Source on GitHub | Art on OpenGameArt
Project Katana was a visual novel made by someone who never plays visual novels. It was somewhat of a parody and intended to be a unique take on the genre, with prominent RPG and adventure game elements. The storyline was to be equal parts absurd and deep. I ended up abandoning the project, but I’ve released the source code and most of the art under permissive licenses.
Haneda Matsutake has recently arrived at the Zero Hayabusa Academy for the “Gifted”, where he embarks on a mission to be cool, make friends, and find true love. But the Furikake Zaibatsu, a radical extragovernmental organization dedicated to taking over the world, has plans for him. And on top of that, the Academy may not be what it seems…
I decided to roll my own tech for Project Katana, using TypeScript and nw.js. I was curious about these technologies and though it was an odd choice it seemed to work well. I also did most of the art myself, which was a big change for me at the time. I definitely learned a lot from this one!
On a side note, the dialogue format used in CommonCore/Ascension III originated in Project Katana, and at least when this project was abandoned they were still mostly compatible.
Project Katana was under development on-and-off between 2017 and 2019. It was worked on in semi-secret before being unveiled for April Fools’ Day 2019 and officially cancelled late in the same year. It was a fun project to play around with, but I could never really figure out where I really wanted to take it, and ended up calling it quits to focus on other things.