Re: Words of Gods
Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 6:37 am
This is both true and untrue. The writers do have some ability to introduce new characters that are only, or primarily, used in their route (Akira is one example of this. She actually didn't appear in Act 1 at all until it was rewritten). That said, the writers definitely do not have free reign over their character's canon, nor can they introduce characters at will. The former is due to every character having to be a part of the overall cohesive narrative of KS - five writers getting to do their own thing would end up in a mess, so we all look over each other's work not only for continuity and general writing, but also for characterisation. As for the latter, adding characters, this is a huge decision that has generally meant (rightly) an uphill battle for the writer as they must justify their cool new character's reason for existence in the context of both the written narrative and also the required art assets.ubergeneral wrote:first off katawa shoujo is special. Unlike other VNs each path has it's own writer. I can't think of any VNs that share this quality. However, in theory (this is coming from someone on the outside), each of the main girls is partially owned by their respective path writer. In other words, the person that should theoretically have the most say in what's cannon about their girl is the path writer. The result of this is each path has less overlap and can pretty much introduce any new character into it as the writer sees fit. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the characters that were in that CG do get smaller roles. Each path is going to need help having the story moved along, and while any of the main heroines could play that role many times those girls either don't know each other well or don't get along. For example I don't expect shizune to play a major role in Rin's path.
There are new side characters yet to be introduced. The Shimmie has actually proved somewhat useful by throwing up such an insane amount of decoy targets that nobody seems too able to work out exactly which characters those are.ubergeneral wrote:As a reader and just by going off what I know about the game, i expect there to be more new characters to be added. And when they are the shimmie going to blow up and have artwork of them. In all honesty i think that yamaku is a interesting setting and I want the enviroment to be expanded more, characters that have started out as a backround have by fans been fleshed out and turned into interesting characters. If they only appeared in one CG it would be a waste.
This is true, and ties into my response to the first paragraph. I think every writer's wanted to add at least a couple of new characters that they really liked, but haven't been able to get them in, or have wanted to explore their existing side characters further, but haven't because it would detract from their heroine's story.ubergeneral wrote:Or course the inverse of this is that too much of a good thing is really bad. Each path could potentially add a new character or flesh out part of yamaku, but there is a definite limit to what is good for the story and what detracts from the purpose and focus, which is always going to be the main girl and their relationship with Hisao.
Again, yes and no. The game setting does expand beyond what is shown in Act 1, though as per the blog post, we didn't actively engage in making a world for multiple parts of a game franchise. That said, I would actually slightly disagree with Delta in that we are worldbuilders, simply by the fact that we are writing a fictional narrative. This, by virtue, means we created a unique world that is not identical to reality, whether we did it intentionally or unintentionally. I would argue the former for a few reasons, but with the caveat that we did not do so to the extent of Fate/Stay Night; we did not make the Katawa Shoujo world with the intention of using it any further than the Katawa Shoujo game itself, as Nasu very obviously did with F/SN.ubergeneral wrote:The bottom line is that the setting definitely needs to be expanded on to tell the story as well as just making it more intersting. But too much is a bad thing. I myself expect there to be more added and will welcome new characters and details. After all one of the best things about F/SN was that it was part of a bigger universe and it tied into that really well. It was one of the thing I liked more about it.
ubergeneral wrote:Last is that if there are any "katawa shoujo gods" on this forum reading this post, please don't rain on my parade and tell me i'm wrong or that there won't be any more new characters, that would just be soul crushing.
