Hello moon viewers !

We thought we could finally adress something we have been noticing since the release of our game's demo.

Many people have been comparing our game to Danganronpa, which is something very understandable, but on our side, we decided that it was about time to express our disagreement with it.

So here are a couple of things we have or heard or been accused of and that we wish to rebute.

So let's go :

• Dokuroku is a bit like Monokuma

Initially, Dokuroku was meant to be a human wearing a disfigured bunny mask, however, this character seemed very out of place. The reason why we wanted to put a queery looking mascot was to create a comical relief and tone down the overall dark atmospher. Another reason why there is this mascot, which wasn't meant to have the same role as Monokuma, is because our influences often include a few fantasy characters. A couple of our projects do have funny-looking mascots in them.

Overall, the presence of Dokuroku is explained at the end of the game. 

• Yuzuki looks like Kirigiri

We highly refute this ! Yuzuki Yumiki was inspired of Yuzuki Yukari, the artist's favorite vocaloid. Yuzuki Yumiki was first meant to have the same haircut as Yuzuki Yukari, front ponytails with short spiky hair at the back, which we changed for her actual hairstyle. In fact, throughout the game, you can actually see old sprites of Yumiki.  Not all purple hair and purple eyes characters are meant to be Kirigiri's look alike ! That is an anime trope, people should understand that Kirigiri is far from being the first or only character with such features. 

(Edit: in the end we did alter Yuzuki’s design to avoid having to deal with those accusations any longer and to tone down the overly flashy hair colours.)

• It looks so similar in design

For the game, we wanted a "clashing" design. The duality between the grim storyline and the colourful settings created this very contrasted atmosphere which we like so much. So in the end, it's a bit similar to Konran:Zanki, it's dark but also colourful, which results in the game not being too depressing regardless of its dark story line.

• The charadesigning looks similar too

WistieCutie, the visual artist for the game, explained it this way : " Fairly said, this is not intentional -at all-. Years ago, I started working  into finding my own artstyle, which happened when Danganronpa was not even half as well-known as now, in Europe, where I reside (DR was maybe not even released out of Japan yet, I don’t know really know.) Now that I come to realize it, I have started changing my artstyle a little more to avoid the so-called « ressemblance » with Danganronpa which is a bit sad because I have to keep on modifying something that I have spent a lot time on. It took me years to develop it and now I just have to change it. This is my art-style and all the characters are coming straight out of my mind, well-baked and with all the flavours that my imagination could put into them. I just feel like people who keep on accusing K:Z to be a Fangan are people with a rather narrow game library or are most likely big fans of DR and just want to project this said game on other similar ones. Ironically, I also noticed that, very often, certain people who would accuse our game of being too similar or being a mere rip off have not even played our game and solely base their beliefs on a few visual coincidences. That is very insulting toward our game and efforts, and basically comes down to discrediting a great amount of work, dedication and thought. »

• Admit it, you wanted to make a Danganronpa fan-game\rip-off.

Clearly, if that was the case, we would have admitted it by now. What would have been the point of wanting to make a fan game if we thoroughly  deny it ? If it was the case we would have called it DR fangame and we would've probably gotten more views and attention, but it is not the case at all. And to tell you the truth, none of us, the devs of Konran:Zanki, are Danganronpa fans. Sure, this survival visual novel is interesting, but none of us really followed it by all of our attention.  Frankly, our game was even more inspired of Steins:Gate which the three of us (Dear_Elise, Atsutsu and Ilena Pupa) have agreed on. It's a bit of our common ground. We all really enjoyed this visual novel\anime. But each of us have their own favorite animes. Dear_Elise really liked Steins:Gate, Houseki No Kuni and Asobi Asobase. Atsutsu is more of a manga lover though. And finally, Ilena is more of a slice of life and comedy anime lover, she really liked Nichijou, Blend S,  Nyaruko-san and others as such. 

Whether it was unconsciously made this way or not, Konran:Zanki wasn't made to be based off Danganronpa. 

But in the end, we try to cope with the fact that many people still consider it this way. We're okay if people believe that both games look very similar (or even with other games) as long as they don't call our own game a mere rip-off. 

Now if you wish to refute or disagree with everything we've said, just keep in mind that we are not lying and please, remain polite and descent. Thank you !

We are still grateful if you've tried out game nonetheless ! Thank you very much !