Ask!

[Silentcook]

What do you guys do for a living? I.e Uni/college, work, hobbies etc. Are you all proficient with programming?

Nurse in a neuro OR. Couldn't program to save my life.

[HurricaneHarvey]

After once again briefly reading the forums/FAQ to make sure I don't ask a question that has already been spammed on this website, I've found that (so far) it hasn't been answered. So...

What do you guys do for a living? I.e Uni/college, work, hobbies etc. Are you all proficient with programming?

Sorry if it sounds intrusive, I just find the writers (Well, all developers involved really) to be extraordinary people (And are rather patient as well.. judging by the other questions that they receive).

I am a technology consultant for the entertainment industry. Biggest hobby is my family, but others include photography and collecting headphones.

For some reason they "entertainment industry" sounds dirty. Like you set up wifi for porn shoots or something....

[GamerJM]

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.

[cpl_crud]

For some reason they "entertainment industry" sounds dirty. Like you set up wifi for porn shoots or something....

I would be lying if I told you that I hadn't set up Wifi at an event with naked ladies. Such is life.

Replace "Entertaiment" with "Theatre, live production and broadcast" and you are closer to the mark.

[lblf]

You might like Joe Hisaishi: Or Oscar Peterson: Or Chopin:

Thank you. I feel enlightened!

I would be lying if I told you that I hadn't set up Wifi at an event with naked ladies. Such is life.

Replace "Entertaiment" with "Theatre, live production and broadcast" and you are closer to the mark.

And cpl_crud, cheers for taking the time to participate in that interview. Wouldn't be really cool to have a "narrative playthrough" of KS to listen to what the writers/artist/composers were thinking at parts of the game? Just putting it out there, I know so much has been asked of you guys already

[Caesius]

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?

[xaolindragon]

You might like Joe Hisaishi: Or Oscar Peterson: Or Chopin:

Thank you. I feel enlightened!

I would be lying if I told you that I hadn't set up Wifi at an event with naked ladies. Such is life.

Replace "Entertaiment" with "Theatre, live production and broadcast" and you are closer to the mark.

And cpl_crud, cheers for taking the time to participate in that interview. Wouldn't be really cool to have a "narrative playthrough" of KS to listen to what the writers/artist/composers were thinking at parts of the game? Just putting it out there, I know so much has been asked of you guys already

"Narrative playthrough" reminds me a lot of "director's commentary" you see often in movie. And I have to say: it would be extremely wonderful and interesting to see what the writer have to say about his/her own writing, but I highly doubt anyone would be willing to do something like that. I get the feeling that everyone is more than willing to leave this as it is and move onto to other things.

[lblf]

"Narrative playthrough" reminds me a lot of "director's commentary" you see often in movie. And I have to say: it would be extremely wonderful and interesting to see what the writer have to say about his/her own writing, but I highly doubt anyone would be willing to do something like that. I get the feeling that everyone is more than willing to leave this as it is and move onto to other things.

Yeah a "director's commentary" is exactly what I was thinking when I brought it up.I totally understand that they'd would prefer to leave it as it is, there's nothing wrong with that, I think KS is perfect the way it is. Just can't help but want to delve deeper into the minds of the writers because I truly enjoyed it reading it so much.

[TheHivemind]

"Narrative playthrough" reminds me a lot of "director's commentary" you see often in movie. And I have to say: it would be extremely wonderful and interesting to see what the writer have to say about his/her own writing, but I highly doubt anyone would be willing to do something like that. I get the feeling that everyone is more than willing to leave this as it is and move onto to other things.

Yeah a "director's commentary" is exactly what I was thinking when I brought it up.I totally understand that they'd would prefer to leave it as it is, there's nothing wrong with that, I think KS is perfect the way it is. Just can't help but want to delve deeper into the minds of the writers because I truly enjoyed it reading it so much.

In the earlier days of the project we considered doing something like this. We decided against it later, because it would be horribly time consuming and I, at least, have very little to say about any particular scene. Some scenes, it's true, have little stories about them, but honestly some of the stories happened years ago and I don't recall them too clearly.

[LewaKal]

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!

[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.

[lblf]

In the earlier days of the project we considered doing something like this. We decided against it later, because it would be horribly time consuming and I, at least, have very little to say about any particular scene. Some scenes, it's true, have little stories about them, but honestly some of the stories happened years ago and I don't recall them too clearly.

Well with the 5 years that went into the development process, I think there is hardly anyone who can blame you guys for not being to remember. It would just have been really neat to pick your brains while enjoying the game again once over.

[Guest]

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

[sboy12]

Hey... I'm interested in translation of KS in Korean which is my native language.

Whom should I contact with for this....?

[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).