VN - Ren'Py - Summer SeaSon [v0.26] [DatNG]

I really liked the art of this game. The main characters looks nice and appealing. Side pics might be sloppy but when the author do his best it's really good. This is the main plus of this game.

But the code and game design is in a BAD shape. I think making "sand box" is a big trouble especially for the new developer. I can't tell how many bugs I get while "trying" to play this game. More over it also ruins the narrative that actually I didn't feel at all. In my opinion this sand box "gameplay" ruins the project, it consumes a lot of time and gives only frustration to a gamers. It is sad tho cuz hand drawing art is really good. I think the project needs some polishing and a reset.

Summer Season, as the tags say, is a Visual Novel.

The novel part of this Visual Novel is frankly kind of a slog. The prose is awkward, clunky and full of typos. It feels like an ESL situation. Stuff like "character is doing good in THE College", stuff like that. Since the premise is rote (you have a rich dead absentee father and have to take over his estate), it was hard to pay attention. You keep waiting for it to do something interesting since actually reading it isn't fun.

The visual part of this Visual Novel is also a bit lackluster. For some reason lots of visual novel artists have character portraits stare off into the middle distance or at the reader, so everyone looks dead-eyed and uncanny. Plus, there's very few different poses or expressions to carry conversation. The awkward prose makes it difficult to figure out the mood of the conversation and the character portraits are static as well, so every scene just feels like a clunky AI wrote it.

As for the tittilation and porn, I didn't make it to any. A bunch of dead eyed mannequins delivering stilted dialouge really killed the mood and made me close the game. It's just not very good.

Overall, the game didn’t meet expectations, and I found myself losing interest quickly. It could have used more balance in terms of interaction and pacing, and better quality in its artwork.

- The game is flooded with endless, pointless text. After just 10 minutes, I found it tedious to keep reading. I skipped past it to see if things would improve, but unfortunately, they didn’t. An example of this is the volleyball gamr : there’s so much text, but a few images could have conveyed the same information and been much more engaging.

- There’s hardly any meaningful interaction in the game. The only decision you get to make is choosing a location, which hardly adds to the gameplay experience.

- The artwork feels inconsistent, and I ultimately stopped playing after encountering a poorly executed sex scene. It didn’t add anything interesting to the game, and rather than engaging me, it felt unnecessary and poorly done.

I gave this a 2 because it could just be a test build, and I don’t want to discourage people from trying it out. But in its current state, it honestly deserves a 1 from me.

This is an initial release, so there is not a lot of content. That being said, you already get to meet and get close to a couple of characters and have an actual sex scene with an awesome muscle lady. I loved the premise of the game and how you get to choose a relationship with the main hero at the beginning.
Here is the breakdown:
Story: 5/5 (simple but to the point)
Art: 5/5 (Love simple but pretty art style)
Gameplay: 3/5 (no choices, interface lacks back button, gallery option is present which is +2 to otherwise a 1-star game factor)
Writing: 5/5
Characters: 5/5 (I like the diversity)
Fetishes: too early to tell, scared muscle lady might be not for everyone, but definitely worked for me I hope we get to have anal sex with every character but especially with her, so 5/5

Final thoughts: The game has a heart.