Katawa Shoujo Forums

DovK wrote:Even if this was in legal hot water -- and it's not -- KS is most likely well under parody, and therefore not subject to the possible copyright on the original work. Works far more infringing and far less parodic than this have been upheld as parody in the past.

I don't think KS would fall under parody, it's a straightforward implementation. Parodies are considered fair use because they are commentaries on the original work in the form of a parody, and there is typically no danger of the parody being confused with the original.

DovK wrote:Plus, there's no reason to sue 4LS; they don't have much money, and furthermore what they do is, if anything, increasing RAITA's popularity (but most likely not even that). There is of course the obligation to protect your work that often forces copyright owners to sue, but really, I don't think they give a shit.

I think the most likely reason to get an unfriendly reaction from Raita is if people insist he has no rights at stake in KS.

Okay guys, you are taking this legal stuff far too seriously and to a stupid level. Talk about something interesting from now on.

Blue123 wrote:Okay guys, you are taking this legal stuff far too seriously and to a stupid level. Talk about something interesting from now on.

Ummm, How about those Sharks in the Stanley Cup Playoffs??
(I always did think it was pity Winipeg lost their NHL team. Then there could have been a Sharks vs. Jets playoff.)

But back to the subject of KS; does anyone in contact with the Japanese language team know if any team members are thinking about using their experience with KS to try to get a professional position translating japanese VN's to english or all they all like the 4LS Dev team and determined to stay amateur?

Bara wrote: And don't forget the complexity of resolving the not-for-profit license KS was created under into a commercially copyrighted one. The legal wrangleing would be intimidating to most companies and the fact that so many people had input into KS but left (or were asked to leave) is also a huge quagmire.

Going pro? never.

However we have two licences.

The first is the one that you all see, the Creative Commons one.

The other is the licence between the contributors and the producer(s).
This one is written such that selling off the "main" licence to someone wouldn't be too difficult.

That being said it would take a sizeable deal to make us even consider that, and also consent of all the devs involved.
Since we all can't even consent on simple things (like the definition of "finished") then I doubt that would ever happen.

Personally, I don't really see KS as a "springboard" or anything. My opinion on working on VNs in the future varies from day to day. I, like pretty much every other dev, have some ideas that I want to make, but lack the time to do so.

Anecedotially, I'm usually invovled with the "New Media" section of the arts here in Sydney. The other day I was in a meeting where a prominent figure at work was asking "Where are all the Austrlian game developers?". At the time I kept my mouth shut, however it did get me thinking.
Initially I didn't think that I would even consider mentioning KS to anyone professionally, but there is a swing in the "professional" arts sector that may see something like this actually end up as accepted.


If we cut out the sexy, sexy cripple sex that is.

Give yourself far more credit. It's not about cripple sex(that's a bonus, though). It's a wonderful school drama with deep and lovable characters that also happens to handle a very difficult subject in a mature and realistic way.

There's a difference between going to one of the Directors of your business and saying "I made a cool game" and "I made a cool game (with bonus sex)" though.


Even if it is sexy sex.

cpl_crud wrote:Even if it is sexy sex.

Your repetition of the sexiness of the sex gives me high expectations. Of sexiness.

Csihar wrote:

cpl_crud wrote:Even if it is sexy sex.

Your repetition of the sexiness of the sex gives me high sexpectations. Of sexiness.

Fix'd

cpl_crud wrote:There's a difference between going to one of the Directors of your business and saying "I made a cool game" and "I made a cool game (with bonus sex)" though.


Even if it is sexy sex.

y'know, I never really thought about that. it's like, it's one thing to tell a bunch of people "we made a game that not only has disabled people in it, but has them as the main characters, and shows that they're just like anybody else and that they deal with their issues without letting their disabilities keep them from living the lives they want." (or something like that, not too coherent after five hours of WoW.) you put it like that, people think you're all noble and stuff, they praise the game, all that jazz.

and then you say, "and they have sex, and the game shows it!"

...and you get an entire room of people saying "WTF?!" at once.

The original H path has no H scenes.

cpl_crud wrote:The original H path has no H scenes.

The... huh??
All the girls still have H scenes, right?

Oh, wait, you must be talking about the Kenji path.

Mercutio wrote: y'know, I never really thought about that. it's like, it's one thing to tell a bunch of people "we made a game that not only has disabled people in it, but has them as the main characters, and shows that they're just like anybody else and that they deal with their issues without letting their disabilities keep them from living the lives they want." (or something like that, not too coherent after five hours of WoW.) you put it like that, people think you're all noble and stuff, they praise the game, all that jazz.

and then you say, "and they have sex, and the game shows it!"

...and you get an entire room of people saying "WTF?!" at once.

   The strange thing about it is that I always believed KS treated the disabled so well because it has no ability to ever be played straight as an oh-look-disabled-people-are-normal-too kind of thing. It's never this feel-good piece you'd expect to find on the computers in some public library with colorful, stereotypical characters with names like Manuel or Chrissy or anything else that sounds like it's from the 80s, with art taken straight from a Spanish 1 textbook. It never gets to play itself off as a PC, friendly, resume-ready development. From the start, it has to cope with the fact that at the end of the game, there will be sex with disabled girls, and everything will have to flow naturally into that.

   Ultimately, the result is that instead of coming off as the standard preachy crap you'd get from a pamphlet at the doctor's office it goes a step further and almost completely ignores the disabled issue. The inital process of coming to grips with the disabled population of the school is, of course, present, but both the protagonist and the player quickly move past that. We end up seeing them no longer as "that girl with no legs" or "the one with the fucked-up face" but as people, and it moves right on past the issue. Most other things that deal with the disabled tend to make them special by saying how ordinary they are repeatedly until it feels like the story is hiding something or being dishonest in some way, whereas KS moves beyond the danger of that entirely before you even realize it might be an issue. This, then, makes the parable above tragically accurate; it's the likely real-life outcome, but it shouldn't be.

   What I've always felt about 4LS is that they are a team of people, united by a common dream of making something they're all very dedicated to. They may stay together after this, if they find the right reception on release and manage to somehow transition that into a new project and/or financial success (not unthinkable); likely, though, this will stand as one of those remarkable testaments to what a team of people with a vision can do in their spare time. Is that so bad, though? With even only Act 1, they've managed to do more for the image of the disabled than most people would ever realize. While I'd certainly love to see more from them, they've also done a hell of a (sadly unrecognized, overlooked) public service.

Csihar wrote:

cpl_crud wrote:The original H path has no H scenes.

The... huh??
All the girls still have H scenes, right?

Oh, wait, you must be talking about the Kenji path.

Maybe H path = Hanako?

Merlyn_LeRoy wrote:

Csihar wrote:

cpl_crud wrote:The original H path has no H scenes.

The... huh??
All the girls still have H scenes, right?

Oh, wait, you must be talking about the Kenji path.

Maybe H path = Hanako?

Correct.

After the H path there was the HT path, the HT.5 path and finally the K path.

cpl_crud wrote:
After the H path there was the HT path, the HT.5 path and finally the K path.

could you put that in more understandable terms?