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

[yossa999]

10,000 images in 5 years of development - CUTE

Yeah, they are very cute, indeed.

 

[Penfold Mole]

10,000 images in 5 years of development - CUTE

5 year old images are already mostly replaced and the last ones will be replaced in the final version of chapter 5.
The oldest ones made by Ocean then would be like 3 years old or something? Since Ocean took over the development, that is. Correct me, whoever remembers or can find from the old posts, when it happened.

 

[ShaggyDave76]

There's some old Youtube videos of the original opening scene, featuring an older and far uglier Summer.
'Meth-head Summer' I like to call her,,lol!!

 

[John972]

The previous posters do make good points.
I'm guess I got spoiled jumping into AVN's a lot later than some, and had hours of content to play through that was already published in games such as Being a DIK. I realise that not all content creators are alike or work at the same pace (Some even have jobs..Shock!!)
I'm currently on my first playthrough of Leap of Faith, which is pretty deep plot-wise, but I'm only on chapter 6 of that one and taking my time, as I can see plenty of scope for numerous playthroughs there!

One of the biggest differences I've seen with AVNs on F95 between now and several years ago is that the development cycles between updates/releases have increased significantly. What used to be six months is now a year, what used to be 2-3 months is now six months. It's worth pointing out that render quality has increased in that time too.

With the latest releases of SG and WIAB, I didn't feel so much that they were short (and the SG book club scene seemed to take ages) but rather I felt disappointed when the new chapters ended. I put this down to roughly knowing the length of time I'll have to wait until the next chapters drop (a lot games I like dropped over the last three months. I kinda SMH that I've now gotta wait until Sept-Oct 2024 until the majority of these games release a new update).

Another nameless game (the most popular on F95 and mentioned in your post) also recently dropped. It has a lot of content, but the playing time is significantly drawn out by multiple freeroam and minigame events per episode. I really like that about that game, but that's not the format of SG/WIAB.

As already pointed out, several scenes in SG Ch 5 were only available on certain routes. I see this as a challenge Ocean faces going forward because of the mechanics he has chosen - more and more scenes needed per update for specific routes, meaning an update could be huge but only so much of that content is available on any given route.

 

[turbojoe]

With the latest releases of SG and WIAB, I didn't feel so much that they were short (and the SG book club scene seemed to take ages) but rather I felt disappointed when the new chapters ended. I put this down to roughly knowing the length of time I'll have to wait until the next chapters drop

Agree with this - imo the main problem is, that so far so many questions and started branches have piled up and last updates didn´t solve them but instead opened new ones.
So we still stay lost in uncertainty, the curiosity is encreasing...............

 

[John972]

Agree with this - imo the main problem is, that so far so many questions and started branches have piled up and last updates didn´t solve them but instead opened new ones.
So we still stay lost in uncertainty, the curiosity is encreasing...............

I never thought SG would solve all the initial mysteries in one sudden expositional dump.

If there's one thing Ocean can be accused of it's simply producing a slow-burn/slow-update AVN with way too many alluring LIs. The only way I seeing this being resolved within the next couple of years is if the MC engages a drunken and depraved orgy with a bevy of the LIs after they all go to The Barn to play board games. Now, that would be one hell-of-an update! /s

 

[Meushi]

5 year old images are already mostly replaced and the last ones will be replaced in the final version of chapter 5.
The oldest ones made by Ocean then would be like 3 years old or something? Since Ocean took over the development, that is. Correct me, whoever remembers or can find from the old posts, when it happened.

Ocean was doing renders for SG during 0.2 development. Initially just helping out (29 Sep 2019), then 50/50 partnership (14 Nov 2019).

In the 0.2b release notes Ocean says he reworked ~1300 renders (1230 renders were added in Ch2, likely reworked some Ch1 renders too). So a significant number of his renders were in the initial 0.2 release (31 Dec 2019).

Regium wasn't involved in SG after 0.2 (20 Jan 2020).

 

[Cabin Fever]

On a different, programming note, why are these AVN's so damn Large?
Back in the day, games on the old 16-bit (or even 32-bit) computers like the Atari and Amiga, and even Consoles like the Megadrive and SNES were just as big and offered hours of gameplay - Graphics weren't all that different then either (Just look at something like Dungeon Master on the Atari ST - beautiful!), so how come modern day PC games are so memory and RAM intensive?

Dungeon Master on Atari ST? Either there's a joke in there that completely flew over my head, or I'm blind.

 

[John972]

Ocean was doing renders for SG during 0.2 development. Initially just helping out (29 Sep 2019), then 50/50 partnership (14 Nov 2019).

In the 0.2b release notes Ocean says he reworked 1300 of the 1230 renders added for Ch2, so a significant number of his renders were in the initial 0.2 release (31 Dec 2019).

Regium wasn't involved in SG after 0.2 (20 Jan 2020).

Thanks for taking the time to hunt down the posts.

So, the 10k renders by Ocean currently in the game equate to 13-15k renders made by Ocean for SG in five years, if discarded/replaced renders are included.

 

[John972]

Damn, I think you just won all the theories in those two sentences. Amazing

It may seem profound and poetic, but, in truth, it's the sort of revelation one would make while either stoned or drunk with friends.

As for Summer's fate... it's up in the air. She could be dead or she could be absconded somewhere. The only clue I've ever seen is in a conversation between Nika and Nami (from Ch 3). I can only take Nika's inference at face value.

Spoiler: Clue?

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[Ottoeight]

Happy New Year everyone, I just noticed that there is a very strong expression from Nojiko towards Nami when the MC tells them that he is going to the book club and the way Nami is not so impressed by the environment and the people around them in the book club, which makes me understand that Nami possibly knows a lot more about the past than the MC does And she's hiding it from him, let's remember that Nami is a year older than the MC

Nojiko is angry with Nami because she disobeyed her by telling Nika about the book club. That's it.

No, bro, you definitely misinterpreted Nami, because she's literally unable to grasp people's intentions.

It may seem profound and poetic, but, in truth, it's the sort of revelation one would make while either stoned or drunk with friends.

As for Summer's fate... it's up in the air. She could be dead or she could be absconded somewhere. The only clue I've ever seen is in a conversation between Nika and Nami (from Ch 3). I can only take Nika's inference at face value.

Spoiler: Clue?

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He was simply teasing Nami.

 

[BobTheDuck]

It may seem profound and poetic, but, in truth, it's the sort of revelation one would make while either stoned or drunk with friends.

As for Summer's fate... it's up in the air. She could be dead or she could be absconded somewhere. The only clue I've ever seen is in a conversation between Nika and Nami (from Ch 3). I can only take Nika's inference at face value.

Spoiler: Clue?

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We know Nika saw Summer after the incident. So if the incident was traumatic, seeing Summer after it brought no closure and didn't cause further trauma. Seeing her again is almost mentioned as an after thought. He didn't see her body in a morgue, or he wouldn't be seeking to use Emilio's services to find her. So what we know is Nika didn't see Summer's corpse at any point that his mind consciously accepted. So it's his attempt to shock Nami, like the earlier joke to Vic about penguins, or the way he jokes about her porn habits publically to shame her. Completely part of their unique tension/affection.

Regarding drunken epiphanies, it's pretty damn good to simplify the stories to that angle. Viewing the bitchiness and drama through those lens's might simplify the reasons for some actions - to some extent we're expecting everyone to be playing games to save the future of their dynasty, or *gasp* Wollust. To have petty goals for some elaborate plans actually makes sense, especially after the spider scene. Parallel ways to read events, not just the objective reasons, but the embarrassingly subjective.

 

[John972]

Nojiko is angry with Nami because she disobeyed her by telling Nika about the book club. That's it.

No, bro, you definitely misinterpreted Nami, because she's literally unable to grasp people's intentions.






He was simply teasing Nami.

I would kinda argue, why not "dead people" or "dead chicks," instead of "dead children?" Is Nika implying he's a necrophiliac and a pedo? I'm sure that's gonna shock Nami (who's OK with incest by the way, but the other two are rightfully a bridge too far!) /s

 

[BobTheDuck]

I would kinda argue, why not "dead people" or "dead chicks," instead of "dead children?" Is Nika implying he's a necrophiliac and a pedo?

Nika can't type /s, only Ocean can. My guess is he's trying to shut the convo down by out-awkwarding Nami; we know later on she wishes he'd be more open about the subject rather than deflect.

 

[hermit_tr]

From my understanding, Ocean has 5 stories for the SG and WiAB worlds, so there are 3 more stories that haven't been published yet.

At first Ocean gave the SG story to Regium, and planned to do WiAB and one more story with a woman as the main character (according to Ocean so he wouldn't burn out with one story). But when Regium gave up working on SG, Ocean canceled the story (before could even publish it) and switched to working on SG.

correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[PaxHadrian17]

Am I honestly the only person that was really disappointed with the Chapter 5 Update??
I thought 4.5 had a decent amount of content, AND some storyline choices with everyone's favourite ginger Waifu!
Chapter 5 felt rushed, even though Ocean had a whole YEAR to come up with something longer than around 20 minutes of play time with little action.
Heck, even the recent Being a DIK episode had around an hour and a half of play time, and a really good side-story.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Summer's Gone, I was even a Patreon, but this update was a deal-breaker for me.
I've just turned 47. If Ocean carries on at this rate, I'm going to be 80 by the time Summer's Gone is finished!!!

Sometimes I wonder if someone posting about Summers Gone has actually played the same AVN as I have.

I have to be honest and say my CH 5 SG experience was Vastly different and- seemingly better - than yours.

I do enjoy Ocean's storytelling and I spent more than 20 minutes on the book club scene alone.

That scene was an onion in terms of complexity/reveals:

* Noji secrets (she's known Amber far longer than she admitted, after pretending to meet Amber for the first-time outside Amber's office prior to the MC's therapy)
* Amber pretending that she had not met the MC before
* Sasha and her apparent siren's lure effect on multiple married men
* Charlie's Rule of the book club (and her lack of appreciation for the MC when he challenged that rule And when she found out that he was the male involved in Robin's 'scandal' at school - the sex in the bathroom which did not actually happen)
* the appearance of Katie Zane and her interest in both Nami and the MC
* the sudden appearance of Sasha when the MC has his panic attack (and Sasha just happened to have a medication to help with panic attacks and she shared it with him)

That scene also had great humor with Nami commenting on all the cougars and her quip about it looking like a scene from a porno.

I personally soaked up the Bella time at the beginning of CH 5 and enjoyed her first breakfast with Noji, the MC and eventually Nami + sleeping with her and getting the Zara reveals.

I won't regurgitate more of what I have already commented on in other posts.

I'll just say that the above is why I feel like we played different AVNs with the same name - our experiences seem to be so different.

I'm still a supporter and I thought CH 5 was a great close to Season 1, including the final scene with Bella and her sister.

This is certainly the most ambitious AVN I have ever supported and at current development speeds, it will take decades to get through the 30+ chapters that Ocean has talked about for SG.

(I think that development speed will increase once the Steam SG season 1 release is complete - plus hardware and software improvements will help here as well - his latest dev log about a Daz update and improved loading times was a major eye opener for me).

I hope that your CH 5 Full SG experience will be much better than your CH 5 Beta experience was.

I absolutely believe that mine will be, and I loved the CH 5 Beta.

Cheers!!

 

[John972]

Sometimes I wonder if someone posting about Summers Gone has actually played the same AVN as I have.

I have to be honest and say my CH 5 SG experience was Vastly different and- seemingly better - than yours.

I do enjoy Ocean's storytelling and I spent more than 20 minutes on the book club scene alone.

That scene was an onion in terms of complexity/reveals:

* Noji secrets (she's known Amber far longer than she admitted, after pretending to meet Amber for the first-time outside Amber's office prior to the MC's therapy)
* Amber pretending that she had not met the MC before
* Sasha and her apparent siren's lure effect on multiple married men
* Charlie's Rule of the book club (and her lack of appreciation for the MC when he challenged that rule And when she found out that he was the male involved in Robin's 'scandal' at school - the sex in the bathroom which did not actually happen)
* the appearance of Katie Zane and her interest in both Nami and the MC
* the sudden appearance of Sasha when the MC has his panic attack (and Sasha just happened to have a medication to help with panic attacks and she shared it with him)

That scene also had great humor with Nami commenting on all the cougars and her quip about it looking like a scene from a porno.

I personally soaked up the Bella time at the beginning of CH 5 and enjoyed her first breakfast with Noji, the MC and eventually Nami + sleeping with her and getting the Zara reveals.

I won't regurgitate more of what I have already commented on in other posts.

I'll just say that the above is why I feel like we played different AVNs with the same name - our experiences seem to be so different.

I'm still a supporter and I thought CH 5 was a great close to Season 1, including the final scene with Bella and her sister.

This is certainly the most ambitious AVN I have ever supported and at current development speeds, it will take decades to get through the 30+ chapters that Ocean has talked about for SG.

(I think that development speed will increase once the Steam SG season 1 release is complete - plus hardware and software improvements will help here as well - his latest dev log about a Daz update and improved loading times was a major eye opener for me).

I hope that your CH 5 Full SG experience will be much better than your CH 5 Beta experience was.

I absolutely believe that mine will be, and I loved the CH 5 Beta.

Cheers!!

It reminds me when I was a kid. Adults had all these interesting Second World War books. I wasn't interested in reading them (I was kinda too young to appreciate or understand them anyway), but I LOVED looking at the two or three pages of photo plates every several chapters. I was kinda like that when I first found the world of AVNs on F95.

Now, I cherish reading and experiencing those AVNs with complex and compelling stories, as they unfold one chapter at a time. SG is at the top of that pile for me, even with it's (minor) imperfections. The fantastic attention to detail in the renders and awesome soundtrack are just the icing on the cake for me.

PaxHadrian17 touched on some of the plot reveals from a segment of Ch 5 Beta alone. ...and there's just so much more going on overall (as one random example, Coaches Hill and Stahl's hail-Mary basketball plan in league with (presumably) Katie Zane). The sub-plots are so dense, I find it hard to keep up with every single thread of what's going on in this game.

 

[ShaggyDave76]

Again, regarding SG Ch5, I'm sure that I read in some of his previous Patreon notes, Ocean mentioned that Ch5 was meant to have another therapy session with Amber, in which we were going to get some much needed answers to the missing Summer macguffin. This didn't happen in the end, just a rather long and drawn out book club scene which, going forward, will probably have no impact on the overall plot, apart from maybe a couple of scenes involving Noji and Sasha.
Perhaps I have been too harsh on Ch5, and unfairly comparing it to other AVN's updates.
I still feel it's too early in development to have so many convoluted plotlines and individual stories, and no clues or answers to how they are going to pan out.
I mean, what's the deal with Emilio??

 

[BobTheDuck]

Again, regarding SG Ch5, I'm sure that I read in some of his previous Patreon notes, Ocean mentioned that Ch5 was meant to have another therapy session with Amber, in which we were going to get some much needed answers to the missing Summer macguffin. This didn't happen in the end, just a rather long and drawn out book club scene which, going forward, will probably have no impact on the overall plot, apart from maybe a couple of scenes involving Noji and Sasha.
Perhaps I have been too harsh on Ch5, and unfairly comparing it to other AVN's updates.
I still feel it's too early in development to have so many convoluted plotlines and individual stories, and no clues or answers to how they are going to pan out.
I mean, what's the deal with Emilio??

I'll reply in reverse - have you played WiaB's recent update? These games are playing in sync almost like two halves and they'll both converge. Ocean's drawing out revelations to prevent spoiling the develoment of each. If he does it well, there won't be anything comparable. For example, the original Star Wars trilogy had massive revelations that destroyed the prequel triolgy, because we already knew who the emporor was, and we already knew who Darth Vader would bang. The prequels suffered from being a pantomime because we already knew what would happen, all we got to see was the details of how. It was telegraphed. If Ocean does this right, he can keep the surprise in each. If does it poorly, it'll just be obscure with too many secrets for too long, or nonsensical plot points. Currently I'm feeling he's doing it well.

Emilio's vibe is going to play a role, we're about a sixth of the way through the planned plot for SG. Some characters like Katie probably will not have huge plot development as this plot is around Nika. Emilio's part will be I guess kind of a macguffin - he'll merely be a way to set things in motion or reveal plot information that's two challenging to introduce through events - he can be used to trigger exposition or flashbacks that no one could have witnessed, because he has his mysterious informations sources. He'll probably play a significant part in WiaB, so chances are he'll be important is SG, but with a developed/established character based on how WiaB turns out. Currently we have a before and after shot of both him and Katie, and possibly one or two others.

Regarding the cabin trip - my guess is Ocean plans on lewd things happening with that and the farm, so he's procrastinated on that simply to get the steam release done as non adult. Season two can be adult, and season one then becomes a relatively safe hook to drag people in. Clearly from WiaB we know Ocean has no problem doing lewds and actually does them quite well. Noce this season is out, I suspect we'll see a more positive development cycle for both games.

The book club served to reveal a lot of interpersonal politics that had more to do with how WiaB has effected SG. It's part of the world building and making the characters more believable. Charlie for example she's close to Sasha through Robin, and Nika's antagonising her - what will that mean for his interactions with Robin and Sasha? Much better than Robin having a grumpy mum for no reason. Then there's Emilia who I suspect was Emilie from the original WiaB's camping trip - Katie gets everyone stoned, and they have a pretty riotous drugged orgy, including a raccoon. Now if my theory is correct, she's the porn actress that is Noji's best friend. And the obvious big one, Katie, Noji's worst frenemy? Anna's flirting with Nika can definitely lead somewhere, but if he pursues it openly just to mess with people, I can see that having a negative affect on RObin and Sasha, even Bella, because CLaire is a gossip. So I'd say it will have a lot of impact, as it was a natural way to introduce characters. I can't imagine a natural way for Katie to turn up at Noji's house for example. This at least introduces themes without showing the full deck of cards.

I am also reading too much into it

 

[Mad4lifeBraven]

Yeah... the constant complaining is getting rather annoying. If the update cycle's not something you can cope with, or the rework & changes to the story aren't things you can live with... then why not leave? These grand announcements of how this user won't play the game because of X, and that user hates it because of Y... they're getting quite old. If these things bother you so much, why not leave and scratch Summer's Gone off of your list? Why stay to announce to the world that you decided not to pirate this game? Like omg! Whatever will Oceans do about a random F95 user who decided that they're no longer going to pirate his game??

I honestly get the frustration; some of it is definitely warranted... but some of you need to relax. Find another game to play... or better yet, do something rather than stalking these pages waiting for the right moment to meme about how your grandkids may finally experience the end of this game. Since I'm probably the only girl here right now, I'll say it. It's kind of sad that for some of you, your only comments are about how Oceans is a bad developer, how the development cycle upsets you, or some other flaw of this game. My goodness, find something else to do because seeing so many users add nothing more to the conversation than ripping on the game... gets proper annoying. Often enough, I saw people voicing their praise for the game, saying how much they love this and can't wait for that, and some of you guys will show up(out of nowhere) and go out of your way to kill their joy for the game. It's literally crazy how some of you will go out of your way to do this kind of stuff. Hundreds of games on this site, and you choose to spend your time annoying people in SG's thread. That's... kind of sad

Some of you will hate me for this(if you don't already), but I'll say it anyway. Some of these critique/review posts seem disingenuous... almost as if some people came here just to complain. The last few pages have been 70% made up of people complaining that they'll never see the end of this game and the fact that Oceans will rework this game to death. If you truly believe that, truly believe that Oceans will never improve and genuinely believe that Ocean's pace will stay the same forever... leave. If you think honestly that Oceans is out to rework this game every single season... leave. Save yourselves the heartache. This thread can do without all of the extra negativityღ

Like I can't stress enough how dumb this all isღ

The thing more disappointing than those "Haters" is your response its one thing to respond to them at all but to completely disregard their whole point and thinking you solved something is outrageous some of them raise valid points about the game's development and some people including myself just cut support after 6 months because there was so little content to put my arm around now i did make a post here about the development issue does that make me a bad person? no its the opposite being concerned about this series and how its being handled is important to me and i come here to express it in the most respectful way possible some people might degrade the series in question those are the "Haters" you probably are talking about and guess what you can find them in pretty much every big title this industry has published but the problem here is those haters are most of the time completely random people that played the game for 30 mins hated something in it and then come to diss on the creators but here its a specific problem many people talk about it that being patrons or non patrons some out of concern for the series and some with ill intentions you cant escape the latter no matter what and if alot of people have the same problem and are expressing it here then you should know the problem is real and can lead to lasting problems in the future if not fixed.