Solid game, if you focus on the main story and the three girls around that. Its not as open as I thought it would be, it sometimes forces you to spend a day like the game wants you, effectivly wasting time (e.g. I couldnt attend a class a day, because of a event which made no sense).
Grind is okay and manageble for these sort of games, I have seen worse.
The "bonus" scenes with random girls around town are unfortunatly copies of each other (three different, but still), where its just a different head on the same body/position, so a bit lame here.
One of the worst games I've seen among adult genre. Don't let the pictures of the game fool you, the gameplay and story are very mediocre. The scenes require a lot of work to unlock and despite all that effort, what you get in return is nothing but still pictures with terrible drawings. Instead of wasting your time on this game, Google hentai porn and you'll have a much more fun time. The funniest part is that the developer is trying to teach gamers how to make a good game. At the very beginning of the game, the game is full of logic flaws. If you're not a good writer, why are you trying so hard to tell a story? A woman in the neighborhood where our character lives asks us to fix her kitchen faucet, but the problem is that she is married and her husband is at home. After a ridiculous rush to fix the faucet, we go to her house to fix it. After fixing the faucet, it suddenly bursts on our neighbor woman and drenches her. Then she wants to take a bath and absurdly goes with us into her bathroom which is in the kitchen. Her husband is at home and watching TV at the same time. We're basically banging his wife while he's at home and he doesn't even realize it. That logic in itself is enough not to continue the game.
Considering that this is already the final version of it can be evaluated, as for me the visual style is kind of good, but personally I do not like it very much. on gameplay - good well and the story is also not bad. I would put a score of 7/10.
Finally a good game that isn't infested with all those "themes" which seem to be common these days, like NTR, futa and whatnot. Just a great and straight game concept, an evolving story, likeable characters and lots of stuff to discover. Even the minigames are enjoyable. What do you want more?
I encountered some bugs, but nothing game breaking. Just minor annoyances, like multiple soundtracks playing at the same time, which resolves itself after reaching the next day though.
The only real thing that bugs me is that there is no proper reward for some quest chains and you wonder "Really? For that I went through all of this? This is it?" and a little bit more variation in several actions could make things spicier aswell.
The art is really great. I love every single CG they throw at you. Some people would complain about the lack of animation, but this only adds to it's charm I find.
All in all, this really is a good game with alot of thought behind it and you can actually learn something I'm not kidding when I say, that this is the first game I found here that I actually enjoyed in a long time. Hopefully the Dev(s) will continue the great work and maybe work on the one or another thing to make things a little bit more variable.
Lots of praise for this game. Artwork looks good, and the characters are all enjoyable to watch. Dialogue and story's all light-hearted, something you'll gradually experience as you level yourself up and travel around the city.
This game gives off a vibe similar to early flash games and I really like it for that. Helps that the quality is much better than your average flash game too. Much higher quality art, the same toilet humor dialogue but portrayed in an innocent way. The girls themselves aren't bad either and I like that they still have some moments in the spotlight outside of their specific quest, which a lot of these games forget to include. Also short enough to enjoy yourself and leave you wanting for more.
Someone clearly has passion about this project, in fact, it wouldn't surprise me it is an one man dev who has total control of their vision. (or at least, they are good at making games that feels like someone gives a shit during development).
But sadly, the longer I've played, the more problems I have, so I can't give it a full 5 star rating.
Anyway, Long and Hard...Summer! is a 2D RPG life sim about going though a struggling time as a collage student during summer in an attempt to fix your failing life, and get laid.
The premise:
You are the stereotypical loser guy in the start of most adult game ever, and has fail game development course, so you have to take summer school in your university to not get flunked...and there are serval girls in your life who you can romance, so hop to it.
Yeah the plot isn't really that serious...even in serious scenario the devs like to make absurd jokes to shatter the already thin tension.
But consider this plot is basically about the mundanity of life as an RPG life sim protag, in between juggling stats and getting romance (and laid) with the girls, it works surprisingly well...sort of. The Gameplay:
It is a RPGM like, but run on its own engine.
You control your own character in a 2D pixel environment, interact with various elements to either increase your skill, make money, romance, or some other "Surprises".
You have 8 weeks of time, a school grade that require you to attended class to make it better on tests, money that you can make from jobs and for goods and services, love meters for every romanceable girls that increase when you date them or gift gifts, and a general character stat system that somehow reminds me of Fallout...but instead of 7 SPECIAL stats, it is only 5 which can be increase by doing other non-profit tasks make the game easier in some elements.
Sound a bit too complex for a game that feels like a solo development? To be honest it is not that bad, the stats actually doesn't matter much (except for probably intelligence because, well, you are taking summer school) for the main plot, they are mostly require for some side quests and scenes that require skill checks.
Otherwise, nothing is really stopping you from romancing any of the three main girls from the start. Hell if you don't care about anything else at all you can probably just concentrate on one girl and get her ending...instead of that lukewarm "I pass summer school, but no girl loves me enough" ending.
Now, I know what you are thinking: Wait you get the pleb ending? Christ you suck at this, 8 weeks is a long time for collage courses.
And yes, it is.
Consider you only have to attend class 3 mornings per week, and they are mostly optional if you give a shit.
But then comes the biggest flaw this game has: You can only do 2 things per day. Like there is only 2 time slots: Morning and Evening.
Most if not all class, activates, or dates take one slot away...and that is just ridiculous in some scenarios.
Oh sure, I can understand the game design course takes up the entire morning, or your date with the redhead to her grandma's house takes up the entire evening.
Some of them are a bit weird but okay, like if you meet one of the girls and have a chat and/or gift gifts, or if you have some "one time thing" with some non-main girls.
And some of them are just flat out stoopid...like what collage guy takes bath that last an entire morning? He is not even those femboys with OnlyFans, what is wrong with this guy?
This one design drastically reduce the time you get to do anything...in fact I think is flat out impossible to do a whole completion playthrough in the 8 weeks without getting flunked. Even then, in some time slots there will have plot related scenario that happens anyway and takes away the already minuscule time you have...like why?
If they give my like 5 actions per day (Morning, Noon, Afternoon, Evening, Night) and make actions and mandatory plots takes sometime between 1~3 actions, then not only it is more "realistic", but I also won't complain this much.
Moreover, even if I am free and has no class or self-bettering things to do. I have the toughest time finding where the girls at...especially the middle purple haired one, I swear she just doesn't exist in the game world for at least 4 days per week, which makes romancing her to a point that matters before the game is finish basically impossible.
Fortunately, all of the about complain sort of mitigated itself by the fact you can keep playing after the 8th week when summer school ends and the girls have their ending, it just pretend all that never happened and you basically has the Everlasting Summer to complete all the stuff you missed...except like one plot related scene that is.
Overall, despite the massive wall of text above, it is a workable gameplay loop, and someone clearly gives a shit since every NPC have some rather...weird dialogue to say.
It also feel very "Solo game dev who goes with the game design principle firmly stuck in their head"...I mean the protag is taking game design course, and you actually have to listen to the professor talk about game development and require to answer some game dev questions in the exams every week.
Granted, it is not that hard, anyone with a common sense about the video game industry can answer those questions...but this basically tell me the devs goes to actual game dev school, probably.
The Artstyle: It is weird...granted, I can't draw for shit, but still.
All the art in this game has a rather...inconsistency. Sure, style wise, you can see they are all drawn by the same person, but some things just changes.
In some scenes sometime the protag has a dick as huge as an arm when he is hard, but sometime they are even shorter and stubbier than me...
I have a suspicion that this is a solo project already, and that means that these art are also probably drawn by the one and only dev...and since they have to juggle with so many elements when it comes to making a game, they can't really make the art that good in the limit of time they have.
Granted, it is still better than anything I can ever draw, and is clearly fapabble...but let's just say if the dev decide to go full Patreon artist, they will have a hard time.
The Story/Presentation: It is simple enough, you have to deal with life, school, and romance...but as said before, it really feels like someone gives a shit during development.
Tbh I am kinda dreading it when I see the life sim elements...like on boy, it will probably takes an hour until I got laid in this game-
Well that came out of nowhere, and it surely intrigue me enough to want to press forward.
In fact, unless you know what you are doing, it takes almost an hour later until something else happens after that...but what happen this first day in school surely hook me up to experience the rest of the game.
Their personalities are nothing new, but it is competent enough for you to care.
Other than that, almost every rando has some weird stuff to say, hell even the side girls who you basically have one night stands all has some wack asf personalities, clearly, someone is having fun making them say these absurd words.
One thing worth noticing is while you get to get laid with them during dates after your relationship advanced. The side quests of theirs in has nothing to do with that, but you still get laid with them if you decide to do it, regardless of your relationship level. It kinda implies they just like you in general...or are extremely horny.
In conclusion/TL;DR:
Even though most of this review seem to be nick picks I have with the game, but overall, I really like it.
Is just some odd design choices that buggers me so much I can't give full score.
TL;DR a life sim about your stereotypical loser going to summer school, and get to romance 3 girls in the process. The dev clearly goes to game development school since it feels very "Game design principle" at time.
But still, some design choices bothers me to no end, and the art is a bit off...but from the writing, dialogue, and even chatters from random NPCs, one can see that someone cares.
This is a game made by someone (probably only one person) who gives a shit about it...or at least, presents it with passion and personality, even though it kinda fell short in the art department.
a game with spunk. it's clear that a lot of thought and planning went into the execution of it. so good work devs! keep it up.
the game progression is engaging. it puts you on the egde enough to feel that you always have something to choose to do. story is simple, yet effective and the art if nice as well.
Long and Hard... Summer, is a fantastic game. A game where you became a failure and try your best to work it out.
Gameplay, It's good, I like how this game handling events and how they are forgiving enough to know most player probably skipping long ass sentences. I am bit surprised when I need to do exam, by picking answer, even tho I correct answering them all I am still not passed the test. Moreover there aren't a clue or a hint how far you need to work on it.
Same problems applies for the rest of events available, first thing I've encounter was I am getting confused by how much you can do at same periods of time. Sometimes you can do twice other time you can only do once.
The game packed up with events, which is great and restricting at same time. Even after finishing this version I still had some events that aren't triggered yet and how they prohibit you from advancing after special final event, make me bit grief.
Currently there aren't any mechanics to worth to be called as grinding or a game mechanism, you just going through everything. But, everything feels so slow in this game, ui, transition, engaging interaction, image panning and zooming felt too slow.
And because everything is too slow, I am commonly skipping text I wanted to read. Well, yes it's me problem and note there are no going back to see what you miss.
Game had no manual save, idk why. I assume it was intended, I am fine with it. I guess my old habit to saving every now and then, doesn't really matter in this game and my other minor habits that called save-scumming.
Artwork, it's so refreshing to see other poses other than I've played so far, moreover the character feels original, which I've not seen anywhere else or I'm just lacked experience of gaming these kind of game, but that's feels so great already.
Interaction, you can actually read the story, it's comfortable to follow the story. Even tho in version this review made, it kinda goes too fast for my taste. But, oh well, fuck everything else I am not gonna miss a content.
NFSW content, it's kinda easy to tell that this game will have animation sooner or later. Like you easily noticed that the game are prepared for that already, but even with static images, it's great and enjoyable.
Overall, this game feels like handled by a pro. Even they put a real lesson about game design that worth to read, I also felt like more and more games are trying to be weird, in someway that isn't fun either.
This game feels nice to play and I highly recommend this game, to be tried it out and I would do 5 star for this game depending on how this game progressing in future, so far it such pleasant experienced to play this game.
[Optional] Personal opinion about minor things: I don't know why many developer had to put a loud tearing ears music in their first launched game, looks like this kinda habits are common among many games. You could say, I'm a hater in this specifics case.
need to give more freedom for players and more work on cutscene and I hope to have mane games to increase the character ability ...
interesting game with the high exception and accepted the main story
As a demo it does what it's meant to do. Give you a quick glance at the overall game.
there's not a lot of graphics as most of the game is pixelated. However, the character art is pretty well done. I wasn't a fan of having to be forced to use a keyboard instead of my mouse too move around. But that is something that I can overlook.
As you're only able to play the first three days and they go by pretty fast and really only briefly introduce to three characters and doesn't really give enough time to really get to know them.
Overall, I will give this a 4 out of 5 for now and keep an eye on it for future updates
I'm not kidding when I say, that this is the first game I found here that I actually enjoyed in a long time. Hopefully the Dev(s) will continue the great work and maybe work on the one or another thing to make things a little bit more variable.
