Katawa Shoujo Forums

EDIT:

Sorry to say this, but I will abandon this project in favor of the jRPG I wanted to make already for a long time, the Eruta project in my signature.
Thanks for the interest and sorry to let you down. Please don' t reply to this thread anymore, so it can slide down the board. Or if so inclined, an administrator may lock it.

After discussing it in the fighting game thread on this forum, and thinking about it, I decided I wanted to make a fighting game that does not use the settings and characters of Katawa Shoujo, but pays homage to them. I'd like to hear your comments on my ideas, to see if there is enough interest to proceed with it.

Edit: I scrapped the boring "delinquent school" idea, and came up with something more interesting that at least should get you to smile a bit! For one, it means that you or your alter ego can be a character in this game!

Link to project on github: https://github.com/beoran/bhb
Link to blog: http://brokenheartsbattle.wordpress.com/
Link to forum: http://brokenheartsbattle.freeforums.org (I just set this up, no idea if it's any good.)

Here's my plan for the game, extracted from the README file on github. sorry for the wall of text. Look for the Settings, Story and Characters settings for the interesting parts.

Broken Hearts Battle, a lowpoly 3D fighting game and homage to Katawa Shoujo
===========================================================================

Introduction
------------

Broken Hearts Battle intends to become a free, open source lowpoly 3D fighting game which feels somewhat like "Rival Schools", and is a homage to the visual novel Katawa Shoujo (KS). The models will be made in Blender 2.6 or later. The first version of the game will be programmed using the Blender Game Engine in Python, so it will be portable to Windows, Linux and OS X.

Story
-----

Katawas Shoujo is Visual novel that had become very popular within a certain demography. People from all over the world flocked to the online forums of the game to discuss it, and share their feelings and life stories.

One morning, a worrying message entitled "Stop Katawa Shoujo" appeared. "I have abducted one of the members of Four Leaf Studios. If Kantawa Shoujo and
the forums are not taken offline in one month, you will never see him again." At first, the message was thought to be a joke, but then it turned out that one
of the staff had disappeared for real, when a recordings of the member's voice as well of his abductor's demands was distributed to the media.

Some of the most ardent fans fans of Katawa Shoujo, appalled at this, resolved to do whatever it takes, legal or not, to find and rescue the Four Leaf Studio's member. Not wanting to trust the police, decided to join in real life and find out what really happened. The nerds hacked away and were able to pinpoint the area where the abductor must be living. Form all over the world, the fans flocked to this place to investigate.

But suspicion is growing that it may very well be one of the fans who is responsible for the disapperance. And the fans themselves have their own difficult pasts, and social anxieties, and wimpy physiques to deal with. Can they overcome their differences, and their own problems and find out the truth?

Characters
----------

* Rose
Gender: Female.
Hair: Red long hair.
Eyes: Green.
Favourite KS character: Hanako
Personality: Shy girl who loves card games. Flew in from England to
help with the investigation.
Fihghting style: Reluctant, long distance, likes to throw cards as a nuisance.

* Beoran
Gender: Male.
Hair: Shaven short blonde.
Eyes: Brown.
Favourite KS character: Rin.
Personality: Hacker with an arrogant streak the size of Mount Fuji.
Took a month 's holiday from his work to fly over and investigate the disapperance.
Fighting style: Nerd rage.

Insert yourself here, or your own imagined KS fan alter ego!

Gameplay
--------

The game will use lowpoly 3d graphics, but with the fighting mostly on a 2D plane, in a somewhat "street fighter"-like style. Sidestepping will be possible. There will be some projectiles, but they are mostly annoyances, not hadokens! There will also be no time-outs and no ring. Health is only restored after every duel, every fighter has several (2, 3, 4) health bars that get depleted one by one, and they act to divide the combat into "rounds".

Every fighter also has a Rage/Focus bar that shifts between one of these two depending on play style. Button mashing moves to Rage, careful attacks to Focus. Once either Rage or Focus is maxed, different special and super attacks become possible, as well as a "Finishing Move". When the opponent's health bar is almost depleted, a Finishing Move, if it connects, is an instant KO. Finishing moves are not possible if your health bar is also almost depleted. The use of finishing moves influences the story of the game.

Help needed
-----------
*) Native english writer to clean up the story.
*) Artists for concept art and portraits.
*) Blender modellers. I will also model.
*) Suggestions for improving the setting and fleshing out the characters
and their fighting styles are always welcome.
*) I will do the programming, but help with programming is welcome too.

I'm having a bit of trouble seeing how a school for delinquents would be anything like KS.

Hmm, that's probably a valid concern, so i guess I must explain a bit how I got here.

I was first thinking of using the KS characters, and I even got the green light from 4leafstudio for that. But then I condisered that I'd rather avoid certain problems with the KS license, and also that I want to respect their work. Furthermore, it doesn't make much sense for the KS girls to start fighting each other. Finalyy thre will already be sprite based game too, and I'd hate my game to be redundant.

So I came up with this setting in stead. My idea is to take the underlying themes and personalities, and project them in a grittier environment. Handicapped teenagers in KS, mentally troubled kids in Missing Stars, delinquent teenagers in this settings. All people with problems, and yet, still people. I think it will be possible to make the link like that, but I guess I'll need some help at formulating this in a better way.

To clear things up there is no such thing as a high school in England (well when I was in school there were primary schools (for those up to the age of around 11) and secondary schools where you stay for the rest of your mandatory schooling).

Also mandatory schooling in England ends at the age of 16 so you'll have to make sure your characters ages reflect that.

Demonix, thanks for your input! I'm from Europe but not from the UK, so I naturally I got that wrong since I just wrote up my idea in a day or so, and I didn't take any time to do the research. I might have to change the country or school to being a secondary school depending on what makes most sense.

I'm just looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_England, and it seems mandatory shool age was recently increased to 18 years? The characters would need to be in the 17-18 years age bracket, so perhaps this culd be solved by placing the setting in the near future. Also, if the setting stays in the UK, the school would probably be an "independent school" for secondary education.

Oddball wrote:I'm having a bit of trouble seeing how a school for delinquents would be anything like KS.

After thinking more, I completely concede to this point. So now, I decided the game will be a "Fan Game" in the literal sense of the word, in that the characters of Broken Hearts Battle will be us, the fans of the KS game. Look at the updated "story" I edited in the first post of this thread.

wow this idea sounds awsome when are u makeing it and ill be one of the fighters if u what i like things like this thaere fun to do

Carlos21 thanks for your interest. At the moment I don't have enough people who can model well enough in Blender to help me make this game. Looks like this idea will have to wait until I can find enough people who are interested and willing to help out.

oh okay i hope u can find more help till u get to the voice acting part witch is something i can do 4 u