Katawa Shoujo Forums

Deathkeeperx wrote:

Aura wrote: I don't think anyone should care if you pick an arbitrary date for fanfic needs or for eating cake with a pic of her or whatever it is for.

Then the date shall be May 18th!

It is now canon.

Do you guys ever hear from Anonymous22 nowadays or is it just the forums that he dosn't visit (or at least doesn't post in)?

A Forum Member wrote:

Deathkeeperx wrote:

Aura wrote: I don't think anyone should care if you pick an arbitrary date for fanfic needs or for eating cake with a pic of her or whatever it is for.

Then the date shall be May 18th!

It is now canon.

Do you guys ever hear from Anonymous22 nowadays or is it just the forums that he dosn't visit (or at least doesn't post in)?

Same as ever I guess? He is one "us guys" after all. A significant majority of 4LS don't post on the public forums, or hang out on the public IRC channel.

I always wonder what you guys must think of all us crazy fans who get almost obsessiveness about the world you've created.

pandaphil wrote:I always wonder what you guys must think of all us crazy fans who get almost obsessiveness about the world you've created.

"Almost"? Understatement of the week there. I think being obsessive and "crazy" is just pretty standard for being a fan of something. It's not really an issue for me personally. I mean, sure I occasionally find the fandom weird, and it's occasionally hard to interact with the fans because I don't get the fan mindset, but whatever. That could go for anyone.

Have any of the details or events is the characters lives ever come from writer experiences or were they just created completely out of thought. It just feels like the writers had to be emotionally connected with a determined mindset to make such in-depth storylines

ShazzBott wrote:Have any of the details or events is the characters lives ever come from writer experiences or were they just created completely out of thought. It just feels like the writers had to be emotionally connected with a determined mindset to make such in-depth storylines

As far as I'm aware, no. This sentiment has been expressed before and it's always kind of puzzling. Just because something happened in real life wouldn't automatically mean you can turn it into compelling narrative, and vice versa.

ShazzBott wrote:Have any of the details or events is the characters lives ever come from writer experiences or were they just created completely out of thought. It just feels like the writers had to be emotionally connected with a determined mindset to make such in-depth storylines

I'd have to mostly agree with Aura.

Whilst early versions of Hanako drew upon my "real world" experiences, there is not much that comes into the versions of Hanako that came since.

Little things, like the tile game, and maybe some lines of dialogue, may have roots in reality, but I think that Hanako was more of a fantasy girl for me, and hence a lot of her storyline (as far as my hand in it, anyway) came mostly from fantasy...

So how was it to write different branches for your route? Did it ''feel'' like there was a branch which you would consider a ''main'' branch (maybe as the story you'd want to tell the most) and wrote the remaining branches to fill up the route? Did you plot out everything from the beginning or did you come up with branches as you were writing?

Reksho wrote:So how was it to write different branches for your route? Did it ''feel'' like there was a branch which you would consider a ''main'' branch (maybe as the story you'd want to tell the most) and wrote the remaining branches to fill up the route? Did you plot out everything from the beginning or did you come up with branches as you were writing?

It was a headache. Branching narrative is really hard to do well, and I don't think any of us did a very good job with it. Then again, I also think nobody has ever made a really awesome job of figuring out branching narrative, and I've read quite a few attempts at it. The methods varied between writers. I planned everything pretty meticulously for both Rin's path and Act 1, while some of the writers did most of the branching structure only after writing the main branch, which invariably was the "good ending" one. Most did at least some vague planning beforehand.

This may have been asked before, but what tips or suggestions would you give to newbs who want to develop an original VN?

fireye9 wrote:This may have been asked before, but what tips or suggestions would you give to newbs who want to develop an original VN?

Start small.

Renpy is probably the best choice for a newcomer to making VNs - its documentation is in English, and it's very easy to make a very basic VN.

High school romance is a really tired genre.

Try to plan ahead, which will help prevent the game from growing out of control, and guage what writing, sound, and art assets you'll need.

Basically don't do anything like KS did.

Suriko wrote:Basically don't do anything like KS did.

But KS is internet famous. Everyone knows imitations of famous things always work well.

Was all the internet fame and cult fandom worth the work of making the game?

The game was worth the work of making the game.

by Silentcook » Thu Apr 25, 2013 3:38 am
The game was worth the work of making the game.

It's nice to read these things every once in a while. Seeing all the posts about how you hated the genre, the setting of KS, how it focuses on the same problems as the million other VN's out there, ect... Heck even the fact you all feel so strongly about not doing a sequel, which i don't judge; Better to leave at an A-class product than to continue and leave at something utterly craptastic
It just, somtimes feels as if you don't take any pride out of your work

Merloficus wrote:

by Silentcook » Thu Apr 25, 2013 3:38 am
The game was worth the work of making the game.

It's nice to read these things every once in a while. Seeing all the posts about how you hated the genre, the setting of KS, how it focuses on the same problems as the million other VN's out there, ect... Heck even the fact you all feel so strongly about not doing a sequel, which i don't judge; Better to leave at an A-class product than to continue and leave at something utterly craptastic :lol:
It just, somtimes feels as if you don't take any pride out of your work :(

Sometimes it feels as if nobody reads what we say about KS. We don't hate the highschool romance genre, and definitely did not six years ago. It's just overused and unexciting, and thus somewhat unattractive to work further in. I don't get why you think a sequel would be "craptastic" either. I pretty much can guarantee (because I don't have to prove it) a KS 2 would be a significantly better VN than KS is.

We're immensely proud of the work we did and the end result. That, however, doesn't mean that we should be uncritical of KS or ourselves. I'd rather be honest and straightforward even publically than hold a facade that gains me nothing.