In general, I like Super Writer, and normally my default stance is that the artist can tell their story however they want. Picture Perfect was one of my favorites, and overall I enjoyed this one, too, but I can't deny having some complaints. SW says they're not big on writing long and involved epilogues. Okay, I'm prepared to support that. Not every movie does the Fast Times thing. That's cool. Sometimes, when a story gets to the end, it's just over. With that in mind, I hope that if SW sees this, they will take it as constructive criticism.
My experience was, I downloaded v0.15, played it to the end, and continued on from there when v1.0 beta came out.
Which means that my experience playing was that Norah got threatened by some mysterious crime lord named "Mother," and then Mother ended up doing us a favor free of charge to help out Zoe, which could (theoretically, based on any other similar story I've ever seen) put us in her debt and therefore an even worse position with the bakery, and then it's never brought up again. I think some consideration needs to be given to the fact that people play these Patreon "project-in-progress" games like they're a TV show, not a movie. I feel like I was watching a show that got cancelled suddenly and left plot threads totally unresolved. It's all well and good for people who come along LATER if the whole bakery threat is removed, but for anyone who was playing (or supporting and playing) along the way, that's naturally gonna be really frustrating. Not only because of that particular plot thread, but because that was the last thing that happened with Norah. So, it feels like she didn't get any ending at all. I spent the whole rest of the game, going along through all the other girls, distracted by worrying about what was gonna happen to the damn bakery! Coming to this forum and hunting around through comments to find out that was abandoned doesn't feel like carefully considered editing from this side of things. It feels like a messy retcon.
I was super excited to see how things would turn out with the Dating Sim and tournament for MC and Coral. The game doesn't get to completion and is never published, so we don't know how that's gonna work out for them. The big prize for winning the tournament is getting to design DLC characters for the game, which is awesome for them, because they're into game development! Then we don't get to know anything about what kind of DLC characters they design, or if that leads to any lasting connections in the game industry. Even just a few more sentences with no additional images could have made this feel like a complete and well-rounded ending for them. I don't need to know if they start a whole game company, or how successful it is, or even what happens the next time they hang out with Miracle and Sasha. This was so close to being a complete ending for them, but it just fell short for me.
Irene's "walk." Dude. The second I saw the word "walk," I knew that was a reference to "walking down the aisle." It's a known thing that parents, especially old fashioned or "superstitious" (i.e. religious) ones, want their kids to be married before a grand-kid gets born, because being born out of wedlock is the actual literal definition of the word bastard. This thing with thanking the spirits for their aid, but not expecting a wedding, is just ... whatever the intention was, it looks like a half-measure or backpedaling, and it was disappointing. Especially since, presumably, Irene is the only one of the girls that the MC legally can marry, it would have made total sense if he did.
To make it worse, it doesn't even sound like Irene got divorced from John! To that I say, HELL NO. There's a lot I can accept in these kind of games as far as other men are concerned, but if they're gonna go around talking like he's her man and she's his woman things cannot end with her still being married to that asshole. If nothing else, if she's still married to John when that baby gets born, he could claim custody of it, and with John and MC's DNA being so similar it would be a difficult battle to stop him. From what I've seen of John, that's exactly the kind of crap I'd expect from him.
Then there's the fact that the MC specifically says, "I'd like to know if I passed" in reference to Irene's father's little "test" and gaining his approval. That very much felt like a set-up for a follow-up scene that then didn't happen. I mean, I kept having to make choices that felt like I was earning points with the guy, and then ... nothing.
Zoe brings up a desire, and matching concerns, about changing her career path and potentially taking a year off from law school to further explore that idea. MC encourages her to follow her heart, but ... we're not told whether or not she ever makes a final decision about whether to take the time off or not, let alone whether she will end up ditching law school altogether. Again, plot point that are central to her character, her law career and her blog. They were the main focuses of her character, the balance of those things was called into question, and we're never told what happens with any of it.
Leanne want to get back into dancing, and for her that means getting into the dance school she wants. We help her out, she passes her audition and gets in. Presumably, she'll spend the next few years in dance school doing recitals and whatnot. We don't need to know what happens with the long-term future of her dance career, so this is fine. This one felt like a fully finished story arch that was brought to happy conclusion at a reasonable spot. No complaints.
So, SW, as someone who would normally take your side on any artistic control or editing or design concerns with this kind of thing (I mean, just look at my signature, right?), I have to tell you, 4 out of 5 of these girls definitely do not feel like a short, simple, straight to the point ending. They feel like they stopped before they were over. I know you spent a lot of time with these characters and this game already, but isn't that all the more reason to want to finish the job properly? Personally, I can't imagine putting in this amount of time and work and then leaving things this way. I'm sorry, but this game does not feel finished, and frankly, seeing "Okay, people. This is the end of Secret Summer" made it feel like you knew people weren't gonna be happy, and you just didn't care. Like you were just sick of dealing with these characters and you were ready to throw them away. You don't have to do anything just for the players, but that phrasing as a "The End" felt like a slap in the face.
