Katawa Shoujo Forums

Recently I have had to deal with the death of my grandmother, she was a kind and loving woman, sadly, she had spent the last few years as a near complete vegetable, so it had already seemed to me that she died a long time ago. On the day of her passing, I was walking home from college, the call came from my father, I didn’t feel sad, all I felt was this empty, burning feeling in my gut, like I had not eaten all day and that there was a build up of acid in my stomach. I decided to go to bed early that day, as I did not feel like doing much else. The next thing I knew I was awake, it was about seven o’clock. My younger sister was the one who roused me from my sleep, I flatly asked her what it is she wanted, feeling emotionless and drained. I just wanted to be left alone. “Harper has died” she said and then she left. Harper was the name of my two year old nephew. I sat there not knowing what to do, so I did nothing and just rolled over to go back to sleep. I don’t recall if I did sleep or not, but the next thing I remember is calling up my father, I cried while talking to him on the phone. Since the age of one Harper has been fighting against bone marrow cancer, medications, radiation treatment, transplants, they were all tried, and they all failed. My grandmother and nephew, dead on the same day. As of now, the time I am writing this, my little sister has tried to kill herself just yesterday, she has just turned thirteen, and had just gotten out of a psychiatric hospital along with a prescription for depression. She over dosed on Claritin D. She has had many problems since the death of my nephew, failing grades in school, other acts of deviance, but I wont get into that.

As for myself? I am a nineteen your old male, I am enrolled at the local community college. My life isn’t anything too special, I have a few good friends, I am single, though I fill the void of loneliness with anime and video games, I do have a learning disability, Aspbergers, a very mild case at that, does not seem to affect me too much. I should be happy about how well off I am, and I am a pretty happy person, most of the time. I do often take the time to look at the beauty in the world, and to laugh at how funny it can be sometimes, but because of the tragedies that my family has faced so recently I find that I am experiencing many lows between my highs.

Now for my reasons for wanting to help out with the Katawa Shoujo project? Well I discovered the game a few days ago, I thought it seemed interesting, a good way to pass the time. Time is all I seem to ever have now days. After playing the demo for a bit, I fell in love, it all seemed so wonderful, just every aspect about it. Its humble beginning, the music, the art, and most of all the story. The story, here is what I found most enthralling about it. These people, although they have faced tragedies and disabilities themselves, still are able to be happy. They may not be real people, but the emotions, the ideas behind them are very real, and they speak to me. There is just something about it, I want to be a part of that something. I don’t have many skills, but I am pretty decent at writing, maybe I can’t write an epic ballad, or a best selling novel, but I think I am pretty damn good when it comes down to a dialogue between two characters, or the feelings inside someone. Also right now I think of myself as an expert both on drama and the sad things, but also of comedy and just loving life to its fullest. In all frankness I probably wont be the biggest help to the project, I need this more than it needs me. Please hear me out, I just want to be of help, I don’t expect much, but I swear I will do everything I can and even try to push my own limitations to make this great, and in the end of it all I can say “Yay, I was apart of that”, and maybe, just maybe, someone like me who was feeling down will be able to be inspired just like I was.

Closing Notes:
I started out writing this feeling very down, but as I went on, and laid words upon the page, I started feeling pretty good. Sure it may have started sounding a bit clichéd near the end, but I kind like things like that. If you want me or not that’s up you, but this game has touched me, and I want to touch it back (I think some of my humor just started to show there). I look forward to (maybe) being able to work with everyone, if not, well then I can atleast say that I tried.

We're not accepting any new writers.

tl;dr

Cool story, brah.


But we still aren't looking for writers.

-Snip-

It sounds quite painful what you've been through. I can appreciate you want to be a part of this due to your personal experiences, but unfortunately, there are no slots available. However, when the time comes (be prepared to wait a lot), more proofreaders will be needed so you could try for that.

There are a lot of way to express your feeling, your experience and all those ideas you have in mind. You can always write or start your own project, and to choose your medium wisely. Visual novel is not exactly more immersible or better than other mediums.

You could start to plan scenario, characters, plot, etc. Write it down, let people evaluate, as persuasion tool for recruiting purpose. tl;dr be a creator.

That’s fine. I did not expect to become a writer. I was actually hoping for a small part to play, proof reader, tester, bug finder, fluffer, personal chew toy or maybe just a good person to ask questions to as I do have experience with these sort of things. I guess a combination of the sleep deprivation and the emotional flow I was feeling made me forget to mention those things.

Really I just want to do ANYTHING ( and I meant anything, well, anything that is within the possibility of me doing it ) to be of help. Sorry if I went about doing it the wrong way, my first forum, not really sure what I should be doing, also I have really know idea what you guys do or need, never made a VN before so I am kinda nooby. But anyways, I have made myself known, so I will be looking for any openings to be able to help out, or if anyone has anything I could do they can contact me.

I am also prepared to wait a long time, I know you all can’t just part the sea and give me something to do for my sake alone. So good luck everyone, I cannot wait to see how everything will all come together in the end.

I'm sorry that I didn't get striaght onto this thread, but as Aura has said, there is currently no openings for writers.

What I'd like to suggest is that if you feel that strongly about the project that you try your hand at writing some fanworks (Oekaki - http://ks.renai.us/viewforum.php?f=3 ).

Without promising anything, two of our (now) core devs started their involvement with the project this way (Raide and Silentcook). We read/saw their works and enjoyed them, so when we were looking to add new devs to the team they were the first names that popped into our heads.

Another thing to note is that fanworks are just that; something that you do in your own time to amuse yourself. On the "other side" it's a little harder; I think all of the devs have had a yelling match with every other dev at some point, and sometimes that can ruin the experience.

Lastly, without trying to get anyone's hopes up, we are a fair way through the rest of the game. All of the paths have their first drafts completed, and there is a lot more art than what you've seen in Act 1, so we are not actively looking for the "raw data" if you'd like. But, stick around the forums and the IRC channel and just chat with us. We're all much more accepting of someone that we know rather than some stranger who has posted a couple of times on the forums.

It should be a little easier now; I've noticed a great increase in activity since the demo was released, so there are more people here to talk to; quite useful, really. I too hope to be a proofreader at some point in the process; not simply for the right to say that I helped make the first truly impressive original english language visual novel, but because I love the concept of this game and want to do what I can to make it better.

hang out in irc, the best thing i can tell you now