I would be prepared to learn. Most of these questions though are spiked from curiosity, and as such please dont take them seriously or anything.

[cpl_crud]

Now I suspect (after an initial glance at above comments) that you have been questioned alot about creating another visual novel, whether it be "katawa shoujo 2" or just a game as four leaf studios. I understand what not that you do not have plans to adapt either concept. So my questions are based around a different though equation,

Who owns the rights to katawa shoujo?

Would you allow mabe another section of the internet to create a second katawa shoujo 2, mabe as a follow on or as another game same school but different characters, like one year on or something similar?

Would you allow others to develope katawa shoujo further with mabe some free to download dlc such as the rika or saki characters mentioned "foolingly" before?

If you would allow another group to develope any of the above (respectivly) would you mind the group being called 4 leaf studios themselves, to symbolise the connection to the game, the idea being that the name becomes an adaption for games released by the community to have some sort of cohesion?

If you were to allow the creation of a second katawa shoujo what would you like to see in the game, a continuation of the current cast, so a developing plot scenario, or mabe a new group of girls for a different main character to interact with, and what about character plot lines, would you like to see a certain scenaro play out?

Now the idea of working on a Katawa Shoujo 2 does bring joy to my heart, but I do not have the skills to develope a game, `I prefere to think of these questions as more of an idea of what the rest of the community can do when it comes to the things we enjoy. Basicaly how far our otaku spirit can go, if for instance a new team was made and was going to develope a second katawa shoujo, I would happily voluntere my time to assist in it's production, but with minimal skills I cannot aid acordingly, but I would be prepared to learn. Most of these questions though are spiked from curiosity, and as such please dont take them seriously or anything.

With this question you are treading into the weird and wonderful world of contract law.

Using Australian (or English, as they are pretty much the same) then the rights are Suriko's. There was a licence agreement drwan up by TcDohl, PyTom and myself way back when. Due to acceptance by conduct, all of the rights fell unto me (since everyone had the chance to read the licence, and also the ability not to submit). However, there were clauses that basically meant that one person couldn't suddenly spin off and do weird things, and that if any consideration were rasied for Katawa Shoujo then all contributing developers would get a fair share.

When I left I "gave" the project to Suriko.

That should hold for the majority of works, however I do know that European Law has a slightly different interpretation of Acceptance by Conduct. Thus Delta's work may have different limitations on it.

If you'd like to know more about kooky contract laws, look up Carlill v. Carbolic Smoke ball Company (Wiki link to save you the trouble).

[Aura]

Would you allow mabe another section of the internet to create a second katawa shoujo 2, mabe as a follow on or as another game same school but different characters, like one year on or something similar?

Probably not.

Would you allow others to develope katawa shoujo further with mabe some free to download dlc such as the rika or saki characters mentioned "foolingly" before?

Probably not.

If you would allow another group to develope any of the above (respectivly) would you mind the group being called 4 leaf studios themselves, to symbolise the connection to the game, the idea being that the name becomes an adaption for games released by the community to have some sort of cohesion?

Absolutely not.

If you were to allow the creation of a second katawa shoujo what would you like to see in the game, a continuation of the current cast, so a developing plot scenario, or mabe a new group of girls for a different main character to interact with, and what about character plot lines, would you like to see a certain scenaro play out?

Now the idea of working on a Katawa Shoujo 2 does bring joy to my heart, but I do not have the skills to develope a game, `I prefere to think of these questions as more of an idea of what the rest of the community can do when it comes to the things we enjoy. Basicaly how far our otaku spirit can go, if for instance a new team was made and was going to develope a second katawa shoujo, I would happily voluntere my time to assist in it's production, but with minimal skills I cannot aid acordingly, but I would be prepared to learn. Most of these questions though are spiked from curiosity, and as such please dont take them seriously or anything.

[MrAlexHynes]

Thanks for the quick replies there from both of you. I don't know how I come across to you guys by asking these questions so I apologise if I cause offence, they are mearly out of curiosity.

I hope this is'nt too personal but what are you guys hoping to go on and do? As plainly can be seen you have a knack for this sort of thing, so do you intend to develope that specified skill further, or do you plan to go on and do different things? Do you know of any off the 4LS crew going into actual visiul novel development or are they following there own carrer path?

And who is each of your favourete katawa shoujo characters? My personal is Hanako, with her cute social anxiety!

[Via]

This is not that much of a question, but I'll do it anyways, since I feel I got to say it somewhere.

I found this VN by accident while bored on the internet, having nothing more to do than to search for translated games that might interest me. Then I found KS, and was surprised to see it was a game made in english. So I decided to give it a try. I loved it, and it pretty much helped me put some more work on my own writing, but that's not the actual point.

Y'see, I was born and still live in Chile (a country in South America, if anyone doesn't know), and as far as I know, this visual novel has reached many other places, some pretty far away, like mine.

What I want to ask is, well... How do you feel when knowing that your hard work has even reached the far ends of the world, like it did here?

[Guest]

I understand that there was a lot of stuff thrown out over the course of KS's development. Are there any ideas or plot points that were ultimately rejected, but that you miss?

[Scum]

Has anyone read any other visual novels after releasing KS, and if so, which ones?

[Aura]

Thanks for the quick replies there from both of you. I don't know how I come across to you guys by asking these questions so I apologise if I cause offence, they are mearly out of curiosity.

I hope this is'nt too personal but what are you guys hoping to go on and do? As plainly can be seen you have a knack for this sort of thing, so do you intend to develope that specified skill further, or do you plan to go on and do different things? Do you know of any off the 4LS crew going into actual visiul novel development or are they following there own carrer path?

And who is each of your favourete katawa shoujo characters? My personal is Hanako, with her cute social anxiety!

I very much doubt any of us wants to do this as a career, but I'm sure most of us will keep doing what we do in one way or another. My favourite character is Rin, of course.

[Aura]

This is not that much of a question, but I'll do it anyways, since I feel I got to say it somewhere.

I found this VN by accident while bored on the internet, having nothing more to do than to search for translated games that might interest me. Then I found KS, and was surprised to see it was a game made in english. So I decided to give it a try. I loved it, and it pretty much helped me put some more work on my own writing, but that's not the actual point.

Y'see, I was born and still live in Chile (a country in South America, if anyone doesn't know), and as far as I know, this visual novel has reached many other places, some pretty far away, like mine.

What I want to ask is, well... How do you feel when knowing that your hard work has even reached the far ends of the world, like it did here?

Of course it's nice, but it's more a testament to how the internet has made the world smaller than to what KS is. Even the people who made KS are spread all around the world.

[Aura]

I understand that there was a lot of stuff thrown out over the course of KS's development. Are there any ideas or plot points that were ultimately rejected, but that you miss?

The stuff that got thrown out was thrown out for a reason, so I can't really miss it except for some comic nostalgia for the more bizarre stuff. We were just digging through our old texts yesterday with some 4LS devs and laughing our asses off at how bad they were.

[Aura]

Has anyone read any other visual novels after releasing KS, and if so, which ones?

I read Forest a few months back. I haven't read many visual novels in a couple of years now. Nothing seems to catch my interest.

[yummines]

Aura i noticed at around the time a demo was released it was put on Fakku and you had a Q & A thread. Was this game going to be more oriented with sex scenes to appeal to the h-game demographic, or did it always have so much feels and actually not even be that explicit?

Also have you seen any Katawa Shoujo doujinshi before?

[TheHivemind]

Aura i noticed at around the time a demo was released it was put on Fakku and you had a Q & A thread. Was this game going to be more oriented with sex scenes to appeal to the h-game demographic, or did it always have so much feels and actually not even be that explicit?

Also have you seen any Katawa Shoujo doujinshi before?

To the first question: In the game's infancy it was going to have a lot more sex. By the time we did the Fakku thread things were a lot closer to the way the final game turned out, but the folks at Fakku were interested and we figured at the time that a little Q & A wouldn't hurt. We always figured our potential audience was a lot smaller, and unsurprisingly the demographics between 'people who normally play VNs' and 'people who frequent Fakku' are pretty similar. The fact that a bunch of other people found the game later on, well, that's one of those things that happened unexpectedly.

As for the second question, I'm pretty sure there's some pages of some kinda KS comic on the shimmie that involves Misha growing a dick. Don't quote me on that, I only half pay attention to most of the stuff on the shimmie.

[Otakumon]

I understand that there was a lot of stuff thrown out over the course of KS's development. Are there any ideas or plot points that were ultimately rejected, but that you miss?

The stuff that got thrown out was thrown out for a reason, so I can't really miss it except for some comic nostalgia for the more bizarre stuff. We were just digging through our old texts yesterday with some 4LS devs and laughing our asses off at how bad they were.

To follow this up, what was the most off the wall idea to get shot down?