Ask!

[Nicol Armarfi]

First off, to all the devs who've poured their blood, sweat, tears, time, love, and RAGE into this project for so, so long: Thank you, and congratulations on a project well done.

As for my questions:

1: I have been nothing but amazed at the soundtrack for this game. Were there any tracks (aside from what got remixed between Act 1 and the full release, anyway) made for the game that never got used?

1b: If so, would those find their way into the planned OST?

2: The songs for the FMV segments... do they have titles, or are they just "Rin's FMV," "Lilly's FMV," etc?

1. There are maybe a handful of tracks that were not used, including multiple H-scene tracks and a different theme for Lilly.
1b. I don't believe we're planning on officially releasing the unused tracks, but I might throw them out there someday after the OST release.
2. The songs for the FMV segments do in fact have titles. Maybe you'll see about those later

[Talifan9]

First off, to all the devs who've poured their blood, sweat, tears, time, love, and RAGE into this project for so, so long: Thank you, and congratulations on a project well done.

As for my questions:

1: I have been nothing but amazed at the soundtrack for this game. Were there any tracks (aside from what got remixed between Act 1 and the full release, anyway) made for the game that never got used?

1b: If so, would those find their way into the planned OST?

2: The songs for the FMV segments... do they have titles, or are they just "Rin's FMV," "Lilly's FMV," etc?

1. There are maybe a handful of tracks that were not used, including multiple H-scene tracks and a different theme for Lilly.
1b. I don't believe we're planning on officially releasing the unused tracks, but I might throw them out there someday after the OST release.
2. The songs for the FMV segments do in fact have titles. Maybe you'll see about those later

Is there any estimation for that OST release by the way? (Know it is a fairly new idea, just wondering)

[Rykthrall]

This is related to the creation of a secondary VN inspired by KS:

If we were to put Katawa in the title, would you take us to court?

[Guest]

You guy's have mentioned that you talked a lot during development. Where did more discussion take place, the Dev Fourm, IRC, or Email?

[Brogurt]

multiple H-scene tracks

oh gawd
Are they like 80's porno background music or what?

[Suriko]

This is related to the creation of a secondary VN inspired by KS:

If we were to put Katawa in the title, would you take us to court?

Unlikely. We'd just politely ask that you don't. Maybe guilt trip you a bit (a lot). If we did stick our lawyer onto you, you might not survive.



But seriously, it is a pretty fundamental aspect of copyright that titles are considered IP, for very obvious reasons. If you have the resources to make a game, make a cool new story.

You guy's have mentioned that you talked a lot during development. Where did more discussion take place, the Dev Fourm, IRC, or Email?

IRC, by a very large margin. The forums were more or less where 'static' information was kept (like character bios, visual designs, CGs, scenes, etc). It ended up largely superseeded though by a combination of developers adding stuff directly to the SVN copy of the game, and the Trac ticketing system Delta set up later in development for the project. Email was almost never used.

IRC is probably best thought of as our office, and the SVN copy as the factory floor.

[Suriko]

Kenji in Lilly's and Shizune's path has that one moment where he seems sensible, like when he worries about Hisao when Hisao is depressed, or pushes Hisao to write back to Iwanako. Is there a specific reason the writers for these paths chose to relieve him of his comic relief role for those scenes, and did the other writers decide to downplay his role in their routes?

Different writers just used him in different ways, including some minimising his role. None of us really felt obligated to use any specific characters; we just wrote them in where it made sense to us (and where other developers also thought the same, remembering that basically all of the writing in KS was looked at and commented on by many other developers). Some paths used more (like Lilly and Hanako paths), others used fewer (like Rin path).

Throughout development, there were more or less two schools of thought when it came to Kenji: those who thought he should remain solely as a gag character, and those who wanted to portay him in a slightly more fleshed-out, grounded fashion. In the end, a balance was struck, and different routes differ slightly on exactly how fantastic versus realistic his character is.

[darkmelee]

how do you guys feel when people claim that parts of the game should have been certain ways, by way of writing/choices or art?

because sometimes, i feel like some people get way too offensive about their own opinions, to the point of arguing wholeheartedly about the smallest detail for little to no gain even if they 'win'.

since this is your project and not theirs, how do you deal with someone questioning your merits on a fundamental level, and not just accepting it as it is?

i understand critique, but the phrase 'what it could have done with person A/plot-point B' gets tossed around a lot. do you think that maybe people had their own ideas about what was going to happen and were disappointed it didn't end up a picturesque copy of their expectations?

i realize i've sorta asked several things, related or not.

[Irandrura]

I ran a search on this first; I apologise if it's come up before. There seem to have been some speculations in the past but no unambiguous answers. I also apologise if there are board rules against religious topics or questions; I had a quick look and didn't see any.

We've seen that Lilly wears a cross, and she mentioned formerly attending a Catholic school. She also mentioned that Akira found the religious aspect stifling, but didn't comment at all on her own views. (Does that imply that she was comfortable with the religious aspect, or simply unbothered by it?) While it seems clear that Lilly does not blindly(!) follow all Catholic dogma (for instance, using contraception), is she Catholic personally, or broadly Christian even if she doesn't identify as Catholic?

I understand if this is the sort of question that you might not want to answer, and that's fine. I was just curious if any thought went into the topic when her route was being written.

[Pimmy]

This isn't a question, just something I want to say, and this seems as good a place as any to say it.

Thank you for Katawa Shoujo. All of you. Quite some time ago, a friend of mine mentioned this offhand to me, and told me about a visual novel whose premise sounded like the setup for an exceedingly distasteful joke. And here and now, the punchline to that joke is one of the best stories (or should I say five of the best stories?) I've ever had the pleasure to read. This product really feels like the labor of love that it is. And thank you very much for sharing it with us all.

Lmao you butt, were you the one that was like SORRY IM NOT INTO THAT FETISH stuff when I was trying to explain the game to you? I remember someone did that haha.

This is a question for the artists, but it doesn't particularly pertain to the game. I was playing Rin's route, and although it resonated with me the least of the routes, it did make me realize that ever since a kid I wanted to draw.
How did you artists for Katawa Shoujo first start drawing, and was it derivative of anime or was it a more "formal" education style of learning art, and what tips would you give to a person who wants to start?

I always drew since as long as I can remember, and aspired to be a cartoonist as a kid. I started to get serious in high school though, when I had classmates who were better than me. I started deriving from anime a lot at that point, but I don't consider that a bad thing, wanting to draw anime gave me the courage and drive to start drawing the human body. As for tips, just draw like every day and try to fix what you did wrong the last time you drew, even if you're just doodling. Don't be afraid to use references ever.

[Suriko]

I ran a search on this first; I apologise if it's come up before. There seem to have been some speculations in the past but no unambiguous answers. I also apologise if there are board rules against religious topics or questions; I had a quick look and didn't see any.

We've seen that Lilly wears a cross, and she mentioned formerly attending a Catholic school. She also mentioned that Akira found the religious aspect stifling, but didn't comment at all on her own views. (Does that imply that she was comfortable with the religious aspect, or simply unbothered by it?) While it seems clear that Lilly does not blindly(!) follow all Catholic dogma (for instance, using contraception), is she Catholic personally, or broadly Christian even if she doesn't identify as Catholic?

I understand if this is the sort of question that you might not want to answer, and that's fine. I was just curious if any thought went into the topic when her route was being written.

Lilly identifies as Catholic, despite not agreeing with every aspect (as you mention, contraception being one).

[Irandrura]

Lilly identifies as Catholic, despite not agreeing with every aspect (as you mention, contraception being one).

Fair enough. Thank you!

[Aura]

I've only played a handful of VNs but the things that KS does with its sprites (moving them on screen to indicate actions described in the narration, displaying at different sizes to reflect character's distance from Hisao) are quite new to me. Was this an original idea?

It's not unique at all, many VNs do something like that.

[Aura]

I haven't seen any of the character sprites below the knee, is there anything below that point or just cut off there to same time?
Also on that train of thought, seeing how the sprites have so many facial features is it possible that they sort of work like paper dolls? That there is a base maiden with no features? just a loosely shaded blank slate of a face?

If I'm at all on the right track can you release at least one of the sprites faceless and legless (dont pull an emi joke you now what I mean)? If not I'd love to now how you did do it

Some of the sprites were drawn all the way, most not. And yeah the different expressions were obviously just layer work on drawing program, but the game itself uses a full image for each expression. As usual, we won't release any game assets.

[Aura]

2. Also, the anon who originally posted the art back in 2007 and started all this (well, triggered the real push to make it happen), who was that? Were they ever involved with the project or did their involvement end with that 4chan thread?

3. Did you consider including an explanation of the Japanese school year, or was it considered unimportant?

2. We don't know, and the translation and colouring of the page happened well before the 4chan sticky, possibly years before, so the person who did that wasn't involved even then.

3. No, it wasn't important.