I would like to talk about something potentially controversial: Katawa Shoujo.

Katawa Shoujo is a free dating-sim type visual novel, in which all the potential love interests have some sort of physical disability: deafness, blindness, heavy burn scarring, prosthetic legs, no arms. I heard the concept and thought 'well, this sounds like the most horrendously creepy and fetishistic game ever made'.

And then I played the demo.

And it wasn't.

I've only played the first act, as that's all that has been released so far, but my overall impression is that it's a really charming, well-made, well-written game. The main character, Hisao, discovers that he has a congenital heart condition and is transferred to a school with specialist facilities for disabled students; there, he has to come to terms with his attitude towards his own disability and towards those of others. The people he meets are thought-out, interesting characters, rather than simply being reduced to their physical qualities. Rin, for example, is blunt, sarcastic, scatterbrained, creative, an artist and a daydreamer; the fact that she has no arms isn't ignored, but it's not what defines her.

I think Hanako and Lilly are my favourites so far. Hanako's extreme timidity reminds me of myself when I was at school; her path was the first I went down, because I wanted to try to help her increase her confidence in the way in which my friends helped me. Lilly is just so friendly and calm and caring, and she somehow manages it without being cloying. I'm really intrigued by the friendship they have with each other, too. (That's another way in which Katawa Shoujo surprised me; I've never played a dating sim before, so I thought all the potential love interest characters might be depicted as RIVALS FOR YOUR LOVE or at best never meet each other, but, whilst they don't all get along with each other, there are actually strong and sometimes touching friendships between them.)

The game so far is essentially Hisao meeting and developing friendships with the potential love interests, depending on the choices you make (if you haven't played a visual novel before (this is my first), it's essentially a Choose Your Own Adventure story with images). The developers have confirmed that there will be sex scenes in the final product, but they have also said that there will be an option not to see them. The fact that they believe it will stand without the sex scenes seems to me to be clear evidence that they're setting out to tell a story, not just to create masturbatory material, and I'd say the fact that I didn't set out in search of masturbatory material and still found myself engrossed is clear evidence that they succeeded. I'm very much enjoying the story they're telling so far.

I suppose what I am saying is 'I misjudged you, Katawa Shoujo team', and also that I highly recommend the first act. You can download it (for Windows, Mac or Linux) here.