Katawa Shoujo Forums

Member22 wrote:

neumanproductions wrote:M22: You can delete your own posts you know. The devs don't need to do it for you.

I know how to, but it doesn't let me, it says that post cannot be deleted idk why..

You can't delete them, once someone has replied to them.

Minister of Gloom wrote:And if we are already on the topic, since this is a "What would you want to happen" thread, how many of you really, actually want Misha to die? I mean, sure she's annoying but... that's being a bit mean, isn't it?

I don't want Misha to die, that would suck. I know that Shizune's the one with the path, but I think in real life, Misha would be a lot easier to deal with than Shizune.

and thinking about all the death stuff, I don't think Hisao should die, that would also suck and it would kind of make it a real downer ending. but thinking about it, it's possible that there could be a "good end" where Hisao and whatever girl he's with break up, 'cause they know it's not going to work out, but he walks away okay with it, knowing that he's a better person for what's happened. not my first choice, but that would be better than a gloom'n'doom ending.

still hoping for happy endings, though.

Happy endings for the win!

No, seriously, I'm ok if the devs throw in a little realism into any of the endings, but there has to be at least one storybook happy ending or people (like me) will be disappointed.

Unbreakable optimism is one of the core ingredients for romance, dontcha know?

Well...that and the fact that a lot of romance stories include a lot of emo-ness before the main characters give up and confess their love for each other.

Several alternate endings are all I can think of off the top of my head. Like...

Drunken Buddies Akira ending
Scarf of Love Kenji ending
WTF? Penor!? Hideaki ending
Various remotely possible harem endings
Wincest threesome Hakamichi ending
Wincest Sato ending
Wincest threesome Sato ending
Manly picnic reduex ending
Semi-awkward manly picnic ending
Hideaki manly picnic ending
Assisted suicide Misha ending
Double suicide Misha ending
Hideaki Kenji Threesome ending
Feminists take over the world! ending
The glorious men triumph! ending
Whore Hisao ending
Pimp Hisao

Actually, when I think about it, none of those have to be endings... They just were when I thought of them.

qinop wrote:Several alternate endings are all I can think of off the top of my head. Like...

Drunken Buddies Akira ending
Scarf of Love Kenji ending
WTF? Penor!? Hideaki ending
Various remotely possible harem endings
Wincest threesome Hakamichi ending
Wincest Sato ending
Wincest threesome Sato ending
Manly picnic reduex ending
Semi-awkward manly picnic ending
Hideaki manly picnic ending
Assisted suicide Misha ending
Double suicide Misha ending
Hideaki Kenji Threesome ending
Feminists take over the world! ending
The glorious men triumph! ending
Whore Hisao ending
Pimp Hisao

Actually, when I think about it, none of those have to be endings... They just were when I thought of them.

What about Female clone hisao ending? for the selfcest you know.

OK, having read through this thread, I think it's time for me to get cracking on some mental diarrhea:

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I guess I should start simple:

At some point in the Shizune path, I want to see Shizune and Hisao alone together when Hisao has another minor attack of his condition, causing Shizune, in a fit of panic to princess carry Hisao to the nurse's room, in plain view of everyone, even though he recovers, and starts openly complaining about it.

"WAHAHAHA! Gender roles are for the weak, Hicchan!"

---

Something that rather bothered me in the Shizune path, however, was the way that Shizune reacted to Hanako as an enemy just for being Lilly's friend. I'd kind of like a scene where Hisao can somehow win a bet (playing a board game... I somehow think Settlers of Catan or something would be a good one), and thereby force Shizune to try to get along with some of the other girls as a penalty for losing the bet. I recognize Hanako is a massive longshot, but it would be nice if you could somehow get Shizune to not be hated by ALL the other girls besides Misha. Plus, the entire ability to actually make some choices that would lead to you winning some competition with Shizune as an optional path would be fun.

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This one, I know is a total pipe dream, but I was talking about how annoying it was the way that Hisao reacted to certain things, and I got to thinking about this... It's always been annoying to me how there are all these games (like, say, Bioware or Bethesda games,) where you are supposedly capable of choosing what sort of character you are playing, but all the decisions wind up making you basically have a choice between two or three different kinds of people: Mercenary!Hero, NeedlesslyViolent!Hero, and ForTheEvulz!Hero. Basically, at best, you're doing it for the money.

By contrast, I remember playing an only-partially-released-outside-of-Japan game series called Growlanzer, where the game actually had a personality meter with about 8 different dimensions in it. You could make choices that made you hot-headed vs. coolly analytical, or earnest and forthright vs. being snarky and sarcastic. You even had a choice of whether or not to be a total womanizer, and a separate "gay meter", where you could make choices that imply you are into men, as well (as these are separate, you can essentially be bi), and has a part where an assassin who is dressed entirely in black leather belts, giant knives, and some goggles comes after you, and if you have acquired enough gay points by then, can choose an option to say that he looks FAAAABULOUS! I didn't pick the "gay" options, but sort of wished I had by that point, because it was just such a hilarious thing to see show up as an option. Which also brings up something else: You shouldn't be able to always choose all the options if it goes completely against the sorts of choices you have made up to that point - there has to be some consistency in your character. There's even a "smart" personality trait, where the team asks your opinions on what the enemy is planning, and you can make insightful guesses, or stupid, funny ones, at which point the little girl who's the most mature character just sighs and tells you the right answer.

As an example of what it looks like, in another of the games, there's a point where you are leaving a cave, and a monster shoots a beam out of its mouth that knocks a boulder down to close off the cave as you are exiting. You get a choice of what to say when the boulder is coming down, which goes something like, 1. "AAAAAH! BOULDER! LOOK OUT!" 2. "This place isn't safe." 3. "..." *just jump out of the way* 4. "*sigh* This just isn't my day..." Basically, it doesn't really change anything in the game what you pick, (which is really unfortunate, as the only major effect of that entire system is that certain skills are available only to certain personality traits, so hotheaded characters get another "hit things really hard" skill, while cool characters get a team buff skill, but I would like something that does more to impact the game,) but it does at least give you a real sense that your character is customized based upon what you have chosen.

So, bringing this back to KS (finally), something that would really knock my socks off is if the game actually let you pick a few different personality types for Hisao, and actually have that impact your relations with the girls. While some personality types just wouldn't mesh with different characters, it would be infinitely cooler if you really had a choice if you dealt with Shizune by being just as competitive as she is, and playing it like her rival and lover at the same time (especially by being cutthroat and emotionless, analyzing her moves with utter paranoia, like you were always part of "the game"), or being the tsundere in the relationship (emotionally reacting to everything like in the demo), or just acquiescing to whatever crazy schemes she has as her functional henchman (a sort of Kyon-Haruhi relationship).

You could also have something where the Rin path has you developing different artworks, depending on the attitude you decide to take during your relationship with her. You just make something weird enough looking that it just looks "arty" because it's incomprehensible if you're just going through the motions, or maybe you do something all acid-trippy if you try to "see the world through the eyes of Rin" or something...

I think it would really help the game stand out as not just some "hey look, a garage-band version of a Japanese VN", but as something that actually tries to take the genre in a little different direction.

The problem is, that having a different personality also changes how people react to you, so you'd basically have to have multiple versions of each scene, which would make the amount of text grow exponentially without any significant increase in story content.
I'd rather have one good long story than five short ones that are basically the same anyway.

The thing is Hisao really isn't a blank slate but rather a complete character of his own. That is one of the problems with any true VN because you cannot make the character have a blank personality that the player generates because the writing and programming can only get so large before it becomes worthless or to troublesome.
VN's are more like an interactive story book so its the author's thougths that are poured in while the reader interprets those thoughts and emotions from their own view point. It's the interpretation, not the actual outcome that makes a VN truely different and important to the individual who reads it.

Grant it, I do like games that pull every personaility/action aspect like Fable and I really want to see how Epic Mickey pans out (audience points and snickers at me) but for those of us who want to get the 100%, that would be a little out of our reach forcing different personalities to the PoV character.

In a way, Hisao does have separate personalities. It's based on what girl he's after, because he has a different writer for each girl. Each writer has their own interpretation of who Hisao is, and how he reacts to the world. Though they have done work to internally synchronize this, each writer will, consciously or not, inject their own spin on who Hisao is.

Mirage_GSM wrote:The problem is, that having a different personality also changes how people react to you, so you'd basically have to have multiple versions of each scene, which would make the amount of text grow exponentially without any significant increase in story content.
I'd rather have one good long story than five short ones that are basically the same anyway.

Only in extreme situations, which would basically be entirely different scenes you would only see following what basically amounts to a separate route, would you have to write entirely different scripts, which would basically be where the story would split off into several branches where your choices would basically give you 5 or 6 different routes per girl instead of just 2.

I used that "monster knocks a boulder down, and you pick how to react to it" example because it shows something about how the choices can be put into a game: Whether you say "AAAH! BOULDER!" or "*sigh* it's just not my day", it doesn't change the fact that as soon as the text box goes away from when you say that, you have 1.5 seconds to move out of the boulder's way (or game over), and then you have to fight the monster, and none of the script is altered based upon what you said immediately before, it only changes that one line you get to say, and basically just asks you to pick your reaction to a boulder falling down at you, and exists just to put a point or two in the personality trait that corresponds to the type of response you picked. In other words, there's no reason you would have to cut the script into a third of its length to deal with most of these "how do you react" questions.

For further example of what that looks like in the game, just look at your choice of talking to Hanako in the library for the first time: It doesn't really change the story much either choice you choose, it just adds a point to your Hanako/Lilly score if you choose the "sorry for interrupting" choice. There's about 10 lines of text that change, if that.

When it does get to the point where it's splitting you off on an entirely different path because you've put in a completely different way of reacting to the characters, and how they act, then, yes, it may be an entirely different script, and maybe the Act 5 might be shorter when you get to it after the fork in the road... but that's sort of the point, as now you have a different story that you're now more involved in because you've actually got a main character you feel invested in, as well as the heroine of that path.

The way that you choose whichever girl's path you go down is really the best analogue of this, as you start off with one path, where the choices only give you invisible points to one or the other choice, then you start getting options to see scenes that you only get if you have enough points in one path or another, and then you eventually get locked into an entirely separate path. If, for some reason, there is some finite amount of text that will fit into the game, and there will always be that amount of text, it certainly wouldn't cut the game's length by a third to insert three different possible ways the relationships can go. Like the choice of which path you are taking, it should be somewhat gradual, and give you a chance to change your mind, if it somewhat complicates things, before locking you in on your choice.

To try to make why I ask for this a little more clear, I just think that, of all the characters in the game, Hisao was the one I liked the least. He was not only the most mopey, angsty, least-interesting of the characters, but worse, he was supposed to be "me" while doing it, and I found myself constantly frustrated by how unlike me he was. He's like that because there is no effort put into really making him interesting, because he's not supposed to be interesting, you're just supposed to empathize with him just because he's the narrator, and therefore, doesn't need to be interesting, you're stuck with him, anyway. You can also see it in the way the fan art and fan fiction treat Hisao - only interesting in as far as what happens to him, and the character whose traits are the most utterly malleable, going from sex god to sex-crazed loser to gimp in a flash. You can't change some of the fundamental aspects of most of the other characters without people rejecting a work. You can't have a mopey Emi or a perpetually angry, lucid Rin without people rejecting it as not the same character, but you can do that to Hisao, because the only thing that is fundamental to Hisao is that he is a humanoid McGuffin, he's male, and the girls want him, but those are the only properties he really holds, and everything else about him is completely fungible.

Finally, G3n0c1de is correct, Hisao has wholly different personalities when he is talking with different girls. Just look at the difference between Rin-Hisao and Shizune-Hisao when you read the demo version of the game. Rin-Hisao is aimless and despondent, while Shizune-Hisao is impetuous and frankly a little childish, but still aggressive and competitive. Frankly, while I like Rin a bit, I liked her path the least just because I could stand Rin's path's Hisao the least.

I don't know about that, I guess it's a very subjective thing. I couldn't help but empathize with Hisao even when he's being mopey and angsty because I believe that, deep inside, most people are. I know for a fact that I am. And Hisao being "honest" about it to us (even if he doesn't actually know that there are a bunch of people out there reading his thoughts), or even to himself, if you will, made me really appreciate him.
But again, maybe it's just me.

Yes, doing something like that would be relatively easy, if one cared to do some choice every few minutes that had no impact whatsoever on the story... Every choice is something that removes the reader from the story, so I think choices should be used sparingly and only if the are important.
Also what you wrote earlier...

By contrast, I remember playing an only-partially-released-outside-of-Japan game series called Growlanzer, where the game actually had a personality meter with about 8 different dimensions in it. You could make choices that made you hot-headed vs. coolly analytical, or earnest and forthright vs. being snarky and sarcastic.

...sounded like you wanted to make the choices affect Hisao's character, i.e make three romantic choices and Hisao starts bringing flowers to every date (exaggeration) or something like that. That is what I was referring to in my earlier post, because I can't see any of the girls reacting the same way to a romantic Hisao than to an aloof one, thus requiring different sets of conversation.

Wraith_Magus wrote:For further example of what that looks like in the game, just look at your choice of talking to Hanako in the library for the first time: It doesn't really change the story much either choice you choose, it just adds a point to your Hanako/Lilly score if you choose the "sorry for interrupting" choice. There's about 10 lines of text that change, if that.

Underestimated by 300%. I'll leave it at this.

Silentcook wrote:

Wraith_Magus wrote:For further example of what that looks like in the game, just look at your choice of talking to Hanako in the library for the first time: It doesn't really change the story much either choice you choose, it just adds a point to your Hanako/Lilly score if you choose the "sorry for interrupting" choice. There's about 10 lines of text that change, if that.

Underestimated by 300%. I'll leave it at this.

Choosing the "right" choice for that scene should net you the "Chocolate" scene later in the game, imo.

Mirage_GSM wrote:Yes, doing something like that would be relatively easy, if one cared to do some choice every few minutes that had no impact whatsoever on the story... Every choice is something that removes the reader from the story, so I think choices should be used sparingly and only if the are important.

Actually, I'd say the exact opposite of that: The less choice the "player" of this game has, the less involved the player is in the story.

I don't know about you, but I rather enjoy the notion that I have some control and customization, and feeling like I'm just a balloon being held over the shoulder of a lowest common denominator protagonist is fairly off-putting for me. I'd rather the ability to go through the game, make different choices, and see little extra things be a little bit different, even if the overall story is generally the same.

It's also the impression that I just plain want to fight against what Hisao is thinking or saying or doing at any given time. When he's complaining about how he got to skip class to eat a free lunch and enjoy his time with Shizune in one of the scenes, I just want to slap him, and try to take over control of the story because, no, that ISN'T me. I don't think like that, and don't like being told I that I do think like that.

Yes, maybe if Hisao was his own character, you would have a great point about complaining about not being able to have more input, and that you were just watching actors in a play over which you had no control, but he's not. This is a game where Hisao is basically the vehicle for the player to vicariously experience the story, and where he has a modular personality because he is meant for the players to all identify with him simply because the camera is sitting on his shoulder.

The problem is that frankly, there isn't just one personality that fits all.

Maybe I just want to play a different game than you, but yes, I think it's worth it.

EDIT: And how much did it break you out of the story to have to pick whether you introduced yourself in class or said "hi" or "sorry for interrupting" to Hanako in the demo? Those are both choices of exactly the same mold as the ones I'm talking about. Should we not have choices at all?

Silentcook wrote:Underestimated by 300%. I'll leave it at this.

Is it? Hmm... I guess Yuuko says something different following Hanako fleeing the same, and Lilly going after her the same, but memory doesn't serve to come up with 40 lines of actually different text. Does this count lines that are just repeated in two different scripts? I guess I'll have to load the game up and look through that again...