Ask!

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TheHivemind
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Re: Ask!

Post by TheHivemind »

LordDarknus wrote:And.. how do the fans appear to the devs?
The fans appear like a seething mass of people telling you that you are pretty great, asking why there is no sequel, and occasionally drawing porn.
SpunkySix
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Re: Ask!

Post by SpunkySix »

TheHivemind wrote:
LordDarknus wrote:And.. how do the fans appear to the devs?
The fans appear like a seething mass of people telling you that you are pretty great, asking why there is no sequel, and occasionally drawing porn.
Wow, we're doing a good job of being visible then. :)
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Atario
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Re: Ask!

Post by Atario »

Has all the praise gone to anyone's head?

Or driven anyone into a Kurt Cobain-like fame spiral?
NB: none of the above is a request

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Aura
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Re: Ask!

Post by Aura »

Doubt it. Pretty much everyone in 4LS thinks KS is nowhere near as good as the fans think or deserves such praise, so taking the praise and talking about it internally is pretty consistently tinted with incredulity and even dismissal. From that kind of ground I think it'd be hard for any of us to become delusional about our greatness.

After we released Act 1 in 2009 and it was well received (though nowhere close to what the full game was), some of us felt really anxious and stressed to perform well for the rest of the production. There definitely was a strong pressure to meet the expectations that seemed to be placed on us.
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Kon22
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Re: Ask!

Post by Kon22 »

Is anyone of the devs a vegan? Weird question, but, hey, I'm bored.
TheHivemind
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Re: Ask!

Post by TheHivemind »

I don't think so. I certainly am not.
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Nicol Armarfi
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Re: Ask!

Post by Nicol Armarfi »

Kon22 wrote:Is anyone of the devs a vegan? Weird question, but, hey, I'm bored.
I don't believe anyone is, but I've heard moekki is a pescatarian. I think that's the closest it gets
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Liminaut
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Re: Ask!

Post by Liminaut »

I've got a question about doing KS. It took 5 years, and I'm guessing that there were times when individually or as a group the devs felt like just hanging it up and doing something else.

Were there times like that? What kept you going?
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Kibaro
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Re: Ask!

Post by Kibaro »

Nicol Armarfi wrote:I don't believe anyone is, but I've heard moekki is a pescatarian. I think that's the closest it gets
Oh someone i haven't seen on the fo....Nicol Armafi...Musician..Musician..Musician..Musician..

Image THANK YOUUUUU!
LordDarknus
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Re: Ask!

Post by LordDarknus »

TheHivemind wrote:
LordDarknus wrote:And.. how do the fans appear to the devs?
The fans appear like a seething mass of people telling you that you are pretty great, asking why there is no sequel, and occasionally drawing porn.
And what about Misha's disability? And will she grow up to elope with Harrison's wife?
Atario wrote:Has all the praise gone to anyone's head? Or driven anyone into a Kurt Cobain-like fame spiral?
Aura wrote:Doubt it. Pretty much everyone in 4LS thinks KS is nowhere near as good as the fans think or deserves such praise, so taking the praise and talking about it internally is pretty consistently tinted with incredulity and even dismissal. From that kind of ground I think it'd be hard for any of us to become delusional about our greatness.

After we released Act 1 in 2009 and it was well received (though nowhere close to what the full game was), some of us felt really anxious and stressed to perform well for the rest of the production. There definitely was a strong pressure to meet the expectations that seemed to be placed on us.
This made me curious, what do you think is actually good then? What was/is your idea of a perfect VN?

In fact, what is your unbiased criteria for defining something/anything as; 'Suck' ; 'Does not suck' ; and 'Perfection'?
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Aura
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Re: Ask!

Post by Aura »

Liminaut wrote:I've got a question about doing KS. It took 5 years, and I'm guessing that there were times when individually or as a group the devs felt like just hanging it up and doing something else.

Were there times like that? What kept you going?
Not letting each other down. Big stakes. Stubbornness? Pride? Power of friendship? I don't know, probably a bit of everything. Everyone had their slumps I'm sure, but we definitely never even discussed quitting as a group. Many of us were so invested in KS that quitting wasn't really something you just do because you had a fight with someone or have a writer's block for a week. We survived the most difficult period of the project less than a year in so it would've been silly to quit later, perhaps. Anyway, it was well understood that we'd see the project finished no matter what.
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Re: Ask!

Post by Aura »

LordDarknus wrote:This made me curious, what do you think is actually good then? What was/is your idea of a perfect VN?

In fact, what is your unbiased criteria for defining something/anything as; 'Suck' ; 'Does not suck' ; and 'Perfection'?
What I think is good? For visual novels, I've said this before but there are two good ones: Narcissu and True Remembrance. Then there are plenty of okay and decent ones and a whole lot of bad ones. Sturgeon's law. A perfect visual novel is like a perfect anything, can't be described by anything else then "perfect". Visual novels and most works of art are so complex that there is and never will be one. Things approximating perfection are more easily found in minimalistic, simple things, so maybe a haiku-sized visual novel could potentially be it?

As for judging things, it's not just a linear spectrum from "terrible" to "good". There are two aspects: 1) Whether I like it or not (which is intangible and often hard to explain why) and 2) whether I think it's competently done or not (which is the more easily analyzable part). I've liked some really trashy crap and hated some incredibly well done works of art. That sentence already belies that the latter aspect is the traditional "good vs bad" axis. I think the criteria for defining something as good or bad is how it compares to other works we have experienced and how we have analyzed them. The more you read or watch or listen and the more thought you put into it, the better your understanding becomes and along with that the qualifications shift. I think my bar for "good" is pretty high, maybe unnecessarily so, but I really can't say something is good if it doesn't titillate the creative spirit in me and make me think something like "wow, so you can do stuff like THIS too!". I want to be awestruck by the imagination of someone else, and their skill at translating it to their medium.
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ArcadiaM
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Re: Ask!

Post by ArcadiaM »

I know this has probably been asked but im tired to read through all the questions i just came off playing the game for about 8 hours.
Have any of the members of four leaf studio's started a new project yet and why are you opposed to fan's possibly making a sequel if FLS dont plan too
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Re: Ask!

Post by TheHivemind »

Liminaut wrote:I've got a question about doing KS. It took 5 years, and I'm guessing that there were times when individually or as a group the devs felt like just hanging it up and doing something else.

Were there times like that? What kept you going?
1. Yes.
2. Not wanting to let everyone else down.
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Aura
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Re: Ask!

Post by Aura »

ArcadiaM wrote:I know this has probably been asked but im tired to read through all the questions i just came off playing the game for about 8 hours.
Have any of the members of four leaf studio's started a new project yet and why are you opposed to fan's possibly making a sequel if FLS dont plan too
When we tell about our projects publically it won't be as a reply to a question in this thread. But hey, here's Hivemind's new project "Harrison Tripp": https://twitter.com/Harrison_Tripp

Has to be us. Someone else might get it wrong.
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<Suriko> I would do it if it wouldn't be so hard to explain to my parents
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