ATTENTION: The Linux version has a faulty and potentially dangerous (as in, it might change permissions of more files than it's supposed to if called from the command line) launcher script. Until the full download can be replaced, please download http://dl.katawa-shoujo.com/gold/Katawa%20Shoujo.sh and replace the one in the full download (see previous post) with it.
UPDATE: The torrent in the release post has been updated. Users who have previously downloaded the Linux version may use the hotfix linked. New users should use the torrent from the release post (and will not require this hotfix).
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Katawa Shoujo Released
After 5 years of development to the day, Katawa Shoujo is now complete.
Katawa Shoujo download links:
Torrent: Windows | Mac OS X | Linux x86
DDL: Windows | Mac OS X | Linux x86
Do not download this content if you are not 18 years old or over.
Direct download links coming back soon
The Internet, January 4th 2012 - Four Leaf Studios is proud to present the full release of Katawa Shoujo, free of charge. It's been five long years until this day, with a multinational group of twenty-one developers working on art, music, writing, programming, and direction, to say nothing of the innumerable contributors to the project both past and present, but it's finally here.
Katawa Shoujo is a visual novel set in the fictional Yamaku High School for disabled children, located in modern Japan. Hisao Nakai, a normal boy living a normal life, has his life turned upside down when a congenital heart defect forces him to move to a new school after a long hospitalization. Despite his difficulties, Hisao is able to find friends — and perhaps love, if he plays his cards right. There are five main paths corresponding to the 5 main female characters, each path following the storyline pertaining to that character. The story is told through the perspective of the main character, using a first person narrative. The game uses a traditional text and sprite-based visual novel model with an ADV text box.
The story of Katawa Shoujo is a long one, spanning over a decade. In December of the year 2000, the doujin Schuppen Harnische was released by the artist RAITA of circle Zettai Shoujo. One of the pages in the extras section of the doujin contained a sketch imagining a game about disabilities set in a Japanese high school. If not for later events, that may well have been the end of it. With the sticky in 4chan's anime board in January of 2007, though, interest was suddenly sparked in the idea within, and the idea of creating this game came about. After months of brainstorming, but little progress, a core development team by the name of Four Leaf Studios was formed in April of the same year. With this, Katawa Shoujo was set on the path to its final creation.
Four Leaf Studios is a volunteer group of twenty-one developers from around the world, having come together for the sole purpose of developing Katawa Shoujo. Hailing from many different countries, backgrounds, and professions, Four Leaf Studios became committed to working towards Katawa Shoujo as an entirely free game, with no money involved in the project.
With that, the story of Four Leaf Studios is finished. As a single entity, we will not be producing another game. But even though our story has ended, you will now be able to experience a new story; the story that Four Leaf Studios existed to create.
We hope you enjoy Katawa Shoujo.
Contact Four Leaf Studios:
- Email: fourleafstudios@gmail.com
- WWW: http://katawa-shoujo.com/
- IRC: irc://irc.irchhighway.net/#katawa-shoujo
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Christmas Present: Katawa Shoujo Artbook PDFs
Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas!
Four Leaf Studios, together with the Katawa Shoujo Japanese translation team, would like to give all our fans a christmas present this year. And that christmas present is .pdf versions of the currently released artbooks; the Katawa Shoujo Player Guide, and Fragments of Summer.
We plan to release a .pdf copy of Midwinter, the third Katawa Shoujo artbook, around mid-March. Those who buy Midwinter at Comiket will have the exclusivity of a physical copy, and be able to view it several months earlier than anyone else.
This was all made possible by the very hard work of the Japanese translation team, who were responsible for Comiket organisation, all physical printing and publishing work, and translation of the artist and writer comments contained in the artbooks. A big thank you from the 4LS team goes to all of you guys. And of course, a big thank you also goes out to all the artists who contributed, both developers and fanartists.
Without further ado, here are the artbooks. Have a very merry Christmas from Four Leaf Studios, and a happy new year!
Katawa Shoujo Player Guide (Japanese)
Fragments of Summer (Japanese)
Fragments of Summer (English)
- Suriko
» Discuss this post on the forums
Four Leaf Studios, together with the Katawa Shoujo Japanese translation team, would like to give all our fans a christmas present this year. And that christmas present is .pdf versions of the currently released artbooks; the Katawa Shoujo Player Guide, and Fragments of Summer.
We plan to release a .pdf copy of Midwinter, the third Katawa Shoujo artbook, around mid-March. Those who buy Midwinter at Comiket will have the exclusivity of a physical copy, and be able to view it several months earlier than anyone else.
This was all made possible by the very hard work of the Japanese translation team, who were responsible for Comiket organisation, all physical printing and publishing work, and translation of the artist and writer comments contained in the artbooks. A big thank you from the 4LS team goes to all of you guys. And of course, a big thank you also goes out to all the artists who contributed, both developers and fanartists.
Without further ado, here are the artbooks. Have a very merry Christmas from Four Leaf Studios, and a happy new year!
Katawa Shoujo Player Guide (Japanese)
Fragments of Summer (Japanese)
Fragments of Summer (English)
- Suriko
» Discuss this post on the forums
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Katawa Shoujo Will be Released on January 4th
Katawa Shoujo will release on January 4, 2012.
Of course, 2012 is not 2011, and we do apologise for that. The date of 4 January was selected in order to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the /a/ sticky that started this project, and will see the release of the full version of the game.
We thank you for your patience in waiting for the game to be completed, especially those who have contributed to the game's development. It's been a long ride, but the end is finally near.
» Discuss this post on the forums
Monday, December 5, 2011
Katawa Shoujo Artbook at Comiket 81
Hi all,
The Katawa Shoujo Japanese translation team got a desk in the coming Winter Comiket, Comiket 81. The location and dates are: Dec 31 (Sat - Day 3) East "Pe" (ペ） Block 15a (East-5 hall).
Our new doujinshi is a B5 sized artbook of 20 pages, just like the summer artbook. Artists from the development team as well as the Shimmie regulars contributed their masterpieces.
The book is titled "Midwinter", in contrast to the previous book, and will be distributed at 400 JPY.
They will be bringing additional stock of the summer artbook "Fragments of Summer" to Comiket as well.
» Discuss this post on the forums
The Katawa Shoujo Japanese translation team got a desk in the coming Winter Comiket, Comiket 81. The location and dates are: Dec 31 (Sat - Day 3) East "Pe" (ペ） Block 15a (East-5 hall).
Our new doujinshi is a B5 sized artbook of 20 pages, just like the summer artbook. Artists from the development team as well as the Shimmie regulars contributed their masterpieces.
The book is titled "Midwinter", in contrast to the previous book, and will be distributed at 400 JPY.
They will be bringing additional stock of the summer artbook "Fragments of Summer" to Comiket as well.
» Discuss this post on the forums
Monday, November 14, 2011
Shizooooon
Hello this is Moekki and today I'm writing about Shizune. I have enjoyed drawing her alot and I think working on her design really helped me develop my style!
here is a diagram
Anyways, in chronological order:
A) Raita's initial design, coloured by some anonymous dude. Although many aspects of her design were drawn from this image, the teal coloured hair was scrapped almost immediately because it's ugly and only works on Miku.
B) 2007, the first game design adopted after the beginning of the project. This design was probably more influential on future designs than Raita's.
C) Wooooow what shitty art! This was after I first joined the project and it's completely horrible. However most of her design is set in stone now
D) I don't remember drawing this but I found it in my KS folder. This was during the intervening period before Kamifish kicked my ass, most of the artists were very dead for about 5 months. I think i tried to give her twin ahoge like hideaki but luckily it never came to fruition. I was still struggling to draw her hourglass figure
E) Her current design, I'm kind of impressed how much I improved that year! I didn't draw any concept art for this design and thus determined that concept art is useless for moeblob school girls. Zettai ryoiki has been discovered and things are good
THE FUTURE!) things are mostly the same but over time her bangs have slowly turned into cat ears
Guest art by VCR
Thankyou and good night
XOXO Moekki
(PS: This means the direction is done)
» Discuss this post on the forums
here is a diagram
Anyways, in chronological order:
A) Raita's initial design, coloured by some anonymous dude. Although many aspects of her design were drawn from this image, the teal coloured hair was scrapped almost immediately because it's ugly and only works on Miku.
B) 2007, the first game design adopted after the beginning of the project. This design was probably more influential on future designs than Raita's.
C) Wooooow what shitty art! This was after I first joined the project and it's completely horrible. However most of her design is set in stone now
D) I don't remember drawing this but I found it in my KS folder. This was during the intervening period before Kamifish kicked my ass, most of the artists were very dead for about 5 months. I think i tried to give her twin ahoge like hideaki but luckily it never came to fruition. I was still struggling to draw her hourglass figure
E) Her current design, I'm kind of impressed how much I improved that year! I didn't draw any concept art for this design and thus determined that concept art is useless for moeblob school girls. Zettai ryoiki has been discovered and things are good
THE FUTURE!) things are mostly the same but over time her bangs have slowly turned into cat ears
Thankyou and good night
XOXO Moekki
(PS: This means the direction is done)
» Discuss this post on the forums
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Rin's Path Direction Complete
Rin path direction is now complete, so it's time for second-last heroine art recap.
Rin's art has stayed fairly tethered to RAITA's original design, with her personality reflected in her relaxed posture and roughly-cut short hair visible most of the prototype designs that have been made for her as well as in her final in-game art. With Kamifish coming on board as Rin's path artist, her talent for very clean linework and sketching gave her designs a great amount of consistency very early on once she began work for KS.
The two most notable differences from RAITA's art are Rin's hairstyle being change from a bobcut to short and splayed-out, and a change from wearing a skirt to wearing trousers. The former change came after most of the current artists came on board at the same time in 2008 - Moekki, Weee, Gebyy, and Kamifish - and began working on new designs. It was at this time that Aura gave the artists a task to try and work out the best way to develop Rin's appearance; each artist would draw Rin sleeping against a tree. By showing her in what felt like a natural activity she would do, it could be worked out what design best fit the way she acted. The result of this was for some aspects of Weee's image to be incorporated into her look - namely, the back of her hair being splayed out slightly messily, and her front bangs being separated from the back of her hair to show her ears.
The second change, with Rin's uniform being switched from the blouse and skirt to the boy's uniform shirt and trousers, is primarily a matter of practicality for her. As Rin paints with her feet, wearing trousers simply allows her to do so without the chance of people catching a glance at her panties. The blouse being changed for the boy's shirt was mainly a matter of aesthetics to match the trousers. Relatedly, Rin typically wears sandals rather than shoes, in order to allow quick access to her feet to manipulate objects without getting them dirty through going entirely barefoot. And the answer to any question about clothing that starts with "But how does Rin..." is still "Emi."
And that's Rin's art. Look forward to the final heroine's recap, Shizune's, sometime soon!
- Suriko
» Discuss this post on the forums
Rin's art has stayed fairly tethered to RAITA's original design, with her personality reflected in her relaxed posture and roughly-cut short hair visible most of the prototype designs that have been made for her as well as in her final in-game art. With Kamifish coming on board as Rin's path artist, her talent for very clean linework and sketching gave her designs a great amount of consistency very early on once she began work for KS.
The two most notable differences from RAITA's art are Rin's hairstyle being change from a bobcut to short and splayed-out, and a change from wearing a skirt to wearing trousers. The former change came after most of the current artists came on board at the same time in 2008 - Moekki, Weee, Gebyy, and Kamifish - and began working on new designs. It was at this time that Aura gave the artists a task to try and work out the best way to develop Rin's appearance; each artist would draw Rin sleeping against a tree. By showing her in what felt like a natural activity she would do, it could be worked out what design best fit the way she acted. The result of this was for some aspects of Weee's image to be incorporated into her look - namely, the back of her hair being splayed out slightly messily, and her front bangs being separated from the back of her hair to show her ears.
The second change, with Rin's uniform being switched from the blouse and skirt to the boy's uniform shirt and trousers, is primarily a matter of practicality for her. As Rin paints with her feet, wearing trousers simply allows her to do so without the chance of people catching a glance at her panties. The blouse being changed for the boy's shirt was mainly a matter of aesthetics to match the trousers. Relatedly, Rin typically wears sandals rather than shoes, in order to allow quick access to her feet to manipulate objects without getting them dirty through going entirely barefoot. And the answer to any question about clothing that starts with "But how does Rin..." is still "Emi."
And that's Rin's art. Look forward to the final heroine's recap, Shizune's, sometime soon!
- Suriko
» Discuss this post on the forums
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