Ask!

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

1. When do you expect the DDL will work for the full version?

1. When someone donates us the bandwidth to host it. So could be tomorrow, could be never.

Why not put it up on archive.org and make links to it? It's free.

They have old copies of the internet. Here's this forum like it was back in Oct 14, 2007:
http://web.archive.org/web/200710140057 ... .renai.us/

[Shadowyeclipse]

1. When do you expect the DDL will work for the full version?

1. When someone donates us the bandwidth to host it. So could be tomorrow, could be never.

Why not put it up on archive.org and make links to it? It's free.

They have old copies of the internet. Here's this forum like it was back in Oct 14, 2007:
http://web.archive.org/web/200710140057 ... .renai.us/

God, that's scary to look at for some reason.

[BlackWaltzTheThird]

God, that's scary to look at for some reason.

Scary, and fascinating. It's interesting to take a glance into the technical, behind-the-scenes stuff. There's some handy formats and conventions in there too, if anyone intends to make a VN of their own (though you could probably find that in a million and one other sources, seeing it applied in a context as familiar as KS amplifies their informativeness somewhat).

[Suriko]

God, that's scary to look at for some reason.

Scary, and fascinating. It's interesting to take a glance into the technical, behind-the-scenes stuff. There's some handy formats and conventions in there too, if anyone intends to make a VN of their own (though you could probably find that in a million and one other sources, seeing it applied in a context as familiar as KS amplifies their informativeness somewhat).

I'd caution against seeing anything from that far back as being informative beyond the history of KS. Everything from that far back was only relevant to Grid1+, and not at all applicable to the full game. Grid1+ also had the problem of being a little bit shit.

We basically ditched those ways of organisation because they don't work. Grid1+ was a disaster in many different ways, many of which come down to not really knowing how to manage a project.

[TheHivemind]

1. When do you expect the DDL will work for the full version?

1. When someone donates us the bandwidth to host it. So could be tomorrow, could be never.

Why not put it up on archive.org and make links to it? It's free.

They have old copies of the internet. Here's this forum like it was back in Oct 14, 2007:
http://web.archive.org/web/200710140057 ... .renai.us/

Ah, those (weren't) the days...

Just after the initial move, if I'm not too mistaken. I don't really remember the dates that well.

[nixlheimr]

Hello. First of all, thank you for creating this wonderful piece of work. I first heard of KS a few years back, but i only completed it some two weeks ago so i'm kinda new to this. Anyway, enough of that.

My question is about Natsume and Naomi. I'm so curious as to how the idea of them as romantic friends/girlfriends started. Is there some story about how that idea came about? And if you don't mind sharing the story, I'd be very happy to be able to read about it.

Also (I apologize if this was asked before), what's the best or most memorable experience you've had while working on KS?

[cpl_crud]

Hello. First of all, thank you for creating this wonderful piece of work. I first heard of KS a few years back, but i only completed it some two weeks ago so i'm kinda new to this. Anyway, enough of that.


Also (I apologize if this was asked before), what's the best or most memorable experience you've had while working on KS?

For me it was probably going to Sendai to take photos (some of which became backgrounds), and then using that setting in my head when describing the layout of the school and town.

For those of you that are interested, if you go to the ruins of the old Sendai Castle, that's where I imagined that Yamaku was situated. From there it's a leisurely stroll down the hill to a couple of museums and a couple of small shops, or a short bus ride into the city...

[Aura]

Hello. First of all, thank you for creating this wonderful piece of work. I first heard of KS a few years back, but i only completed it some two weeks ago so i'm kinda new to this. Anyway, enough of that.

My question is about Natsume and Naomi. I'm so curious as to how the idea of them as romantic friends/girlfriends started. Is there some story about how that idea came about? And if you don't mind sharing the story, I'd be very happy to be able to read about it.

Well er, the girls are moeifications of two real-life people, and their special relationship is a play on the love of the anime series Maria-sama ga Miteru of their models as well as the relationship between them

Also (I apologize if this was asked before), what's the best or most memorable experience you've had while working on KS?

Honestly, I'm not sure if I can raise any single event clearly above others. If I have to name something I think the release of Act 1 might be it for me. It was the first touch we had the insane popularity of KS, the first time we revealed our hand and a lot of other firsts. It directly lead to getting to know some cool people, our regular participation in Comiket, a huge morale boost for working on the rest of KS and whatnot.

[Rikabro]

Mighty cool of Suriko and Delta to spend a bit of time in KSG tonight. Thanks for that, you guys.

Anyways, there were a few holdover questions that I was interested in knowing the answer to so I figured I'd dump them here so they can be answered whenever.

1. How much more are you willing to say about this:

"The other project (which will be 4LS) is wholly classified. There wont be another game with every 4LS developer behind it though."

2. Delta mentioned that he was particularly proud of his role in the visual directing of the project, but wasn't very specific. But he generally doesn't seem to get a lot of credit for his role in the game. What are some of his ideas and choices that had a significant impact on the finished product?

3. Another thing Suriko mentioned was that some characters were wholly the artists' creations, and gave Hideaki as an example. Are there other characters whose personalities were secondary to their art design?

4. What about Lilly's parents? Was there anything about them you had wanted to include in the route but cut? Who they were, their jobs? According to Shimmie lore, Lilly's mother is named Karla. Did she have a maiden name? Did Mr. Satou have a first name?

Hope you guys are having a good holiday season. Keep it real, and thanks again for the visit.

[TheHivemind]

Mighty cool of Suriko and Delta to spend a bit of time in KSG tonight. Thanks for that, you guys.

Anyways, there were a few holdover questions that I was interested in knowing the answer to so I figured I'd dump them here so they can be answered whenever.

1. How much more are you willing to say about this:

"The other project (which will be 4LS) is wholly classified. There wont be another game with every 4LS developer behind it though."

2. Delta mentioned that he was particularly proud of his role in the visual directing of the project, but wasn't very specific. But he generally doesn't seem to get a lot of credit for his role in the game. What are some of his ideas and choices that had a significant impact on the finished product?

3. Another thing Suriko mentioned was that some characters were wholly the artists' creations, and gave Hideaki as an example. Are there other characters whose personalities were secondary to their art design?

4. What about Lilly's parents? Was there anything about them you had wanted to include in the route but cut? Who they were, their jobs? According to Shimmie lore, Lilly's mother is named Karla. Did she have a maiden name? Did Mr. Satou have a first name?

Hope you guys are having a good holiday season. Keep it real, and thanks again for the visit.

I don't have answers for all of these, but:

1. Classified means classified, dude! Nothing else to say on this (this is easy for me to say 'cause I'm not involved).

2. I've mentioned this before, but Delta is pretty much responsible for the Misha safety valve in Emi's path--after wisely pointing out that it was a bit unfair to have the whole thing hinge on one decision. Using Misha as the safety valve was also partially his idea, because we'd been joking about something similar and I decided to try to sneak it in. As for the visual direction, basically anything that looked cool was his doing--the rain effects, the fireworks, the little sprite twitches (like Emi trying to wheel into the track shed)--all that cool stuff was his doing, and mostly a result of him doing battle with a somewhat recalcitrant game engine.

3. Mutou was a pretty art-design-first sort of creation. I wanted him to look more like David Tennant (he kept the long coat, anyway), but his personality was kind of built off of the fact that he looked kinda grumpy all the time. I don't remember much about Nomiya's creation, but I'm pretty sure his creep/annoying-as-fuck factor got turned up after we saw what they'd drawn him as.

As for the fourth question, I have no idea. Lilly's parents weren't something I ever got involved in the discussion of.

[Suriko]

Question 1: Absolutely nothing. No comment.

As for Lilly: Her parent's jobs are briefly mentioned during the bath scene in Hokkaido if I'm remembering right. Her mother has no maiden name decided on, and her father's first name is Hiroyuki. She also used to have two twin young sisters way back (Leanne and Adrianne), but they were cut before ever being written in.

[Rikabro]

Classified means classified, dude! Nothing else to say on this (this is easy for me to say 'cause I'm not involved).

I think it's funny how even though you tried not to, you still wound up saying something about it.

Thanks for the responses. Interesting.

As for Lilly: Her parent's jobs are briefly mentioned during the bath scene in Hokkaido if I'm remembering right. Her mother has no maiden name decided on, and her father's first name is Hiroyuki. She also used to have two twin young sisters way back (Leanne and Adrianne), but they were cut before ever being written in.

I know someone who will be very interested to know this, thanks.

[Mirage_GSM]

2. Delta mentioned that he was particularly proud of his role in the visual directing of the project, but wasn't very specific. But he generally doesn't seem to get a lot of credit for his role in the game. What are some of his ideas and choices that had a significant impact on the finished product?

He's the director. Saying he doesn't get credit is a bit like saying Peter Jackson doesn't get credit for Lord of the Rings, because he didn't write the book and didn't hold a camera himself...
(Okay, KS was a lot more collaborative than LotR, but you know what I mean.)

[Rikabro]

2. Delta mentioned that he was particularly proud of his role in the visual directing of the project, but wasn't very specific. But he generally doesn't seem to get a lot of credit for his role in the game. What are some of his ideas and choices that had a significant impact on the finished product?

He's the director. Saying he doesn't get credit is a bit like saying Peter Jackson doesn't get credit for Lord of the Rings, because he didn't write the book and didn't hold a camera himself...
(Okay, KS was a lot more collaborative than LotR, but you know what I mean.)

Well, I said he doesn't, not that he shouldn't. You can certainly take for granted his impact on the finished product but it's interesting to know more specifically what was the nature of his input.

Keep in mind that a lot of us don't really know what is actually involved in the production of a visual novel. The question might be stated more generally as "what is the director's role in production?" It's not meant to imply that there's no good answer, just that the answer may not be obvious to those of us unfamiliar with the creative process.

[Aura]

Some stuff delta did:
- The entire user interface. The beige colour scheme and the textures and borders you are familiar with are his doing.
- The original opening movie, of which the current one is just an animated version.
- The implementation of all visual effects, and the concept of many of them. In particular, the scene with Rin sleeping in classroom, the spinning CG when Hisao and Rin are smoking, Emi's track scene and the scene with Shizune on the rooftop with fireworks are some examples that come to mind.
- The sprite direction! This is one of the "invisible" things in a VN production. Compare how the sprites are presented in KS vs [generic_OELVN]. There's literally a method, or style, that delta does, guided by principles derived from movie directing. Same goes for CG direction.
- He won't forgive if I don't mention this: He drew a CG for KS! The crayon drawing of child Hanako is his handiwork.
- He was the "fifth Beatle" of the writing team, frequently taking part in story discussions. His vehement objections prevented many tragic abominations of writing ideas from staying in the game (none of which I want to talk about, lest shameful memories resurface)

I read a (possibly not serious) post in the thread you're talking about, positing something like "delta's contribution is inconsequential because it's not directly related to the feels KS delivered". That's laughable. Writers of the caliber of me, Suriko or anyone in 4LS are dime a dozen and artists of the quality of our staff art team are not uncommon either. However, I am pretty confident that the number of people who could even approach doing what delta did for KS is negligible. The specific combination of his visual directing prowess, sense of storytelling, graphic design skill, willingness to learn to code and drive to go the distance is something I've not seen any other individual possess. Sure, 4LS is much stronger than the sum of its parts, KS would've been different had even one of us been absent or replaced, and all of us did so much more than what our simple job descriptions state, but the fact remains had delta been assasinated mid-project, we would've had to recruit three to five people to do his job.