Katawa Shoujo Act 1 Preview feedback thread

[Eksopl]

I just finished playing through all of it. Actually, I'm missing the scene right after Home Field Advantage, but I'll figure it out.

Overall, I liked it a lot. I've said this before on the blog and on /jp/, but I wasn't expecting something this polished and professional looking. The art is really good, too. (Muto looks out of place compared to the other characters, though. Different artist or something?)

Couple of things regarding the engine. I'm running OS X, by the way:
- I have I'm on a 2.16 Core 2 Duo and some of the effects use a bit too much CPU for no reason. It's fine if it's just for a little bit, but I hope you don't plan on doing stuff like snow and fireworks for too long, it's annoying to hear the fans start working when you're doing something that shouldn't even make your CPU budge, like playing a VN.
- Unplugging the joystick (an USB <-> Playstation adaptor, actually) made the CPU usage shoot to 100% and crashed when I clicked on an option with "error: Event queue full" on the traceback.

One thing that really disappointed me. About Shizune's route:

Shizune route bored the hell out of me. I'm glad I did that one last, otherwise I would have been immediately put off by the game. It's one hour straight of "Will you join the student council?" "I don't want to join the student council." "COME ON" "NO" "Will you work for us?" "I don't want to work for you." "We will make you work for us." "...I'm going to try and sneak my way out of this." "HAHAHA YOU CAN'T GET OUT OF THIS, WE GOT YOU" repeated ad nauseum. I kept thinking "just join the fucking Student Council already so this dumb arguing with be over," but when it finally happened, the same stuff kept happening. Which is a shame, because the Shizune ending was cute, but honestly, at that point I was just glad for it to be over, if I had to read another pointless dialogue consisting of Hisao being difficult and Misha being annoying, I would seriously fall asleep.

I doubt you're going to completely redo any of the stuff in Act 1, but seriously, don't do this sort of stuff again in the future. Don't repeat stuff over and over just to make the VN longer.

Hisao seems to be a bit too linear so far and tends to repeat the same thoughts a bit too much, but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and say he's still too hung up over the accident + transfer in the first days and hope that he'll get proper character development in the final version.

Also, here's some stuff I found.

1. "as a classroom"
2. "Knocking on his door, which"
3. Shouldn't it be "Due" instead of "Thanks?"
And then the rest is just examples of missing commas; some are debatable, one or two are particularly jarring and really break the flow of the text. I didn't take a screenshot of all the missing commas I found, because most of those are a matter of taste, anyway.

On the other hand, Rin's route had one of the best lines in a VN ever.
"I'm having my period and I need some help regarding that. However, I don't feel that our relationship is yet on the level where I could allow you to pull my underwear down in the girls' toilet even if you offer to."

Keep up the good work, I'm really looking forward to the final release.

[Brother Mojo]

Emi's hair sometimes has this weird overlap thing going on that looks really strange and probably ought to be cleaned up.

(Picture enlarged to make it easier to see)

[Guest]

Noticed when using the Auto mode feature that the text would peroidically stop displaying after every few screens unless the mouse was moved. Is that by design to get some sort of input? Though that would defeat the purpose of automatically displaying the text...

[GVman]

I loved it. All I have left one more route, too. My favorite is either Shizune or Rin.

The main problem I had was how a lot of the special effects would slow down my computer. The fireworks scene did so big time.

[Warwick]

i think this is really awsome,its most likely the best game of its kind i ever played,its alot better then "Princess Waltz" witch was made by the same people of fate/stay night.

Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong! Princess Waltz is by Pulltop. Fate/Stay Night is by Type-Moon. People compare Princess Waltz to Fate is because PW at first glance cribs so much from Fate. Iris uses a sword and dresses in the same color scheme (at least in the beginning) as Saber, and the Waltz is like a poor man's Holy Grail War.

[Lattyware]

Rather good. Congrats on a well produced item.

<3 the Linux version. One doesn't see it often.

[BcDed]

<3 the Linux version. One doesn't see it often.

I was also impressed at the inclusion of a linux version as that's what I've against all logic decided to run. I'm willing to deal with the hassles of incompatibility just because I love open source so much, the freeness is part of the reason I like this game.

[Murraymints999]

What can i say, an amazing game that i have fallen in love with.
Already metioned by NightFoxXIII i think, in that Lilly's wrist sometimes looks rather strange.
Nothing but a minor annoyance though, rather than an actual problem.
can't wait for more!

[ChaosEngine]

I had been looking forward to a demo release for this project for some time, and I'm nothing less than thrilled with it so far! It has some of the best dialog I've seen in an OELVN, and the character design is great too. I can't wait for the full version to be released!

[Guest]

Shizune's route was my favorite. Don't ask me why, I just liked it. The ending was damn strong too! I was moved to tears!

But about the ending..: Where did Misha go? She was right there, sipping her juice box and next thing you know, it's just you and Shizune having that special moment together... alone! There were only two silhouettes...

Let's hope that KS will arrive before DNF

[Jenso]

It doesn't make that much sense to me. Should it not be "Lilly never sees how quickly my palm meets my face at her sly accusation"?

I'm not a big fan of the word 'never' there, since it seems to suggest that this happened in the past."

Counter argument: I loved it

What can I say, I enjoyed the demo although I'm hoping for more excitement in the upcoming release to feed my unquenchable thirst for drama.
On that note I wonder if I'm being too pushy, but the "sad" tracks felt a bit forced after their initial use in the intro. Maybe silence would serve better for the less cheerful
atmosphere or cutting back and using a single one so that "Rain" will be saved for special occasions. its like with F/sn "Ever-present feelings" isn't really that emotional, but the tears become a conditioned response.
K, done being full of myself now.

[Redundant Guest]

Real impressive for a demo, praise goes to the dev team.

*Art is great. It's easy to see that most portraits and scenes were drawn by different people, but they still fit together nicely. Favorite portraits are Shizune, Misha and Rin. Pantyshot in the Lilly vs Shizune scene felt kind of awkward though.

*Soundtrack isn't anything amazing, but it's certainly not bad. Another Day, Daylight, Out of the Loop and Parity are my favorite tracks, great stuff. Some tracks don't loop that well, but that could easily be fixed with some fading.

*Writing's great. I've heard people complain about there being too much text, but I think it's just fine.

*All the characters are just lovely, I don't think I truly dislike any of them. Shizune is on the border of slight dislike because she doesn't get along with many people, why can't all the girls just get along~?

Anyway, I completely loved this, wasted my whole Friday just reading through the whole demo. Great work!



Oh, and please remove Lelouch in the classroom for the final release, or at least properly draw him, like you did with Haruki, instead of copy-pasting him into the scene. It just looks bad and distracting as it is right now.

[Myself]

I came here having never heard of this VN and not expecting it to actually be any good.
Wow was I mistaken!
The game is simply amazing and to me is just as good(if not better) then most official VNs.
So far my favorite character is Shizune because of her tsundere like personality.
Anyway I don't really have anything to add that others haven't said already so I'll just leave with, I can't wait for the full game!

[guest]

Misha is far less annoying than I feared. When I first heard the 4LS team was introducing an original female character to the cast, it was a big disappointment. Thanks.

Also, I'd like to compliment the multiple artists for being able to work in sync and produce extremely consistent character portraits.

Oh, and are you going to release the source code once the project is finished? If not, can I at least have Rin's theme in .wav or .mp3 format?

[Aura]

Misha is far less annoying than I feared. When I first heard the 4LS team was introducing an original female character to the cast, it was a big disappointment. Thanks.

Also, I'd like to compliment the multiple artists for being able to work in sync and produce extremely consistent character portraits.

Oh, and are you going to release the source code once the project is finished? If not, can I at least have Rin's theme in .wav or .mp3 format?

http://katawa-shoujo.com/samples.php

We are not going to release the game code.