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[Suriko]

Were any of you fans of Raita's work before you started working on the game, or had you not heard of him before that image was posted on 4-chan?

I followed his work beforehand. His mechanical designs are quite interesting, to my mind moreso than his girls. I'm a big Valkyria Chronicles game fan, too, and have a couple of his artbooks for it IRL.

Elaborating further:
Because the setting has been done into the ground. Because high school is actually really fucking boring. Because the idea that high school is THE MOST IMPORTANT YEARS OF YOUR LIFE is fucking dumb. Because there are literally thousands of other ideas out there that are more interesting.

Because I do not really care that much about Japanese culture. Because the only reason KS was even set in a Japanese high school is 'cause five years ago that is what got a bunch of chucklefucks on /a/ to agree to make a game together and by the time we realized what a boring goddamn setting it is we were too late.

The same can probably be said for any story setting you've already used extensively. With all this in mind though, if you had the chance to direct the story into another location, I'm curious about where would you have set KS if not at a Japanese High School.

1930sish Russian orphanage or boarding school. Probably not the most uplifting tale as one could imagine.

Japanese high school gets special mention as it really is a plague on the visual novel medium. It's difficult to think of another media so entirely gripped by a single setting, excepting very rare AAA releases or independents.

ASL?
In other words,
If you don't mind me asking, where are you guys from (IRL)
Hivemind is in Chicago ( saw it in his tumblr )
http://thehivemindwrites.tumblr.com/

I'm Australian.

[marian11]

Hello people.

Yesterday I finished Hanako's route and it was really awesome.

Now I want to do Lilly's route, but do I have to start the game from the very beginning to get to her route ?

Thanks in advance

[A Forum Member]

How come Aura has godlike english skills when he/she is not a native english speaker? And why does Aura posts five times in a row instead of citing multiple people in one post?

[Helbereth]

Japanese high school gets special mention as it really is a plague on the visual novel medium. It's difficult to think of another media so entirely gripped by a single setting, excepting very rare AAA releases or independents.

Perhaps it's my inexperience with the medium, then, that makes it seem less of a bore. This is still the only VN I've bothered with, despite many recommendations. Looking at the synopsis for them, though, I can see how that might be a problem.

Were any other setting locations attempted before arriving at the one presented?

Given that Raita's original drawing didn't get terribly specific on the character backgrounds, I could see the same plot playing out at a collegiate level, or perhaps even within a small microcosm community like an office building, or a mall--the five girls working at or running various shops or businesses, or departments within the same business, maybe in Europe or America somewhere.

Now I'm just spit-balling ideas...

[Silentcook]

How come Aura has godlike english skills when he/she is not a native english speaker?

Fielding this part of the question as his editor.

I wouldn't call them "godlike" any more than I'd call mine that, and in any case I find that native English speakers tend to get freaking lazy beyond belief with their own language.

I have written about this elsewhere, but in a nutshell: if you work at something, you usually become better at it.

[ArcCain]

Hello people.

Yesterday I finished Hanako's route and it was really awesome.

Now I want to do Lilly's route, but do I have to start the game from the very beginning to get to her route ?

Thanks in advance

Use skip.

[BlackWaltzTheThird]

You know, it's been bugging me for a while... what on Earth does your sig mean, Silentcook? Care to elaborate on it?

[Carighan]

See, I'm a developer. The sig didn't even mentally register for me. That's how commit logs tend to look shortly before release for me, too.

[Silentcook]

You know, it's been bugging me for a while... what on Earth does your sig mean, Silentcook? Care to elaborate on it?

'94 is the year when I became a nurse. When I got taken on board as a medical advisor, crud half-jokingly said that my job was to shatter everybody's dreams with cold hard facts, more or less.

The ugly pic is a screencap of the very last commit made before Act 1 got released to the public. It was a last-minute fix, made in feverish haste at an ungodly hour to correct a bad line break that had passed unnoticed until the very last moment. The pic is ugly because I suck at anything involving graphics.

[Aura]

How come Aura has godlike english skills when he/she is not a native english speaker? And why does Aura posts five times in a row instead of citing multiple people in one post?

Education, practice, osmosis. A language can be learned just like anything, with perseverance and hard work.

It's a personal preference to keep it to one reply per one post. Hope it doesn't bother you too much.

[pandaphil]

A couple questions from me. I apologize if they've been asked before, but I just haven't been able to get through all 184 pages yet


1) Everyone can agree that the characters in the game ring amazingly true to life regarding their feelings and emotions. Do any of the devs have any sort of background in psychology, or have they just read a lot.

2) I notice Lilly wears a cross necklace when shes dressed casually. Is she religious at all? Because lord knows a lot of Christians could take lessons from her.

[Suriko]

A couple questions from me. I apologize if they've been asked before, but I just haven't been able to get through all 184 pages yet


1) Everyone can agree that the characters in the game ring amazingly true to life regarding their feelings and emotions. Do any of the devs have any sort of background in psychology, or have they just read a lot.

2) I notice Lilly wears a cross necklace when shes dressed casually. Is she religious at all? Because lord knows a lot of Christians could take lessons from her.

1. I don't, and I don't believe any of the other developers have either. I don't really interact with other people very much at all.

2. She's Catholic.

[ArcCain]

2. She's Catholic.

I was actually planing on asking the same thing but forgot about it, I take it she is a bit casually about her religion, seeing that she uses birth control and had sex before marriage?

[forgetmenot]

I take it she is a bit casually about her religion, seeing that she uses birth control and had sex before marriage?

See, I always thought her flippancy regarding her religion was pretty much in line with her character. Lilly, while having a reserved, polite, well-mannered exterior, is chock-full of the same problems and impulses everyone else has. The necklace is a physical representation of that same character trait: a practicing Catholic on the outside, but a teenage girl who isn't afraid or ashamed of her desires on the inside.

[pandaphil]

I think these days most western Catholics ignore the whole sex and birth control ban.

I think it just means that Lilly isn't caught up in church dogma. She practices what religion should be about. Loving her fellow man and reaching out to those who're hurting and in need. I think Jesus would approve.