Ask!

A forum for general discussion of the game: Open to all punters


Guest

Re: Ask!

Post by Guest »

Was there a dish in mind when having Hanako buy thyme? Just curious.
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Shockproof Jamo
Posts: 156
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 9:30 pm

Re: Ask!

Post by Shockproof Jamo »

Is Rin autistic? I've completed her path completely just tonight, and I could almost wager that there's something neurological going on with her. Some of her scenes were just painful to watch, as she tried to struggle with certain situations that she clearly wasn't equipped to handle, and people just didn't cut her any slack.
Sickhawk

Re: Ask!

Post by Sickhawk »

Merlyn_LeRoy wrote:
no way wrote:
Suriko wrote: In one cut scene involving her, it was mentioned she lost her hand in an accident with powertools. There's your explanation.
Whaaaaat... :shock:
Surely you jest...

Can somebody tell me in what scene this happens?
It's not a "cut scene", it's a cut scene. A scene that was cut. Hey Abbott!
"cut"
HAAAAAAH :arrow: *thumbsup*

Q:

1. What inspired / who designed the Yamaku high girls uniform?

2. How do you personally rank the non-uniformed outfits of the all the main heroines*?

3. Was there a process to choosing the main heroines (?) outside of what Raita drew on that one page? If so, can we get some insight into said process?

4. If you had the time, inclination and ability to go back and change one thing about a given characters story (or the game in general, if you're gonna take the easy way out), what would it be?

5. Would the relevant folks be willing to update the staff list on the website to contain a little more information about each member?
i.e. What they were mainly responsible for, links to art accounts / blogs / personal sites, maybe very brief biographies...

6. Ignoring the complications that money would have brought into the matter, how would you have felt about releasing the game on a "pay what you want" basis (ALA the recent indie bundles)?

7. Do you have any personal experience (relatives, friends, yourself, etc.) of some of the disabilities displayed in the game (or otherwise)?

8. Preferences in charity?

9. How's that two-season licensing deal with kyo-ani going?

10. Where does A22 live? misha's hair
Errorname

Re: Ask!

Post by Errorname »

Hivemind wrote:
Aura wrote:
Errorname wrote:I've played through both Emi's and Lilly's route, and in both of them I really enjoyed every scene involving Mutou (especially in Emi's route), as he really reminded me of past teachers I had which convinced me that I wanted to go into the sciences.

1. How did you guys come up with him?
2. Did he have any particular writer assigned to him, or was he more or less an extra character every writer was told to work with?
1. Difficult question to answer, like all questions of this sort are. We drew on some archetypes and the roles we expected to need him for and mixed it up a little. He was originally even more goofy and awkward than he is now, and needed toning down.
2. He didn't have a writer. Hivemind, however, probably did the most work in fleshing his character out.
Appearance-wise, I always wanted him to look vaguely like the Doctor (why? Because I was/am really into Doctor Who). His personality drew a little on that, but to be honest those elements were toned down (and in many cases scrapped) because it just didn't work with the character (indeed I think it was mostly scrapped in favor of the slightly more world-weary dude we know and love).

Not that this answers the question, really--the real answer is that we had a thread and tossed about ideas for him (and IRC discussions), and eventually said 'okay this is the sort of person he is.' Part of the editing phase involved making sure he didn't have any major personality shifts between paths.
Oh no, that answered my question rather well. Thanks for answers my questions, gents.
Guest

Re: Ask!

Post by Guest »

What happens to the girls and Hisao after each route?

I was thinking about it and it made me sad. Surely they would all go to different schools and end up drifting apart and meeting new people?
dudester567
Posts: 10
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2012 3:57 am

Re: Ask!

Post by dudester567 »

Guest wrote:What happens to the girls and Hisao after each route?

I was thinking about it and it made me sad. Surely they would all go to different schools and end up drifting apart and meeting new people?
To quote Suriko:

"Delta has made a handy pictorial guide that can serve as an epilogue to all routes. It is as follows. Giant spoilers, obviously: "
Guest

Re: Ask!

Post by Guest »

dudester567 wrote:
Guest wrote:What happens to the girls and Hisao after each route?

I was thinking about it and it made me sad. Surely they would all go to different schools and end up drifting apart and meeting new people?
To quote Suriko:

"Delta has made a handy pictorial guide that can serve as an epilogue to all routes. It is as follows. Giant spoilers, obviously: "
Yeah...still, it doesn't stop me wondering what happened.

It would be nice to know if they went to college together or moved in with each other or something...
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sporkaganza
Posts: 149
Joined: Sun May 02, 2010 11:10 pm

Re: Ask!

Post by sporkaganza »

If Lilly and Shizune are first cousins, how come their surnames are different? After all, their fathers are brothers. At first I wondered if one of the fathers took the wife's name, but then I realized since Lilly's mom is Scottish and therefore couldn't have had Satou as a last name, that only leaves Jigoro, and I really can't imagine him ever taking his wife's name in a million years. Or does Jigoro hate his own family so much that he had his surname legally changed? Only that would mean giving up some power and influence, another thing I can't imagine him doing. Unless I've misunderstood something, I don't think there's any way it makes sense.
Last edited by sporkaganza on Wed Jan 11, 2012 3:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
Smoky
Posts: 26
Joined: Mon Jan 09, 2012 2:41 am

Re: Ask!

Post by Smoky »

Guest wrote:It would be nice to know if they went to college together or moved in with each other or something...
It's what happens, you know? Lily's path probably had them stay together, but, Shicchan's path is a pretty much no. And, besides, not everything needs a happy ending. Take the movie, or story, of Watchman for example.

Make your own ending to their stories, to ensure that they will have the ending that you see fit.
"Maybe people like butterfly vomit." - Rin
TalismanTwelve
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2012 2:07 am

Re: Ask!

Post by TalismanTwelve »

This question is directed towards Suriko. I enjoyed Lilly's route the most of the five, and aside from all the FEELINGS i've felt during the entirety of the novel, I found myself really gravitating towards your writing style.
I noticed, specifically, that this style seems to change slightly during the first scene at the train station, in the morning before Hanako, Lilly and Hisao leave for the Summer House.
Hisao seems to act like an ass, and it is later revealed that he had forgotten to take his medications after they attempt to walk the mile into town.
Was the cause of his attitude change due to the lack of meds, or was Hisao just spontaneously a roody-poo that morning?

Second question, do you have a blog or something of similar value to keep up with any future works you dabble in? Especcially something like a fanfiction profile, of which I hope too lots of for the KS Game.
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Suriko
Lilly Writer, Hanako Co-Writer, Producer
Posts: 1507
Joined: Mon Aug 20, 2007 3:10 am
Location: Australia

Re: Ask!

Post by Suriko »

Sickhawk wrote:Q:

1. What inspired / who designed the Yamaku high girls uniform?

2. How do you personally rank the non-uniformed outfits of the all the main heroines*?

3. Was there a process to choosing the main heroines (?) outside of what Raita drew on that one page? If so, can we get some insight into said process?

4. If you had the time, inclination and ability to go back and change one thing about a given characters story (or the game in general, if you're gonna take the easy way out), what would it be?

5. Would the relevant folks be willing to update the staff list on the website to contain a little more information about each member?
i.e. What they were mainly responsible for, links to art accounts / blogs / personal sites, maybe very brief biographies...

6. Ignoring the complications that money would have brought into the matter, how would you have felt about releasing the game on a "pay what you want" basis (ALA the recent indie bundles)?

7. Do you have any personal experience (relatives, friends, yourself, etc.) of some of the disabilities displayed in the game (or otherwise)?

8. Preferences in charity?

9. How's that two-season licensing deal with kyo-ani going?

10. Where does A22 live?
1. RAITA and the random person who coloured his sketch (along with tweaks by the artists, for things like removing the pocket, etc). The male uniform is entirely collaboratively designed by the current game artists (principally Weee, Gebyy, Moekki, and Kamifish). See: http://shimmie.katawa-shoujo.com/post/v ... arch=raita

2. Personally: Lilly, Emi, Hanako, Misha, Shizune, Rin, in that order.

3. There was no process for it. From the very beginning of the project, we considered Raita's page to be an important tether for the project; like a cord that tied us to a pole, preventing us from wandering off into the wilderness. If we tried to do paths for any other girls, that would have meant diverting resources from the paths of the existing main heroines. I'm sure other devs can attest to the couple of attempts I made at getting a Miki path greenlit, but in hindsight, it's better that it wasn't done.

4. Akira branched path, Miki extra sidestory from Extras menu, Yuuko path...

More seriously speaking, it's actually a really hard question. There are more things I'd have liked to add (and I imagine a couple of other devs share the sentiment), but the game couldn't be in development forever as we added stuff in, changed it around, and edited and edited until we were perfectly happy with it (which would never happen). I really don't have much way to answer it; the game is the way it is.

5. Not really. Attributing things directly to developers too much is problematic because every part of Katawa Shoujo was collaborative. For example, the Hanako breakdown scene in H path ended up being passed between me and A22 many times as we tried to get it just right (and because were were afraid that the correct tone wouldn't come though; writing that scene was really quite hard), and in the end it's very much a combination of our efforts. Art also runs into this, perhaps even moreso, because the artists often split tasks between them for different assets (which is aside from the copious amounts of feedback every asset had from all the developers). An example of shared art creation would be the Hanako billiards CG, which was lined by Weee and coloured by Moekki.

As far as developer bios and stuff go, we're not really a fan of them. The topic's been discussed a bit internally, and we generally decided that we'd rather the focus be on the game, rather than us. If you poke around a bit, various developer's blogs and things can be found though.

6. Well, charging anything for the game was always completely out of the question, so that specific monetary plan is more or less just lumped into the pile of other pricing strategies that had 0% chance of happening.

7. Kinda personal, so I'll take a pass on that sorry.

8. No preferences.

9. But giving KyoAni KS would mean less chance of another series of Nichijou or Full Metal Panic being made...

10. United States. Which is also why Kenji's humour is dinstinctly American at times. A22 largely defined Kenji as a character, just as Hivemind did for Mutou.
TalismanTwelve wrote:This question is directed towards Suriko. I enjoyed Lilly's route the most of the five, and aside from all the FEELINGS i've felt during the entirety of the novel, I found myself really gravitating towards your writing style.
I noticed, specifically, that this style seems to change slightly during the first scene at the train station, in the morning before Hanako, Lilly and Hisao leave for the Summer House.
Hisao seems to act like an ass, and it is later revealed that he had forgotten to take his medications after they attempt to walk the mile into town. Was the cause of his attitude change due to the lack of meds, or was Hisao just spontaneously a roody-poo that morning?

Second question, do you have a blog or something of similar value to keep up with any future works you dabble in? Especcially something like a fanfiction profile, of which I hope too lots of for the KS Game.
Hisao was just moody that day. It happens.

I don't have any blogs or anything like that.

Also you don't have to use spoilers for this thread.
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Rivin
Posts: 22
Joined: Thu Jan 05, 2012 3:43 am

Re: Ask!

Post by Rivin »

This might've been asked before, but still..

What advice would you guys give to a team making a VN?

A team and I are currently creating a Mecha/War VN right now and although we are making some very good progress, we would kill for some tips/advice from a team as talented as 4LS. Please, please, impart your wisdom upon us!
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sporkaganza
Posts: 149
Joined: Sun May 02, 2010 11:10 pm

Re: Ask!

Post by sporkaganza »

This may be a bit of a silly question, but where did the idea for the "PRESENT" screen in Rin's route come from? It's a really great example of playing with the medium to get the point across.
Guest

Re: Ask!

Post by Guest »

A question for the writers: did music inspire any of you guys? I'm on the grind on attempting to be a vaguely readable writer myself and I find music gets my thoughts and inspiration going the best, as well as equalizes any mood I might want to keep. Do you guys like listening to music when you write, and if so, what kind of music did you guys like to play while writing KS?
Guest

Re: Ask!

Post by Guest »

Whilst helping her dress herself, did Emi ever go through a stage of curiosity with Rin and become physically intimate her?
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