VN Ren'Py Summer's Gone [S1 Steam + DLC] [Oceanlab]

[RoadWulf]

Man, don't even start it... You can imagine how the team Sasha feels. At least Vic got some quality screen time in Chapter 4.5, but there's no hope that Sasha will shine before season two. And Ocean said that she was his favorite, love has its weird ways... A dev needs to release 5K static renders in one update so that people feel the progression of each girl's storyline. And with the cast like in SG, probably even more. I only know one dev who does this
If I understood correctly what Ocean said at times, each main girl will have her own decent part of the story, but not at the same time. And the MC kind of told Vic in the last chapter that he's been deliberately avoiding her lately. He said something like that he was too rude and edgy for such a softie person like Vic and was afraid of unintentionally hurting her. What a lame excuse

At least it doesn't seem like multi-path is off the table yet. Nami at the very least is sort of neutral at this point (able to fit in quite a number of paths) and it does kind of seem like the idea of a Vic/Nami/Mila thing is possible given how this chapter played out.

As far as others I like, I'd say Banana girl is high up on my list. Along with Robin and Sasha.

That said there's no harem tag to this game, so it's hard to see if there's a future multi-pathing of if it's going adopt a "Ok, it's fine for now, but you have to pick eventually."

 

[Alexanderson037500aa]

 

[yossa999]

Are you sure about that is some lame excuse?

Strictly theoretical question: MC knows himself that he is too rough, harsh, brute, etc. What if MC honestly believes that he would hurt Vic with a word or an action?

Well, he was decent enough with Vic in this chapter, so I think it's more of a "I'm afraid I've taken on a burden I can't carry on" kind of thing that he admitted to Maja at the physical therapy center when Vic panicked and he made a promise to help her.

He actually had a similar moment with a half-naked Nami after his date with Bella, when Nami asked him and Noji who Nick was and was very offended that they didn't tell her. When she complained that he wouldn't let her be close to him, to participate in his life, he started with the same stupid excuses that she is so full of life and he is so full of shit depressed emo [sarcasm.jpg] and didn't want to pull her along with him. But she also called out his lame excuses and said that he was doing this for himself, not for her, because he did not want to burden himself.

Vic did the same when she told him that the last thing she needed was people avoiding her and he shouldn't do that anymore.

EDIT: And in general, one does not exclude the other He might believe or even pretend even to himself that he believes that he will definitely hurt the people he cares about, and therefore tries to keep them at a distance. But that doesn't mean his excuses aren't lame

 

[BobTheDuck]

Are you sure about that is some lame excuse?

Strictly theoretical question: MC knows himself that he is too rough, harsh, brute, etc. What if MC honestly believes that he would hurt Vic with a word or an action?

Well, he was decent enough with Vic in this chapter, so I think it's more of a "I'm afraid I've taken on a burden I can't carry on" kind of thing that he admitted to Maja at the physical therapy center when Vic panicked and he made a promise to help her.

He actually had a similar moment with a half-naked Nami after his date with Bella, when Nami asked him and Noji who Nick was and was very offended that they didn't tell her. When she complained that he wouldn't let her be close to him, to participate in his life, he started with the same stupid excuses that she is so full of life and he is so full of shit depressed emo [sarcasm.jpg] and didn't want to pull her along with him. But she also called out his lame excuses and said that he was doing this for himself, not for her, because he did not want to burden himself.

Vic did the same when she told him that the last thing she needed was people avoiding her and he shouldn't do that anymore.

EDIT: And in general, one does not exclude the other He might believe or even pretend even to himself that he believes that he will definitely hurt the people he cares about, and therefore tries to keep them at a distance. But that doesn't mean his excuses aren't lame

Everyone's capable of hurting a friend or lover with a word or action, intentional or not. People can misconstrue our intent easily enough to be offended at any time for the strangest of reasons. We can't choose whether someone is hurt, but we can choose to engage or not.

Nika is using a lame excuse because he's not willing to risk any fallout. Part of the central theme is the healing and reconciliation Nika needs to ...get over himself and his past mental blocks. It's a legitimate excuse - there are some people in my life who I don't have the strength to deal with, and those friendships remain unresolved. It doesn't feel great though, knowing there is that unspoken and unresolved tension, the unwillingness to be a bigger person who takes responsibility for their relationships. Knowing that he can be rough, and that he is unwilling to learn to be gentle, even though she's willing to take the risk? He's making the decision about his desires and needs, not considering the impact of his choices on others ...while playing games to manipulate people in other ways. So I guess it's lame because he's unwilling to change his emotional status quo while recognising he can't keep going on like this. I think how he overcomes his desire to isolate himself and disengage is a theme central to the plot, so it'll be seen in the way he treats all the LI's and I'm sure there will be panic attack episodes to deal with about this.

EDIT: I'm not downplaying the difficulty of these kind of decisions as there is no real answer, but I do feel that it's an area that requires us to find the courage to not only consider our perspective, but have the courage to see what we're really saying when when shut other people out. There's certainly no way to include everyone in life, and some people seem sweet had have their inner toxic behaviours hidden. Every relationship has some risk...

At least it doesn't seem like multi-path is off the table yet. Nami at the very least is sort of neutral at this point (able to fit in quite a number of paths) and it does kind of seem like the idea of a Vic/Nami/Mila thing is possible given how this chapter played out.

As far as others I like, I'd say Banana girl is high up on my list. Along with Robin and Sasha.

That said there's no harem tag to this game, so it's hard to see if there's a future multi-pathing of if it's going adopt a "Ok, it's fine for now, but you have to pick eventually."

Ocean has said he's not a fan of harems, and that LI's know what you're doing with the others so adopt a path and chose. Some will be open to casual flings, others won't. I think I'm going to have to have multiple saves, but currently it's hard to know what effects some choices have on paths that haven't been fully revealled.

 

[rudy007]

Everyone's capable of hurting a friend or lover with a word or action, intentional or not. People can misconstrue our intent easily enough to be offended at any time for the strangest of reasons. We can't choose whether someone is hurt, but we can choose to engage or not.

Nika is using a lame excuse because he's not willing to risk any fallout. Part of the central theme is the healing and reconciliation Nika needs to ...get over himself and his past mental blocks. It's a legitimate excuse - there are some people in my life who I don't have the strength to deal with, and those friendships remain unresolved. It doesn't feel great though, knowing there is that unspoken and unresolved tension, the unwillingness to be a bigger person who takes responsibility for their relationships. Knowing that he can be rough, and that he is unwilling to learn to be gentle, even though she's willing to take the risk? He's making the decision about his desires and needs, not considering the impact of his choices on others ...while playing games to manipulate people in other ways. So I guess it's lame because he's unwilling to change his emotional status quo while recognising he can't keep going on like this. I think how he overcomes his desire to isolate himself and disengage is a theme central to the plot, so it'll be seen in the way he treats all the LI's and I'm sure there will be panic attack episodes to deal with about this.



Ocean has said he's not a fan of harems, and that LI's know what you're doing with the others so adopt a path and chose. Some will be open to casual flings, others won't. I think I'm going to have to have multiple saves, but currently it's hard to know what effects some choices have on paths that haven't been fully revealled.

Yes, it's early for individual routes yet. Making many branches too early could make game too complicated and we could have situation to wait many updates to get our favorite route. And, yes, we had some branches already, I think. But we don't know what will they make in the future of the game.
Rverybody will probably have one favorite route. I'm looking at most for Bella/Nami route and their individual routes... Amber route is interesting too. Sasha is an interesting character. I'm just sad that there is no Nojiko route. I like her character really much.

 

[Viren11]

The simple fact that we and Ocean need to come to terms with is that at this pace, both games are far more likely to be abandoned down the road rather than finished. He needs to expedite his development process. Maybe hire some people and/or get better hardware. It'll be a shame if he never finishes this as it's become my favorite game on this site.

Give it some time. maybe twenty years or so. it'll be on 5.5 by then

 

[yossa999]

Give it some time. maybe twenty years or so. it'll be on 5.5 by then

With 60 fps animations? If not, then I'm outta here!

 

[yossa999]

The simple fact that we and Ocean need to come to terms with is that at this pace, both games are far more likely to be abandoned down the road rather than finished. He needs to expedite his development process. Maybe hire some people and/or get better hardware. It'll be a shame if he never finishes this as it's become my favorite game on this site.

You know, I agree with you ninety-nine percent. But the remaining one percent of my doubts require a little more text, shitload of text actually, so I put it under a spoiler

Spoiler: Shitload of text

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[RoadWulf]

Ocean has said he's not a fan of harems, and that LI's know what you're doing with the others so adopt a path and chose. Some will be open to casual flings, others won't. I think I'm going to have to have multiple saves, but currently it's hard to know what effects some choices have on paths that haven't been fully revealled.

Yeah, but the problem is that he himself is setting up at least one or two sharing possibilities with the way he's writing it. Especially it seems with Nami and Vic. From the very start it also sort of felt like he was putting in the possibility of Maja getting interested in you the more you were involved with Victoria. And this "Shared House" idea with Mila, Nami and someone else (probably Victoria or Robin) already has this set idea of more going on under that roof than just living together.

Then there's Robin and Sasha who seemed to be literally joined at the hip.

To look at another Dev who isn't a fan of harems (and is classically hated for killing off a character in a harem route) who has the name "Medical Profession Color Baked Good" and makes "The Game that Shall Not be Named In Other College Game Threads"

Even he is making shared routes in said unspoken work with specific characters. I wouldn't write out the possibility because we don't know how the story will evolve.

 

[sorco2003]

Yeah, but the problem is that he himself is setting up at least one or two sharing possibilities with the way he's writing it. Especially it seems with Nami and Vic. From the very start it also sort of felt like he was putting in the possibility of Maja getting interested in you the more you were involved with Victoria. And this "Shared House" idea with Mila, Nami and someone else (probably Victoria or Robin) already has this set idea of more going on under that roof than just living together.

Then there's Robin and Sasha who seemed to be literally joined at the hip.

To look at another Dev who isn't a fan of harems (and is classically hated for killing off a character in a harem route) who has the name "Medical Profession Color Baked Good" and makes "The Game that Shall Not be Named In Other College Game Threads"

Even he is making shared routes in said unspoken work with specific characters. I wouldn't write out the possibility because we don't know how the story will evolve.

There is no harem (old definition, not the new tags) but there is a possibility of thouples and threesomes, although not without difficulty (for example, Mila-Nami is impossible, it was already established) And all this was already told by Ocean, there is a post that I don't want to look for, where summarizes the LI and the possibilities of doing throuple and with what other LI.

 

[BobTheDuck]

Yeah, but the problem is that he himself is setting up at least one or two sharing possibilities with the way he's writing it. Especially it seems with Nami and Vic. From the very start it also sort of felt like he was putting in the possibility of Maja getting interested in you the more you were involved with Victoria. And this "Shared House" idea with Mila, Nami and someone else (probably Victoria or Robin) already has this set idea of more going on under that roof than just living together.

Then there's Robin and Sasha who seemed to be literally joined at the hip.

To look at another Dev who isn't a fan of harems (and is classically hated for killing off a character in a harem route) who has the name "Medical Profession Color Baked Good" and makes "The Game that Shall Not be Named In Other College Game Threads"

Even he is making shared routes in said unspoken work with specific characters. I wouldn't write out the possibility because we don't know how the story will evolve.

Totally true - there's a post linked on the first page of the thread with all the possible throuples Ocean has planned, but the throuples come with all kinds of different problems like jealousy management and so forth. I think it's a much more balanced approach than some sort of phallic god-king evolved from someone who has emotional ED right now

 

[Don Sucio]

That said there's no harem tag to this game, so it's hard to see if there's a future multi-pathing of if it's going adopt a "Ok, it's fine for now, but you have to pick eventually."

That would be very usefull for we the players, and it would be reallistic if we think they are teenagers and that stuff is normal in these ages. I mean, university people strange time want to be in a relationship at the beginning, they usually prefer fuck around and long time after begin a relationship.

It would be a good way to mantein happy tha players for a time and them delete the harem and go back to normality

 

[Jackie123]

Next release in october or when?

 

[yossa999]

Next release in october or when?

Your guess will be as good as any other. Ocean never gives an exact release date. Based on the latest dev log, we're already close, so yes, most likely October.

 

[Interemptor]

You know, I agree with you ninety-nine percent. But the remaining one percent of my doubts require a little more text, shitload of text actually, so I put it under a spoiler

Spoiler: Shitload of text

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

You make a lot of great points that I completely agree with. Yes, project management is a completely different beast that Ocean may not be as good as, and the whole quality of the project may suffer for it. Yes, finding good hardworking people is not as easy as it may seem from a distance, especially for something as niche as a crowdfunded AVN. The last point is where we start to disagree, but it's more a matter of opinion than anything we can objectively nail down.

You argue that an artist who has released their work to the public has the liberty to persue their work at their own pace in their own way. I would argue that the second the artist has chosen to make their work public they have taken on a responsibility towards their consumers. If by some miracle the game is finished at one point and I get to consume it whole I would not be doing so in a vacuum. It would be done in the context of how long it took to be made, how the artists has communicated throughout, what promises they made and how will they were kept and so on.

If he had chosen to develop it in private then release it finished, then sure. Go nuts. I will admit that that is financially unfeasible and practically impossible without some bankrolling, but that doesn't change the current reality of the situation. I was just trying to rub one out to some 3D girls, I found this game that had great reviews and apparently a really good story, I went through it and tried it out and loved it. Now I'm emotionally invested. I want the artist to deliver a good product in their own time and to their own standards, but withen reason.

You talked, rightfully I may add, about the practical difficulties of expediting the process and by your own admission it would be difficult but not impossible. I believe Ocean has an obligation to, at the very least, try to overcome these difficulties.

But all of that isn't even my mine gripe. I will excuse a failure of team and resource management. But the constant self inflicted setbacks are quite honestly infuriating. SG on its own is a mammoth undertaking, and he decides to develop another game concurrently? How does that make sense? Prioritizing remakes over story progression? That's like falling into the trap of trying to optimize your code too early in the development cycle.

I love this game. I love his evident technical skill. I admire his commitment to good communication with the audience. I admire his artistic integrity. The naivety of some of his choices is what bothers me.

 

[PaxHadrian17]

You make a lot of great points that I completely agree with. Yes, project management is a completely different beast that Ocean may not be as good as, and the whole quality of the project may suffer for it. Yes, finding good hardworking people is not as easy as it may seem from a distance, especially for something as niche as a crowdfunded AVN. The last point is where we start to disagree, but it's more a matter of opinion than anything we can objectively nail down.

You argue that an artist who has released their work to the public has the liberty to persue their work at their own pace in their own way. I would argue that the second the artist has chosen to make their work public they have taken on a responsibility towards their consumers. If by some miracle the game is finished at one point and I get to consume it whole I would not be doing so in a vacuum. It would be done in the context of how long it took to be made, how the artists has communicated throughout, what promises they made and how will they were kept and so on.

If he had chosen to develop it in private then release it finished, then sure. Go nuts. I will admit that that is financially unfeasible and practically impossible without some bankrolling, but that doesn't change the current reality of the situation. I was just trying to rub one out to some 3D girls, I found this game that had great reviews and apparently a really good story, I went through it and tried it out and loved it. Now I'm emotionally invested. I want the artist to deliver a good product in their own time and to their own standards, but withen reason.

You talked, rightfully I may add, about the practical difficulties of expediting the process and by your own admission it would be difficult but not impossible. I believe Ocean has an obligation to, at the very least, try to overcome these difficulties.

But all of that isn't even my mine gripe. I will excuse a failure of team and resource management. But the constant self inflicted setbacks are quite honestly infuriating. SG on its own is a mammoth undertaking, and he decides to develop another game concurrently? How does that make sense? Prioritizing remakes over story progression? That's like falling into the trap of trying to optimize your code too early in the development cycle.

I love this game. I love his evident technical skill. I admire his commitment to good communication with the audience. I admire his artistic integrity. The naivety of some of his choices are what bother me.

Just a few thoughts for you:

Ocean does have others who work for him - I can't speak to the # of hours of work/week, but he regularly mentions having help in his dev logs.

He also hires freelancers to do major work for him - two examples:

The track and field where the night training occurs is good freelancer work.

Ocean hired a freelancer to code the phone and this person dropped the ball requiring Ocean to step in and do major coding himself (slowing down development of CH 5 - mentioned in at least one dev log).

He is developing SG and WIAB concurrently at least in part to combat burnout.

If this is what he needs to avoid burnout - I Absolutely support it.

What may feel like a slowdown now is related to the rework of early chapters of SG and polishing the entirety of SG Season 1 so it can be released on Steam.

A great Steam release is very important from a resourcing perspective - this will help drive hardware improvements and major music purchases - both key to continued success in developing Season 2 and beyond.

You may not have seen a lot of this information in prior posts - it is spread out over posts for > 1 year, so I am just touching on the highlights, but he is doing a great deal to advance SG.

His vision for SG is Grand - no doubt; he is the most ambitious developer I support with $. Given his creative abilities, commitment to communication, commitment to reinvesting in the ability to tell the SG and WIAB stories well (this includes hardware & software upgrades and learning how to maximize efforts with both, quality music acquisition, and even taking additional English classes to improve his writing), and willingness to team with others, I have not regretted a single minute spent enjoying SG or a single $ spent supporting him.

Cheers!!

 

[Scyths]

Anyone can hit me up with a few Ren'py games that are story focused like this one ? Maybe I'll find one or two that I haven't played yet. I want to be really invested in the story. Not sure you can drop names of others games so feel free to send a DM instead.

Thanks.

 

[ZazzyBoi]

So I have a bug to report, if this is where to do it. If not, point me in the right direction.

Couple shots in this scene have Bella showing up instead of Mila.

Found a second one, if not already known. Didn't know Mila turned Asian and was living with us yet.

 

[Jackie123]

Your guess will be as good as any other. Ocean never gives an exact release date. Based on the latest dev log, we're already close, so yes, most likely October.

I had in mind that it was going to come out sooner but i really dont know im not active in this thread anymore so i thought i might ask

 

[yossa999]

I had in mind that it was going to come out sooner but i really dont know im not active in this thread anymore so i thought i might ask

Yes, in one of WIAB's August dev logs he mentioned September as a likely release date for both games, but apparently he was wrong in his estimates. From the latest SG dev log I gathered that he is still working on the new in-game phone and has made a very good progress on this task, although I get the impression that the Artist in him is again dominate over the internal Product Manager, so it will take more time than expected
Apart from the phone and Vic's new cinematic in the first chapter, everything else seems to have been done, but there are always post-work tasks, testing, proofreading, e.t.c, so my guess would be the end of October. Of course only Ocean knows for sure.
Here is the link to the latest dev log:
https://f95zone.to/threads/summers-gone-ch-4-5-full-oceanlab.29981/post-11766777