Ask!

[Aura]

That brings another query to mind:

Who did your proofreading? Or, rather, was anyone specifically assigned to the task of editing the game's text? I imagine you policed yourselves to some extent, but even a practiced eye can miss flaws in its own work.

I know I do; more often than I care to admit. I've had my brother proofing through my recent endeavors, and he told me he has a few pages of notes already -- I'm dreading the impending mockery.

Wow... ever hit quote instead of edit and not notice?

Writers, editors and beta testers did the proofreading.

[Aura]

in the act 2 cinematics for hanako the first image is a smoking pipe? is that what started the fire?

I know cpl_crud wrote that scene where there was a blackout because of the winter weather and her mom used a candle/oil lamp thing

It's a bottle of (Hisao's) medicine, with a shadow.

[Aura]

Hypothetically, if someone offered everyone who's a part of 4LS 40 billion dollars for the rights to Katawa Shoujo, would you accept?

So I guess the real question is "Can you imagine a situation where you would sell/pass on the rights to KS?". I'm sure there is some situation where we would, just like there is some situation where we would start making KS 2. Nothing is ever absolute, just quite unlikely.

[Aura]

i do have to ask though for the KS devs (2 things):

1. ever expect there to be a fanbase big enough for stuff like this?
2. theres a thread about how theres 2 other visual novels released by 4LS. i havent seen these anywhere on the internet other than here. whats the story behind those?

1. Something like that might be in the reaches of what we expected, but we didn't expect the fanbase to become as huge as it is.
2. Both of them were made to poke a bit of fun at the OELVN scene. The Answer is a short VN made by A22, climatic, nicol and delta. It's essentially a soapboxing exercise about making VNs. pXt is a VN by delta and me made to lampoon a funny comment regarding the yearly "International Ren'Ai Novel Writing Month", NaNoReNo. The comment, meant to encourage someone who was lamenting he had no skills to make a VN, was "Don't let the lack of original material prevent you from making a visual novel". Delta and me thought this was inane and funny, took the advice literally and made a VN with zero original material in one afternoon. Everything in pXt is public domain material that delta just combined to a short VN.

[Aura]

And now something for all of the dev team, that will probably seem really unusual;

I wanted to ask, do you guys have any advice, like, life advice, I guess, for a fourteen year old like me, or just, in general? if you guys have any advice, or tips, or words to live by, or anything like that, I'd really love to hear it.
I look up to you guys a lot, Aura and Suriko especially, I don't know why I do, I don't know you guys very well at all, but I do look up to you.
Because of that, it would really mean a lot to me, hearing your advice, or opinions, or whatever else you guys have to say.

I'm sorry, that all seems really vague, and I don't even really know what i'm asking, but my gut is telling me to ask, nonetheless. D:

Dunno if I have anything but platitudes. Be active I suppose. Do a lot of stuff, make yourself busy, learn everything about everything and get to know people. Don't be afraid of failure. At your age that is really hard, but it's pretty important.

Also, don't download a 18+ game and then tell the creators you're underage.

[Camoufrage]

Do you have a job or career path besides making VNs?

What and why do you do this?

[Pseudogenesis]

Also, don't download a 18+ game and then tell the creators you're underage.

I'm [Redacted].


I'M SUCH A REBEL

[Suriko]

Okay, uh, I have some questions for Suriko, if he's still here, that is;

What does Suriko mean, exactly?

In Lilly's epilogue, Hisao thinks "A jazz song with no beat or melody, until the very end." or something to that extent, referring to Akira. I've been thinking about it the past few days, and I can't seem to figure out what he meant by that.

Lilly's sense of humor seems very dry, how do you think she'd react to other types of humor?

Nothing, it's just a dumb name I made years and years ago. It's also a place in Japan I think.

Essentially just music with no real predictable nature to it, just freely roaming about. Improv jazz is an example.

She doesn't like dark humour, though likes self-deprecating humour. Don't know about others.

[Genocya]

I'm not too sure if this has been asked, but is Shizune completely unable to talk?

Or does she just keep quiet?

[Magnenntae]

Dunno if I have anything but platitudes. Be active I suppose. Do a lot of stuff, make yourself busy, learn everything about everything and get to know people. Don't be afraid of failure. At your age that is really hard, but it's pretty important.

Also, don't download a 18+ game and then tell the creators you're underage.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate this response without sounding absurd, so I won't. But thank you.


Wow, I probably should have thought that bit through better. Thanks for not enforcing the law on me, though.


edit: Also, thank you for answering my questions about Lilly's route, Suriko.

[Silentcook]

Do you have a job or career path besides making VNs?

What and why do you do this?

Yes, practically all of us do. Making KS has been a spare-time thing for us (though admittedly, a LOT of spare time went into it).

What we do and why is for each person to answer, but in my case: I like having food, money and personal comforts. Making VNs is not a profitable venture.

[Gilrond]

Was there much disagreement within the team regarding the release date? Did someone feel the game needed more polish, or did everyone pretty much agree that the game was finished?

[Pseudogenesis]

Did every writer for the team pitch in towards every interaction with the different girls in Act 1? How did that work?

[Aura]

I'm not too sure if this has been asked, but is Shizune completely unable to talk?

Or does she just keep quiet?

She's mute. This was changed around like half a dozen times during the development though.

[Aura]

Did every writer for the team pitch in towards every interaction with the different girls in Act 1? How did that work?

I planned and wrote the scenario for Act 1, assigned bits of it to be written to the writing team and then stitched the completed scenes together. As a rule of thumb, most scenes mainly featuring a main heroine was written by her path writer, and almost all intermediary scenes by either me or A22.