Katawa Shoujo Forums

Everyone's thoughts were seriously taken into consideration, but most non-writing staff didn't give an awful lot of writing feedback.

No one had a straight up veto right to scrap another person's work. Getting things done would've been impossible if they had.

Are there things in the game that one person pushed for, but no one else liked, but they let it go anyway? If so, what are some examples?

A lot of them, though probably never a clear cut black and white situation like you describe. Basically zero decisions involved input from everyone, anyway.

Hello!

First let me express my admiration and gratitude towards the development team for what you have created. Ever since I came to know about this project, I've been surprised to discover the many things you guys have accomplished, and experienced. And that's only the things you've let us know through you blog, and forum posts! But I'm sure you've heard a lot of praise over the years (even though I suppose some of you don't mind hearing/reading a bit more ), so I'll stop with that there.

Now, for my question. This is mostly directed to Aura, but I'd love to hear what any of the other devs have to say. You guys have all responded many times to the question of what kept you motivated at making the VN, but what I want to know is what was the motivation you all had for keeping the dev blog and the forums (specially this thread) running? What keeps you interacting with the community even 3 years after the project was completed? And what did you hope archiving the development process in the dev blog would achieve?

See, when I finally decided to play this VN, and dug around a bit, I found the dev blog and forums early this year. The VN was awe inspiring enough, but realizing that the project was made with a really small team that based themselves on a single page of a (at the time) 7 year old doujin, revitalized and colored on a thread in 4-chan, and brought to reality with neat-ish records kept of much of the information about the development process was pretty humbling to say the least. I read the whole thing, and then read the Ask! thread from start to finish (finished in May, had 300 pages at the time), so I was curious about what motivated this archiving. Specially you, Aura, since you pretty much took over the dev blog at one point and are very active in the Ask! thread.

To me the project, the story of 4LS and making of Katawa Shoujo is more important and special than KS itself. The blog is a record of the project.

People keep diaries to record things happening in their lives and how they feel about them. Maybe putting things to writing helps them find perspective, or maybe they want to leave a record for their future selves or even some sort of posterity. Writing on the KS dev blog was both of these things for me at various times. It became obvious pretty fast that writing about the progress of the project was uninteresting, and the real salient content were the posts about our feelings, thoughts and methods of making KS. Those are the ones that are interesting to read even years later, or by other people, not status updates of what bit we completed by what date. In retrospect I/we didn't do an awful good job at really covering the ins and outs of the project, but like everything with KS, we were still just learning.

As for keeping up with this thread, it's the same reason I started it to begin with. I do it because I can't stand misinformation and misunderstandings, and enjoy explaining things, in part because it often teaches me something too. Other community/contact things I do because someone has to, and for 4LS that someone just ended up being me.

TEALE4LIFE wrote:Thank you for the answer I recieved a year or so ago in this thread. Another question.

From what I've read in this thread (and I may well just be misinterpreting things), it seems that each route was created with at least a fair bit of independency. Did any of you ever find yourself constricted or have to adhere to certain boundaries during development in regards to somebody else's "vision"? Such as going back and changing something within a route to better fit with a different one? Or is it just a case of: each route had enough independency from the others that not many things had to be changed / the routes were created with all the other routes in mind, and thus nothing had to be changed later in development.

We mostly were allowed to do whatever the hell we wanted in a route within reason (aliens couldn't show up, Emi couldn't become an actual pirate, the Feminist Conspiracy could never be uncovered)--but when characters went between routes, we checked with one another to ensure characterization was okay. Also big events like the track meet and festival involved some coordination (the festival was the only mandatory event I can think of, while the track meet was an agreed-upon event between Aura and I), but other than that we had free reign provided it was a good idea.

Blood, sweat and tears were shed attempting to keep things synced. Not entirely successfully.

What's the furthest out of your way you went (in time/effort/arcaneness) to research something for your route?

I literally went to Japan, which is easily the furthest any of us went. SC has a couple of good answers fot arcaneness I believe.

Dunno about "arcaneness", but raspberry flavoured popsicles are the first thing coming to mind. That specifically refers to stuff that didn't make it in final release though, so I guess fact-checking the gases contained in streetlamps' lightbulbs so that the hue and quality of light in a scene would be described correctly comes in second?

There's also a bunch of medical-related stuff, like the seventeen pills a day, but I don't think that really counts as being "out of my way", since it was either part of my job or it fell into my lap randomly as a direct result of my being there.

Holy crap, I've no idea that there was so much thought behind some of the stuff, like the pills.

Also, if it's okay to ask, why exactly did you went to Japan, Aura? Was it just a recreational travel?

For starters i know u have surely read lots of praise for your work on KS so i dont think anything i can write can make any
kind of new stuff so... thanks for the game, really.
My question may sound like inapropiate but i have a strong surge to make it so i will just put it here and watch.
I have just finish playing 100% of the game and after a careful re watching of all the routes im left with a bittersweet
feeling about it, i know no one made a penny with the game, hence it was made by amateurs but i cant help but notice that
some parts of the game are made with a tottaly diferent concept than the others, the Rin route is drawn beatifully both
in the art and the script, with the only knock that Rin is perhaps too much autistic to be a believable character, but its
fiction and i can understand that.
On the other hand Lily or Shizune routes are written in a more "teeny" way (thats subjective of course) and have a mixed style of drawings in comparison to Rin route (thats a fact i guess).
Theres any kind of meaning behind that? does Rin route written first or last? some artist who only drew Rin route wasn`t present in the other routes?
I just want to know if thats was on purpose or its just my own paranoid thing.
Its just that the Rin route is full of more mature quotes like "No man is a island" of John Donne, the story about the blue period of Picasso and Locke theory of education that it just seem to shine too bright in comparison with the other routes (who are well written but are a more "standard" kind of set)
For closing i must say that i respect ALL the work put on the game, and i mean no disrepect to anyone who developed it, sorry for the long post and if i made a miseducated guess i apologize again.
I know the more active dev here is Aura, who write the Rin route and im most interested in his reply, thanks in advance just for reading this.

P.D: I have a lot of questions about how you build the Rin character, let me know if i can make them, thanks again and sorry for the long post.

It's somewhat typical for readers to greatly prefer some parts of KS over others, since not only is KS 5 separate stories instead of one, but all 5 were primarily worked on by different people and have their unique stylistic characteristics. Rin's story was written neither first nor last since all routes were written simultaneously. Rin's main artist, kamifish, did some contributions to other routes too, though mostly as a colourist (she also did draw Misha's sprites) so her personal style isn't particularly visible outside of Rin's route.

The only "meaning" behind that is that that was our development method. So sure, it was on purpose, but there was no other goal than to actually get the project done and that was the way we did things.

As for aný other questions you have, that's what this thread is for.

Hey guys!

My thoughts about this game (I would technically call it a game...like a visual novel type game):
1: After playing all the routes, I feel like Emi's route is the best out of all the other routes. So, I would like to congratulate you TheHivemind (If you wrote the whole choice and the story and stuff). I say this because Emi's route is forgiving. If you make one wrong move, you have a chance of redeeming yourself and get the good ending. I think the other routes aren't forgiving as in if you choose a wrong choice, you won't get a good ending.
2: The other routes are very good as well. But I have a problem with Shizune's route. (Question about it is below).
3: I'm guessing that if Emi is going to be a pirate...She could be called....Peggy the Pirate! (Spongebob reference).
4: I really like the sketch Rin drew on Hisao. Apart from him looking sad...he also looks pretty bad ass with his pose. (Just gotta give him a tired look on his face and he would look like he's the king).

Well anyway, my questions about Katawa Shoujo:

1: On Shizune's route, why is there only one choice? Or rather, why do you think it's not necessary to add more choice path onto this route?
2: Is V.1.3.1 the final version? Or would there be some future updates?
3: Rin's route is a bit...confusing.I can see why Hisao would like Rin..but why does Rin like Hisao? I'm guessing there's a sign that she likes him when she was overdosed on cold pills and started kissing Hisao or perhaps when she was dreaming, she dreamt about Hisao holding a flower...perhaps she's thinking of him as some sort of prophecy or something but I have no clue.
4: Is it alright if I ask questions relating to the beta version of the game?
5:

The exact same group of people who created KS will not be producing another game.

Darn, well, I think with the blood, sweat, tears, and likely the enjoyment of making the game it would tire out the people who made the game. Still, why wouldn't you want to make another game like this? I'm just curious. Still, thanks for making the game free as I've never played a bishojou or dating sim type game before.
6: Lilly's route does not have a bad ending.Why do you feel like the route wouldn't need a bad ending? I'm guessing it's because of Lilly's personality combined with Hisao's personality where the relationship's good enough to never have a bad ending or something.

1. It doesn't need more, and more importantly, the lack of choices communicates something important about the nature of their relationship.
2. As the release post said, it's very likely the final version.
3. Rin doesn't particularly like Hisao, he's just something she latches on for a while.
4. No.
5. Making other things might be more interesting to us.
6. There is a bad end.