Ask!

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Aura
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Re: Ask!

Post by Aura »

Well, Katawa Shoujo runs on an engine that was released before Windows 7. So, it's made it through two Windows updates and so far it seems to work okay so just hope for the best. We totally aren't going to patch KS if Win23 or OSX Three-Toed Sloth happens to not run it though.
<Aura> would you squeeze a warm PVC bottle between your thighs and call it "manaka-chan"
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ultraman
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Re: Ask!

Post by ultraman »

Aura wrote:1) We didn't try very hard to make the routes fit together, and as a result they are pretty inconsistent and/or disjointed.
2) Testing process goes like this: A) We build a release candidate. This is a complete version of the product that will get released if no faults are found. B) it is tested repeatedly and all faults that are found get fixed. Then go back to A and repeat until a version that passes testing without faults is reached.
2b) Beta testing is meant for logic, tech and quality checking. The high level content is locked in by the time the testing begins.
3) As per the answer to 1, we didn't mind the stylistic differences an awful lot. We experimented with some methods of bringing cohesion but they didn't work well so we decided we'd rather write the way we want. Any cohesion there is between the writers was created by talking a lot about KS, and aligning our mindsets that way.
4) I wrote maybe slightly under double the words that the final Rin story ended up being. It's below average for KS; for instance Hanako's route was redrafted by a factor of 400% or more, approximately.
5) The same.
6) No. Medical issues never really are a focus in the story.
7) Sort of.
8) Probably.
9) That really wasn't structurally impossible (though a headache), it was ditched for other reasons.
Thanks REALLY a lot for your answer (and once again for KS).

Just a couple of notes
4 & 5) Honestly I thought you had to write something like 10 times or so the amount of writing in the final product so I'm happy to know that the discarded writing between all you produced was notably less. I hope it's clear I'm not going understimate your job (damn, I suppose rewrite a route 4 times or so would could had made mad anyone)
9) Ok sorry, I misunderstood the post and I thought the main reason was the difficulty of setting the structure of it. As I said before I really liked Hanako and her path, so I just was curious to know a little more about what could have been possible to see in her route (but it was into the final release) when I red the message I quoted from cpl_crud.
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Lelouch Vi Britannia
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Re: Ask!

Post by Lelouch Vi Britannia »

Greetings Aura

I've seen a few Visual Novels around on Steam and was wondering, are there any chances of Katawa Shoujo appearing on Steam?
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Steinherz
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Re: Ask!

Post by Steinherz »

Lelouch Vi Britannia wrote:Greetings Aura

I've seen a few Visual Novels around on Steam and was wondering, are there any chances of Katawa Shoujo appearing on Steam?
Steam doesn't allow Visual Novels with sexual content on Steam unless the sexual content is cut.

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Aura
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Re: Ask!

Post by Aura »

Unless Steam changes their stance on adult content, the chances of KS getting on Steam are 0.
<Aura> would you squeeze a warm PVC bottle between your thighs and call it "manaka-chan"
<Suriko> I would do it if it wouldn't be so hard to explain to my parents
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Munchenhausen
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Re: Ask!

Post by Munchenhausen »

Aura wrote:Unless Steam changes their stance on adult content, the chances of KS getting on Steam are 0.
As disappointed as this makes me, it also makes me glad. KS is pretty good the way it is.
Like stupid, silly doodles with no point? You've come to the right place, friend :^)
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Kon22
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Re: Ask!

Post by Kon22 »

I'm actually happy about that. I've played quite some VNs which had its adult content cut, and is just stupid, specially when the content can be turned off at will (like in KS case). I like Steam, but I'd hate to have KS censored like that.
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Atario
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Re: Ask!

Post by Atario »

There are times in the game where a page of text advances with no user input; usually it's someone starting to say something, and getting cut off, and the thing doing the cutting-off happens without the user clicking for the next page. I'm a person who pretty automatically and quickly reads text without thinking about having to do so, yet I often find such "interrupted" text gone before I can begin to get a handle on it. How was this timing determined? Because whoever it was seems to be a quick reader indeed!

A similar quickness seems involved in some of the pseudo-animations (like Hanako flicking her gaze at Hisao, etc.)
NB: none of the above is a request

Mutou Gets Fired — a little one-shot fanfic I wrote
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Talifan9
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Re: Ask!

Post by Talifan9 »

TeaRunner wrote:Hey, I was wondering how the game will run on future versions of windows, like the upcoming Windows 10, and so forth? If it'll need patching to run or something? This game changed my life in quite a bit of ways, and I wouldn't want to lose it to something as simple as a windows update. Sorry if I format my post wrong/its been asked before, I rarely ever post on forums and I couldn't find the answer when I looked earlier.

Thanks, for everything! :wink:
I can note that it does run on the developers build 9926 of Windows 10. So, hopefully.
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Aura
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Re: Ask!

Post by Aura »

The cut-off time was determined by trying out different intervals and seeing which felt the best. I think it's either going by delta's own feel or some sort of dev consensus.
<Aura> would you squeeze a warm PVC bottle between your thighs and call it "manaka-chan"
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Valjean Lafitte
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Re: Ask!

Post by Valjean Lafitte »

I was wondering if we could get an official dev statement on the nature of Emi and Misha's friendship? The subject was broached on page 226 of the thread, and the exchange went something like this:
Aura wrote:
Anyway, Hive meant to write Emi and Misha as good friends, but that never materialized properly. The line is an undead remnant of that.
TheHivemind wrote: Like Aura said, there was originally going to be more hints that Emi and Misha had crossed paths on more than one occasion. It was discarded (or more accurately, never really explored) due to a myriad of reasons, some to do with being a lousy writer, others to do with the fact that Emi's path was scrapped and started from (almost) scratch about four years into development. Other hints of the Emi/Misha connection include some editorial comments from Misha during a lecture on PDA (which, come to think of it, might have also been removed but I don't remember anymore) and the fact that Misha is the one to talk to you if things go poorly (which was not so much a vestige as it was a reference to what could have been, if I'd been a) better at writing b) better at negotiating c) less burned out on the project by the end of the writing process). I think there might be one or two off-handed comments from Emi and Misha in the path that serve as more references to it (and there was something in the dinner scene at one point, but again I can't remember what made it in and what didn't).

Isn't it sad Micchan ;____; etc. etc.
OK, so here TheHivemind says that Emi and Misha having crossed paths before was never really "scrapped", just not explored. That there's still hints of it in the final game would seem to place it on the same "implied canon" level as Kenji x Yuuko...
TheHivemind wrote:
Liminaut wrote:Heh. I thought that comment meant that Emi and Misha had been friends with benefits at one point. I may have been reading a little too much into it :-)
Ha ha ha yes how ridiculous.
<_<
>_>
...but then he jokingly implies that they were meant to be friends with benefits. This supports what I've heard about an earlier version of KS where Emi and Misha would hook up regularly in the art room. I know that we're only supposed to treat what's in the game as canon, but this seems to be a special case in which something is only hinted at, and yet by a dev's admission, not scrapped. So as a result we know that they are (or were) friends, but what's the nature of their friendship?

I'm struggling to imagine how a Emi x Misha "friends with benefits" relationship would fit with Shizune's route even if it had been fleshed out. I could see a curious Emi experimenting with Misha maybe once or twice, but I'd find it harder to feel sad for poor, "lonely" Misha if she was getting pussy every other day from her BFF. And if it's true--just not explored--how would it have fit into Misha's character arc, in which is she seems infatuated with only Shizune?
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Aura
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Re: Ask!

Post by Aura »

Hive never put in the work necessary to figure out the Emi-Misha relationship so it fizzled out without getting anywhere. It's kind of a bummer because the story sure could've used character interplay that didn't involve Hisao. The amount of work would've been quite high though, so it's understandable that it didn't work out.

I don't think the friendship was to have a "friends with benefits" thing, but Emi and Misha, or Emi and Rin, having experimented sexually (once) was a real concept Hive had to underline Emi's liberal and aggressive attitude towards sex. It's one of the more interesting aspects of Emi's character, but Hive didn't quite get the theme and ideas polished to perfection. Emi sex scenes do an acceptable job communicating the theme, but maybe aren't reflected upon sufficiently? Also, one of the most unfortunate things about Emi's route is that the track shed scene is a stupid fucking meme amongst the fans (THEM LEMONS XD) and no one actually thinks about why on earth would Emi act like that. This tangent aside, if you think there's "implied canon" or "early versions of KS", sorry to disappoint you. We had hundreds of ideas that got scrapped, and many of them have some remnants left in the script for whatever reasons. This is just another one. Also semantics lawyering is pointless. "Not explored" means the exact same thing as "scrapped", because both have the same end result, which is that the idea did not end up in the actual story. So yeah the official answer, whatever that means, is that they know each other, are probably friendly, but aren't really buddies.

E: should probably emphasize that the sexual experimentation wasn't integral to the friendship either, just one possible angle.
<Aura> would you squeeze a warm PVC bottle between your thighs and call it "manaka-chan"
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Valjean Lafitte
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Re: Ask!

Post by Valjean Lafitte »

I think that that the idea that Emi has a liberal attitude towards sex is very well communicated. As a friend of mine put it, she's a "trysexual", meaning she'd be open to try anything at least once. That's why it makes much more sense to me that they'd she'd have experimented with Misha or Rin once than to have an ongoing sexual relationship with either of them--there's just no indication that she's into girls. Anyway, thanks a bunch for clearing up what you and Hivemind meant by "not explored"! :)
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Kon22
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Re: Ask!

Post by Kon22 »

To be fair, I never considered Emi a "kinky" girl. I always thought that her liberal sexual demeanor was more about she not wanting to get into deep relationships with people, and using sex as a way to get "closer" to people, without really having to develop an important emotional bond. But hey, that might just be me. Alternate character interpretation, I guess.
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Re: Ask!

Post by TheHivemind »

Valjean Lafitte wrote:I was wondering if we could get an official dev statement on the nature of Emi and Misha's friendship? The subject was broached on page 226 of the thread, and the exchange went something like this:
TheHivemind wrote: Like Aura said, there was originally going to be more hints that Emi and Misha had crossed paths on more than one occasion. It was discarded (or more accurately, never really explored) due to a myriad of reasons, some to do with being a lousy writer, others to do with the fact that Emi's path was scrapped and started from (almost) scratch about four years into development. Other hints of the Emi/Misha connection include some editorial comments from Misha during a lecture on PDA (which, come to think of it, might have also been removed but I don't remember anymore) and the fact that Misha is the one to talk to you if things go poorly (which was not so much a vestige as it was a reference to what could have been, if I'd been a) better at writing b) better at negotiating c) less burned out on the project by the end of the writing process). I think there might be one or two off-handed comments from Emi and Misha in the path that serve as more references to it (and there was something in the dinner scene at one point, but again I can't remember what made it in and what didn't).

Isn't it sad Micchan ;____; etc. etc.
OK, so here TheHivemind says that Emi and Misha having crossed paths before was never really "scrapped", just not explored. That there's still hints of it in the final game would seem to place it on the same "implied canon" level as Kenji x Yuuko...
TheHivemind wrote:
Liminaut wrote:Heh. I thought that comment meant that Emi and Misha had been friends with benefits at one point. I may have been reading a little too much into it :-)
Ha ha ha yes how ridiculous.
<_<
>_>
...but then he jokingly implies that they were meant to be friends with benefits. This supports what I've heard about an earlier version of KS where Emi and Misha would hook up regularly in the art room. I know that we're only supposed to treat what's in the game as canon, but this seems to be a special case in which something is only hinted at, and yet by a dev's admission, not scrapped. So as a result we know that they are (or were) friends, but what's the nature of their friendship?

I'm struggling to imagine how a Emi x Misha "friends with benefits" relationship would fit with Shizune's route even if it had been fleshed out. I could see a curious Emi experimenting with Misha maybe once or twice, but I'd find it harder to feel sad for poor, "lonely" Misha if she was getting pussy every other day from her BFF. And if it's true--just not explored--how would it have fit into Misha's character arc, in which is she seems infatuated with only Shizune?
Aura wrote:Hive never put in the work necessary to figure out the Emi-Misha relationship so it fizzled out without getting anywhere. It's kind of a bummer because the story sure could've used character interplay that didn't involve Hisao. The amount of work would've been quite high though, so it's understandable that it didn't work out.

I don't think the friendship was to have a "friends with benefits" thing, but Emi and Misha, or Emi and Rin, having experimented sexually (once) was a real concept Hive had to underline Emi's liberal and aggressive attitude towards sex. It's one of the more interesting aspects of Emi's character, but Hive didn't quite get the theme and ideas polished to perfection. Emi sex scenes do an acceptable job communicating the theme, but maybe aren't reflected upon sufficiently?
Like I said in my original answer (and like Aura further stated), Emi and Misha were meant to be friends--and to have briefly been more than friends, set around the time after Shizune first rejected Misha's advances (and Emi similarly would've made a pass on a completely oblivious, nonresponsive Rin...or something like that. There's a bit on the fanfic forum that explores the idea a little, but it's unpolished as FUCK, so consider yourself warned), but I fucked it all up--and yes, the two of them having experimented together was a real thing that I (and others) considered having happen, because if anyone was going to wind up experimenting, it was going to be Emi. As Aura said, she's open and pretty up-front when it comes to sex, and who she would like to have sex with. I even strongly considered making her bisexual at one point (there was a scrapped, time-skipping bad end that would've made that more obvious, and I considered it being one of the things she mentioned in her list of facts in the graveyard), but it would have taken a lot to get that off the ground (again, both in terms of convincing the rest of the team to put up with the extra work and coordination across paths to make it fit, and in terms of backfilling it into the path without it coming off as shoehorned in at the last minute). I've stated on multiple occasions that I have no regrets about how the path wound up--and I still don't--but it's completely true that Emi's path could've used way more work and skill than I was capable of producing at the time. If I were to undertake the project now, it would probably be better, but that's walking down the path of pure speculation.
Aura wrote: Also, one of the most unfortunate things about Emi's route is that the track shed scene is a stupid fucking meme amongst the fans (THEM LEMONS XD) and no one actually thinks about why on earth would Emi act like that. This tangent aside, if you think there's "implied canon" or "early versions of KS", sorry to disappoint you. We had hundreds of ideas that got scrapped, and many of them have some remnants left in the script for whatever reasons. This is just another one. Also semantics lawyering is pointless. "Not explored" means the exact same thing as "scrapped", because both have the same end result, which is that the idea did not end up in the actual story. So yeah the official answer, whatever that means, is that they know each other, are probably friendly, but aren't really buddies.
That bloody track scene is probably my greatest failure, because it was meant to highlight something about Emi's character and everyone only remembers the goddamn lemons. Oh well.

But yes, Misha and Emi are on friendly terms officially, whatever that means. They are at least on good enough terms that Misha cares enough to step in and slap Hisao in his big dumb face if necessary to get him back on the right track.

Unofficially, they met up again when they both wound up in the same area for college and grew much closer, culminating in the traditional rainy confessions and they lived gayly ever after, I dunno.
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