Katawa Shoujo Forums

misterprinny wrote:Where I live, it is New Year's Day. This is a question to each dev personally, what are your goals for the New Year in terms of 4LS or in their own lives?

Also, with that being said, in a few days (exactly 3 days where I live), it will be the first anniversary of Katawa Shoujo's release date. Again, to each dev personally, what are your thoughts now that the game has been out for almost a year?

Me?

I have a lot of non-dev related things happening. I've bought my new unit off the plan, so we move later in the year. I've just bought a new camera (Canon 6D, upgraded from my 7D) so I want to play with that some more.

And work work work.

Somewhere in there I will finish my second degree and hopefully finish at least one ebook.


As for KS being out for a year, I really don't know what to think. It's odd looking at parts of the game and knowing that I wrote it a good 4-5 years ago, and yet it still has an impact. I still get the occasional inspirational story via PM (there was one sent to the devs the other day) that just makes you go "Huh, I guess it was worthwhile working on that."
Still, I like knowing that I had a hand in the project, and that it has become this popular. Even to the most fame-adverse person, I'm sure that this kind of exposure has gotta make you go "wow".

Remind me to buy you - and whoever else of the team is around Sydney - a beer if I ever get to visit Australia

The applications for hiring are appreciated, but we aren't currently looking at recruitment for the projects underway. If (big if) we do, we'll most likely open up a hiring subforum akin to what happened with KS so many years ago.

We'll give out more information as things get closer to completion.

Edit: Got confused between threads, but I guess this still applies here too.

misterprinny wrote:Where I live, it is New Year's Day. This is a question to each dev personally, what are your goals for the New Year in terms of 4LS or in their own lives?

Also, with that being said, in a few days (exactly 3 days where I live), it will be the first anniversary of Katawa Shoujo's release date. Again, to each dev personally, what are your thoughts now that the game has been out for a year?

Every time I think about the fact that this is a thing I had a hand in I feel a mixture of pride and confusion. Pride, because a lot of people seem to like it, even the parts I wrote (sometimes especially the parts I wrote, and that's awesome. Confusion, because a lot of people seem to like it, even the parts I wrote (sometimes especially the parts I wrote).

A few weeks (actually it's probably months at this point, my sense of time is long gone) ago I actually played through Emi's path for the first time ever (all previous interaction had involved skipping around scenes, which is a thing you get to do when you are a dev. It's the best). I actually didn't hate it! After so long spent only looking at the stuff that needed to be re-written and didn't come out like I wanted it to (so like the whole path, really) during development, I never wanted to play the full thing again. Thank a combination of boredom and cheap booze for showing me the error of my ways. So these days it's a little more pride than confusion that it's had such an impact.

As far as goals for the new year go, I've got to get off my lazy ass and make a blog of some kind so I can announce my next project. Which, come to think of it, still needs an artist.

EDIT: That didn't take long.

tommo1982 wrote:Where did the idea for one of the song's name 'Wiosna' come from? I was utterly surprised to see a word from my language in this game. Is the creator Polish or Japanese?

When I started writing the soundtrack I was really bad at naming the songs, so a lot of those were named by other people on the team (to my knowledge none of us were Japanese nor Polish; I'm Canadian personally). Wiosna, though, is one of the tracks I did name myself, and that one is straight up just taken from this song. <3 chopin

It is me or does Lily's route feel a lot longer than Hanako's???

Was there no way to make Hanako's route longer?

Nicol Armarfi wrote:

tommo1982 wrote:Where did the idea for one of the song's name 'Wiosna' come from? I was utterly surprised to see a word from my language in this game. Is the creator Polish or Japanese?

When I started writing the soundtrack I was really bad at naming the songs, so a lot of those were named by other people on the team (to my knowledge none of us were Japanese nor Polish; I'm Canadian personally). Wiosna, though, is one of the tracks I did name myself, and that one is straight up just taken from this song. <3 chopin

Knowing a Canadian helped make this game possible, makes me as a Canadian like KS THAT MUCH more!

Nicol Armarfi wrote:

tommo1982 wrote:Where did the idea for one of the song's name 'Wiosna' come from? I was utterly surprised to see a word from my language in this game. Is the creator Polish or Japanese?

When I started writing the soundtrack I was really bad at naming the songs, so a lot of those were named by other people on the team (to my knowledge none of us were Japanese nor Polish; I'm Canadian personally). Wiosna, though, is one of the tracks I did name myself, and that one is straight up just taken from this song. <3 chopin

Aha! I had the hunch whoever made the soundtrack was inspired by Chopin. That's why I thought it could be a Japanese, considering manga/anime like style of KS. They love his music, to the point they are better at it than our own pianists, actually.

Good job creating "Wiosna"! It fits KS very well, so well I thought about turning off music as not to get too nostalgic

TheHivemind wrote:

misterprinny wrote:Where I live, it is New Year's Day. This is a question to each dev personally, what are your goals for the New Year in terms of 4LS or in their own lives?

Also, with that being said, in a few days (exactly 3 days where I live), it will be the first anniversary of Katawa Shoujo's release date. Again, to each dev personally, what are your thoughts now that the game has been out for a year?

Every time I think about the fact that this is a thing I had a hand in I feel a mixture of pride and confusion. Pride, because a lot of people seem to like it, even the parts I wrote (sometimes especially the parts I wrote, and that's awesome. Confusion, because a lot of people seem to like it, even the parts I wrote (sometimes especially the parts I wrote).

A few weeks (actually it's probably months at this point, my sense of time is long gone) ago I actually played through Emi's path for the first time ever (all previous interaction had involved skipping around scenes, which is a thing you get to do when you are a dev. It's the best). I actually didn't hate it! After so long spent only looking at the stuff that needed to be re-written and didn't come out like I wanted it to (so like the whole path, really) during development, I never wanted to play the full thing again. Thank a combination of boredom and cheap booze for showing me the error of my ways. So these days it's a little more pride than confusion that it's had such an impact.

As far as goals for the new year go, I've got to get off my lazy ass and make a blog of some kind so I can announce my next project. Which, come to think of it, still needs an artist.

EDIT: That didn't take long.

I thought you did a good job writing Emi's path. It was my first to finish. I don't count the one where I ended spending the festival with Kenji and dying, even if it was the first one. Emi is my favorite so far and I believe it will stay one

I'm curious though. Writing Emi's path did you consult anyone with Hisao's condition how it affects life and how far can they push their exercises? I'm curious about all the girls too. Reading through Emi's, Shizunes and Lily's path I begun to wonder whether authors tried to put themselves in their place or did they consult someone. Some of Hisao's observations gave me a suggestion it might be the latter.

I have a question to you developers.

You are already planning a new title. I was simply wondering if it will be another Visual Novel? I absolutely love these now, however the only one I have played has be Katawa Shoujo (even at that, I have only finished Emi's story). From what I have gathered, most other "games" in this genre lead more toward sex as the goal instead of the experience and learning about the characters. Will the characters be at the forefront of your next adventure? Also, will the Artist be here as well? I do enjoy the art in the game quite a bit.

tommo1982 wrote: I'm curious though. Writing Emi's path did you consult anyone with Hisao's condition how it affects life and how far can they push their exercises? I'm curious about all the girls too. Reading through Emi's, Shizunes and Lily's path I begun to wonder whether authors tried to put themselves in their place or did they consult someone. Some of Hisao's observations gave me a suggestion it might be the latter.

Most of the details on Hisao's condition came from a combination of wikipedia and talking to Silentcook. Mostly talking to Silentcook, because he was our medical expert. Anything else I made up.

CaptPonyholder wrote: You are already planning a new title. I was simply wondering if it will be another Visual Novel? I absolutely love these now, however the only one I have played has be Katawa Shoujo (even at that, I have only finished Emi's story). From what I have gathered, most other "games" in this genre lead more toward sex as the goal instead of the experience and learning about the characters. Will the characters be at the forefront of your next adventure? Also, will the Artist be here as well? I do enjoy the art in the game quite a bit.

I think it is all VNs in the works now among the various other developers. As for me, my next project isn't even a game of any sort. I posted about it over here.

From what I have gathered, most other "games" in this genre lead more toward sex as the goal instead of the experience and learning about the characters.

No. A lot of them are, but there are also a lot of VNs of other genres. There's a thread here in the forum about recommendations, so you shoud browse that for more information.

I've not finished Lilly's route nor started Shizune's yet, but in all the other routes I noticed that Hisao never talked with his parents while at Yamaku.
In the story it doesn't seem that there are this kind of problems in the Nakai family, Hisao remained alone at home sometimes because of his parents' business but that's it as far as I know.
I can understand that Hisao never called them, he wanted to start a new life forgetting the past, but why they never called him? Or they did and it isn't portraied in the game? Or simply you didn't think about it while writing the story (it happens )?

On a less serious note (maybe):
There really is a feminist conspirancy? I don't think Kenji is all that wrong. I mean... two out of two class representatives that Hisao knows are girls, all the members of the school council are girls, the best and second best runners in the school are girls, the best artist of the school is a girl, no boy (other than Hisao) ever do something noteworthy. And as Kenji himself noticed: "There are a lot of cute girls here. A strangely disproportionate amount.[...]the number of girls in this school is slightly but significantly higher than the amount of boys? It's like 60-40.". There's obviously something going on here!

udscbt wrote:no boy (other than Hisao) ever do something noteworthy.

Kenji does, in his route.

TheHivemind wrote:

tommo1982 wrote: I'm curious though. Writing Emi's path did you consult anyone with Hisao's condition how it affects life and how far can they push their exercises? I'm curious about all the girls too. Reading through Emi's, Shizunes and Lily's path I begun to wonder whether authors tried to put themselves in their place or did they consult someone. Some of Hisao's observations gave me a suggestion it might be the latter.

Most of the details on Hisao's condition came from a combination of wikipedia and talking to Silentcook. Mostly talking to Silentcook, because he was our medical expert. Anything else I made up.

CaptPonyholder wrote: You are already planning a new title. I was simply wondering if it will be another Visual Novel? I absolutely love these now, however the only one I have played has be Katawa Shoujo (even at that, I have only finished Emi's story). From what I have gathered, most other "games" in this genre lead more toward sex as the goal instead of the experience and learning about the characters. Will the characters be at the forefront of your next adventure? Also, will the Artist be here as well? I do enjoy the art in the game quite a bit.

I think it is all VNs in the works now among the various other developers. As for me, my next project isn't even a game of any sort. I posted about it over here.

Wait, so each member is doing their own thing now? There won't be another "Katawa Shoujo" type VN where everyone in 4LS will work on? That makes me incredibly sad.

Also, is it possible that there would be a future return to Yamaku Academy with some new character ideas by RAITA? I love the idea of Yamaku Academy and would love to continue exploring it, even if it was through the views of a Teacher or Female (Hopefully, neither of which will have sex, well... if need be, but not for a Teacher route. I hate Pedophilia as it is >.<).