Katawa Shoujo Forums

We all know that the dev team mainly consisted of a circle of friends from 4chan. So what was your expenses? As several individuals, did you spend any money on anything related to this game while creation? Like, for recruitment? Or some other expenses except recruitment? And how did you manage it? Assembled money from each of the devs to make it fair? I don't know if anyone asked this before, but I am curious.

Sorry to contradict you, but I'd like to lay to rest some misconceptions while I'm answering your question.

First, "circle of friends from 4chan" is just plain wrong. I, for one, got wind of KS from Mirrormoon and met the rest of the developers for the first time on these forums (and IRC, if you want to be technical about it). I'll let the others speak for themselves if they want, but I know that at least some would tell a similar story.

That aside, KS development did not require any actual expenses at all. Apart from personal free time, of course: that took a huge hit. We have said repeatedly that putting money in the equation would probably have killed us.

I wouldn't describe us as a "circle of friends from 4chan" either.

The only real development costs that come to mind were 1) the hosting, which has been donated to us by a certain awesome friend since 2009 to this day, and 2) everyone's personal equipment: computers, software, tablets, cameras, internet connection and such, which obviously each of us bought for themselves.

I am one of the few who actually did come from 4chan. I can pretty much guarantee that "circle of friends" is not how I would describe the early days of the project. Mostly I would describe it as "a bunch of assholes," myself very much included. By the time we got on these current forums we'd become a much smaller group, but we still dropped at least four or five more folk before we arrived at the final team.

Shit, probably more than that.

I spent no money on this project, although circumstances did lead me to go through two laptops before the final project was shoved out the door (stolen and stepped on whilst blundering about in the dark, respectively).

For those of us that can't read kanji, what is Emi's father's name?

bhtooefr wrote:For those of us that can't read kanji, what is Emi's father's name?

I don't actually remember us ever deciding his name, or writing it down, so you have to give the kanji to me from wherever you found it. If you think the gravestone has his name you're mistaken, it reads "Ibarazaki family's grave" as per the Japanese tradition.

OK, that answers my question. (It was the gravestone.)

Hmm, I'll need to figure out something else then.

...I did pick out a name for him, way back when. But it wasn't significant storywise, the note I made vanished in the bowels of our repositories, and I don't remember the exact name I picked any longer.

It probably was 健一 (Kenichi), because I do remember choosing something starting with 健, because I can't resist being a bastard.

Good enough for me, I'll use it. Thanks.

Oh I see. How surpirising. Hivemind said that he would call themselves a bunch of assholes, but all of those guys on lemmasoft are actually hiring recruits and spending money on "special programs or softwares" to be able to create their so precious games. Who would think that there would actually be people who wouldn't mind giving a hand for free? Almost unbelievable that an asshole could do that. Did anyone from the original team request payment for their services? I mean, all those visual and musical works... Even the animations! In the sense of quality, this game would certainly beat a number of games that are not free, which are made by a company, which spent so much money on recruitment and stuff...
I just feel bad for those guys trying to recruit someone with money. I guess I'd still rather learn everything by myself, including music, graphics and Ren'Py altogether. (actually I already figured out most of the ren'py by now, but that is the easiest part)

Btw, why does Blue123 have relatively lesser contribution to soundtrack compared to Nicol?

Erenussocrates wrote:Did anyone from the original team request payment for their services?

As far as I'm aware, no. It was made pretty clear from the start that it was a voluntary project, and no positions would be paid.

Erenussocrates wrote:Btw, why does Blue123 have relatively lesser contribution to soundtrack compared to Nicol?

Blue joined the project about a year or so after I left, and by that point most of the music had already been written, so there just wasn't much that needed to be done.

Silentcook wrote:It probably was 健一 (Kenichi), because I do remember choosing something starting with 健, because I can't resist being a bastard.

Uh, care to explain that a little further?

To the best of my very limited knowledge, main meanings associated to that kanji include "healthy" and "strong".

I seem to recall seeing a video of a KS beta before the final game was released (in 2009 or 2010,) which explicitly wasn't the Act 1 demo; all of the backgrounds were different, Lilly's sprite was one of its older iterations, and the scene where she first encountered Hisao was completely different (Niji was definitely there, and I believe she was playing the piano.) Was this a real thing, or was it something a fan put together?

Also, if it was real, what went into the decision to remove the musical aspect of Lilly's character?

You MIGHT have seen a Grid1 video. Grid1 was something like the proto-Act 1, which got massively overhauled because it was a Frankenstein job of joining scenes by the expedient of throwing them together with sufficient force. Backgrounds were different, sprites were by a different artist, several scenes were different or weren't there or got removed later.

There was no Niji though and Lilly played the cello instead, so I'm afraid I can't be much more help here.