Katawa Shoujo Act 1 Preview feedback thread

[yoru]

With Mac, you can try play every Nscripter game.

Like:
Tsukihime, Umineko no Naku Koro ni and Higuraki no Naku koro ni.

Just download Onscripter for Mac and put the Onscripter.app into the folder where the .exe of the game is.

Should work most of the time.

[GMKGoat]

First things first! I would like to shake the hand of the guy who did your music. Every time Rin showed up I had to stop and listen to her music. Superb!
I'd say I put in about 6-8 hours of playing over two days to get 100%, with Rin's path being the hardest. First time through, trying to get the hang of things, I managed to stumble upon Emi's route. Was a little disappointed with such a blunt ending, but I knew there were other options. It really took a few minutes of thinking about how it was supposed to go, but it was definitely manageable.
Couldn't help smiling on Hanako's path when she mentions the floor tiles. I thought I was the only one who did that. xD
From what I understand, Act 1 is just the tip of the iceburg? I can't wait to see how the rest of the story unfolds. The suspense!

[Envy]

You guys can always use critique from someone who you know isn't here to fellate you.

Now, I'm not going to cover spelling and grammar because you can do that yourself.

The general presentation is decent and I'll throw in the same comment towards the code work as well because there's not much to say about either. The various menus and displays all work fine and fail to be jarring. Running natively on three major operating systems is also a bonus. It would however, be nice if the scene skip allowed you to skip entire scenes at a time in the same way as FSN or whatever.

The direction is very good, I have absolutely no complaints about that matter and was highly impressed by the lead up and the short video at the start, which I guess I'm going to attribute to good direction. Seriously, don't change any part of that.

The music is very good as well. I'm not going to go through and give my thoughts on every single track but it is my opinion that some are better than others. A few tracks need a little work and I notice Blue123 has the habit of including... What's the word? Shit, I don't know. Lots of notes lined up and crammed into one bar. A spasm of sound that often sounds out of place and unnecessary in a track. That doesn't mean that you aren't doing a good job and I'm sure you're learning all the time, Blue123.

Writers. The level of writing is decent and of a reading level that is suitable for everyone, I assume that was your intention however, you lot really need to start communicating more. There is a lack of consistency that is a problem I foretold when I first become interested in this project and I was assured that it would be addressed as a matter of critical importance, clearly that commitment fell through somewhere.

Lilly and Hanako's scenes are good enough but aren't too distinguished from each other. I understand that this is because they are BFF but I still feel it's worth mentioning. I have no complaints about either of their personalities. Rin has a great path, great ending and a good character, no complaints at all. Emi is fantastically underwhelming with her amazingly boring Act 1 ending, I mean, wow. Shizune, barring all my numerous complaints about making her short, lacking in bust (if it doesn't jiggle when she signs then you're doing it wrong) and pretty damn genki, was my favourite path. She had an excellent Act 1 ending that did a good job of not being forced at all.

I can't think of anything else. Oh wait, the background graphics are good and all, I did find it kind of funny that a Japanese izakaya turned into a Chinese teahouse though. The artwork as well was fine but I felt that it was a little inconsistent, compare Muto and Nurse-kun's sprite to just about any other artwork featured and you can see the difference in quality.

[Ayla]

I'm getting really OCD about that damned 2%. i CAN'T get it!! aaaahhhh! (at least it means i'm playing through the game again. a lot. )

[Guest]

I'm getting really OCD about that damned 2%. i CAN'T get it!! aaaahhhh! (at least it means i'm playing through the game again. a lot. )

which one are you missing? (Between which two is the missing one?) I did the same thing.

[Ayla]

I'm getting really OCD about that damned 2%. i CAN'T get it!! aaaahhhh! (at least it means i'm playing through the game again. a lot. )

which one are you missing? (Between which two is the missing one?) I did the same thing.

between Home Field Advantage and No Recovery, it's the easiest one to miss apparently. I've played every combo i can think of and still can't get it.

[Guest]

I'm getting really OCD about that damned 2%. i CAN'T get it!! aaaahhhh! (at least it means i'm playing through the game again. a lot. )

which one are you missing? (Between which two is the missing one?) I did the same thing.

between Home Field Advantage and No Recovery, it's the easiest one to miss apparently. I've played every combo i can think of and still can't get it.

I posted some hints and a solution earlier on how to get that scene. I guess you didn't see them, though, so here they are again:

any hints on how to get the missing scene?

Little hint:The events in the "library" menu seem to be sorted by timeline. Thus, both of the adjacent events are different things that could be happening at the same time. What's an odd combination of choices you could make that would make something interesting happen at that time?Big hint:Three pushy people are involved, though not necessarily at the same time.

If you can't figure it out from those, here's just plain how to do it:Stay on the Shizune/Misha path for most of the game, but then also agree to exercising and try to keep up with Rin.

[IndyElsdragon]

I can't say that I'm a fan of visual novels, but I'm really impressed with the demo. One question, though - does Lilly no longer play the violin? That was honestly one of my favourite things about her.

Lilly used to play the Violin in a previous version?!?!!??!?! PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE bring this back! That suites her character perfectally and gives it a whole diffrent level of depth.

[goldblade0]

Small things from me here. There are random odd capitalizations here and there in here that I noticed. Also I think that obento should be used in the first Rin scene instead of box lunch. Just seems out of place. The game also is hard on computers when using effects. The fireworks in particular. There were 2 problems I noticed. First is that the fireworks look more like there dissolving inwardly instead of outwardly. Looks odd. 2nd off is that the transparency around the fireworks is sometimes visible depending on the flashes.

Oh yeah 1 bug I noticed is that if you Alt+Tab out of it when in windowed mode then Alt+Tab back in space wont advance in the scene and Enter will set it back to fullscreen.

[RyuuseiDate]

Registered just to give some feedback. Like most people, I was pretty leery about this games concept when I first heard of it. Then I did a little research out of morbid curiosity and discovered it was pretty much being done in completely good taste. Morbid curiosity gave way to just plain curiosity, and here I am. As of this writing I've finished every path in Act 1 except Lilly's.

I'll be honest. I was sold from the first few sentences when Hisao has his first heart attack. The opening sequence of the inside of the hospital was the perfect final touch. THANK YOU, both for using your concept tastefully, and for proving that you don't have to be Japanese to make a visual novel/ADV that looks, sounds, and reads good. "Do what you can't because you can" indeed. (Except theres no damn reason at all why us 'gaijin' can't, we just don't)

I should also say the art quality is remarkable, and a world above most anything I see out of the Japanese doujin game industry.

As for criticisms.. there were a couple Hisao narration lines that read a little awkwardly and could've used some more careful editing, but I'm an idiot and didn't take note of which ones. Someone mentioned previously that the paths feel a little inconsistent from each other, but I don't think thats really a problem. After all, the 'endings' we see here aren't actually endings at all, and from my long experience with ADVs and VNs, the more distinct the routes are from each other the better. So Hisao starts falling for Shizune sooner than he does Emi? Not really a problem. It'd actually be pretty cheesy if he always fell for someone on the school festival on the dot. One thing I do wish could be changed is the name... as someone who actually speaks passable Japanese, its an extremely jarring title that totally gives the wrong impression. But its surely too late at this point, even if the name hadn't been defined in the source page. ._.

This may be a Ren'py problem, but I think the gallery and library are a little bugged. I don't see the CG of Lilly, Hisao, and Hanako sitting together anywhere in the gallery (I ended up using the library to rip it, because I like that picture), and Lilly's ending opened up in the library when I'd only seen Hanakos. I haven't watched it particularly closely for scenes I haven't seen popping up though. ...that said, the library itself is a very nice feature. So is the built-in screenshot button. For once I don't have to have a love affair with print screen and MS Paint to build myself a collection of CGs.

I really look forward to seeing this finished. If it wasn't free, I would buy it, and I'm normally a totally shameless pirate.

[PCJedi]

After doing Rin's route again, I've noticed that something looks kind of odd with her sprite at times. When she's looking to her right, she looks pretty good, but when she looks to her left, something ends up looking off with her facial expression a lot of the time. I'm not sure if it's the way her eyeshine is placed or what, but she just looks sort of she's "out of it" sometimes, if you know what I mean, and just plain bizarre at other times. Not sure if that's something others have brought up before, but it just seems kind of odd looking to me.

[ChaosEngine]

I noticed a possible art consistency issue in the Shanghai Tea House, specifically during "Detour Ahead". There is one line of Hisao narration that suggests the three of them are sitting in chairs. However, when compared with the previous gallery image, Shizune and Misha appear to be kneeling at the table, as one would expect in a tea house.

screenshot0003.png (560.41 KiB) Viewed 5326 times

"I sigh and straighten up in my chair..."

screenshot0015.png (521.3 KiB) Viewed 5327 times

Sorry if someone has pointed this out before. I haven't scoured through the whole feedback thread.

[Anon]

I can't say that I'm a fan of visual novels, but I'm really impressed with the demo. One question, though - does Lilly no longer play the violin? That was honestly one of my favourite things about her.

Lilly used to play the Violin in a previous version?!?!!??!?! PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE bring this back! That suites her character perfectally and gives it a whole diffrent level of depth.

THIS!

[Chicago Ted]

Chaos, it looks to me like they're sitting in a booth around a table.

[Mal]

Just finished all of the various endings for the demo and I have to say this is really amazing! The characters are all likeable and the story is very fun to read. It seemed to me that Shizune's ending had the most promising talk of love in it, but the others had great endings that made me go "aww!" The ramblings of Kenji are pretty funny and I hope that the guy lightens up a bit more in the later acts!

All of the environments and scene artwork are really well done, with the changes in time of day giving noticable color changes. The music also surprised me, each piece was fitting for the mood that Hisao is in.

Only other thing I can say is that I can't wait for more!