Ren'Py - Summertime Saga [v21.0.0 wip.4468] [Kompas Productions]

Since I first played this game, I had recently graduated from High School - I liked the game, thought it was charming and sometimes came up in the back of mind from time to time. I have since received my college degree and this game is still unfinished. Not even that, but turns out they're remaking the entire game from the ground up? What a joke.

Let's just call this what it is: A creatively devoid cash cow with headache inducing production. Stop giving this game attention, your money, and most importantly, your time. All which could be spent on more ambitious, more passionate projects.

Don't be fooled by the charming art - a pile of sh*t covered in glitter is still a pile of sh*t

no new content everything is deleted . i dont understand why they call it update when there is new content and even there is no content they have deleted everything , also no music this is terible !this is the last time i will download this game

v0.20.16 Review

I didn't expect much but I was surprised how much I was invested in this game, especially since I'm not particularly into free roams or grinding.

The characters, writing, stories, and scenes are all very good. It's a bit dated but has aged like fine wine, especially with the main sub mod installed.

Recommend this for people who are into the VN-type games to give this a shot. It's corny and funny but has its charm.

I like this game always have. Artwork work is unique. Characters are pretty diverse for this type of game. And the scense are well animated. Story is basic but interesting. I can't speak for what's on the devs mind as I don't have telepathy.

However I think in the best case scenario Summertime Saga is his baby and he wants to make it the best he can. The problem is in doing so he has killed all the momentum he once had behind the game. He should have finished the game before he did any tech updates. Completed the story and tied up loose ends. Then all the tech updates and whatever 21.0.0 is supposed to be should have been put into a new game or at best a sequel.

Worst case what everyone else says is true and he is money hungry and milking his subscribers dry while doing minimal work.

Either way he's killed what could have been a faithful fan base and possible future subscribers.

But not gonna lie as long as I don't have to pay for it I'm going to keep downloading the updates because at the end of it all I like the game.

Game's garbage. In the 2010s, many of this kind of game were normal. Make a game, produce scenes and characters, if it doesn't go anywhere, declare it abandoned. It doesn't have be complicated, it doesn't have to be very good, but Summertime Saga's art was. Its writing was serviceable.

But, something changed in the last couple years. Now games exactly like Summertime Saga have adopted a twisted version of the already unethical live service model. Instead of keeping a steady stream of drip fed content or chopping up a completed game to sell you piecemeal, what Summertime Saga and its ilk does is literally tell you to go fuck yourself. You pay me, I give you nothing, and in fact, I'll take back the stuff I've already put out.

After two years of inactivity, the dev has actually stripped almost all content out. The gameplay is not complicated, its a point and click adventure game made in an engine that practically does the work for you. There's no reason that we don't have a completed game with the resources available to create this!

So the game is trash, the art is mid, the writing is mid, and you should avoid getting attached to it, because it will not be completed in a reasonable amount of time. Literally go jerk off to anything else. This will only make you mad and take advantage of you if you consider supporting it monetarily.

V.21.00 rating is actually a zero. The tech "upgrade" is a tech downgrade instead, The current one you can play with cheat mode but what you get is a severely chopped version of the actually good game with most of the game not there anymore. The "improved" graphic quality actually gives me a headache and none of the scene is better quality than the older much more full content version. Why would you take an almost completed game and turn it into a dumpster fire product instead? I was massively disappointed in the direction the DEV went with his game. So much for me wanting to play it now as at the rate of his upgrades it will take another 5 years to reach a worse looking version of the older version before the tech upgrades. Worst move ever in my opinion. Its an opinion and you can either agree or disagree.

Evaluating the product we have in hand today, the aspects that can be highlighted are:

gameplay: The gameplay revolves around maximizing the protagonist's attributes and earning money to buy items in the game, however the "normal" and "difficult" options are blocked, leaving only the "cheat mode" option for new players .

story: the story is being completely retold part by part, leaving behind some elements, characters and choices that were already established in previous versions.

sounds: currently the game does not have a soundtrack during gameplay, leaving the player with no distractions other than the game itself.

dialogues: in general, some dialogues can become a little confusing or not make sense, depending on which character is being represented at the time, this mainly happens with the protagonist's family members, where due to the dialogue they can be represented as 'landlady' or 'friend".

In general, it becomes more viable to play the version before this one, as it does not present the problems mentioned above.

[v21.0.0] 0-Stars
Don't' buy into the tech-update bs. Just an attempt at the developer to prolong a project that should of been wrapped up years ago. The "Tech Update" is just an attempt for the dev to continue getting support while doing the disgusting practice of slowly re-adding pre-existing, removed content, over a long period of time. Literally been years just to make the game widescreen instead of fullscreen. Now the update is finally out, and they have removed all the content down it's bear bones beginning, and are now going to slowly re-add every character route, one update at a time. This is how the game originally developed, releasing one characters route per update, and the Dev thinks it's a good idea now to try and do it all over again with the same content, but now in widescreen. Like that makes a fkn difference while we are wacking off.
It's also hilarious how the visuals have been degraded in the update, when the dev has been boasting better visual quality the whole time.

I've lost hope in this game, and I'm just gonna take the older version as the completed game. I'm done waiting for this BS to get new content. Sorry Rhonda, we care, but not this much.
This dev has completely lost my support.
Un-subbed.

[v20.16] 5-Stars
The game is fun, and has lots of memorable moments. Definitely a great game worth a play through or two. Lot's of choices, mini-games, and a decent enough story to keep your attention outside the adult content.

The game/thread gets 2/5 Stars for Poor. As the project gets a poor rating due to terribly greedy decisions during development. As this thread is both the old version of the game and new version bunched together. I gotta rate it together.

In the supposed tech update, the art has become worse, the first image of the character called Jenny looks like a joke and shows the lack of regard for the quality of the product and this after what it seems to be like one or two years with no actual update. Also most content is removed. Seems like a scam for money. Not worth it.

Unlike the previous update, the "tech update v21" removes too much content to really validate a positive review, or in any case, earn the status of being called an update by itself.
And Likewise, when you deliver a test in blank, your score is 0.

In the music side, the game is mute, our characteristic soundtrack is no longer there. And there are no types of sound effects either.

The artstyle is cute, I think is the only positive thing, although, that would be the case if not for the amount of re-use of all material in this project, and even some downgrades. What a pitty.

In the gameplay deparment, right now, there is... nothing. So, it is more like a quick erotic light read accompanied by a few clicks from the user's part.

So, all in all, a very humble.. "something". I cannot, in good conscience, recommend this... waste of money, waste of passion, and most importantly, waste of your time.

In development for 8 years.
Only 1 day of content,Very short and the changes are not big or something that the player can apreciate.
Scenes have quality, but not justifiable with the time.
A lot of bugs.
I don't recommend playing it.

Horrible update, Art style somehow degraded.
New update killed all the progress, Annoying bugs, It's just a husk of it's former self. Characters look weird, Can't access the old game, Saves getting buggy

This used to be THE porn game. Like easily one of the best of all time. The Tech update was the beginning of the end. Instead of giving storylines to existing characters (Ronda, Annie, Judith) we just got more new characters and scenes for characters that already had a ton (more Odette scenes but no 3ways with Eve or Grace???). And now to top it all off after 3+ years they removed 90% of the game. Originally this was a 5 star game, now it's just embarrassing

the game has regressed a lot in terms of development velocity. changing tech stack makes sense if it can be done without compromising content and even with content being paused. this is a major regression - going backwards in content after a long development cycle for tech update.
i know the game is free here, but i won't recommend investing your time and attention on this one. its no longer the VN i remember from its earlier days.

I will first talk about 20.16 alone which is 4 stars easily. Old? Sure. But good.

There is a nice variety of love interests, good scenes and a lively sandbox by AVN sandbox standards. Main downsides to me were the main story going basically nowhere so far, the old feeling and the update times being so slow it may as well be a running gag. Good fun for what it is with lots of content.

21.00 as a tech update removes an insane amount of the games content. The benefits of modern features like widescreen do not justify this version yet to me at all. It adds next to no new content on top of this. A wait time of two years for this is extremely disappointing and updating the tech to match the content of the 20.16 will likely take ages.

To anyone that has already played this, don't bother downloading 21.00 until its caught up with 20.16 in content. If you have never played the game before you can choose. Older game with loads more content in 20.16 or follow the development of 21.00 as it plays catch up so you get those quality of life improvements.

3 stars overall and if it takes years for this new version of Summertime Saga to have the same content as 20.16 I will drop it to a 2 without question. Disappointing.

Haven't played the game in 3 years, and nothings changed. Every now and again he will release an update for same 5 characters over and over again, none of it advancing the story, just redoing sex scenes here and there, then "tech update" that's been talked about for half a decade, that will finally allow you to save game so you can continue from next update is taking half a decade to show anything for it, still isn't out, no update for over a year that adds anything to the game.

In 8 years that game has existed Judith hasn't received a single update, despite making it to second place in a bunch of polls. He always adds a new char and people of course want more chars and vote for it. Just lame ass development overall. Regret every $ spent on this

Where'd all the content go? Where'd all the planned content go? Is it rose tinted glasses that make it so I can't remember why I enjoyed this game or is it the fact that it looks worse and decided to pull a beginner dev excuse of "we're working on the mechanics".

The other download is worth 4-5 stars depending on how much you value porn over plot, but this one? Needs a new thread for all the honest 1 star reviews and an abandoned tag on the old one.

I remember big titty goths and other assorted hair colors and said memories have been reworked thanos snapped.

This used to be one of my most anticipated games when an update came out. Now it is losing content, under the guise of a performance update. I started a new game and what little content is there doesn't seem to trigger properly. I can't get Debbie or Jenny's content to progress the way it used to. It's good that they finally added/unlocked new locations on the map, and the game *does* seem to run better since the engine update, but ultimately there isn't much to do any longer, the minigames are gone, the interaction with other characters is very limited. It doesn't seem like it would take much effort to port the existing content to a new ren'py version, so I'm not sure what is happening there.

For game that exist more than 8 years game have too little content. Art style not that bad, but could be much better.
WHat about mini-games? they sucks.
Game have grind elements, useless as i think, but you can turn em off.
Game has no gallery.

Probably one of the best games on this site it has an extensive amount of content, and as far as I am aware haven't added any content that nobody asked for. The diverse cast of characters gives many options for all the different 'Flavors'. Not to mention that I really like the art initially I didn't like the design of the main character but with time it really grew on me just an unassuming nerdy looking guy who is in fact a Gigachad and not even the meme type. If there are any things I don't like about the game its probably to minor for me to even remember let alone write about in this review.