Katawa Shoujo

[Scythe]

You'd think this was a Japanese visual novel, and if you did, you'd be excused, since it's supposed to be. Only it's not made in Japan and it's freeware. So, in usual visual novel style, you read through the plot, make some choices and maybe get the girl of your dreams. The twist here is that the protagonist has a heart condition and gets sent to a special school for kids with "disabilities." Since it's actually beautifully and competently written, it never turns into "freak of the week." There are sex scenes, but you can choose to turn them off. So if you're the least bit curious about visual novels, you need to try this out, and chances are that if you give it a chance, you'll get sucked into the story. It has five main stories, one for each romantic interest.

Good writing, beautiful music, surprisingly compelling.

Developer: Four Leaf Studios
License: free to share under the creative commons license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
Get it: http://katawa-shoujo.com/

[Chroelle]

Is there any place I can get it where I dont have to download a torrentprogram or where my antivirus doesn't go mad?

EDIT: I of course ended up downloading Bittorrent for this computer as well, so I got it now.

[eMTe]

If you need to play it that badly I can upload it to server.

[Chroelle]

I got it.
So far it looks pretty good.

[Pater Alf]

I found a working direct download:

http://www.badskater.eu/

[Scythe]

I admit it. I was touched by the first ending I reached. Gonna go for them all...

[Chroelle]

I finally got past the intro and I might have time later today to dig into it again. The intro (or first chapter) is extremely long - but well written and graphically made. I only had one choice so far, but I cannot wait to see more.

[Scythe]

Katawa Shoujo (literally "Cripple Girls" in case you were wondering) is a bit of a mixed basket. I was highly fortunate in having chosen what I consider the best of the five stories (Lilly, the blind girl) as my first, which gave me not only a good experience, but the drive to see the rest of the routes. Each route is written by a different person though, and this shows quite clearly, both in quality and depth. Aside from Lilly, Emi's route was pleasant, though with a few crass points. The other routes were decidedly worse, with Shizune's (deaf girl) standing out as quite terrible (to me) due to its completely implausible characters and events. All of them were quite long too, with the possible exception of Hanako (burned girl).

Overall, it's a beautfiful production though, in terms of art, music, atmosphere and immersion.