Ask!

[Silentcook]

Yes, there has been plenty of discussion about this. There is no "true" or "master" route, we didn't intend to make one, we don't care about this kind of labeling, and anybody claiming to have proof that we made one by design is lying.

[HenryT]

Hello again!

I noticed people on the previous page talking about Hisao's gym clothes and P.E. and it had me wondering - Are there actually any such classes in Yamaku? Of course Hisao himself would be mostly pardoned from it and as such it wouldn't be mentioned much, but still, it's interesting to know.

Continuing on the theme of classes, what classes does Yamaku have? A couple of them are mentioned in-game (such as English and Sign-Language), but what about the others? (This may just seem like a question about classes in Japan in general )

[AsianDude]

Is anything stopping an independent group from creating Katawa Shoujo 2?
To what extent are the original assets of the game copyrighted? If so, what license is it under?
Would it be OK for a game with a similar concept to be created?

Sorry if these has been asked, but I couldn't find an answer upon a cursory search of the forums.

[Aura]

Hello again!

I noticed people on the previous page talking about Hisao's gym clothes and P.E. and it had me wondering - Are there actually any such classes in Yamaku? Of course Hisao himself would be mostly pardoned from it and as such it wouldn't be mentioned much, but still, it's interesting to know.

Continuing on the theme of classes, what classes does Yamaku have? A couple of them are mentioned in-game (such as English and Sign-Language), but what about the others? (This may just seem like a question about classes in Japan in general :D)

Sure there are PE classes. Yamaku follows the standard Japanese highschool curriculum, which has very standard subjects like math, physics, biology, chemistry, history, Japanese literature, Japanese writing, music, home econ etc etc

[Aura]

Is anything stopping an independent group from creating Katawa Shoujo 2?
To what extent are the original assets of the game copyrighted? If so, what license is it under?
Would it be OK for a game with a similar concept to be created?

Sorry if these has been asked, but I couldn't find an answer upon a cursory search of the forums.

This should be obvious, but it's against international copyright law and the KS license to create a sequel without permission. There is only one kind of copyright, and that's what the assets fall under. KS uses the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license. We don't mind (nor do we have any say on) a game with a similar concept being created, in fact several are in development at the moment. However, we strictly forbid any usage of the Katawa Shoujo brand/assets/intellectual property in such without permission.

You could've just read the FAQ to find this out.

[Jobriq]

Sure there are PE classes. Yamaku follows the standard Japanese highschool curriculum, which has very standard subjects like math, physics, biology, chemistry, history, Japanese literature, Japanese writing, music, home econ etc etc

I assume there would be different teachers for different classes? Sometimes it seems like Hisao's in elementary school because most of the school scenes have Mutou as the teacher so I guess it would be during homeroom or science classes. Or maybe Mutou teaches everything because he's a genius

[Merloficus]

Or maybe Mutou teaches everything because he's a genius

Only if all the subjects they saw consisted of either math- or scienceclasses

But that actualy raised a question with me, Mutou is referred to as their homeroom teacher. But what does this mean?
Is it that he's the one the students can go to when they have problems? The teacher that represents that class?
It's probably a specific term i guess.

But then what is 'homeroom' Jobriq mentioned? is it a class they follow?

[Aura]

Sure there are PE classes. Yamaku follows the standard Japanese highschool curriculum, which has very standard subjects like math, physics, biology, chemistry, history, Japanese literature, Japanese writing, music, home econ etc etc

I assume there would be different teachers for different classes? Sometimes it seems like Hisao's in elementary school because most of the school scenes have Mutou as the teacher so I guess it would be during homeroom or science classes. Or maybe Mutou teaches everything because he's a genius :!:

Each subject has its own teacher.

[Aura]

Or maybe Mutou teaches everything because he's a genius :!:

Only if all the subjects they saw consisted of either math- or scienceclasses :lol:

But that actualy raised a question with me, Mutou is referred to as their homeroom teacher. But what does this mean?
Is it that he's the one the students can go to when they have problems? The teacher that represents that class?
It's probably a specific term i guess.

But then what is 'homeroom' Jobriq mentioned? is it a class they follow?

Homeroom is a class for dealing with administrative things, the everyday life of school that doesn't directly tie in with studying and so on. It's usually the first or the last class of the day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeroom

[TheComicIsDead]

Excuse me, cpl_crud. I PM'd you. I wanted to make sure you got it.

Given that the CC licence has never been tested in court I wouldn't stress too hard...

By you coming here and asking something like "Hey can I do X"? you are effectively applying for (and being granted) a licence.

It's not that I'm worried about the devs getting mad, rather, I'd like to avoid the appearance of being cavalier about copyright. For my day job I sometimes get involved in copyright disputes, and it would be (at minimum) very awkward to get caught with license-violating stuff in my video uploads or website.

I understand this is probably an edge case that the dev team would not care much about, but making their stance on music derivatives legally clear would be very helpful to me, so I figured it couldn't hurt to ask.

I would also be interested to read a bit more into the actual terms around a "derivative" work. In Australia it is legal to make a cover of a song, so long as the Copyright provisions and Moral Rights of the original author are maintained.

So a cover/transcription may not actually count as a "Derivative"; because you are doing something that is essentially the same. A Derivative work would have to be a new Work (as defined in the Berne convention) that was substantially based on the original work.

I can't speak for Australian law, but in the US, there's a fairly strict set of rules about what sorts of derivative works can be created without getting explicit permission, and anything that isn't exactly the original work is derivative. So I could post [4ls]_katawa_shoujo_enigmatic_box_of_sound_[503ACD68].zip without infringing, but a transcription of Nocturne would infringe, and definitely so would a recorded performance (which would be a new Work).

Actually, the UCC stuff and the Rome convention in the US has largely bee superseded by the adoption of the Berne convention; this is why you don't need to put the (c) logo on anything anymore.

And a performance is not a work. The sound recording is not a Work, but a Copyright Material Other Than a Work, and this is where you get a lot of the "freedoms" that you saw above.

The old Rome/UCC combo in the states actually offered less protection; for example the song "Blue Suede Shoes" was not written by Elvis. The original composer had a car accident after delivering the score. He had intended to record it, but Elvis recorded a "cover" of the work, and when the original singer/songwriter recorded the same song it was considered a cover...

He was made damn rich in royalties however...


Anyway, back to the point, I don't really think there would be an issue, but you should ask the specific musician for the piece that you want to deal with. Once you have their permission then that is that. The owner of the Copyright (which is still all of the original Authors of 4LS) can give out as many licences as they would like.

[Dizzy]

Thoughtless question removed.

[DuaneMoody]

or is there a very firm "We changed that ending for a reason, so please leave it at that" stance on this?

You might be better off assuming this.

[Dizzy]

or is there a very firm "We changed that ending for a reason, so please leave it at that" stance on this?

You might be better off assuming this.

Well, there's no harm in asking. It might have just been an idea nobody thought of, yet. That's what this thread is here for.

[Aura]

My question is about how set the Devs are about canon.

I recently found a group of people who are restoring the Alpha, giving it updated sprites and music and whatnot so it can be played for those who are curious. I'm asking about Hanako's route, in particular. I kind of noticed that her "True End" from the Alpha actually makes a really good epilogue to her finished route. It shows how Hanako and Hisao's relationship progresses, and how Hanako comes out of her shell and starts making friends. There's even that "one last hurdle" aspect with Hisao taking her to her old house to move past the trauma. I actually really liked it, and not much has to change for it to fit. Treat the part where Hanako confesses to Hisao in the Alpha as the end of the Final Version's kiss (it's the Final's kiss scene, but could easily be where the events of the Alpha pick up from), and switch a couple events from the Alpha to their equivalent in the Final (Lily's welcome home party wasn't because of her operation, it was "welcome back from Scotland", and any references Hanako makes to the boy who chased her and got killed are replaced with a general fear of losing people due to her parent's deaths). There's very few things changed from the Alpha ending to make it a suitable epilogue for the Final version.

I already know there's a whole "don't modify the game or we'll hate you" clause, so I can't make those changes myself and put out an altered version with the epilogue in it. My question is this:

Would the Devs be comfortable with me telling people that you can look at the game that way, go find the Alpha and play it to see an epilogue to the Hanako storyline, or is there a very firm "We changed that ending for a reason, so please leave it at that" stance on this? Also, I'm not asking so I can tell people "don't worry, the devs told me they endorse it as an epilogue." I just want to know if it'd be ok to put the idea out there, or if that's something the writers would disapprove of.

P.S. Sorry if this question was asked before, but there's nearly 200 pages of questions here and a quick search of the FAQ and search for "Canon/continuty" didn't show any answers to this particular question.

Your question is insulting, but to answer: it's not our place to approve or disapprove any kind of discussion. We only want some kind of discussions to not happen in our front yard, which is why I normally would've banned you.

[Dizzy]

Your question is insulting, but to answer: it's not our place to approve or disapprove any kind of discussion. We only want some kind of discussions to not happen in our front yard, which is why I normally would've banned you.

I didn't mean to be insulting. I didn't think it was serious enough to warrant a ban, either. I apologize, and will remove the question.

I read it through again and feel worse. I honestly didn't mean Katawa Shoujo should be changed, or to imply I should do it, or anything like that. I was thinking more like add the Alpha to the Final to show a friend if they wanted to see what I was talking about, but I made it sound much worse than that. Even that much would still be an insult to all the hard work everyone put into it. I'm sorry again. I don't think before I talk...