VN - Ren'Py - Summer Heat [v0.6.1] [Naughty Fox Games]

I'm writing this review from the point of view of someone that just experienced for the first time the entirety of Summer Heat as of the v6.0 release. Overall I think the game is nice but it flounders in a couple of key areas. The dev's work ethic is brought into question too as this barely qualifies for a prologue by most VN's standards.

Presentation
Summer Heat's presentation is great at a first glance, it has a clear defined identity and it shows a lot of polish in key areas like the menus, in game UI and overall flare and aesthetics, almost everything comes together except for some hiccups when it comes to the sound and some visual elements which I'll explain later.

Gameplay
Top of the line as far as linear VN's are concerned. So far your choices don't diverge too much (which is a good thing for the development side of things), but there's plenty of interactivity and reactivity peppered throughout the game, a lot of your choices are remembered by the characters and the order that you do certain dialogues/actions matter by the way some scenes play out. It's great because it adds replayability and you can go "oh shit that was not a meaningless choice". I'm torn on the "pick this choice to get closer to x character" but other than that everything else is solid.

Sound
I like the sound effects, there's a lot of variety and off the top of my head I never went "oh, something would've been nice here", I quite enjoy the sound effects during sex scenes too, that combined with the ambience, add to the overall immersion and it makes the game feel natural. There are some issues when it comes with the music and overall sound mixing however. The music is fine, but for the most part it plays too infrequently and although I think silence can make certain scenes more poignant it loses power when you go for long periods of nothing, it's even more jarring when a melody starts playing out of nowhere as you get into an emotional scene. There are issues with the sound mixing too since sometimes the music/sfx would be at the right volume but the next time they played they would be borderline inaudible.

Visual Art
Renders are top of the line as far as 3d models go, but I have a couple of issues. There's an overuse of gaussian blur that looks out of place at best or it completely butchers a scene in places where it wouldn't make sense to have it, I know the dev is going for a "professional photograph look" but it would be nice if it was used more sparingly. Certain characters' proportions looked off to me in some places particularly early on but they may have been adjusted for later versions.

Writing
When it comes to writing in this game I'm torn between really liking some elements while disliking many others.

Let's start with the good:
I enjoy the overall eerie vibe and secrecy in the game, it's almost Lynchian in a way, I've glanced at a couple of reviews mentioning how there's no plot so to speak but I think that if done properly once the ball gets rolling the story will make sense when it gets there (if it gets there), which is why I prefaced my review by mentioning how this feels more like an unfinished prologue. If you think about it most slasher/horror films start with something boring like a lame party or visiting a creepy grandma then things suddenly start happening and I can see summer heat doing something similar with its plot. With that being said, you can have all the set up you want but if there's no payoff then this becomes more of a frustration than anything
For the bad side of the writing well...:
So far, after 2.5 years of dev time 1.5 ingame days have passed, on the same day you make a couple of trips with Miller to the same strip mall for some reason, get tangled up with most LI's and a couple of side characters, do several photoshoots, go to art class, go to PE class in the woods, play around, watch a movie, get wasted in a strip club, get reprimanded by your art teacher/summer camp leader, fool around with a girl you met earlier, fool around with your childhood friend, etc. This is in a weird balance where a lot of things are happening individually with each character but not enough is happening overall with the world and the environment that you inhabit. I have a couple of issues with poor characterization too, the story doesn't do enough to justify most of the intimate encounters that happen within the game except for maybe Eve which is antisocial (in the "lets go burn a church" sense of the word) and Mia which clearly has a lot of personal history with the MC I'm willing to bet they probably took each others virginities too so their hookup makes some sense

Porn
I'll admit, the 3/4 sexual scenes that are in the game are really hot, devs have a good eye for eroticism and the escalation that happens (within the scene) is great You just know the leg locking creampie sex scene with Bree is going to be great, however I feel like the sex scenes as of now are misplaced or just put in to appease the Patreons to avoid the "no sex" tag, the scene with the car lady feels way out of place since the game doesn't present itself as pure smut, the scene with the mafia boss daughter is similar despite having some possible plot relevance but the problem there is that too much happens within a single night for it to be believable. And although Mia's scenes are great they feel more like a warm up for the real thing that may not even come within the next two/three years (if ever). I don't know who is the audience for this, there's not enough writing or set up for the slow burn crowd and not enough sex for the ctrlskip chronic masturbators

Let's do some math, last update (v0.5) was on October 2023, 10 months ago, according to the changelog the devs did:
6 renders per day and 65 words per day at a 0.04wpm rate, I understand that dev time is not all just that but you compare this to other projects and you can clearly see how slow it's going not to mention how they are inflating their numbers just by looking at the files with unren, there are no 100 new sfx/music/ambience they are just counting every time they implement something like this on the script, might as well count scene transitions at that point.
I wanted to give this game 1 star because frankly it looks like yet another tale of "dev gets lazy as soon as he gets $1000/month on patreon", in 2.5 years 1.5 in game days have passed, there's a new 3 day deadline which means by 2029 we'll have something actually worth playing.

You hate to see it but at this rate the game is either getting abandoned or getting rushed to a completed state in an unsatisfactory manner, I didn't get anything out of it when I played the v0.6 release, I'm going to wait at least three more years or until it gets completed/abandoned. I recommend you do the same.

I would rate it 3.5 stars but there is no half star. The art is really good. I think the models are well done and really it's a highlight of the game for me. The girls at the camp are pretty sweet too. It kind of begs the question of what will happen if you start something with all of them.
It's almost like there are two games here. I like the game at camp-it's more restrained and enjoyable. When it switches to obvious porn it doesn't do much for me. The whole strip club just feels out of sync with the Lis at camp which includes his childhood friend who obviously loves him. There is some mystery at the club too which will be shown later I guess. For now it's just a place Mr Miller seems to go to for hours.

Anyway, I think it's mostly enjoyable but there are times when it borders on ridiculous and those times are why it isn't rated higher. The MC switches between Chad and some nice guy too and that doesn't work too well either. He might not have to choose an Li if they saw him going porno Jim with strippers. I guess the future will show how this game will end up.

i try not to review a game with development time in mind. But it really is representative of the game itself - the whole game is a big blue ball simulator. That would be fine - that's not necessarily bad if you get a sense of future payoff, butat this point (0.6) with plenty of time to get a sense of where the story is going, the outlook is not great.

The good:
-Renders and the girls look very nice. Cool.
-Sometimes there's good sexual tension. Every now and then there are solid scenes and writing that have you wanting more.

The bad:
- Ultimately to the above point, it's all just a tease. You think things are going somewhere, and they don't. Over time the scenes become less purposeful and replaced with content that gives a sense that the devs are stalling (in the story, don't even get me started on outside of it)
- Good games have either great story or great sex scenes (and great games have both). This game has provided neither. There are some scenes but not with main LIs. I don't give a shit about these scenes with outside characters. Those are fun to have every now and then, but not at this amount. Cassandra? That should be a one time thing, not meaningful and yet she gets more exposure than most of the main LIs. This whole strip club arch? What's the point? Ember (Tinder) just more wasted development taking away from the 5 main camp LIs. Most of the interaction with LIs at the actual camp are just a tease, or are absolutely useless towards developing either characters or sexual tension.

At this point (0.6) the dev has put themselves in a huge hole. They haven't provided the groundwork for actually developing a good story, but they also don't know how to develop the romantic/sexual tensions sufficiently to make it make sense whenever we might finally get real sex scenes with camp girls later. It really did seem like there was some hope with 0.5, but after 0.6, it's very clear that they don't know how they want to proceed and that's why they're creating useless filler content

High quality renders and some good stuff overall -- #TeamBee4life --but overall it's a bit generic. Development time is also way too long for the amount of content being produced. Seems like the devs are milking this one.

Every single trope and cliche you can think is here
-wimpy mc and at the same time the coolest dude ever...check
-girls without any personality whatsoever besides some trope...check
-stupid mafia plot...check
-literal whores as lis...check
-moron as best friend...check

the star is for the top of the class renders.

only play this if you legit dont have anything else to do.

renders are good. the story itself is interesting hoping this story focuses more on the advancement of the plot than the lewd scenes itself because i believe at the moment the story is its strongest asset. looking forward to future releases good luck devs

The game has a very very promising start, I give 5 stars for a future prospectus, I hope the dev doesn't get lost as the story progresses, but if the prologue promises so well, I think we won't be disappointed by the rest of the game.

Story seems interesting, renders look great. Designs look great too. Yeah its a short so who knows how things unfold but so far im liking it. The dialog is rough though, english is clearly not the devs first language but by no means does that kill the game though it may distract you.

The game is good, but considering it's been in development for 2.5-3 years, there's barely any content.

I downloaded it for the first time this afternoon and barely got more than 2 hours worth of content and only 2 full sex scenes (plus a couple teases or oral). That's honestly a pretty shameful amount of content for how long this game has been in development.

What is there is quite good. The renders are beautiful, the animation is smooth (when the dev decides to animate instead of just doing a slideshow) and the writing is at least serviceable, if not quite good by adult game standards. But I just can't justify giving this more than a 4 star rating with how little content is in this game right now. (I wish I could give it a 3.5, but I'll round up because the visuals are very impressive)

Maybe once it's complete, I'd happily give it a 5, but there are too many games out there with molasses-slow developments that end up unfinished and abandoned, so until the dev proves this isn't one such case, I'm not likely going to increase my score from 4.

[Review of 0.6]
Okay so a couple days after I initially posted my review, an update came out that was apparently ~10 months (!!!) in the making. I expected that this must be a massive update and hoped that it would solve the problems I had with the story, but lo and behold, it just made them worse. Yes, the renders are still pretty, but nothing is happening. The story is making no progress, most girls are getting no progress, and the entire game is just treading water.

I'm more convinced than before that this game will never go anywhere, and the dev will likely abandon it once they can't squeeze anymore money from their supporters.

What a waste of potential. Bringing my score down to a 3.

Currently one of the best AVNs in development.
The models are top notch, the physics too.
And, by god, it doesn't take place on a college campus.
A huge plus is that the girls are well written-- if you can get me actually interested in wanting to F someone that doesn't exist, you win the AVN Awards.

Possibly one of the most anticipated updates on this site after Being a DIK, seriously. That's quite an accomplishment, so good on you, authors\devs.

Ignore hatred on these reviews. I was looking at the "preferences" of the one star raters. They're just mad that there's no "NTR" in this and that it doesn't have any shit manga references in it. Carry on with the good stuff.

One of the best games on this site. All of the MG's and even the Sag are very beautiful and we will see with time how the story progresses. The devs are doing a good job with setting the mood before jumping into scenes. Really going to enjoy this in the future!

There literally is nothing expect really Good renders, god awful pacing and no plot... You are some nice looking walking Dildo, these horny sluts will throw at you for no reason and you cant do shit because remember? You're a Dildo... They dont have WILL.

Graphics 10/10 - Fantastic renders. Summer Heat has the most attractive girls out of any 3dcg game I have played. There's usually just one or two girls in a 3dcg game that I actually find attractive but I genuinely love the look of all of the main girls. There is also a huge variety of angles. Masterfully done all around.

Plot/Characters 8/10 - Great dialogue, the flow of conversation felt good and never pulled me out of the game. Each of the main girls are interesting in there own way. I'm holding out hope for harem options to come in the future. The MC is great too. I really wish more games would have a faceless protagonist. It 100% adds to the immersion for me.

Negatives - This are mostly subjective but there are a few critiques I have. First is the lack of any music and a lot of dead quiet moments. Second is the potential lack of harem options. Even if it was limited to only 2 or 3 girls that would raise this to my all time favorite 3dcg VN. That's just my taste though, others might disagree.

Art

Visuals: The visuals are great, the facial expressions especially are some of the best I've ever seen.
Animations: Definitely good, not the most memorable but nothing bad at all.

Writing

Dialogue: I have really high standards for writing and as a result, I tend to skip the dialogue in most games after realizing how bad it is. I can't really recall playing any games with half decent writing until this one.
This game's dialogue writing is fantastic. It mostly avoids everything I hate in games: flowery narration, needlessly long sentences, constantly telling the pc's inner thoughts, pointlessly revealing other character's inner thoughts/pov, Life is Strange level unbelievable personalities, etc. Please keep this up!
Story: Can't say much since it's only at 0.5, but it certainly has me intrigued. I really like the slow pacing so far and the romance scenes have perfect build up.
Characters: The characters are very good. They have strong but believable personalities with good variety. So far, I'm invested in almost all of them.

Naughty Fox Games seems to be built different, looking forward for more updates!

[v0.5.1] HQ AVN, next to HQ renders (and beautiful girls), good UI, nice story, nice gameplay, also much attention has been given to sound design, and makes this VN stand out, really adding to the immersion. E.g. the snoring of Mike etc, excellent! Ambience sound of the mansion (airco and/or traffic sounds?) is relatively a bit loud though I think.
It's nice you can control the ambience sound volume level (next to bgm & sfx).

Also some nice sex sfx, although the 'gagging' sound isn't much convincing.

Story (believability) wise some things could have been better I think (a bit of nitpicking here perhaps, but see below).


Other than that, very enjoyable, 4.5 stars.

Some suggestions
[UI] have a big nice Save/Load heading, because I accidentally overwrote my save on multiple occasions, intending to load;
[UI] it seems a bit inconsistent that your first Ember photos go into your phone's gallery and everything after goes into the game's Gallery. Wouldn't it be nicer to have them all accessible through the Ember app and/or phone's gallery? (O/c images should still be full-screenable.)

I will keep it short and straight.

Characters feel like they are alive. Renders are brilliantly done. Sex scenes are passionate and creative. Usually I skip through VN's(don't mind me) but this time, I stopped and never skipped most of the story, cause the renders are so well done.

It's actually moving, not stuck. I feel like I am summer camping or some shit man, legit got pulled into this thing. Best way to enjoy this game is to fully relax, take a good drink, sit down, turn the lights off.

Camera's are well placed allowing you to cherish your character, which they deserve to be, as these are like truly beautiful models man.

really like where the developer is going with this game as a whole, if this game ends early, I will be truly disappointed.

This deserves even more light than it's currently getting.

This game is already amazing. Could be one of the top ones ever once it gets more content. I really cant wait for more. Everything about it is top tier. Great renders, girls, story. Interactive parts as well

"All that glitters is not gold", my dudes.
Yeah, this VN has hot, juicy and really sweet renders. But that's all. The story is nothing special — just a bunch of teens are going to the summer camp. There is a slight glimpse of the mystery like "woah uh-huh why did they move their camp to their house" but this barely gets unfolded through the story.
Two things that turned me off: definitely-not-a-dadlandlord camp owner and MC. Yeah, I got it, camp owner should be annoying as fuck to build up that kinda-incest atmosphere with his wife. But, uhhhh, that didn't worked on me, sorry.
Waited so long for an update to try that game. Such a disappointment.

This game as of v0.5.1 is incredible. It has very, very few cons and is a very well-rounded game. Models are incredible, characters are nicely fleshed out, the writing is cheesy enough to be wholesome without going overboard.

The story's pace has been well done so far as well. I am looking forward to more updates!

Graphics 10/10 - Fantastic renders. Summer Heat has the most attractive girls out of any 3dcg game I have played. There's usually just one or two girls in a 3dcg game that I actually find attractive but I genuinely love the look of all of the main girls. There is also a huge variety of angles. Masterfully done all around.

Plot/Characters 8/10 - Great dialogue, the flow of conversation felt good and never pulled me out of the game. Each of the main girls are interesting in there own way. I'm holding out hope for harem options to come in the future. The MC is great too. I really wish more games would have a faceless protagonist. It 100% adds to the immersion for me.

Negatives - This are mostly subjective but there are a few critiques I have. First is the lack of any music and a lot of dead quiet moments. Second is the potential lack of harem options. Even if it was limited to only 2 or 3 girls that would raise this to my all time favorite 3dcg VN. That's just my taste though, others might disagree.