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[brythain]

What's 'ArtPlus™ Criticism Deflection Technology'? I've always thought such a thing would be really cool. It appears on the last page of the KS Game Manual PDF.

[Aura]

Exactly what it sounds like. We licensed it from the leading innovators in criticism deflection industry.

[TK8305]

Aura, in your opinion....what do you think is the best & most well written route in all of KS?

[Aura]

I obviously am disqualified from considering Rin's route here, but of the other four, Shizune's is my favourite.

22 writes really good sentences and most of the time, the best dialogue out of any of us. A reader can delve deeper into Shizune's route than the others, which I personally like too. Now if only the side characters' character designs were less clowny.

[Leaty]

On the subject of Shizune's route, how do the devs feel about the idea that Hideaki has a female or nonbinary gender identity?

By which I mean, just as it's easy for a reader to interpret Kenji as being in denial about his sexuality, it's pretty easy to read Hideaki as being a trans girl or nonbinary person who is either in deep denial about their gender identity or who is aware of it, but feigns ignorance about it as a defense mechanism. Do his writers feel this is a valid interpretation, or is that completely off the mark?

[Aura]

I'm of the school of thought that it's not really my place to tell what interpretations are valid and what are not. Any interpretations that don't factually clash with the work as it is could be considered plausible, and the discussion is about how it affects the reading of the work.

I'll just remark that there's approximately equal amounts of evidence in the novel script for your theory and, say, Hideaki being forced to dress up like a clown as a punishment by his father because he underachieved in a chemistry exam. Or being a lizard alien from outer space. It's been a while since I read it, but I don't think it would make any difference for the story either way?

[Atario]

Is it plausible that he's just screwed up or maybe acting out because dad's a jerkass?

[ParagonTerminus]

If you could make a route with any side character (Naomi, Yuuko, etc.; Misha excluded), who would it be and why?

[Aura]

There aren't many suitable side characters with personalities, so the choice is pretty meh. I guess Chiharu, because she's everyone's secret darling.

[Munchenhausen]

There aren't many suitable side characters with personalities, so the choice is pretty meh. I guess Chiharu, because she's everyone's secret darling.

Amen to that
She paired up with Katawako as her best friend?

[delta]

If you could make a route with any side character (Naomi, Yuuko, etc.; Misha excluded), who would it be and why?

[22:08:34] <!Delta_Kurshiva> that is a pretty stupid question because you are one of the very few guys that ACTUALLY could do that
[22:09:03] <!Delta_Kurshiva> so the answer is "we could and are not doing it because it's none of them"
[22:09:25] <!Aura> yeah I took it to mean
[22:09:33] <!Aura> "if you were forced to..."
[22:10:17] <!Aura> should've probably added that to the reply though

[Atario]

[22:09:25] <!Aura> yeah I took it to mean
[22:09:33] <!Aura> "if you were forced to..."

Or possibly "If it took zero effort…".

[Aura]

Even if it did take literally zero effort, I wouldn't have added any routes to KS. Raita drew five girls, not six, seven or twelve.

[CoffeeDrive]

Even if it did take literally zero effort, I wouldn't have added any routes to KS. Raita drew five girls, not six, seven or twelve.

Was that also the reasoning behind no misha route? Since the original sketch contained no reference of a bubbly pink haired girl?

[Aura]

Well also two other considerations: too much extra work, and she obviously couldn't be a romantic interest for Hisao. These are somewhat secondary though, if we REALLY REALLY wanted to do it, we could've. We didn't want to.