The "thank you 4LS" thread.

[Shail]

I've been needing to cry for a long time, just so much built up depression, unfortunately I have a really hard time crying. This game helped cry for the first time in 8 years, something I really needed. Still haven't gotten to cry my eyes out, and I really need to, holding in feelings doesn't end so well, but meh. Times like this where I envy women, who can start bawling over nothing in the blink of an eye v_v

[Xanatos]

Times like this where I envy women, who can start bawling over nothing in the blink of an eye v_v

Maybe asinine stereotypes is a part of what causes all your GF ventures to fail...

[Black Sheep]

Whether this matters to you or not I do not know...

I was always what would be considered an introvert and a rational person, however, years of a bad relationship with my father led to severe trust issues and the creation of an emotional wall (sounds familiar?) along with an obsession with strength, the ability to detach myself emotionally from any situation as a way to protect myself grew, though I never had much trouble socializing or talking, trust was a completely different matter and very few people earned it during the time of the wall's existence.

Yet, in an almost comical coincidence, I learned of the existence of Katawa Shoujo and played(read?) it, the best way to describe what happened after is to say that it provided me with near-endless food for thought, it changed the way I view relationships, people, strength, feelings, trust and worth.

A few weeks after I remembered the most traumatic experience of my life while attempting to sleep, the day when I tried saving a dog who got ran over by a car (my trust issues never applied to animals), followed by scolding and punishment, the memory brought tears to my eyes, I cried for the first time in 3 years. But I realized something, I never felt regret regarding my presumably failed attempt at saving the dog, at that moment, I did what I thought was right and I did not harm anyone, much to the contrary.

Thanks to Katawa Shoujo, I now have a much clearer understanding of who I am, who I want to be and who I want to be with. So thank you very much!

PS: There's no need to welcome me or anything, I've been stalking the forums for a long time, though I guess you could consider this my introduction.

[followr_agent4444]

hi, to whom it may concern,
a brief introduction. I am more the fast paced FPS maximum gore kind of person, i listen to hardstyle and my preferences generally lean towards the duke nukem personaggio with rather pathetic poor cultivated artistic perception.

so i (amazingly) noticed my buddy was acting weird, and rather apathetic almost disconnected from his surrounding. So I confronted him directly asking him waddup with that attitude.
he told about this game he had been playing. Are you serious? I asked him and myself internally. lol, i gotta check that out I said, i dont believe it. Loaded up the "game" and went with it, minutes turned to hours etc
so here I am, posting a reply in your forum.
Just wanted to say thanks . I completed the path of emi and I felt something strange/weird and warm around my chest area. Good job! mision acomplished i guess

Great work I will recommend this to anyone I hate (in a friendly fashion obviously) hehehe

[Lianam]

hi, to whom it may concern,
a brief introduction. I am more the fast paced FPS maximum gore kind of person, i listen to hardstyle and my preferences generally lean towards the duke nukem personaggio with rather pathetic poor cultivated artistic perception.

so i (amazingly) noticed my buddy was acting weird, and rather apathetic almost disconnected from his surrounding. So I confronted him directly asking him waddup with that attitude.
he told about this game he had been playing. Are you serious? I asked him and myself internally. lol, i gotta check that out I said, i dont believe it. Loaded up the "game" and went with it, minutes turned to hours etc
so here I am, posting a reply in your forum.
Just wanted to say thanks . I completed the path of emi and I felt something strange/weird and warm around my chest area. Good job! mision acomplished i guess

Great work I will recommend this to anyone I hate (in a friendly fashion obviously) hehehe

Please tell me you're going to do the other paths...

[pandaphil]

Please tell me you're going to do the other paths...

^ What he said. You have to do the other girls paths.


Welcome to the world of Feels my friend.

[ilovecheese3]

Shoutout from the dorms at CCGC in Nova Scotia, this game has really intrigued a lot of us, and perhaps took up too much of our time as well
Thank you so much for creating this VN and the best of wishes for whatever 4LS does in its future.
All other VNs' disgust me.

[Xanatos]

All other VNs' disgust me.

Because that's a perfectly reasonable position...

[JPCate]

Dear Everyone Involved in this VN,
I just wanted to say thank you. It's a long thank you, but a thank you nonetheless. This VN is an outstanding piece of storytelling.
I have to explain myself a bit. I actually had open heart surgery as a child for a major heart defect. My condition is not the same as Hisao's, but at the same time, it was a major blow in my life. For a long time I was under scrutiny in my life by doctors and also having to deal with pills. Once I finally got old enough to be explained why all of this was going on, I was shocked and devastated. I grew up for most of my life (I'm 30 now) thinking I had a ticking time bomb in my chest. I felt a lot like Hisao does. I lived my life in a similar manner too; pushing where I didn't need to push and pulling back when I should have moved forward.
That emotional connection to Hisao, Rin, Emi, Hanako, Lilly, and Shizune is what makes this amazing. There are major points where they reveal the things inside of them and how broken and wounded they are. It makes you appreciate what they do, the things they overcome and how much even in this small scenario that we get to see, that they are maturing and becoming real people that we could talk to on the street or have in our lives.
Thank you for echoing out in words and visual styles the feelings of people who can feel pushed aside, broken, useless and turning it into a moment of hope. Thank you for creating this with your time, energy, and money. It feels awesome to be able to go through the story all 5 times and be able to understand each side of everyone's story. Getting to know all the girls and being able to appreciate how different they were was amazing. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

-A fan for life.

[Aelexe]

I've been around since the start, more or less.

Thank you 4LS. I have some amazing late night memories attached to your masterpiece.

[Rinascimento]

I love him deeply! Playing it, I feel really strong emotions and I firmly believe that only a true masterpiece can be able to arouse similar feelings!

The characters are simply wonderful, the drawing style nothing short of remarkable and the music ... oh, the music ... every time I hear them, I remember the scenes in which they are played and immediately I feel the urge to relive those moments!

Forgive my bad English, but i really felt the need to publicly thank all those who have contribuited to create this masterpiece!

THANK YOU SO MUCH!

An Italian fan of Katawa Shoujo.

[Azza]

This is my first post on this forum.

All I have to say is thank you from the bottom of my heart. This game... no its more than that, its... almost an extension of our lives. Its truly able to make me and I know others feel things they might not have felt before. We truly all are Hisao in some way.

Thank you for making a beautiful piece of artwork.

[GennyP]

It's been two years since this thread was started. In two months it'll be the two year anniversary of the release and the seven year anniversary of the begining of the project. A couple months ago I completed the VN. I can say that it really touched me. It really touched a lot of people. It really made me feel and changed me for the better. What is weird though is that all the pages and posts, all the forums and subreddits and steam groups that existed are all beginning to wind down. Everyone who has been touched by these stories are all moving on carrying with them what they learned. It is ofcourse naturaul that this happens. But the weird part is that people are still barely finding this and barely clicking Start on an empty begining screen. There maybe people right now as I am typing this barely experienceing the begining of this and there may sure be people doing the same at the time that you are reading this. Maybe some day this game will no longer recieve attention, but the effects that it had on the people who read through will continue as long as they live. I know that what I've learned has already affected me so drastically that it's already changed my life. I would like to say Thank you for all the work you have put in, and to remember that those thousands of people who have download your game are all individual people who's lives you've affected. Thank you.

[AMerePerson]

A different vein from the rest of the "thank yous" out there, but thanks for inspiring so many visual novels, so people may enjoy many new stories for years to come.

[gekiganwing]

... thanks for inspiring so many visual novels, so people may enjoy many new stories for years to come.

If you look at the active projects on the VN-Devs Talent and Project Repository, most began January 2012 or later. I've watched the Lemma Soft forum continue to grow. Sure, there's still a lot of overlap between romance games and VNs, but the amount of variety is also increasing. There's also been a decent number of successful crowdfunded visual novel projects. While there's still plenty of promising VNs which don't get finished, I think that's something we must deal with as long as fans who don't have money continue to create freeware. Though I'm not sure if the numbers of independent EVNs have increased substantially...

I remember reading the first few screens of The Answer in fall 2008 before closing the document a couple minutes later and trashing it... That was five years ago, when I could name at least five EVNs that I genuinely liked. Now in fall 2013, I can name a few more when people ask for recommendations.