Katawa Shoujo Forums

Regarding the ero scenes (whoo, people can't stop talking about them, eh?)

- I noticed that on some routes, some of the ero content is reserved for good ends, and on others it isn't. Was this planned out much? Or were the scenes just put in where they seemed to fit the story best? (I personally kinda like the idea of not strictly planning it out, because it gets rid of the sense that it's some kind of reward. The real reward, aside from the story itself, is the concept art video and music in the credits )

- (It would be great to hear multiple opinions on this one!) Do you think the story (/stories) would have been noticeably different without the ero content? What if those bits had just been summarized with no illustration? Did you feel pressure to include ero scenes just to satisfy genre conventions? Or would it have felt unnatural/unrealistic to you not to have the characters have sex at crucial moments?

- It seems like some care was put into keeping decision points well separated from the ero content most of the time (and when you get a decision fairly shortly after the first scene with Rin, it's rather jarring, and really picks up the emotion of the moment). How deliberate was this? Was there a fear of emphasizing the eroge aspect too much vs. the story aspect by putting decisions closer, or even during the scenes? I know in certain scenes I would have appreciated the option to refuse at the start, or else (not both for the same scene; that would get irritating) stop partway through and just share a tender moment. (Yeah, yeah, I know.)

Regarding scene direction and other technical stuff:

- I've seen a few reports of typos, minor text pathing errors (like references to previous events that could have been avoided, or that could have played out differently than described), etc. Is there any point in reporting these?

- How does the eye-opening/closing effect work? Is there some kind of sprite for the lens shape or is it all procedural?

- How about the fireworks / rain / smoke? Some kind of particle system? Overlaid movies/animations? Something else?

- Some scenes have text variations that depend on questions asked earlier in the route. How does the scene library handle this? Preliminary testing suggests it sticks with whatever was the first version you saw in-game, but...

I also have route-specific questions, but I want to wait until I'm done the two remaining routes and ask them all at once.

Oh, forgot a general writing question, though: Were scene/act titles generally worked out first and used to guide the writing, or were they decided after the fact as clever summaries? I was disappointed when Hanako act 4 didn't have a "game" themed title like the first two, but I can't really imagine how it could have. Maybe "Sacrifice"? But that would only describe the good end, really...

Aura/Hivemind- Lots of lines are shared in "Target Audience" in both Emi and Rin routes. Who wrote what?

I've played through both Emi's and Lilly's route, and in both of them I really enjoyed every scene involving Mutou (especially in Emi's route), as he really reminded me of past teachers I had which convinced me that I wanted to go into the sciences.

1. How did you guys come up with him?
2. Did he have any particular writer assigned to him, or was he more or less an extra character every writer was told to work with?

Is there any way I can offer assistance, however small, to the German translation team should they require it? I worked as a video game localization tester for five years, so I was just curious. Thanks!

Zahlman wrote: Regarding scene direction and other technical stuff:

- I've seen a few reports of typos, minor text pathing errors (like references to previous events that could have been avoided, or that could have played out differently than described), etc. Is there any point in reporting these?

Sure, why not.

Zahlman wrote: - How does the eye-opening/closing effect work? Is there some kind of sprite for the lens shape or is it all procedural?

ImageDissolve

Zahlman wrote: - How about the fireworks / rain / smoke? Some kind of particle system? Overlaid movies/animations? Something else?

anim.SMAnimation

Zahlman wrote: - Some scenes have text variations that depend on questions asked earlier in the route. How does the scene library handle this? Preliminary testing suggests it sticks with whatever was the first version you saw in-game, but...

The replay has predetermined fixed content if the branching depends on choices outside the scene, and it's generally the option that has the most text or is the most positive. If it would differ in more than just a handful of lines, it will be different scenes anyway.

Lunar Archivist wrote:Is there any way I can offer assistance, however small, to the German translation team should they require it? I worked as a video game localization tester for five years, so I was just curious. Thanks!

I'll PM you about that.

Freya wrote:How did you guys/gals decide who wrote what path?

Everyone picked a path they thought they'd like to write. A22 and crud both wanted Hanako, but crud "won" in the end. Hivemind got to choose last, when Emi was the only choice left.

Merlyn_LeRoy wrote:Is the Yamaku mascot still a fish?

Sure why not.

Guest wrote:Hey Aura, what kind of music does Rin like?

Dunno. I've seen it being heavily debated before. For some reason people always attribute some really obscure hipster music genres to her.

Rivan wrote: ... Why did you feel pressured to boost the H-Scene count? I mean, I know we're supposedly playing an eroge, but given the voices of the fans many felt the game could've done quite easily with little to none of them. So, unless you wanted to, in which case there's little pressure, there wouldn't be much reason to include additional ones.

Because 0 scenes would have meant that someone would have hunted me down and killed me.

At the time there was still a fairly big push to make sure that we "Stayed true" to the original H-game concept, and that required the sex scenes. I didn't really want to put them in there; they just felt out of place. So I went back and found some places for them to go. I think my subconscious rebellion was to make the main H-scene a bad end as opposed to a good one.

I think most of us can agree that having sex (as opposed to the more family friendly "making love") doesn't always mean good things, so a bad sex scene in a bad end path seemed to fit better to me...

cpl_crud wrote:I think my subconscious rebellion was to make the main H-scene a bad end as opposed to a good one.
I think most of us can agree that having sex (as opposed to the more family friendly "making love") doesn't always mean good things, so a bad sex scene in a bad end path seemed to fit better to me...

So did A22 get that idea from you?

cpl_crud wrote:

Rivan wrote: ... Why did you feel pressured to boost the H-Scene count? I mean, I know we're supposedly playing an eroge, but given the voices of the fans many felt the game could've done quite easily with little to none of them. So, unless you wanted to, in which case there's little pressure, there wouldn't be much reason to include additional ones.

Because 0 scenes would have meant that someone would have hunted me down and killed me.

At the time there was still a fairly big push to make sure that we "Stayed true" to the original H-game concept, and that required the sex scenes. I didn't really want to put them in there; they just felt out of place. So I went back and found some places for them to go. I think my subconscious rebellion was to make the main H-scene a bad end as opposed to a good one.

I think most of us can agree that having sex (as opposed to the more family friendly "making love") doesn't always mean good things, so a bad sex scene in a bad end path seemed to fit better to me...

Seems like a valid explanation to me. Only that, well, um... I think even with somebody as thick as Hisao, taking advantage of Hanako would be out of the question in that case. Especially given his initial White Knight syndrome. Which is probably why the idea was scrapped, partially.

Zahlman wrote:were the scenes just put in where they seemed to fit the story best?

Yes

Zahlman wrote:- (It would be great to hear multiple opinions on this one!) Do you think the story (/stories) would have been noticeably different without the ero content? What if those bits had just been summarized with no illustration? Did you feel pressure to include ero scenes just to satisfy genre conventions? Or would it have felt unnatural/unrealistic to you not to have the characters have sex at crucial moments?

Sure, I think the stories would've been a different experience. Summarizing the sex scenes with no illustrations would've gone completely against our presentation style, would've made no sense (but it would also have been a different experience). Genre conventions certainly played a big part in the inclusion of the sex scenes but at don't know how we could've felt pressured to do it. It was decided from the beginning that we'd have them, so that was that.

Zahlman wrote:- It seems like some care was put into keeping decision points well separated from the ero content most of the time (and when you get a decision fairly shortly after the first scene with Rin, it's rather jarring, and really picks up the emotion of the moment). How deliberate was this? Was there a fear of emphasizing the eroge aspect too much vs. the story aspect by putting decisions closer, or even during the scenes? I know in certain scenes I would have appreciated the option to refuse at the start, or else (not both for the same scene; that would get irritating) stop partway through and just share a tender moment. (Yeah, yeah, I know.)

It was not deliberate to not have decision inside h scenes. However, we don't like at all choices the kind of you describe and would've never included any like them. If a more normal decision point would've appeared in a H scene, then there would've been a choice.

Zahlman wrote:Oh, forgot a general writing question, though: Were scene/act titles generally worked out first and used to guide the writing, or were they decided after the fact as clever summaries? I was disappointed when Hanako act 4 didn't have a "game" themed title like the first two, but I can't really imagine how it could have. Maybe "Sacrifice"? But that would only describe the good end, really...

Titles were decided afterwards. The reverse would make no sense.

Dylan wrote:Aura/Hivemind- Lots of lines are shared in "Target Audience" in both Emi and Rin routes. Who wrote what?

Hivemind

Errorname wrote:I've played through both Emi's and Lilly's route, and in both of them I really enjoyed every scene involving Mutou (especially in Emi's route), as he really reminded me of past teachers I had which convinced me that I wanted to go into the sciences.

1. How did you guys come up with him?
2. Did he have any particular writer assigned to him, or was he more or less an extra character every writer was told to work with?

1. Difficult question to answer, like all questions of this sort are. We drew on some archetypes and the roles we expected to need him for and mixed it up a little. He was originally even more goofy and awkward than he is now, and needed toning down.
2. He didn't have a writer. Hivemind, however, probably did the most work in fleshing his character out.