Ask!

[Aura]

I'd like to hear from the writers about the decision points in their respective paths.

To what extent did you write towards a choice you already had in mind? Were there choices that just arose from the scenes as you wrote them? Were there any reasons besides the obvious for putting in some decisions?

Was there an overall plan for the choices in the route? How early/late in the process did it come about? Were you looking to have some sort of "theme" for the good and bad choices?

You guys have made a pretty cool VN for a first effort. Thanks for it.

A lot of questions, enough to write an essay on the subject. We all had a different approach to choices. I planned the story structure heavily before writing, including all the choices and branches. I also experimented a lot with complexity and different substructures (and you can see that Act 1 and Rin path have a lot more branching than other parts of the game). I also wanted to keep the choices as ambiguous as possible in Rin's path, to reflect Hisao's confusion.

Some of the writers first wrote their "main" story linearily, like you would a book, and then added choices and branching in. It makes writing the main story quite a bit easier, but complex branching becomes harder to add. Especially Shizune's and Lilly's paths have a clear theme for their choices (inevitability and trust, respectively).

[Aura]

Just out of curiosity, was Iwanako's letter originally written in Japanese, then translated to English? Or the other way around?

Written in English of course.

[Aura]

Is there any count of downloads for the full version of the game?
Seeing as how the game virtually exploded everywhere on the internet, the downloads should reflect that.

There's nothing reliable, unfortunately.

[Aura]

I have to say, I think for a VN with five writers, the story in this was amazingly coherent. Sure, the writing style varied, but as a whole I think the themes came together well to form one cohesive story fairly well. DId you guys really put a lot of effort into working with each other? Some of the blog posts make it sound like you were kind of doing your own thing for a lot of the project and I dunno, something about that just seems kinda hard to believe.

Yes and no. We did not attempt to get any stylistic consistency (because all of us were still sort of learning to write), but since we talked a lot and did a ton of thoughtwork together, the paths are not completely incoherent.

[Aura]

Although I imagine you guys are loathe to speculate, what do you think to have been RAITA's original intentions for KS? Would he have wanted to cater to the "white knight," the deviant pervert, the hopeless romantic, or the normal person?

You guys obviously went to great lengths to depict the characters as human beings rather than fairytale stereotypes, even going so far as to throw Hisao's own white knight complex back in his face. But could the game have avoided becoming a cliche-fest if the Japanese had produced it, even with similar non-commercial intentions?

His target audience would've been radiologists.

[Aura]

I'm going to make this short, since I'm not 100% certain it hasn't been answered.

Will any of the visual art be available through download or similar?

ps. I'm asking because I noticed a question similar where Aura replied that none of the game assets will be released, and yet, here I am with the Katawa Shoujo Enigmatic Box of Sound, which, if I may add, I am enjoying to an unbelievable extend.

Soundtrack is an exception. Consider a movie, they almost always release their soundtracks too, but never their raw special effects files or editing program project files.

[Aura]

I don't know if this was answered, but what font was used for the game?

Playtime with Hot Toddies

[cpl_crud]

Hey there, devs. I wanted to thank you all for such a great game. I decided to share KS with a few of my friends, and we all absolutely loved it. It served as a great way to bring us together, even though we live an ocean apart from each other. Anyway, onto my question:

My friends and I are graduating this semester, and in celebration we would love to visit Japan. Suriko mentioned that Aura and Crud have been to Japan, so I was wondering if either of you were willing to share any tips for somebody who has never left the US before. Any bit of info would be awesome. Also, could you share links to any helpful websites and resources?

I have always found that a good place to start looking for answers is from those with experience! Thanks in advance for any help you can give us on the subject!

Kyoto, for sure.
But reall, research anywhere that you are hinking about going so you don't miss anything.

Get a jr pass and just keep going. Check out my fkickjr or cplcrud.deviantart.com.if you see something you like just ask me.

[Otakumon]

I've been wondering about Jigoro. Is the way he's portrayed with his appearance and attitude intended as comic relief or is he badly over compensating for the shame he feels that such a perfect speciman of manhood as himself could spawn a child with a disability?

Kind of reminds me of this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvpSP4fI ... re=related

[Omnicretus]

I'm going to make this short, since I'm not 100% certain it hasn't been answered.

Will any of the visual art be available through download or similar?

ps. I'm asking because I noticed a question similar where Aura replied that none of the game assets will be released, and yet, here I am with the Katawa Shoujo Enigmatic Box of Sound, which, if I may add, I am enjoying to an unbelievable extend.

Soundtrack is an exception. Consider a movie, they almost always release their soundtracks too, but never their raw special effects files or editing program project files.

While I clearly understand the message, I just can't help feeling like this is nothing like a movie at all, when it comes to copyright and what not. This is (unbelievably) a free to download game. While I understand there may be some copyright infringement, I don't see why that means that certain backgrounds in the game, like the ones in the end of every good ending, can't be released for the public since so much else has already been released, like the already released wallpapers, so I'd be happy if you could clarify that.

[Silentcook]

While I clearly understand the message, I just can't help feeling like this is nothing like a movie at all, when it comes to copyright and what not. This is (unbelievably) a free to download game. While I understand there may be some copyright infringement, I don't see why that means that certain backgrounds in the game, like the ones in the end of every good ending, can't be released for the public since so much else has already been released, like the already released wallpapers, so I'd be happy if you could clarify that.

"Free" doesn't mean "open source". We could release everything in the game if we wanted to; we don't want to.

[Zoram]

I've discovered Act 1 in Summer 2009 and I've silently followed the development, and lurked here, since. I was surprised to see things speed up during 2011, so the final coming of the full version was a great thing; I'm currently thinking about applying to dedicate at least some of my free time to the future translation in my language (Italian).


On with the questions...

1 - Shizune's path was the last to be completed, the announcement of its completion came mere weeks before the final release. Was it completed in a hurry? I ask this after seeing the subplot of Shizune's family being so prominent and then dropped, and having only one choice throughout all the route - to me, they looked like signs of rushed completion. My general impression, with the updates throughout last year, is that the devs said to themselves "we WILL finish KS within 2011" (and they did), making Shizune's route fall "victim" of a self-imposed deadline.
Mind you, it's already fine as it is, and if it was the case I described, I'd also understand that at some point the project had to be wrapped up, or else it would be never finished. Still, I can't get the above idea out of my head.

2 - Will a patch be released? At least the acknowledged script error about Shizune's and Lilly's fathers, in both their routes, should be fixed.

3 - Related to the above, why not include, in the future update, some art assets that were lost in the transition between Act 1 and the full version? I mean the CG that was unlocked upon 100% clearing of Act 1 (much better than the really disappointing one the full version has, IMO), the character sketches in the main menu... They may be unlocked with 100% completion as well. I know one can also download Act 1 (I have all version of it, actually), but it would be nice to have all together.

4 - Will the FMVs be available, sometime in the future, as a separate download, available at higher resolutions?

5 - Will assets or music tracks that ended up unused, be released in the future? They may make an interesting hindsight into the development. (I'm thinking of the unused snippet from Mike Inel's Rin FMV, for example)


Thanks for all your efforts. Reading through this entire thread gave even more hindsight into your work.

[jaycee]

if hypothetically I want to make a sort of spin off of Katawa Shoujo(by using the school and some characters, for example the nurse) can I do it? (obviouslly without taking anything from your work: for example if I would use the nurse i will draw it from zero but using your nurse as a reference)
sorry if my english is confusing

[xaolindragon]

2 - Will a patch be released? At least the acknowledged script error about Shizune's and Lilly's fathers, in both their routes, should be fixed.

This seems to have slipped my memory. What was the error?

[Guest]

Why did you ditch this intro? I got all hyped up after watching it.