Katawa Shoujo

Katawa Shoujo
Developer: Four Leaf Studios Publisher: Four Leaf Studios Platforms: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux Released internationally: January 4, 2012 This game has a hidden developer message. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused sounds.

Katawa Shoujo is a visual novel by 4chan(!) where the protagonist is a new student in a school for people with disabilities, and the main characters are girls with a wide range of disabilities.

Far from being an intensely disturbing title, it's instead very respectful, carefully designed, and incredibly touching, earning high praise from genre beginners and experts alike. The delightful soundtrack, beautiful art, and memorable characters play a big role in that, too.

Unused Graphics

All of the following are present in game/data.rpa.

Standard Graphics

These graphics are completely unused in the game.

bgs/suburb_tanabata.jpg contains the Tanabata stalls during the day, but in-game this stall is only ever seen at night with the lamps on, at which point the file bgs/suburb_tanabata_ni.jpg is used instead.

bgs/school_stalls2_ni.jpg is one of the food stalls in the school during the night. During the story, this stall is only seen during the day and at sunset (bgs/school_stalls2.jpg and bgs/school_stalls2_ss.jpg).

bgs/school_dormext.jpg has the wall and stairs to the dorms, but with the wall completely unpainted. The first time the dorm's wall is seen in the story, it already has some of Rin's mural, so this one goes unused.

bgs/school_dormext_start_ni.jpg is again the dorm's wall and stairs but with the first stage of Rin's mural, at night. At no point in the story do we get to see this stage of the mural at night, only during the day or sunset (bgs/school_dormext_start.jpg and bgs/school_dormext_start_ss.jpg).

bgs/school_miyagi_blurred.jpg is Lilly's tearoom, blurred. The backgrounds school_miyagi.jpg and school_miyagi_ss.jpg are used instead, and show more than this image: they show the chalkboard to the left and some chairs to the right.

event/Lilly_supercg/tearoom_hisaoe_hoops.png is Hisao's "oops" face, meant to be overlaid on top of the CG scenes at the tearoom. Judging from its position, name, and similar files, it would've been composed on top of the image that has Lilly, Hisao, and Hanako.

event/Lilly_supercg/tearoom_hisao_thinkclosed.png is similar to the above, but it's Hisao thinking with his eyes closed, and would've instead been used on the image of just Lilly and Hisao.

sprites/akira/close/akira_basic_boo_close.png is Akira, up-close, making her casual "boo" face. The only times she does that face use the non-closeup version (sprites/akira/akira_basic_boo.png).

sprites/yuuko/close/yuuko_smile_down_close.png is Yuuko, as a librarian, smiling with her arms down. Like the Akira sprite above, only the non-closeup version is ever used (sprites/yuuko/yuuko_smile_down.png).

Image	Text	Translation	In-game English equivalent
	ばむッ	bam!	Bam!
	ビシっ	smack!	Smack!
	ぼふッ	biff!	Biff!
	どん	bump	Wham!

vfx/comic_vfx1_ja.png, vfx/comic_vfx2_ja.png, vfx/comic_vfx3_ja.png, and vfx/comic_vfx4_ja.png are the comic book-like hit effects used when Hisao and Emi are pillow-fighting, but translated into Japanese. These go completely unused in-game, even if the player switches the game's language.

vfx/smiley.png is a small simple smiley face, unlike anything else seen in the game.

Placeholders

While used by the Ren'Py engine as placeholders for when a graphic file cannot be loaded, the player never sees these during the game.

bgs/_bg_missing.png is a placeholder for when a background can't be loaded. It says "Background missing".

event/event_missing.png is a placeholder for when a CG event scene's graphic can't be loaded. It says "EVENT CG MISSING", with a sketch of Lilly crying in the corner.

sprites/others/generic_missing.png is a placeholder for when a sprite can't be loaded. It has a silhouette that resembles Kenji, with the text "sprite missing" on the head.

Filtered Images

These images are loaded by the game, but then are only used filtered, so the player never gets to see the original non-filtered versions.

bgs/hok_wheat.jpg is the wheat field at the Hokkaido summer home. It receives the "sunset" filter for use in Lilly's confession.

event/lilly_touch_cas.jpg is Lilly touching Hisao's face in casual clothes. It receives the "sunset" filter for use in the hug before Lilly's departure.

event/lilly_sunsetwalk_fg.png is just Lilly, close-up. It receives the "sunset" filter for use in the walk down to the groceries.

event/hana_library_gasp.jpg is Hanako reading a book in the library, gasping. It receives the "sunset" filter for use in her first conversation.

vfx/aoi_keiko.png is Aoi and Keiko. It receives the "sunset" filter for use in the Student Council's handoff.

vfx/origami_hand.png is Hisao's hand holding Lilly's origami crane. It receives the "night" and "past_night" filters for use before and after Hisao meets Lilly at the airport.

Hidden Details

event/hanako_emptyclassroom_bg.jpg is the background used in the scene at the start of Hanako's Act 4 that focuses on her empty desk. In-game, Shizune, Takashi Maeda, and Naomi Inoue are also visible, and in the scene the view slowly approaches the empty desk as Takashi and Shizune move out of focus.

During development, Takashi was part of the background alongside Naomi, but to get that dynamic effect he would have to be changed to a separate sprite so he could be moved in real time. As a result, Takashi was hastily erased from the background, and the area left behind was replaced by a sketch of an angry person's head saying "There was a character here. It's gone now. (srsly u guise stop snooping inside the archive kthx)".

In-game, it cannot be seen due to Takashi's sprite being in front of it.

vfx/rin_doodle.png is the doodles Hisao draws during a test. The scene in-game reveals the doodles one by one as the paper pans diagonally, so the drawings at the bottom-left and top-right corners are never shown. While there is a broader view of the sheet of doodles later on, it's not zoomed-out enough to see some of the doodles.

Highlights include some feet playing soccer on the bottom-left, some sort of doll's head and body on the upper-right corner, and just below, two rectangular cuboids doing... something.

Other things

• events/hanako_breakdown/hanako_breakdown_bg.jpg is the background used when Hanako has a panic attack. In-game, this scene is introduced with a parallax zoom-out, which is only possible by having the background graphic and Hanako's graphics separated. During development they were the same, so the background was crudely edited with some "content aware fill" tool to compensate. It's possible to see the tool's artifacts in the final image.
• event/shizu_roof/shizu_roof_smile.jpg is Shizune and Hisao on the roof, with Shizune smiling with her eyes closed. This never appears in-game during this scene, but this image is still visible in the game's gallery.

Unused Audio

sfx/hollowclick.ogg is, aptly, a hollow clicking sound.

sfx/skid2.ogg is a car's skidding sound. Despite the name, there is no other skidding sound.

sfx/tcard.ogg is a small jingle. Given the name, it could've been an old title card.