Katawa Shoujo Forums

Thank you very much~


btw, thanks for telling us about Skill Gaps. Now I know what to say to shut my family up. ><

Otakumon wrote:Why can't we read the Rin and Hisao stuff you mentioned? I think things like that would make for good posting material after the finished game has been released for a while.

I think you didn't understand what his post was all about: You can't read that stuff, because Aura feels he is not able to express the story he has in his mind with his words in a manner that does it justice.
I think the skill gap does not only pertain to creative work. Another example would be sports, only then it's not the mental skills that are not up to your own expectations but the physical ones.

Burial_By_Fire wrote:Wow. You kind of undercut delta here. I'm sure he feels that his skill gap is very high.

Nope. He said himself that he feels his skill gap is narrow. The entire bit about delta is a result of a conversation about this blog post with him (though apparently I am mildly misrepresenting him )

None of you will ever read the real story I've imagined, of Rin and Hisao and all the things that happen between them, just the crude translation that I was able to vomit out onto my keyboard. I feel a little saddened by this realization.

In other words, your vocabulary is limiting your ability to express what you truly feel.
Moe.

It happens to me too although I'm not trying to be creative about anything.
I just sometimes feel a great urge to surpass that language and vocabulary barrier and transform a feeling into spoken words, just for the sake of doing it.
That's some hard shit to do to be honest but I recently found it to be quite easy using a quite simple method: give known examples and associate feelings with real life situations rather than trying to define a type of feeling.
I'm still fixated on doing it by words alone just for the simple fact that it's harder to do and it irks me that I can't do it (I think that's the main urge catalyst to be honest).

For example, you cannot define the feeling of love but you can very easily make someone feel it by recreating a situation similar to a past experience of the same feeling of that someone.
In more common terms: you (the writer) just have to make me (the reader) feel what you feel instead of explaining me what you feel.
EDIT: So it's not all just about the writer's writing skills, it's also about the reader's understanding skills.

Ok, enough babbling lol

Oh yes, I totally forgot!
You asked us what do we want to see in the blog section?
I almost always wanted to see the members' opinion on different project matters and even their thoughts about the project but more importantly, I want to know what/how the creator feels about his creation. It's quite nice for example to know what/how the author of a book feels about his book you know?
Also, I wanna see more of Anonymous22 on the blog. I loved his last shenanigan

Regarding the content of the blog: I personally enjoy reading other people's thoughts on various subjects. I found the Words of Gods one quite interesting for example. I like examining viewpoints different from my own, trying to understand how other feels or think about a topic can be rewarding. Not to mention when it introduces something to me I have not thought about before. Just because I'm here for the VN doesn't mean I'm not interested in something completely different. But if I don't know about something, I can't have an opinion about it. In short: I welcome whatever "babbling" the devs put out. It's also a nice way of saying "We are still here and doing stuff, don't worry".

About skill gap, it's a sour point for me. I've been writing short stories and fan fiction for ten years now and even though I can see the difference between my old and more recent works, after proofreading I find the quality to be still seriously lacking no matter how many times I revamp it. I don't think I'll ever reach a point where I will be at least mildly satisfied, but I'll keep on writing anyhow, because I enjoy it.

Realizing the existence of the Skill Gap is indeed a very hurting thing. I know people who gave up upon this. It's very interesting that you touch upon that certain topic - there were times when I thought that I might be the only one worrying about this.
Having other people around you who do the same things as you and do it even better, can trigger the most amazing developments, as you've also mentioned with Weee for example. I myself noticed that I've become quite jealous of the drawing skills my friends had, while mine sucked so bad (in my opinion). Maybe I never would've improved so much over the years when I hadn't been jealous of them. They were kind of motivating, I really wanted to become as good as they were. And there are always new artists who give me more and more motivation. I want to become better. But then I see the simple artworks of other people and realize how much you can enjoy "imperfect" things, too. So I don't try to push myself too hard any longer or let the Skill Gap hurt me. I still want to improve more and more, but I also want to enlighten people with the skills I already have.

Burial_By_Fire wrote:Wow. You kind of undercut delta here. I'm sure he feels that his skill gap is very high.

You may have mistaken skill gap for skill cap.

Aura wrote:He is not only extremely good at what he does, but the nature of his job allows him to stay very close to his potential. Whereas us writers and artists are limited only by our own capabilities, he is limited by our engine and the assets our team can produce

WRT content, more posts about the development process, trials and tribulations would be nice. Not progress reports, but stories like the one about the chessboard sprite (The Sorrows of Young Climatic, August 2010).

First off, really great post. I cannot relate too much, but I'm sure it was very important for many.

As for the blog, I kind of want to see a personification of the devs. Current progress is definitely one of the more important factors, but as you said; those are never very reliable. However, I wouldn't mind (most likely, nobody else would either) seeing, say, an occasional musing from you guys. You are making something amazing that many have been waiting years for; we are interested in more than the game itself, but the creation of it. What's going through your guys' heads? ? Anxiety? Joy? The story of this game may be remembered for a long time, and to know all of the details would mean quite a bit to many of us, including myself, who, quite frankly, feels that the audience has become a bit alienated from the devs, who started as just normal /a/ browsers like the rest of us. Also, maybe an occasional lighthearted joke-post like Hell, if one day I came on to check the blog and saw a long list of cripple puns, it'd be awesome. Also, better than reading about panels in Japanese cons that I will never get to go to. Just, more content.

So a question to you, reader: what sort of stuff would you want to see on the blog?

Porn. Also, winning lottery numbers for the next year. But mostly porn.

A man has to keep his priorities straight.

I know that feel, it's just like my own problems, except I didn't create even a single chapter for what I'm currently working on - basically it should be a historical comic with magical girls -, not even a storyboard, only a summary for the prologue. The background is vast, I have a lots of characters, yet no chapter. Simply because I feel I'm not that good yet. I always assume I have reached that level then I realize I don't know shit. This always let me down and there are periods when I don't progress with the story for weeks. Then I suddenly get what did I do wrong and torrents of ideas are coming into my head, like a dam brought down by flood. The problem is when I feel something is forced; I know it's not alright no matter how I look at it, it's just there to fill a plothole, or because I thought in my confusion it fits there, when it doesn't. Or I just wanted to make something big and it doesn't come out that way. It's especially hard with comics, as I'm only a writer and it's something I didn't do before. And I don't even want to talk about my biggest enemy, the procrastinating

As for what you should post; whatever you feel like, but I have some advice because why not. I know it's clichéd, but I would be interested with the progress. Not about how much is it complete - although it never bothers me - but the description, how you feel about it, what inspired you about that part, etc. Also, more about the devs themselves, if they have projects besides KS, etc.

Wow i was a freshman in high school when this game started in development and now im a freshman in college. Man i know that creating a game must be hard work, even more so for a game in this circumstance, but im on life support here guys(figuratively) and im about to pull the cord. I would love to see this game come to completion but waiting 5 years for this has just about killed my anticipation. I wish you guys the best of luck and i do hope that this game can be completed this year to save the survivors on life support like me.

... I, a random anonymous person, interested in Katawa Shoujo's development, read this post and thought to myself... I hope the writer is taking the time to Read other people's fictional writings...

I do think you are, but I might like to recommend Terry Pratchett in there somewhere.

Thanks for reading this, and good luck.

whoever you are you'll need it.

Even non related blog posts like these are good, in my opinion. The fact that everyone is trying to keep the blog pretty and up to date means that there's still work going on in the background.

what I would want to see

the blog is good for showing us that there is a pluse. I understand that it's not possible to give updates on a regular basis. I'm fine with that. However the blog should still have a few posts each month.

Tell us something about KS. Or if you have nothing at all, tell us about another VN, anime or even your opinion on a video game. I like intellegent disscussion, if their is something to say why not tell us your opinion about an interesting topic.

In that vain I think we should have an off topic board, or perhaps a borad for discussing anime and manga. KS is a community and while we all like katawa shoujo we have become more than a group of fans, we have become friends. In that respect a place should exist to expliot that outlet, as the blog being used to give insight on what's on your mind isn't a bad idea.

my two cents.