Katawa Shoujo Act 1

[papillon]

You know, I have a good friend of mine who became deaf a few years ago. And "disconnected" is a real problem. Even though I know a very little bit of ASL, it's still tough to communicate except over IM, which leads to a real wall. While I'm not sure that's it's the best choice in game design (this is a bishoujo game, and the characters are meant to be appealing), it does kinda reflect the problems people have to overcome in real life.

*nod* I know a girl who isn't deaf but is mute, and generally communicates by writing. Which seems like it wouldn't be a problem, until you pay attention to just how fast normal conversation goes by.

[delta]

Most of the time, Shizune seems to just frown or smile and Misha comes up with the sentences on her own... unless she's supposed to be telepathic?

I don't really know how to say this, but... Did you notice that there are a lot of ellipses in Shizune scenes for some reason? Also, she changes her expression 99% of the time she signs and her pose 95% of that. I originally wanted to take out the ellipses because they got on my nerves but I was stopped.

On an unrelated note, I also really liked the intro - I'd really like to hear it was done entirely in Ren'Py script, and most of it would be simple enough, but the blur suggests to me it's probably a video... :/ The production all round is good, the snow scenes near the beginning are well done, some of the visual effects - the heart attack, for instance - are nice.

It's a video. You could do something like it in script but it would be far more painful than it's worth, and I want things like this to look good, not brag about how I spent weeks changing numbers in a text editor until the timing and positioning is right. And you couldn't do the blur or the drip at all. Right tools for the right job.

On the other hand, I did only play half an hour or so in, but I wasn't gripped at all... none of the characters I've met so far I really find interesting, nothing's happened that catches my attention. I'll keep going, but mostly because of the hype this project has generated and to see if there's anything else nicely executed later on. Maybe I'm just not the target audience, though...

I can understand that, it is still very much a rather generic bishoujo game at heart (see also: essay). If the bells and whistles are enough to make anyone interested in it regardless of that, it's more than I can hope.

[Jake]

I don't really know how to say this, but... Did you notice that there are a lot of ellipses in Shizune scenes for some reason?

Sure. And I noticed the changes in expression, but ellipses are quite frequently used for "period of silence", as well, and - well, it's a Visual Novel, and signing is a Visual language... it would seem like an obvious candidate for a visual solution. Especially since it's done at least once with Misha. I realise it'd be more work, but little things like this kind of undermine an otherwise-excellently-put-together package; it feels like there's a bit missing that should be accompanying the ellipses.

(In fact - I'm sure you of all people don't need me to tell you this, but it doesn't even have to be that much more work than there is there already; Shizune could have a set of statemachine animations set up that end on the 'standing there with a frown' or 'standing there with a smile' frames but go through a brief flurry of hand movements first, and you'd just show those instead of the frown alongside the ellipses. So your script would look the same, in the end.)

[sake-bento]

Finished my first run through with the Emi ending even though I was aiming for Hanako. ::sigh::

That being said, I did enjoy it. The art was lovely, and I like the sprites quite a bit. Very professional looking, and the designs are appealing. The Nurse seems to be a little different from the rest though; I think the style used to outline and color him is a bit different from the rest. I liked the heartbeat effects. It really made me panic every time it came up.

The Lulu cameo stood out a lot more than it should have, and it kinda removed me from the game for a bit (Haruki and what appears to be Kyon blended in a lot more).

[yujovi]

In fact - I'm sure you of all people don't need me to tell you this, but it doesn't even have to be that much more work than there is there already; Shizune could have a set of statemachine animations set up that end on the 'standing there with a frown' or 'standing there with a smile' frames but go through a brief flurry of hand movements first, and you'd just show those instead of the frown alongside the ellipses. So your script would look the same, in the end.

I'm not sure if you have ever had a conversation with a Deaf person with an interpreter, but there is always hand movement. When you talk, the interpreter would be signing, and when you stop talking, the Deaf person will be signing. It is distracting to add this kind of visual effect to a visual novel. If the constant movement was shown, it'd be accurate, but adding just some movement to Shizune would be grossly inaccurate, and pointless. Not showing much movement for both characters besides the normal poses sidesteps this sort of problem, and eliminates the unnecessary. This may be inaccurate, but at the same time, fits in much better than partial reality in a visual novel.

[Talyana]

Your skills are very awesome =3

[sake-bento]

Blogged it. It's not much, but hopefully it'll generate more interest.

[Jens]

I'm not sure if you have ever had a conversation with a Deaf person with an interpreter, but there is always hand movement. When you talk, the interpreter would be signing, and when you stop talking, the Deaf person will be signing. It is distracting to add this kind of visual effect to a visual novel. If the constant movement was shown, it'd be accurate, but adding just some movement to Shizune would be grossly inaccurate, and pointless. Not showing much movement for both characters besides the normal poses sidesteps this sort of problem, and eliminates the unnecessary. This may be inaccurate, but at the same time, fits in much better than partial reality in a visual novel.

Seems this could be easily fixed by making the character sprites hold their hands in the front rather than to the sides with maybe a slight motion blur.
That or replace the ellipses with something more obvious e.g. (...) or (signing).
As to the claims of this being generic, its not like the game lacks contents compared to anything. The thing that seems to be missing is advertising or rather foreshadowing.
Usually these games go to great lengths to give each of the girls a good first impression, if not the main character, to keep the reader in suspense thinking they'll miss out if they go to bed now. Even the epitome of generic like ~wind~do this(ooh you mystery girl) you can see a subversion in YMK(genocide!) and others like narcissu are way more subtle but the only thing that KS has failed to do for me so far is pique my curiosity.
But that all seems like nitpicking, at the moment this is the most professional OEL VN.

[Jake]

I'm not sure if you have ever had a conversation with a Deaf person with an interpreter, but there is always hand movement.

Yes, I have. And... this is why it seems lacking, because I have this notion that deaf people using sign language move their hands when they're communicating. Non-deaf people talk and make noises, but this is successfully abstracted out to prose, so you still get that cue that the person is communicating; without hand-movements, it seems to me subconsciously like Shizune isn't actually saying anything and Misha's making it all up.

It is distracting to add this kind of visual effect to a visual novel.

Was it actually tried? Personally, I find it distracting to not have any movement; since ellipses are often used for a pause, or someone pointedly not saying something, so it seems subconsciously like the scene goes:

Protagonist says something
Shizune frowns, there's a pause in the conversation
Misha notices frown, interprets it into whole sentence of assertions

While consciously I can obviously piece together what's supposed to be happening, it just seems like there's something missing. To me, it comes back to the "is it a visual novel, or a novel with visuals" question; there's a thing which you can get across visually, which is the strength of the medium, but instead it's just described through prose. If you're talking about 'eliminating the unnecessary'... well, the pictures of the characters aren't necessary. You could go about describing the backgrounds in prose instead of showing images, and music doesn't convey much other than mood, so you could probably get rid of that...

It's just my opinion, of course, but it seems to me like it would have been a thing to try, at least. Especially since it's done once already, which in my opinion worked fine without being 'distracting' or anything.

[delta]

It is distracting to add this kind of visual effect to a visual novel.

Was it actually tried?

Yes.

[JQuartz]

When you talk, the interpreter would be signing, and when you stop talking, the Deaf person will be signing. It is distracting to add this kind of visual effect to a visual novel. If the constant movement was shown, it'd be accurate, but adding just some movement to Shizune would be grossly inaccurate, and pointless.

That or replace the ellipses with something more obvious e.g. (...) or (signing).

Yeah, like Jen suggested, maybe you could use (signing) instead of ... when the deaf person is signing cause I think most people associate ... with just silence without movement.

[Guest]

About sign language and it's usage as medium:

There's the problem that each country uses a different system. Whilst the American Sign Language
might be the most common one used there are still too many others. So I think the approach taken
in this game is good.

Still I want to know how the Shizune-Path might continue. I mean Hisao will probably learn the sign
language which might lead to interesting conflicts with Misha?

[DaFool]

Well my opinion at this point probably won't matter much, but after exhausting all of the paths, I have the ff things to say:

* Kenji's ending is the best. Congrats to his writer(s). Maybe it's because I'm anti-feminist and agree with a lot of what he says. Then again its interesting that he held more interest as a sidekick character then any of the girls as potential romantic interests.
* Nevertheless, the girls' characters came off very well. There is less of that stereotypical bishoujo character distaste that I find in commercial JVNs. I think it's precisely because they were written for an English audience in mind, so they were somewhat loosely based on how western characters would think and act. I could have practically ignored their disabilities with the same result.

Now my criticisms:
* Where's the epic feel to such an epic project? How about some foreshadowing of doom (e.g. Hisao's eventual death or something, dream sequences, any hint of the 'End Game')... it doesn't have to be "This girl is the key to the end of this world." kind of thing, but at least a morsel of something would be nice. Anything. Unless the goal was that to have a Simulated Life game where everything is to be taken as-is as a literal slice-of-life in a closed environment, then I'd understand.
* Most of the writing was droning, especially Shizune and Misha's conversations. I don't know really how to improve beyond the suggestions already given (since wordcount is nice after all), it's just that every 20 minutes I just had the urge to save and drop the game and instead start playing one of those sandbox driving games where you run around crashing cars and being chased by the cops. Also its best to go into the game when I'm half-asleep or have had a huge meal and am busy digesting... otherwise I just wouldn't be able to proceed if I were to go through digesting word for word as if they meant the utmost significance.

Also something to fix in the full release: Hanako's end in the Library doesn't have a name, it's just called Nc5xb3.

I haven't had time to read through the deluge of responses you've no doubt gotten by now, but yeah this is a core game and am curious to what the Elevens think.

[papillon]

Also something to fix in the full release: Hanako's end in the Library doesn't have a name, it's just called Nc5xb3.

(since I saw this on another forum) That *is* the name, it's a reference to a chess move. Put that word into google.

[Samu-kun]

Alright! I got the Hanako ending! Hit 70% completion... Gonna try to up that a bit.

In-depth review written!