Ask!

[Rivan]

Eh. I feel that people are VASTLY overinterpreting and comments I've seen like "all the devs hate each other" are wildly confusing and completely inaccurate. We just have a realistic perspective on ourselves and the work we do, and a good amount of self-deprecating humor and irony. Sure, finishing the game was important because otherwise a lot of work would've sort of gone to waste. That's not all, however. Yes, we did get frustrated and yes, we fought sometimes. We got stressed out or even burned out. In the worst times it might even have been something like what you described, maybe? But none of that means that we ever hated working on KS. We also laughed together every day, we made friends with each other. We helped each other, learned and improved together. The truth is, making something like this is really fucking hard work, with both good sides and bad. We experienced the full spectrum of it, every day for 5 years, on top of our real lives. Why did we do it? Was it out of spite? Or to prove something? Or because people expected it of us? No.

It was because we wanted to.

And

Yeah, I don't know either why anyone would ever do anything for no money.

The people asking these questions sort of touch upon one sentimental question that hovers in my mind.

After quite a couple of years of hard work for free with many difficulties, limited resources and quite a lot of frustrations I imagine, you managed to produce something that people use words such as "amazing" and "piece of art" to describe (leaving haters aside).

Do you (personally) feel more :
1) Proud of yourself for doing such a thing with no renumeration whatsoever
2) Pleased that you have defeated those obstacles
3) Annoyed that you could've ripped off some money if you wanted, as the game seems quite a success (yeah... Sorry, just an option)
4) Happy to have worked with those people, even if you don't plan to again in the future
or 5) Do you mostly feel a different emotion whatsoever?

[rusticarmor]

Whats the reason behind this being 100% free? I'm not complaining, but you also seem pretty adamant to not making any merchandise or accepting donations either (maybe I'm wrong about that?) when I know tons of people would buy anything related to KS.
I always had a suspicion behind legality issues with the visual novel and Raita, is there any? or am I just looking to much into the whole "free" thing?

Also on the subject of Raita, has he said anything about this either to the developers or simply 3rd party rumors?

[bonegolem]

I am very happy to have finally had a chance to play through this game. You guys did a splendid job, and although the four routes I played felt quite different, they all had a very strong impact on me.
Thanks for setting up this Q&A while we're at it.

• You have remade the Act1 demo quite a few times, fine-tuning it. Is there a chance there might be a revised version of the main game - a 1.01 to correct small mistakes etc? If that is the case, how will this be handled with the team disbanded?
• If you go back on the developement cycle, what do you feel is the biggest mistake you've made, the thing that you most would like to have changed?

Thank you in advance for the replies. If you chose to ignore my questions in favour of more interesting ones, thanks for those replies instead

[cpl_crud]

Whats the reason behind this being 100% free? I'm not complaining, but you also seem pretty adamant to not making any merchandise or accepting donations either (maybe I'm wrong about that?) when I know tons of people would buy anything related to KS.
I always had a suspicion behind legality issues with the visual novel and Raita, is there any? or am I just looking to much into the whole "free" thing?

Also on the subject of Raita, has he said anything about this either to the developers or simply 3rd party rumors?

Early on in the project we realised that money would just tear the team apart.

Sure, there were some altruists that thought that Open Source was the future, but I was not among them.

Without any capital investement there would be no way to pay anyone until now. That means people would only then be paid in the end... But how would you split the money?

Commercialisation of such a large, non-structured team would almost certainly lead to its collapse. Plus, it wouldn't have allowed us to refine again and again. If we wanted to make a quick buck, you all would have been making Hanako Punch jokes around this time (thankfully, the other devs put a stop to that).


Anyway, there were many considerations involved. We checked the legality of making a derative work from Raita's omake, and it turns out that wasn't an issue. That being said, the contributor licence did have provisions in it for paying out developers, just in case.

[Lurker]

Unrelated to the point I made.

Hmm...

I was just looking at http://shimmie.katawa-shoujo.com/post/v ... arch=raita and I realized just how much character building went into KS. Maybe not having that would be a loss for any project.

I guess I was wrong then. Sorry.

Well, I guess it's back to lurking for me. But before I go, would mind telling me if you're going to answer my third question from my original post? You know, about doing a postmortem on KS? If writing multi-page essay seems too much, just answer me this one question:

If you had to do it all over again, what would you do differently?

[Guest]

Do you any of you feel a connection with any of the characters you've helped create?

[Silentcook]

After quite a couple of years of hard work for free with many difficulties, limited resources and quite a lot of frustrations I imagine, you managed to produce something that people use words such as "amazing" and "piece of art" to describe (leaving haters aside).

Do you (personally) feel more :
1) Proud of yourself for doing such a thing with no renumeration whatsoever
2) Pleased that you have defeated those obstacles
3) Annoyed that you could've ripped off some money if you wanted, as the game seems quite a success (yeah... Sorry, just an option)
4) Happy to have worked with those people, even if you don't plan to again in the future
or 5) Do you mostly feel a different emotion whatsoever?

6) Focused on the script and thinking "Okay, now for the translation..."

[zeroyuki92]

First of all, thank you very much for the inspirational and heartwarming work that you guys made...You guys must know that 4LS had made a Visual Novel that made a big impact in OELVN community, and become the inspiration for aspiring developers to create more visual novels. Once again, thank you very much.

For the questions,
I guess the following are intended for writers :
1. In your working days (don't count days with no writing done at all), how many average words (rough estimation, ofc) per day that you guys did for KS? (ex. 1000 words per day,etc)
2. Did you write some other fiction writings before writing scenario for KS? If you did, what are they? (and if you shared it in internet, can you share them here?)
3. Personally, usually what did you do when you meet writing-block?
4. Is there any of you (writers) that had other language than English as mother language?

For general development process :
What was 4LS working flow during development process for KS? Specifically, where do you guys work faster: In the beginning, middle or the end of development stage?

[cpl_crud]

For the questions,
I guess the following are intended for writers :
1. In your working days (don't count days with no writing done at all), how many average words (rough estimation, ofc) per day that you guys did for KS? (ex. 1000 words per day,etc)
2. Did you write some other fiction writings before writing scenario for KS? If you did, what are they? (and if you shared it in internet, can you share them here?)
3. Personally, usually what did you do when you meet writing-block?
4. Is there any of you (writers) that had other language than English as mother language?

Writers block is best solved with a litre of tea.
My personal record was 10,000 words in a day; none of which made the final cut. On an average day I'd do about 2,500.

I had written some crappy screenplays with someone else, and a few magazine articles (a habit that I have recently.started again).

[Davidgol]

Were all the pictures in Katawa Shoujo hand drawn?

[Aura]

I am very happy to have finally had a chance to play through this game. You guys did a splendid job, and although the four routes I played felt quite different, they all had a very strong impact on me.
Thanks for setting up this Q&A while we're at it.

• You have remade the Act1 demo quite a few times, fine-tuning it. Is there a chance there might be a revised version of the main game - a 1.01 to correct small mistakes etc? If that is the case, how will this be handled with the team disbanded?
• If you go back on the developement cycle, what do you feel is the biggest mistake you've made, the thing that you most would like to have changed?

Thank you in advance for the replies. If you chose to ignore my questions in favour of more interesting ones, thanks for those replies instead :)

We've only disbanded for the purpose of making further projects with the same team, as you can see we are still involved with KS.
Biggest mistake was that we didn't all move to Copenhagen to work physically together.

[FrozenKimchi]

who are the writers for each of the girls?

[Rivin]

I am very happy to have finally had a chance to play through this game. You guys did a splendid job, and although the four routes I played felt quite different, they all had a very strong impact on me.
Thanks for setting up this Q&A while we're at it.

• You have remade the Act1 demo quite a few times, fine-tuning it. Is there a chance there might be a revised version of the main game - a 1.01 to correct small mistakes etc? If that is the case, how will this be handled with the team disbanded?
• If you go back on the developement cycle, what do you feel is the biggest mistake you've made, the thing that you most would like to have changed?

Thank you in advance for the replies. If you chose to ignore my questions in favour of more interesting ones, thanks for those replies instead

We've only disbanded for the purpose of making further projects with the same team, as you can see we are still involved with KS.
Biggest mistake was that we didn't all move to Copenhagen to work physically together.

What kind of projects will you guys be working on? You've piqued my interest with that statement lol..

[Aura]

First of all, thank you very much for the inspirational and heartwarming work that you guys made...You guys must know that 4LS had made a Visual Novel that made a big impact in OELVN community, and become the inspiration for aspiring developers to create more visual novels. Once again, thank you very much.

For the questions,
I guess the following are intended for writers :
1. In your working days (don't count days with no writing done at all), how many average words (rough estimation, ofc) per day that you guys did for KS? (ex. 1000 words per day,etc)
2. Did you write some other fiction writings before writing scenario for KS? If you did, what are they? (and if you shared it in internet, can you share them here?)
3. Personally, usually what did you do when you meet writing-block?
4. Is there any of you (writers) that had other language than English as mother language?

For general development process :
What was 4LS working flow during development process for KS? Specifically, where do you guys work faster: In the beginning, middle or the end of development stage?

1. Around 1000-1500 words.
2. Nothing remarkable
3. I would write something else, and then get back to writing KS.
4. My native language is Finnish, the rest are native english-speakers.

Our workflow is best represented by a circle. There was no significant speed differences, I don't think.

[Aura]

Were all the pictures in Katawa Shoujo hand drawn?

The backgrounds, except for CG backgrounds, are manipulated photos. Otherwise yes. In case you mean "drawn on paper" by "hand-drawn", obviously no.