Ask!

[Bad Apple]

And is Shizune already hot for Hisao fairly early in Act 1 (i.e. pre-festival) or is it all about getting him on the Student Council?

All the ladies want to ride Hisao like a Harley down a stretch of bad road from day one, except for Rin.

Funny, seeing Rin is the only one 'flirting' with the guy from day one.

The problem is in your pants!

I heard that~

[bhtooefr]

Hanako mentions "worse things" happening to her in middle school, that she doesn't get into with Hisao.

Just how bad were those "worse things"? I'm assuming pretty bad, but are we talking "garden variety" physical bullying, or are we talking worse?

(If it's as bad as I suspect, it makes Hanako's H-scene even squickier, I think.)

[TheHivemind]

While you're here Hive, got a Emi-route specific one - I've seen people talk about her route and complain that Hisao is a complete doofus for not piecing together what happened to Emi's dad. My interpretation is he at least partially figured it out before he gets to the graveyard and it's just the style of KS that there no "OMG so *thats* what it was" moment in Hisao's internal monologue (see also: the realisation Misha is a Daughter of Sappho). He has he figured some of it out before the aforesaid scene or is he that dozy?

It is easy to read a narrative and, being familiar with the general sorts of tropes associated, know exactly what happened to Emi's dad from the word go. Having Hisao not pick up on it right away is half because he's kind of self-absorbed and hasn't put a lot of thought into the question, half me being deliberately obtuse because it amused me at the time to have him miss out on what is a pretty obvious trope.

Plus while writing I kept open the possibility of changing her father's fate to imprisonment or rehab or something you know, not dead (again, for my own amusement) but it would have at the least required more art assets for more one-off scenes than seemed wise. So the more obvious, less resource-intensive option was chosen. Follow Emi after dinner though and you'll see that Hisao has a pretty good idea of what's going on, even if he hasn't narrated it to you.

Hanako mentions "worse things" happening to her in middle school, that she doesn't get into with Hisao.

Just how bad were those "worse things"? I'm assuming pretty bad, but are we talking "garden variety" physical bullying, or are we talking worse?

(If it's as bad as I suspect, it makes Hanako's H-scene even squickier, I think.)

Someone did a poo in her locker. It was a big deal.

[Fealow]

Someone did a poo in her locker. It was a big deal.

Bad joke is bad...

[Bad Apple]

So a bunch of mostly unrelated questions. I recently noticed the shopkeep of Othello's Antiques wears a white collared shirt and greenish slacks, the same colors used at Yamaku. Was his sprite to be used for something relating to Yamaku at one point, or are the colors a coincidence? Or... was he originally a Yamaku student?

More generally speaking, the choice of "NPC" sprites seems to me arbitrary at first glance, as only a few NPCs (i.e said shopkeep) were blessed with sprites and others not, despite none of them appearing for more than two scenes. So I apologize if this question is too open-ended but, assuming it wasn't arbitrary, what was the direction taken with "NPC" sprites?

While I'm at it, I've been meaning to ask this one for a while: What database or website did 4LS use to host and collaborate on KS? Is it common among indie devs or did you guys just wing it?

P.S.: Relevant to the previous posts. How did "Gimme the chocolate, Hisao!" even start, anyway? I haven't lurked that long and I was never really bothered to look into... that. You understand.

[Silentcook]

1) Coincidence.

2) Mostly a combo of artists' darlings and directing choices by delta I don't fully understand myself, so I'll let someone else field this one.

3) We used Redmine for quite a while, then we had to switch to Trac. The forums are the other "website" we collaborated on. No idea about their popularity with other indie devs.

4) Some random person just woke up one day, fired up MS paint and dropped that on the Internet. Then everybody else ran with it. Good luck figuring anything more, I still have no idea why Yuukoplant myself, for example.

[HayStack44]

P.S.: Relevant to the previous posts. How did "Gimme the chocolate, Hisao!" even start, anyway?

Well in case you know the meme but dont know the cartoon it's basically a joke based on the premise that what if Hanako route is all nice and sweet and feels-generating (as, on the whole, it actually is) and then suddenly in drops the worst "A Serbian Film" level sex scene that you can possibly imagine. I think for some, considering where the idea to do KS came from, they were half-expecting some kind of trolling of that nature. The cartoon in question dates from at least 2009 so long pre-dates the full release so everything post-Act 1 was still speculation.

I still have no idea why Yuukoplant myself, for example.

Because Yucca Plant surely?:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=yucca ... ch&sa=X&ei

[Guest Poster]

I think for some, considering where the idea to do KS came from, they were half-expecting some kind of trolling of that nature.

Which it actually did, but more tastefully. That comic itself already mentions being "your knight in shining armor" and it's very likely many people expected Hanako's route to kind of go that way, with Hanako eventually putting out after being assured enough that the protagonist would keep her safe. It did not.

[cpl_crud]

Tea Ceremony Club is actually a fairly common club to see in Japanese schools.

As are other traditional things like Flower Arrangement. However, they are occasionally abused by people who want to look like they are in a club, but don't want to put in the effort of actually learning a sport or similar...

[bhtooefr]

Also, the brothers thing is a mistake - Jigoro's wife (Mayoi) is Lilly's father's (Hiroyuki) sister.

This begs the question: Are you planning on releasing a patch fixing such script errors? Aside from that line, I've heard Hisao acts as he have never been on Shanghai in Emi's route, even if he had visited the place already with Shizune and Misha in Act 1.

We haven't decided.

The gender reference in "Little Wing" is was wrong. Fixed for future releases.

So, has the brothers thing been fixed for future releases as well?

Because there's some very strange headcanon I have that works better with it NOT being fixed, and explains several things about Jigoro and with the Hakamichi and Satou families. And it actually makes Jigoro a sympathetic character. I'm not requesting that you keep it the same, but rather wondering if I should let go of my headcanon.

Mind you, there's explanations other than my headcanon that would work with the error being canon despite the differing last names, and are less strange. (One of the brothers being born out of wedlock, for instance, or them being half-brothers.)

[Guest Poster]

If you want an official reason for two brothers having two different last names, there's a less contrived alternative to being born out of wedlock. In Japan, it's customary for the wife to marry into the husband's family and thus adopt his family name, but it's not completely uncommon for a man to marry into his wife's family and adopt her last name instead. The two most common reasons for such a thing to happen are either the man belonging to a lower class family marrying into a high class family (or the man belonging to a family that has been involved in a scandal of some sort) or the bride's father owning a family business that the groom is set to take over at some point.

[bhtooefr]

That was also a consideration, although I was not sure how common that was.

[Silentcook]

So, has the brothers thing been fixed for future releases as well?

Yes, it has been fixed. It OUGHT to have been fixed in time for the FR release, but... the less said about that, the better.

[TheVUP]

P.S.: Relevant to the previous posts. How did "Gimme the chocolate, Hisao!" even start, anyway? I haven't lurked that long and I was never really bothered to look into... that. You understand.

Since someone mentioned it, I'd like to ask: who's in charge of The Mishimmie? Are you guys (one of) the Devs?
If so, can you guys just remove that file?

[Aura]

P.S.: Relevant to the previous posts. How did "Gimme the chocolate, Hisao!" even start, anyway? I haven't lurked that long and I was never really bothered to look into... that. You understand.

Since someone mentioned it, I'd like to ask: who's in charge of The Mishimmie? Are you guys (one of) the Devs?
If so, can you guys just remove that file?

Yeah Mishimmie is ours, but I don't see any reason to remove the comic.