Any thoughts on Katawa Shoujo?

[Angra Mainyu]

So, 4LS announced that Katawa Shoujo is going to be released on January 4.

I'll admit that I have mixed feeling about the project. On the one hand...cripple girl porn? Really? REALLY? On the other hand, I was surprisingly entertained by the demo. And while I believe it could have used more work on the art resources, it does seem to take good advantage of Ren'Py in a number of aspects.

What I'm really conflicted about is whether or not I should be rooting for the success of Katawa Shoujo. It'd be nice for there to be a "breakthrough" EVN title—particularly one made with Ren'Py. But, if KS succeeds in that regard, we're pretty much right back to square one, as far as people's perception that Visual Novels are basically fetish-y otaku porn.

[Auro-Cyanide]

Ah, not much *shrug* I am kind of interested to see the fall out of it, but apart from that I don't care too much. It's gonna come out anyway and hopefully everyone can get their fix that they have been hanging out for.

I played the demo and I liked some of the characters, but overall I felt it dragged a bit. So if I do get around to playing the whole game, which I know is long, I hope the pace has been picked up a bit. There are only so many internal dialogues I can click through.

So I guess I'm in the middle-ground-of-wait-and-see. It will most likely do well and a lot of hard work has gone into it. It's gone back to the classics as it were. As far as preceptions go, you can't do anything about the effect Katawa Shojo will have and hopefully it might make some of the BxG crowd feel less marginalised. It's likely that it's release will cause a number of readers to turn around and want to make their own games, which might be nice. At the end of the day you can only control what you do and so you have to do your best with that.

[Jake]

[haydendawson]

You could color me more than a little concerned when not only so much in development at LSF very cookie cutter GxB, the attitude is that BxG isn't what the community wants. I think perchance some of the newer faces to the VN scene need to better inform themselves of the history of VNs. That said, many of the more serious WIPs, KS, Memoria, Homeward and the quite amazing Adrift do follow a more classic pattern. It does seem that KS will rely a bit too much on the 'crippled girl' as the trope, rather than establishing individual characters who stand on their own.

[nubbycakes]

4LS: I can't stand quite a few of their members, which severely dampens my enthusiasm to engage in any kind of productive communication with any individuals from that particular group. I don't believe that rudeness can be masked with a veil of apparent civility.

As to Katawa Shoujo itself, my impression of the demo is that it was a hentai bishoujo game without the hentai. The writing was what you would expect from a b-grade translated Bishoujo game from the nineties to the early 2000s and it didn't have any compelling plot points which were of particular interest to me. The demo was indeed technically competent, but that really doesn't pique my interest as a creator. My personal path towards "innovation" in the VN medium leans more towards the actual use of the VN format for doing something more than pasting together pretty filtered background graphics, art, and music with competent writing. Mikey's VNs being a prime example of this, IMHO. Whether you agree with the author's intentions or not, it's undeniable that there is some grand scheme to the way each element of his VNs are chosen/created.

In short, I believe that the final version of Katawa Shoujo will be a very professionally presented, technically competent, visually impressive VN - but with nothing for me to look forward to both as a creator and as an ordinary reader. It will be the over-all VN package and will set the imaginary bar higher for any new EVNs aiming primarily for mainstream popularity. It will definitely raise more than a few eyebrows after its release -- just not mine.

As to GxB vs BxG, I personally find both quite acceptable as long as the tale behind the genre is well-written. I don't believe in aiming particularly for BxG nor GxB since I believe that these relationship-based classifications should only be of secondary importance to an actually compelling story/VN experience.

On the subject of people's perception of VNs: I think it's really a lost cause. The concept of "VNs = Porn" is so deeply ingrained into the collective mind of the mainstream population as far as the internet is concerned that there is no hope of recovery from it. What can be done, I believe, is to push for the dissociation of the term EVNs from VNs. As far as I know, most people consider Katawa Shoujo a different breed of game from the usual EVN fare; thus, we (all EVN creators) should capitalize on this and strive for the same level of dissociation rather than attempting to "ride on" the 15 minutes or more of fame that Katawa Shoujo will be enjoying.

[Auro-Cyanide]

[Angra Mainyu]

I believe Auro is correct in her assessment in that the EVN community has, as of late, become infused with women creators/dev teams. I can't say I know why—other than the format is essentially in the "wild west" stage right now, where anyone can do anything with it. In that regard, it makes sense that the disenfranchised would be drawn to it.

I saw it happen with OEL manga. Comics in the U.S. are synonymous with DC and Marvel, hence superheros. When Tokyopop introduced the OEL line, it was a golden opportunity for women creators to find an outlet for their work. It's just a shame TP, erm, well...

Anyway, I suspect that what we're seeing is women being drawn to the media since it's a creative outlet that doesn't have any particular constraints on it or any "baggage" that comes with it (except the aforementioned association with porn—but that's for the Japanese version).

All that said, I think LSF is a reflection of all these new creators. New creators—the ones who have been inspired to pursue the media—are going to have a much narrower frame of reference. They might have read one or two VNs, and decided that they want to make their own. It's only natural to want to emulate the very thing that inspired you.

Of course, by doing so, you get very derivative, amateurish work. You know...games set in contemporary Japan, with characters that have a mish-mash of English and quasi-Japanese names, in which characters behave in, well, I'll be generous and say in "cliché" ways, where events and character actions happen, not because they're natural extensions of the character personalities or stories, but because the creator saw the behavior used once and is reproducing it—despite not understanding WHY.

It seems LSF has become the defacto gathering location for those new creators. It's also why, every time I check out a new WIP thread, I shudder and leave as soon as I see a character description like "Sakura Smith - A spunky, outspoken half American half Japanese girl living in Tokyo...".

I'm not denigrating that behavior—I believe it's a natural part of the process to evolve one's understanding of the media—but it's certainly one of the reasons why I wanted to create a place like this, for those who have moved past that point.

And now that I've veered completely off topic, I need to find some way of salvaging my comment...uh, erm...eh, screw it. This place is new enough and small enough that we really don't need to strictly adhere to the topics. If the conversations evolve, so be it.

[haydendawson]

Wasn't trying to derail at all, and I'll admit that I'm more of an interest fan than anyone who might seriously get enough strength to take their own shot at a renpy work. I'd been given the opportunity to test and debug sevral of hanako games earlier titles, so I have nothing against the otome side of things. Perhaps I just took the apparent views of a few WIP authors to mean more than reality.

It will be interesting to see how the newer author audience reacts to KS should it find a great amount of traction. I'll give it a try for sure, but can't say that the demo rocked my socks.

[sake-bento]

I think KS will be a quality piece of something I'm largely uninterested in. I do like Hanako a good deal, but none of the other girls catch my attention, and I'm kind of ace, so I'm not even in it for the "good" ends. I'll probably check it out, anyway, just because it'll be nice to know how it turns out.

[Jake]