Katawa Shoujo Forums

I was never really a VN or eroge kind of guy I mostly just watched anime, But a friend of mine was and one day he told me about a soon to be h-game about cripples... needless to say i was confused and curious so i googled my way around and found KS. After confirming that this was indeed the one he was talking about i thought to myself, "This is just craziness." and clicked into the webpage to see what it was all about. After about 15 minutes of browsing i finally decided to download it to see what kind of insanity would be in a game designed with the premise of, in my friend's words, "Dating crippled girls." Up to this point i was thinking that i wanted to check out VNs in general since many of my favorite animes derived from VNs and Eroge, might as well make this my trial. worst case scenario i find it disgusting and save time in my life by not spending more time in games.

Fairly clear at this point that my expectations for this were beaten to the ground and thrown over a bridge during my first play through of act one. I still don't read VNs or play Eroge though, simply not enough time. I will be putting time aside of course to play this when the full release comes by. I came in here with low expectations, but what i found lit a fire in me and 3rd degree burned the image of the most beautiful and gentle of characters into my heart.

Weeell, first I was like meh. Then I was like, kay, lets try it. Then I was like oh gawd yes best game featuring crippled girls ever. And finally I was like, duuuuude (Rin's ending)

i don't think this topic is for "how we got here". There is already a topic for that.

the point is. How will KS affect future VNs.

I think the following will happen.

1. Future projects would use KS as a yardstick. KS did a lot of things right, and a lot of things wrong. There is something to be learned because it actually was successful. That in itself is huge.

2. It shows people, that we can do it. Freeware projects can be successful. People won't look down on fan projects near as much when one is successful. Now KS isn't the first successful freeware project but it's going to put next to Cave Story as one of the freeware that worked. That is not a small feat

3. It has the potential to change how people think about disabilites. My female friend with a disability once said, "girls like guys with a disabiliy because they pity them. Guys don't like girls with a disability because it scares them away."

Now I can say "Oh? Let me show you some really cute cripples!"

4. It can affect how disability is seen in parts of the world where it's looked down on. One of the thing that sets japan apart from america is that they really don't have amenities for people with disabilites. They discriminate on it. Rarly is a person with a disability in anime. I hope that by making it seem moe, we can slowly change that. The sex appeal is going to help that.

the following might happen

1. KS is successful enough to get the attension of a professional company. They want to buy rights to KS polish it up and sell it.
2. A Katawa Shoujo Manga comes out of this. Keep in mind that the same people that liked things like Clannad might be interested in KS.
3. Also we get tons of KS doujins at the next comket 80. (please?)

Let me dream?

Somehow, I don't think KS will have that much impact. In order for it to do those things it would have to reach a very broad audience. Or at least, a lot of people would have to hear about the project. Sure, it'll rock our worlds, but it's going to be a drop in the bucket. The problem is that the OELVN market is a niche audience of a niche audience of a niche audience (under the English VN audience, which is under the English anime audience, which is under the actual Anime subculture). We are far from mainstream. And many more people who do know about the project haven't played it 'cause cripples.

Granted, we do have a pretty decent fanbase, and when KS is released it'll make news where it can. But your point of it affecting the development of other OELVNs is interesting. These developers are the ones who will be paying attention to KS, and I have no doubt that they'll play it, and take notes.

I don't think it will do much to change the perception of the disabled. It'll probably work great on an individual basis, but this again means that the game would need to reach a large audience to change anything. This is where KS's hentai will do it no favors. The amount of people who view hentai is a lot smaller than those who don't. But this isn't a problem, this is KS's purpose. The game was not designed to do these things, it's just something that will happen because the writers are awesome.

The only way something big like a manga will happen after release is if it gets uber popular in Japan. Not likely, but you never know.

if the game is to do any of these, it would have to be insanely awesome. So good that it actually invades and captures new audiences that wouldn't have otherwise played the game. I have faith in our devs to deliver a great story, nothing more, nothing less.

Slightly different perspective:

When I came to the project I was at the height of my "music production" period of my life (as an engineer, mind you. I don't play).

I saw the project as a cool place to maybe make a differnce, and use some of the gear that I had bought to date.

I also thought that it would be cool if Rin's "Good End" involved her turning into a dolphin and going to a place that hands didn't matter. True story.

And look how it turned out...

cpl_crud wrote: I also thought that it would be cool if Rin's "Good End" involved her turning into a dolphin and going to a place that hands didn't matter. True story.

Hey, spoilers

Basically, I discovered VNs with KS. I did play Fate/Stay night before, but I started to like the genre after reading KS.

Though like a lot of people here, I read act 1 at first expecting porn (I didn't even check the game's website or anything related to it, I just downloaded it without looking)

And now I'm just waiting for the full version to come out, reading insane theories about Shizune taking over the world. Again, like a lot of people here.

cpl_crud wrote:Slightly different perspective:

I also thought that it would be cool if Rin's "Good End" involved her turning into a dolphin and going to a place that hands didn't matter. True story.

And look how it turned out...

Don't worry, you can take some comfort in the fact that this idea was used to form the basis of Misha's disability

I found out about KS from reading one of the journal entries from Megatokyo. This was back when Megatokyo was wacky fun about killing of zombie hoards with cardboard box armies and excessive ordinances as opposed to its current version as and extremely convoluted and rather confusing drama.

At the time, I had never read a visual novel and I did not know what to expect. It also helped that I was unaware that the series was connected to 4chan, which kept me from going in with any sort of assumptions or expectations. It was free, and I had an afternoon open, so I gave it a shot, and I am glad that I did.

As for how it will affect things in the future...
I want to say that this game will at least encourage more fan work outside of Japan. Doujin communities outside of Japan are rather sad for the most part, and It continues to baffle me as to why. Japan can churn out millions of fan comics and games every year (comiket) just out of their love of a series, or the medium, yet in other places, like america, independent works are terribly scarce and rarely of notable quality.
I also want to hope that KS could be a deep exploration of a difficult topic. That it might change the idea that games can't deal with complex ideas. I want to hope that it will open people's eyes about disability and other matters. I also know that expecting such things is probably silly. On the other hand, I already learned more about disabilities just by following this project, so KS will touch some people's lives.

Whatever may come, lets hope for the best.