Katawa Shoujo Forums

suddenly i wonder:
when is Kenji´s birthday? that no appear in his bio.

I’d like to apologize in advance for the length of this post, but I thought of a few more questions, and I was also curious about a number of questions that went unanswered in this thread. I understand you may have deliberately avoided answering some of these, but you may also just have missed or forgotten about them.

I’ve also added my two cents about a couple things.

Mahorfeus wrote:

Aura wrote: She does have a semi-canon surname, but it's not showing on the envelope picture.

In a bound of my delayed curiosity, and because I like trivia, what is Iwanako's semi-canon surname? Unless I am ignoring the implications of an implied question not being answered, of course.

I assume that you guys would rather just not give out that info, but I’m curious as well.

bradpara wrote:Question for Suriko:

Is there any particular reason, why of all the things you could have chosen for Lilly's Western ancestry, that you chose Scottish?

The text of the above quote was edited for grammar.

TheHivemind wrote:had we chosen to jump from girl to girl and force the player to choose Hisao's actions without knowing his motivations (come to think of it that's an interesting idea).

That is a seriously awesome idea. I don’t care if it’s someone from (or an eventual second project for) 4LS, or someone else, but I want to see that approach taken with a new story.

Zoram wrote:Since the removal of Lelouch was mentioned, was the guy who took his place given a name and a disability, like the other classmates?

To the writers: which ending of each path do you like best? I already have my personal preferences, I’m just curious about yours.

Also, how do you feel about the use of your characters as cameos in other works?

Bara wrote:bowls full of M&M's with all blue ones picked out like VN rock stars?

Off-topic, but the reason behind that sort of thing is interesting: rock bands have to have stages and equipment set up in advance by employees of the venues they perform at. Due to the complexity of the equipment and potential dangers of particular stage designs, they mix that sort of thing into their riders to guarantee that things will be set up safely and correctly. There is logic to this: if a band sees that the odd and pedantic stuff buried in the middle of page four or five has been carried out, they can feel far safer regarding the more important instructions. Van Halen started that sort of tradition after a stage nearly collapsed under them during a performance.

Conversely, anyone who makes that sort of demand for a simple signing or appearance without other important requirements is basically just a prima donna.

ivegottogodosomthing wrote:

Mirrormn wrote:Apologies in advance if this question has been asked already or if this is not quite the right thread for such a question. This has been bothering me for a while, and although I've played through Shizune's route 2 and a half times, I still can't figure it out. It seems like I'm missing something really obvious.

In Shizune's bad ending - specifically, in Spiral - as Hisao encounters Kenji on a nighttime stroll, he takes some time to reflect on his troubles with Shizune. He specifically mentions an incident where he "lied through his hands" to Shizune while "carrying on an entirely different conversation with Misha", and then starts wondering whether Shizune can read lips. I can't remember this incident ever taking place. I even re-read back from Tongue-Tied specifically looking for such an incident, but couldn't find it. What incident is Hisao thinking about here? Is it in the game, or is it, like the two fights between Shizune and Misha, only referred to but never experienced? If it is part of the game, what scene is it in?

I actually asked myself the same thing when I finished her bad route. Never found it when looking back, so I just gave up.

Wouldn't that be his rooftop conversation with Misha?

cpl_crud wrote:However, in my lust to create a Grimdark kind of story, I lost the plot a little and made both the "Bad" route and the exit from that route into a "Good" route untenable. Also, it clashed drastically with the rest of the game. I think a lot of my drive came from a short story that I wrote on the old Invision boards, where Hanako uses a broken mirror to kill Rin, Hisao and herself.

Holy fuck! That wasn't part of the scrapped plotline that silentcook mentioned before, was it?

Silentcook wrote:The game's first draft had a bodycount of a minimum of one and a maximum of three dead characters, depending on which and how many wrong turns you took.

Seriously, cpl_crud, that really seems to fit silentcook’s description…

I’m also curious about the one unavoidable death that he mentioned, but I know I’m not likely to get that info, so I’m not going to press it.

TheHivemind wrote:another veiled Doctor Who reference

As a fellow Doctor Who fan, I’m curious as to how many references you stuck in there. I didn’t catch any, honestly, but now that I know they’re there, and am aware that they might be as obtuse as Mutou being a little similar to the 10th Doctor, and the Nurse being nameless…

Of course, if you could list some more of the references, I’d really appreciate it.

Otakumon wrote:I don't know what all meds are typically prescribed for Hisao's condition but it's mentioned often that he has several different ones he takes. Since many medications don't react well with alcohol I was expecting something to happen with a possible reaction given all the drinking in Lilly's arc but it never did. Was the various meds typical for his condition researched and shown not to have any adverse reactions with alcohol or did the thought never occur that there could be any potential problems with the drinking and his meds?

I also edited that quote for spelling/grammar.

This is just a silly one, but I am curious: in the “Word of God” blog post/thread you mentioned that there were conflicting statements made that Yamaku’s principal was either female or a Luchador. Did you ever reach a consensus? Maybe the principal’s female and the assistant principal’s a Luchador or vice versa? …or a combination of the two where the principal’s a Luchadora?

This final question is for my fellow fans: seeing as there’s no canon path, and all the storylines lead in very different directions… even if they wanted to, how the hell could 4LS create a sequel? There are TWELVE* endings that would have to be built off of, and each of those would need multiple path endings as well… that’s an INSANE amount of work. Not impossible, but it’s in no way reasonable to expect that sort of thing.

*Obviously the Kenji ending in Act 1 would be ignored seeing as Hisao dies in it...

I was wondering if the devs took any inspiration from the Japanese runner Maya Nakanishi in researching Emi's disability and running habits. While their life stories are quite different (Ms. Nakanishi only lost one leg in a work-related accident), I found some of their motivations similar (being stubborn about continuing their athletics, for one). One recent TV profile also mentioned specifically the toll that all the running takes on the part of her leg in the sheath -- if she doesn't take care of it, it can get infected, and... well, we see what happens with that in Emi's route.

At any rate, while there were obvious differences, I thought the similarities were uncanny enough that it was perhaps more than a coincidence.

Sorry if this has been asked somewhere, but I wanted to know if any of the people who worked on this are currently working as programmers, ilustrators, composers...on the industry or if most of you when you started KS project didn't have any experience/only a bit in this business.

The scene I described in my post earlier was a fan work; it was a bit of an inspiration for my oriinal path but it wasn't included. Nor did the past really descend into murder.

As for industry experience, I had practically none before working on KS. I had done a couple of magainze articles and a few screenplays for the fun of it, but that was about it.

Totz the Plaid wrote:Been a LONG time since I last posted.

Anyway, this question is 100% hypothetical at this point as I don't have video capture/editing software or a computer mic, but say someone was to create a video Let's Play of KS, and they wanted to have people they know do character voices for it... would that be okay?

I don't see why not. The two things we dislike are presenting unofficial stuff as official, which mostly involves manipulating the game itself, and making profit off KS. This is neither.

Totz the Plaid wrote:Also, should you folks decide to allow for unofficial translations, what would your opinion be on more odd and esoteric versions? Like, say... Middle English? It might just be because I'm a weirdo, but I kinda want to get full-on Shakespeare on this. Well, maybe not full-on... iambic pentameter is a bitch and a half...

The moment we approve any unofficial translations they become official translations, no?

VIVI wrote:suddenly i wonder:
when is Kenji´s birthday? that no appear in his bio.

Don't think anyone ever gave him one.

Mumei wrote:I was wondering if the devs took any inspiration from the Japanese runner Maya Nakanishi in researching Emi's disability and running habits. While their life stories are quite different (Ms. Nakanishi only lost one leg in a work-related accident), I found some of their motivations similar (being stubborn about continuing their athletics, for one). One recent TV profile also mentioned specifically the toll that all the running takes on the part of her leg in the sheath -- if she doesn't take care of it, it can get infected, and... well, we see what happens with that in Emi's route.

At any rate, while there were obvious differences, I thought the similarities were uncanny enough that it was perhaps more than a coincidence.

Any similarity is a coincidence. The real life person Emi is more often compared to is Aimee Mullins, but even she was not used as direct inspiration.

Paul Atreides wrote:Sorry if this has been asked somewhere, but I wanted to know if any of the people who worked on this are currently working as programmers, ilustrators, composers...on the industry or if most of you when you started KS project didn't have any experience/only a bit in this business.

None of us work in game industry, or even had any significant experience in our respective fields beforehand. We are as amateur as you can be.

Totz the Plaid wrote:I’d like to apologize in advance for the length of this post, but I thought of a few more questions, and I was also curious about a number of questions that went unanswered in this thread. I understand you may have deliberately avoided answering some of these, but you may also just have missed or forgotten about them.

I’ve also added my two cents about a couple things.

Mahorfeus wrote:

Aura wrote: She does have a semi-canon surname, but it's not showing on the envelope picture.

In a bound of my delayed curiosity, and because I like trivia, what is Iwanako's semi-canon surname? Unless I am ignoring the implications of an implied question not being answered, of course.

I assume that you guys would rather just not give out that info, but I’m curious as well.

Nah, I just can't remember it anymore, since it was never used, it was left only as a side mention in some discussion, possibly never even written down anywhere. Very possible it's lost in time.

Totz the Plaid wrote:

Zoram wrote:Since the removal of Lelouch was mentioned, was the guy who took his place given a name and a disability, like the other classmates?

To the writers: which ending of each path do you like best? I already have my personal preferences, I’m just curious about yours.

Also, how do you feel about the use of your characters as cameos in other works?

I like the bad ending of Rin's and Shizune's paths, and the good in the other three. I think fictional crossover cameos in general are not the best of ideas, but don't feel especially strongly about KS cameos.

Totz the Plaid wrote:

cpl_crud wrote:However, in my lust to create a Grimdark kind of story, I lost the plot a little and made both the "Bad" route and the exit from that route into a "Good" route untenable. Also, it clashed drastically with the rest of the game. I think a lot of my drive came from a short story that I wrote on the old Invision boards, where Hanako uses a broken mirror to kill Rin, Hisao and herself.

Holy fuck! That wasn't part of the scrapped plotline that silentcook mentioned before, was it?

It wasn't.

Totz the Plaid wrote:

Otakumon wrote:I don't know what all meds are typically prescribed for Hisao's condition but it's mentioned often that he has several different ones he takes. Since many medications don't react well with alcohol I was expecting something to happen with a possible reaction given all the drinking in Lilly's arc but it never did. Was the various meds typical for his condition researched and shown not to have any adverse reactions with alcohol or did the thought never occur that there could be any potential problems with the drinking and his meds?

I also edited that quote for spelling/grammar.

I may be misremembering, but I believe Hisao's meds don't have adverse effects with alcohol.

Totz the Plaid wrote:This is just a silly one, but I am curious: in the “Word of God” blog post/thread you mentioned that there were conflicting statements made that Yamaku’s principal was either female or a Luchador. Did you ever reach a consensus? Maybe the principal’s female and the assistant principal’s a Luchador or vice versa? …or a combination of the two where the principal’s a Luchadora?

The point of that remark was that we can fuck around with "canon" on a whim. Because the principal does not appear in the story it doesn't matter whether she's male, female, luchador or a martian.

Aura wrote:I like the bad ending of Rin's and Shizune's paths, and the good in the other three.

Do you mean the early bad ending, or the later one where she decides to leave for art school? I'm assuming the latter since it's much more drawn out and emotional, whereas the previous bad ending is pretty sudden and uninvolved.

To the devs:

How did you explain to your parents/family/friends what were you working on for those long hours?

I find pretty hard to explain to unrelated people what is KS about. Its an akward speech most of the time.

Hi! Pax vobiscum!

First, I'd like to thank you for the game. I know you get this a lot, but this is an awesome, thought-provoking game, and I am glad I found it. God bless you folks for making it.

My questions:

1) How do you pronounce Hisao's name? Is it "His-OW", or "His-A-yo" or something else?
1a) Do you pronounce Hideaki as "Hi-dee-YA-ki"?

2) Did you ever decide on any canonical ending? That is, of all of the endings in KS, which one, in your opinions, is the one that "really happened"? At very least, what is your favourite?

Erthel wrote:To the devs:

How did you explain to your parents/family/friends what were you working on for those long hours?

I find pretty hard to explain to unrelated people what is KS about. Its an akward speech most of the time.

I have a pretty good relationship with my close friends, some of them even beta'd the Act 1 release.

Others I just mention that I'm working on an online writing project.

I always pronounced it HIS-OW because i watched a Lets play of mega man battle network 3, and the Character, who's name is spelled chisao, was pronounced CHIS-OW by the player.