Katawa Shoujo Act 1 Preview feedback thread

[Fundefined]

Rin Arc:

She's being awfully quiet. I wonder if she's in pains.

Singular or Plural pain?

[ChaosEngine]

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

*Facepalm* That makes much more sense. Sorry.

[some /v/irgin]

Well, I just played the game for the first time, and I'll give you an idea what I think. I want to preface this with a few things though;
1. I am not really what you would call a weaboo. I've watched a couple of what you would call the exceptional animes (NGE, Cowboy Bebop, Gurren Lagann, etc.) and NGE is the only one I've watched to completion. Most aren't even close.
2.This would not only be the first Hentai game I've played, but the first dating game or visual novel.
3. As you can probably surmise, I found out about this through 4chan, /v/ specifically.

I'm under the impression that since you intend to release the game for free, this game is essentially "by weaboos, for weaboos" but I figure you might appreciate the opinion of a guy on the outside regardless.

I played the Shizune line, because I found her most interesting out of the others. This is gonna be a commentary between random commentary and criticism, so I'm just going to start stating random points here.

-I read when I skimmed the first page that someone classified her as Tsundere. From what i've gathered on what that means, I don't think that's true. She's very aggressive and assertive, but I never, ever, got the impression that she is trying to make it look like she dislikes you; in fact, her and Misha seem to be constantly coming up with thinly-veiled attempts to spend more time with you. It's a kind of competitively playful; Reminds me of someone I've dated before.
- I may be partial since Shizune's personality reminds me of someone, but the writing for her line seemed a bit more interesting than the writing for most of the other characters. I had barely any interaction with Hanoko, so I can't really say much, but the only other one I might have considered is Lilly.
- That said, the writing for the Shizune line was enough to get me to play through the entire act in one sitting.
-I don't really have any point of reference, but the lack of choices and interactivity was a bit disappointing to me. Having some choices come up a bit more often would be good.
-I agree with something else I also skimmed; It's hard to tell when Misha is translating for Shizune sometimes, and when she's speaking for herself. This may be on purpose, as is seems the line gets blurred quite often though.
- Music: Although not annoying in any way, the tracks do seem to get repeated pretty often. This may get fixed as you have more time to make more tracks, but it's still worth mentioning.
- This hearkens back to the "by weaboos, for weaboos" thing, but for some reason I found it a bit strange that the game took place in Japan despite being developed in the US. I know this is clearly modeled after japanese hentai visual novels, but this disappointed me slightly. Maybe it was because I assume all the Japanese-made ones take place in Japan; this one would be different. It wasn't too bad however; I was reminded of the fact maybe 2-3 times max, so it didn't bother me much.

Overall, I was very impressed with it, especially for a project essentially created by 4chan's patrons. There's very little for me to criticize; the only way I can see a person having a major problem with this thing is if they had completely different expectations about what this was supposed to be.

[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

Oh God..... did you know something?

[cpl_crud]

- This hearkens back to the "by weaboos, for weaboos" thing, but for some reason I found it a bit strange that the game took place in Japan despite being developed in the US. I know this is clearly modeled after japanese hentai visual novels, but this disappointed me slightly. Maybe it was because I assume all the Japanese-made ones take place in Japan; this one would be different. It wasn't too bad however; I was reminded of the fact maybe 2-3 times max, so it didn't bother me much.

Overall, I was very impressed with it, especially for a project essentially created by 4chan's patrons. There's very little for me to criticize; the only way I can see a person having a major problem with this thing is if they had completely different expectations about what this was supposed to be.

Just a quick note (only because I get irked at beign called American): the majority of teh devs are actually Australian or European. Yes, there are some Americans, but I don't think you could attribute this game to any one nation.

I could go on but I'd break the flow, and this thread is more of a learning tool for us than a place for us to correct you all...

[Yuril]

One question, though - does Lilly no longer play the violin? That was honestly one of my favourite things about her.

This is the one and only thing I really missed from the early demo. Everything else is far superior, but I would love to see this re-added.

[RyuuseiDate]

A couple more random thoughts I had.

One: If possible, more CGs would be nice. Interesting CGs are half the reason I play ADVs and visnovels at all, and the tiny handful the demo has for a good 3 hours (for me, and I'm a fast reader) of reading material made me a little sad. Of course, this is all up to how hard the artists feel like working on a volunteer project.

Two: Hisao dying(?) in the Kenji Bad End felt a little unnecessary and forced. I mean, its already bad enough having to spend the entire school festival with Kenji. Falling off the roof afterwards is just insult to injury, and a sudden player death like that feels out of place in this kind of VN to me. There are other ways you could cut the game off at this point, if thats the plan... but at the moment I'm running on far too little sleep to give examples. =.= WHY AM I EVEN POSTING THIS.

[some /v/irgin]

- This hearkens back to the "by weaboos, for weaboos" thing, but for some reason I found it a bit strange that the game took place in Japan despite being developed in the US. I know this is clearly modeled after japanese hentai visual novels, but this disappointed me slightly. Maybe it was because I assume all the Japanese-made ones take place in Japan; this one would be different. It wasn't too bad however; I was reminded of the fact maybe 2-3 times max, so it didn't bother me much.

Overall, I was very impressed with it, especially for a project essentially created by 4chan's patrons. There's very little for me to criticize; the only way I can see a person having a major problem with this thing is if they had completely different expectations about what this was supposed to be.

Just a quick note (only because I get irked at beign called American): the majority of teh devs are actually Australian or European. Yes, there are some Americans, but I don't think you could attribute this game to any one nation.

I could go on but I'd break the flow, and this thread is more of a learning tool for us than a place for us to correct you all...

Yeah, I had caught myself, but I had already posted the damn thing and was too lazy to post again at the time. No offense intended. I guess i just kind of used it as a catchall for the western world.

[ojisan]

I found this game via the Renpy site. What an excellent game. The characters seemed so well thought out and the artwork was so beautiful. I originally posted these comments on the Renpy forum, but due to lack of feedback, decided to post it here (when I found out about this forum).

I do have a few language and cultural quibbles. I used to live in Japan for several years and my wife is Japanese, and there are some minor cultural flaws that just seem to jump out at me. I stress the word "minor" but nonetheless, they could be improved.

1) The names of some of the characters seem extremely odd and sound harsh to my ear. I did google searches in Japanese, and found no reference to some of these names. If the character names are already set, then no need to change them, but since this is still a developmental release, here are my suggestions:

Iwanako - was she named after a fish (Whitespotted char)? This seems to be a very unusual name, unless you knew someone with that name. The equivalent would be a Japanese making a game about life in an English-speaking country with a character named "Fishette" or "Char".
http://www.sustainablesushi.net/the-fish/iwana/

Ibarazaki - Rare name. Googled it in Japanese, and a link to this game came up. But this is a quibble.

Mikado - again a very rare name. The Japanese wiki has translated it as 御門. I did a google search and found almost nobody with that name. Note that the Japanese wiki has also translated "Misha" 椎名 as reading "Shiina".

Muto - 武藤　should be spelled "Mutou" if you are going to spell one of the character's names as Lily Satou

Hakamichi - This could also be read as "road to the grave" (墓道). The Japanese wiki has translated it using different characters (羽加道) but reading it in roman characters, I still keep thinking "Graveroad" (墓道). I bet the Japanese players will choose her route to see some sort of gory ending or such. That's what I was expecting when I chose her path...

Nomiya - It can also read "pub"　（飲み屋） in Japanese. Perhaps this is an intentional choice, but it just sounds like "Mr. Pub" to my ears.

Yamaku is the name of an inn in Japan. Other than that, I found no other places or people with that name. It sounds like a very rare name for a school.
http://www.valley.ne.jp/~sakaitky/
http://www.naganoken.jp/100meizan/list/ ... page&id=18

2) When characters (such as the nurse and Hisao) first meet, don't you think they should bow? It's still very western and unusual in Japan to shake hands. That aspect just seemed so strange to me.

3) The game Risk - may be too alien for Japanese players of this game. Why not substitute "go" or "shogi"? But then, those games may be too old school. When I was attending a Japanese university, I saw students playing "Uno" in the back of the class while the professor was lecturing.

4) The outside of the teahouse is, in the photo, actually a ramen shop. Photoshop it. Or, I will be in Japan this summer visiting my friends, relatives and in-laws and I can send a photo of a teahouse or a "kissaten" (coffehouse).

5) Turkey sandwich? Why not make it a yoshoku (Japanese-style Western food) like "omu-rice" or "croquettes"? A Kissaten may be a better setting rather than a teahouse.
http://www.seriouseats.com/2008/03/hist ... of-we.html

6) Sometimes, there is just too much dialogue going on in the Shizune/Misha path, and my thumb got sore from constantly hitting the space key.

7) I know this won't be a popular suggestion, but could the final product have no hentai (or at least be PG rated with just naughty hints of it)? It would just kill the mood of the game for graphic hentai to happen in the end, and I'd like young teens to play this game so they can learn to look past one's appearances or handicaps. I see the potential for this game to be so much more than just a simple dating game.

Overall a good game, and I ended up with the Shizune ending (66% completion), and I look forward to discovering the other endings. Congrats to the developers for their hard work and a job well done. Truly impressive!

[Fundefined]

8/10

elaborate troll post.

[hir]

Hi,

ojisan's got good points on many of these, but my impression is that this game is trying to depict Japan from non-Japanese point of view. I know (and many other Japanese would understand) that there would be some sort of discrepancy with the realities happening in Japan. I would say depiction in KS is very well done. There are oddities, but I felt it not worth pointing out most of those, because that difference is part of the game which I think I (we maybe?) can genuinely accept and enjoy.

But then it depends on how authentic you want KS to be. If you want this to be perfect, then I'm willing to help.

Japanese VNs are already loaded with uniquely weird & improvised names. Those are for the pursuit of cuteness, but KS apparently has not gone too deep into that direction.

So just my 2 cents on Japanese names & stuffs...

Iwanako: As ojisan says, Iwana is a fish. I guess Aura is aware of this so will leave this to the team.
Ibarazaki: May be rare, but looks real enough and acceptable bearing it's a surname.
Mikado: Not really a girl's name. Mikado reminds me more of 帝, which is emperor. Well she's Misha in the game so still no big deal.
Hakamichi: The sound does resemble 墓(tomb), and this would also be rare as a surname, but 羽加道 should be good enough as a disambiguation.
Muto & Lily: Consistency issue. Left to the team.
Lily: I meant to ask this earlier, but is this リリー or リリ? リリー sounds more natural to me since it ends with 'y'.
Nomiya: 野宮 is perfectly OK as a surname, and also as a location name.
Yamaku: I guess 山久 is OK enough for locations.

Shaking hands with Seniors: I didn't really notice that one, but come to think of it ojisan has a point.
This too would be an example of Western / Japanese mixture.

Tea house and ラーメン: I did point out this one earlier. I couldn't resist.

[Parody]

10 of 10 Points

First Visual Novel I have ever read/ watched, so I can't compare it to any other, but it's just great.
It has a great story and many choices lead to so many different scenes. The characters fit in the story and so on.

[Khaos]

Take it easy...
For example, half of the "german" names I hear in anime aren't actually german names but just names that somehow sound like that to non-german people.
It's completely okay to have non-commen or strange japanese names in there, this is not a japanese game...and I wonder what the japanese would say, if we started butchering with their map to make a "Japan" like the "Europe" in Valkyria Chronicles...

[Fidelas]

I just kind of assumed that Yamaku and the surrounding town was heavily western influenced, hence the handshaking and turkey sandwiches.

[PCJedi]

I just kind of assumed that Yamaku and the surrounding town was heavily western influenced, hence the handshaking and turkey sandwiches.

But what are the odds that the town that a western-made VN takes place in are going to be heavily western influenced? (very good, given that that's probably what the devs intended) To be honest though, it just feels too improbable to me if I suspended that bit of knowledge about the devs, and I were Hisao randomly coming to this town without any prior knowledge of it. So yeah, I think it would be better if they tried to make a few aspects a bit more Japanese, such as replacing the handshaking with bows, though it didn't bother me much personally.