Described as a visual novel, but also often referred to as a dating-sim or a hentai-game/h-game, Katawa Shoujo (Four Leaf Studios, 2012) is an adult videogame produced by Four Leaf Studios, a team of amateur developers, and released for free over the internet. The concept of the game originated in artwork posted to the “/a/anime and manga” thread on the website 4chan, a general imageboard perhaps better known for its association with the genesis of the internet hacktivist group, Anonymous. The image, created by a manga artist RAITA, outlined a number of characters for a then hypothetical dating-sim called Katawa Shoujo (see figure 1), translated as “disability girls” (or given the more colloquial meaning of “Katawa,” Cripple Girls). This image sparked excitement and a sticky thread on the 4chan boards dedicated to the faithful development of the game around RAITA’s original model. The project commenced in 2007 and after 5 years of development and major changes to the team of contributors and the production system, the final version of the game was released in January of 2012 via Four Leaf Studio’s website.
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