Katawa Shoujo Forums

Act 1 was mostly me and A22, but all the writers participated in writing it. The bad ending scene in it is by A22.

Emi: Hivemind
Hanako: crud and Suriko
Lilly: Suriko
Rin: Aura
Shizune: A22

On the topic of who wrote what, did you have some preconcieved ideas of what you wanted to write about, and apply it to your particular character? Or were all the overarching plot themes/elements created after you knew who you were writing for?

Oh and bonus question; if you guys had been assigned to or otherwise ended up at the reigns of a different route, how do you think you would gone about writing it? Did you have any such ideas that maybe you didn't get to use that you could share? I guess your perceptions of a character might have differed to how whoever else wrote them to be, a phenomenon reflected in the case of the fans in relation to fanfiction interpretations, so...

BlackWaltzTheThird wrote:On the topic of who wrote what, did you have some preconcieved ideas of what you wanted to write about, and apply it to your particular character? Or were all the overarching plot themes/elements created after you knew who you were writing for?

At least for me no, because some of the basic aspects of Rin (artist, "weird") were decided with some sort of clusterfuck method by the 4chan hivemind. I just took those and went with whatever came to my mind.

Oh and bonus question; if you guys had been assigned to or otherwise ended up at the reigns of a different route, how do you think you would gone about writing it? Did you have any such ideas that maybe you didn't get to use that you could share? I guess your perceptions of a character might have differed to how whoever else wrote them to be, a phenomenon reflected in the case of the fans in relation to fanfiction interpretations, so...

Absolutely the stories would be massively different if I had written them. Not really possible to say how though, I've never thought about it much.

BlackWaltzTheThird wrote:On the topic of who wrote what, did you have some preconcieved ideas of what you wanted to write about, and apply it to your particular character? Or were all the overarching plot themes/elements created after you knew who you were writing for?

Having most, if not all, of the groundwork for Emi sorted out (part of my original job was to do path outlines for Emi and Rin. Most of the stuff was ignored, which was for the best) meant that I had a pretty good idea of how things were going to go for Emi's path, or at least I thought I did.

Then it stalled and got scrapped and the back half of the path was created in a haze with heavy lifting from crud and Silentcook. So in the end it wound up not being very well planned after all. The track meet, and the idea that Rin would not enjoy the idea of putting her art on display, were basically the only elements from that early work that survived.

Oh and bonus question; if you guys had been assigned to or otherwise ended up at the reigns of a different route, how do you think you would gone about writing it? Did you have any such ideas that maybe you didn't get to use that you could share? I guess your perceptions of a character might have differed to how whoever else wrote them to be, a phenomenon reflected in the case of the fans in relation to fanfiction interpretations, so...

I've mentioned before that I originally really wanted to write Rin, but Aura wound up getting the job. My Rin was much more... generic, I guess is the word I'm looking for? More prone to quoting books I'd read and far less of a tortured artist deal (I've also mentioned before that it is a good thing I wound up with Emi, because Rin's particular path wound up being my personal favorite).

BlackWaltzTheThird wrote:On the topic of who wrote what, did you have some preconcieved ideas of what you wanted to write about, and apply it to your particular character? Or were all the overarching plot themes/elements created after you knew who you were writing for?

I went into Lilly path without any real idea of what I wanted to do with it other than make a VN. Ah, youth. I had a very rigid idea of her personality (the prim and proper motherly type), which developed over time into something more detailed. Plot is something that went through heavy amounts of change during writing before ending up as it is now.

And after saying that, I'm going to say it's also somewhat, sort of, untrue. I used to think 'death of the author' was a very sensible and almost ufailing standard by which to look at fiction. That is, that a creator's circumstances, beliefs, and opinions are of dubious value in any literary examination given the distance between they and the creation process (man that was a bad summary, ask me again when I'm not exhausted in a hotel after a con). After looking back at Lilly path, and contrasting that with my own circumstances, it's just a little bit difficult to o back to that way of thinking. That's not to say I wrote my life story into her path, but simply that I can see exactly where and how my own life experiences and other such things coloured various themes, plot points, scenes, dialogue, etc. I might not have intended it, but it ended up there.

After writing Lilly and some of Hanako path, I've come to largely rethink my approach to fictional analysis, largely due to how their paths turned out in retrospect. When writing a story, the author's situation very often plays a role in its creation, whether intentional or not.

BlackWaltzTheThird wrote:Oh and bonus question; if you guys had been assigned to or otherwise ended up at the reigns of a different route, how do you think you would gone about writing it? Did you have any such ideas that maybe you didn't get to use that you could share? I guess your perceptions of a character might have differed to how whoever else wrote them to be, a phenomenon reflected in the case of the fans in relation to fanfiction interpretations, so...

I was oddly definite when I jumped onto the project that I wanted to write Lilly. Even back on the original forums, I only ever posted in the section devoted to Lilly's character. To this day, I'm not entirely sure why I was quite so stuck onto that single little character' sketch in a doujin omake page, nor why I so quickly and ardently attached such a personality to that image.

Given that, it's really hard to imagine myself at the helm of a different route (aside from hanako second half, obviously). I did have ideas of branching off a prospective Miki path off Emi path, but aside from that, I've never really thought too much about it. All the writers exchanged lots of ideas about each other's routes, so I'd say some of what people thought about paths other than theirs is actually implemented, at least in part.

So I recently downloaded the update (1.1) of KS, and looking forward to replaying Emi's route (as this is the only route I can make myself play without feeling like I'm cheating on her-this game was made too well!).
I read in the news section of the Katawa Shoujo Dev Blog that there was a new version of Red Velvet in the release, and I was so excited that I immediately went ahead and re-downloaded the soundtrack. But I find that the version of Red Velvet released in the soundtrack is identical to that of the one I've been listening to since christmas when I first set my eyes on KS. Will the sound track be updated or is that not topical?

Great forum and a great game btw!
-Haitaka

The Enigmatic Box is not updated, and might never be, but the new version of the track is available for download separately: http://dl.katawa-shoujo.com/pr/soundtra ... _Japes.mp3

BlackWaltzTheThird wrote:On the topic of who wrote what, did you have some preconcieved ideas of what you wanted to write about, and apply it to your particular character? Or were all the overarching plot themes/elements created after you knew who you were writing for?

Oh and bonus question; if you guys had been assigned to or otherwise ended up at the reigns of a different route, how do you think you would gone about writing it? Did you have any such ideas that maybe you didn't get to use that you could share? I guess your perceptions of a character might have differed to how whoever else wrote them to be, a phenomenon reflected in the case of the fans in relation to fanfiction interpretations, so...

I think I'll jump on the bandwagon, only to leave the serial forum avoider as the sole non-respondent.

In the very beginning (i.e. in the original forums) I had no real pre-conceptions of any of the girls. I had originally thought that it would be a light-hearted comedy but that was about it.

But once I started getting into it I had a flash of inspiration in which Hanako, tormented by her scarring, would go a little insane and kill Hisao for "cheating" on her with Rin (by 'cheating" I simply mean "being friendly to"). I wrote a small piece about this, and off the back of this kekekeke (one of the original artists) drew a great little bit of sketch art based on it:
http://shimmie.katawa-shoujo.com/post/v ... h=kekekeke
This was my wallpaper for quite a long time, and that was the preconception about the Hanako path for the first draft - a tormented soul that would eventually end up with someone's death.

Thankfully, the other devs fought enough with me to change that impression.

As for the other girls, I'm pretty sure that if I wrote the Emi path it would end up fairly similar to the current Emi path. At one point the Emi and Hanako paths were so similar it was a real concern.
As for the other girls, I think Lilly would have been more of a princess, Shizune would have been less of a bitch, and Rin would have been about the same. But that is also looking through the lens of working in a team for 3.5 years; you start to lose your individuality and your own concepts of the stories start to blend with the existing authors. Suffice to say that had I written a different girl it would have been different, but because I didn't, I can't tell you what it may have been!

cpl_crud wrote:
But once I started getting into it I had a flash of inspiration in which Hanako, tormented by her scarring, would go a little insane and kill Hisao for "cheating" on her with Rin (by 'cheating" I simply mean "being friendly to"). I wrote a small piece about this, and off the back of this kekekeke (one of the original artists) drew a great little bit of sketch art based on it:
http://shimmie.katawa-shoujo.com/post/v ... h=kekekeke
This was my wallpaper for quite a long time, and that was the preconception about the Hanako path for the first draft - a tormented soul that would eventually end up with someone's death.

Wow, so Katawa Yandere could almost have been canon. I guess I have a question for all the writers as well and I do apologize if it's been asked before: Which aspect or trait of the girl whose route you wrote did you most enjoy writing?

Oddball wrote:And if people want to read it ...

http://z8.invisionfree.com/Zettai_Shojo ... wtopic=307

Since Oddball's link leads directly to the 2007 forums, just a quick question - were these the second unofficial forums or the first? I seem to remember something about the first still entertaining the thought of KS just being pron with story, but from a quick glance I see plenty of the early folks kinda against stuff like rape bad ends and such. Or am I remembering wrong here and there only ever was 1 unofficial forum and only then transitioned slowly into this one?

Req wrote:

cpl_crud wrote:
But once I started getting into it I had a flash of inspiration in which Hanako, tormented by her scarring, would go a little insane and kill Hisao for "cheating" on her with Rin (by 'cheating" I simply mean "being friendly to"). I wrote a small piece about this, and off the back of this kekekeke (one of the original artists) drew a great little bit of sketch art based on it:
http://shimmie.katawa-shoujo.com/post/v ... h=kekekeke
This was my wallpaper for quite a long time, and that was the preconception about the Hanako path for the first draft - a tormented soul that would eventually end up with someone's death.

Wow, so Katawa Yandere could almost have been canon. I guess I have a question for all the writers as well and I do apologize if it's been asked before: Which aspect or trait of the girl whose route you wrote did you most enjoy writing?

Dialogue. Working out how Rin talks was challenging and interesting, and took a ton of work over many many iterations and experiments. Kept me on my toes too, since it never really became natural to me so every line had to be thought out carefully.

Loonie wrote:

Oddball wrote:And if people want to read it ...

http://z8.invisionfree.com/Zettai_Shojo ... wtopic=307

Since Oddball's link leads directly to the 2007 forums, just a quick question - were these the second unofficial forums or the first? I seem to remember something about the first still entertaining the thought of KS just being pron with story, but from a quick glance I see plenty of the early folks kinda against stuff like rape bad ends and such. Or am I remembering wrong here and there only ever was 1 unofficial forum and only then transitioned slowly into this one?

First. There are no other forums than the invision ones and these. The transition was not slow either, one day we just moved out and dumped almost everything that was on the invision forums. That was basically (though not formally) the beginning of 4LS.

Fun fact: spelling the word shoujo seems to be very difficult, as those forums are titled shojou and in the name of the first KS IRC channel, it was shoujou

Aura wrote:

Loonie wrote:

Oddball wrote:And if people want to read it ...

http://z8.invisionfree.com/Zettai_Shojo ... wtopic=307

Since Oddball's link leads directly to the 2007 forums, just a quick question - were these the second unofficial forums or the first? I seem to remember something about the first still entertaining the thought of KS just being pron with story, but from a quick glance I see plenty of the early folks kinda against stuff like rape bad ends and such. Or am I remembering wrong here and there only ever was 1 unofficial forum and only then transitioned slowly into this one?

First. There are no other forums than the invision ones and these. The transition was not slow either, one day we just moved out and dumped almost everything that was on the invision forums. That was basically (though not formally) the beginning of 4LS.

Fun fact: spelling the word shoujo seems to be very difficult, as those forums are titled shojou and in the name of the first KS IRC channel, it was shoujou

Odd. The old forum links to a danmaku forum that appears to have only lasted a few months before you switched over to this one. Did that forum just not work out for you all or something?

Oddball wrote:

Aura wrote: First. There are no other forums than the invision ones and these. The transition was not slow either, one day we just moved out and dumped almost everything that was on the invision forums. That was basically (though not formally) the beginning of 4LS.

Fun fact: spelling the word shoujo seems to be very difficult, as those forums are titled shojou and in the name of the first KS IRC channel, it was shoujou

Odd. The old forum links to a danmaku forum that appears to have only lasted a few months before you switched over to this one. Did that forum just not work out for you all or something?

Same forum, different URL. Just the hosting changed.

Loonie wrote:Were these the second unofficial forums or the first? I seem to remember something about the first still entertaining the thought of KS just being pron with story, but from a quick glance I see plenty of the early folks kinda against stuff like rape bad ends and such. Or am I remembering wrong here and there only ever was 1 unofficial forum and only then transitioned slowly into this one?

Most of the pron with story discussion took place in either 1. the original thread on /a/ or 2. in the early IRC channel. Even then, spend enough time on those old forums and you'll see plenty of porn with plot suggestions.

Req wrote: Wow, so Katawa Yandere could almost have been canon. I guess I have a question for all the writers as well and I do apologize if it's been asked before: Which aspect or trait of the girl whose route you wrote did you most enjoy writing?

I enjoyed writing all the mindless banter back and forth between Hisao and Emi. Some might say I enjoyed writing the mindless banter TOO MUCH, as at least one draft wound up reading like a bad sitcom or a terrible imitation of a Joss Whedon script.

Fortunately we reined that in a little.