KS helps angsty teen from Martha's Vineyard

[OtakuNinja]

This makes me wonder if I'm the only one who didn't react with disgust after reading the name.

[Atario]

This makes me wonder if I'm the only one who didn't react with disgust after reading the name.

You mean "Driftwood", or "Erin Sullivan"?

Come to think of it, isn't Erin a girl's name? Aaron being the boy's version?

[Steinherz]

This makes me wonder if I'm the only one who didn't react with disgust after reading the name.

You mean "Driftwood", or "Erin Sullivan"?

Come to think of it, isn't Erin a girl's name? Aaron being the boy's version?

Erin is both, but more commonly a female name.
Aaron is a completely different name.

That and they're two different language roots as well
Gaelic & Celtic for Erin (meaning "Ireland (West), green water)
Hebrew for Aaron (variant/English form of Aharon, meaning "mountaineer", or "mount of strength".)

[OtakuNinja]

This makes me wonder if I'm the only one who didn't react with disgust after reading the name.

You mean "Driftwood", or "Erin Sullivan"?

"Katawa Shoujo"

[Wakagana]

I still find it quite riveting to see how many people are disgusted by the idea of a visual novel that isn't Katawa Shoujo. Or perhaps everyone is right, and even with no deeper knowledge, what I'm doing is in fact, awful.
If you have the mindset to be disgusted by the game, or myself, then there's not much I can do to change that. Once you learn to dislike something, it's hard to break from it.

It's a shame though, to think some people haven't actually learned anything from KS and still find reasons to be spiteful or rude to people they don't fully know.
My understanding was that KS was supposed to teach us about the importance of character and to look past first impressions, and how we should be more accepting overall.

Perhaps I was wrong and it is actually just about the Waifus.

I feel quite silly about posting this, and will probably regret it...Either way, my apologies to those who are put off by the article.

[BlackWaltzTheThird]

I still find it quite riveting to see how many people are disgusted by the idea of a visual novel that isn't Katawa Shoujo.

You misunderstand us. Plenty of people like plenty of visual novels. You need only look to the /salty/ generals on /vg/ to see as much. People there enjoy discussing several VNs in development by KS fans such as yourself; namely, Work in Progress, Love Despite, Missing Stars, and so on. It's the attitude to which people take exception. People take exception to the fact that you had the audacity to launch a Kickstarter to fund your personal project; that you offered such things as your sweatshirt as rewards; and that you used the money that you did get to hire talent that, to the vast majority, greatly exceeds that of you or your project.

The last one in particular gives off an attitude of mooching off the names of that talent to put up a facade of quality, not unlike Call of Duty using Hollywood A-Listers as VAs or Draco Malfoy buying the Slytherin team Nimbus 2001s. The aforementioned projects are working just as hard - if not harder - than those working on your project, but are doing it 100% for free - for the love of the project. And they look pretty damn slick, let me tell you that. To then go on and craft a project that, when first pitched, was nothing more than a reskinned Katawa Shoujo but with added TEEN ANGST just adds insult to injury.

So don't take this personally, as punchable as you may appear in that picture. If yours had simply been a story of a young man touched by KS and wanting to express his own feelings in a VN, that would be all well and good. But it isn't, and that is what people dislike about Driftwood. I'm not sure how well this will go down with the mods, so I'll finish by saying this: Good luck with Driftwood. Who knows, it might actually turn out better than what previous evidence has suggested.

But don't expect us to like it.

[Atario]

"Katawa Shoujo"

Ahh. Well, I'm not sure how anyone can, unless there used to be a way of finding out about it that was not already couched in a fully explanatory way. Every time I see the name given with any sort of translation, it's always with "that's a horrible slur in Japanese, far worse than in English, but trust me, the game is sensitive and poignant". Or maybe loads of people see the name who already know Japanese fully and end up bypassing such explanations? I came to this thing pretty late, so maybe stuff used to be different.

I still find it quite riveting to see how many people are disgusted by the idea of a visual novel that isn't Katawa Shoujo. Or perhaps everyone is right, and even with no deeper knowledge, what I'm doing is in fact, awful.

Oh snap, you're the guy?

Listen, I don't think people are disgusted by a Visual Novel that's not Katawa Shoujo. I don't have much of an opinion about Driftwood, other than that it's fairly me-too-ish, as all the "inspired by Katawa Shoujo" Visual Novel projects seem to be. But from what I can gather, people appear to be put off by the money-gathering nature of the project (in contrast to Katawa Shoujo itself, which was entirely volunteer-driven and accepted no money of any kind). Could be wrong about that, though. Maybe someone who's actually disgusted about it can pipe up.

But take a note of advice from me: the look's not happening. Shave. Wear your hat straight or not at all. Ditch the affectation (scarf). I have no idea if you chose that pose, but if you did, know that habitual self-satisfied smirking is off-putting (if it was just a fluke of photography catching a moment out of context, ignore this part and instead try to get more approval over photos of you they use).

My understanding was that KS was supposed to teach us about the importance of character and to look past first impressions, and how we should be more accepting overall.

I don't think "first impressions are to be ignored" was a lesson to be drawn. Everyone in the game gives a pretty accurate first impression.

[Wakagana]

Ah well. I've come to the conclusion that explaining myself further when I've already done so in the past on other sites is a waste of energy that I need elsewhere at this point in my life. People will feel the way they feel and I will feel the way I feel, not much is going to change that.

My apologies for joking with kickstarter rewards regarding clothing.
My apologies for giving artists, some of which who were willing to work for free money anyways. (because I felt they deserved to be paid.)
My apologies for making Driftwood seem like a copy-paste of KS. (Fish out of water story, pretty generic)

All in all, when it's done, people will either love it or hate it. I can't please everyone, which is something I've been trying very hard to get over for the past few months.

Either way, I'm too emotionally invested in what I've already spent 2 years nearly religiously doing to have people make potshots without me getting flustered and butthurt. What I already have to do is quite taxing enough on my patience, so trying to cater and explain myself to people who could care less about the game to begin with the hopes of pleasing them is a waste of time, time I could be using quite efficiently towards proving peoples low-expectations wrong. :u)

[Steinherz]

But take a note of advice from me: the look's not happening. Shave. Wear your hat straight or not at all. Ditch the affectation (scarf). I have no idea if you chose that pose, but if you did, know that habitual self-satisfied smirking is off-putting (if it was just a fluke of photography catching a moment out of context, ignore this part and instead try to get more approval over photos of you they use).

My good man/woman, he's from New England.
THAT IS the style, and body posturing for about Eighty-percent of us.

[Atario]

My good man/woman, he's from New England.
THAT IS the style, and body posturing for about Eighty-percent of us.

Geez. And here I had an image in my mind of New Englanders (outside of Boston, that is) being plaid-flannel-wearing rugged outdoorsy types, sometimes with hunting caps with the ear flaps either up or down depending on the weather, constantly wearing stoic expressions and saying "ayuh" and "wicked".

[Oddball]

New England, you need help. All of you.

[Steinherz]

My good man/woman, he's from New England.
THAT IS the style, and body posturing for about Eighty-percent of us.

Geez. And here I had an image in my mind of New Englanders (outside of Boston, that is) being plaid-flannel-wearing rugged outdoorsy types, sometimes with hunting caps with the ear flaps either up or down depending on the weather, constantly wearing stoic expressions and saying "ayuh" and "wicked".

Well... maybe eighty percent is stretching it, maybe 50% of the suburban/urban members
But yeah. The image that you have is good for the more Northern New Englanders (New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine), but for us southern New Englanders?
Nope.jpg

New England, you need help. All of you.

Obviously, we produced this:


New England sucks, but it could be worse.

New Jersey could be a part of the region

[metalangel]

My good man/woman, he's from New England.
THAT IS the style, and body posturing for about Eighty-percent of us.

Okay, fine, but what are you so frikkin smug about?

[forgetmenot]

My good man/woman, he's from New England.
THAT IS the style, and body posturing for about Eighty-percent of us.

Okay, fine, but what are you so frikkin smug about?

Well, obviously...

New England sucks, but it could be worse.

New Jersey could be a part of the region

They're smug about not having spawned Jersey Shore .

[Steinherz]

New England sucks, but it could be worse.

New Jersey could be a part of the region

They're smug about not having spawned Jersey Shore.

Exactly.