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

A cringy & poorly written visual novel about a man who's justifying him being shitty to everyone because he lost his childhood friend & first love. Thankfully it has some of the best renders I've seen on this site so at least I have some pretty girls to look at while reading not-so-pretty dialogues & story. 5/10.

This game is the best i have played so far great renders / characters , i love the story building the characters development , relationship development and main character development.

The only sad thing is that i finished the update (3.5 ) i want more

Keep doing what u doing dev cause u doing it great.

"Say No to Ntr , Say YES to Harem" - Someone Probably.

Updated after Steam release, score lowered to 2/5

Not only is the game kinetic, not only are choices being removed, even nudity is being censored now.
Game has 1-2 girls with some screentime (Bela and sister), hundred side girls with total of 10 renders each, progress slower than humanities colonization of Mars and not even no sex, but rather basically no nudity of any kind.

It can't possibly go any lower than this.
If story was at least progressing there would be something good. Kinetic novels can be done well, but there's not even that. It has been remake after remake in effort to make first chapters prettier.
And oh lord, that succeeded, because renders are incredible. But that's it. There is literally nothing to this VN except renders.

What a waste...

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After (another) update to earlier chapters, I'm re-writing the whole review.

Rating stays the same, 3/5

This game initially started as a story about a broken guy that could, kind of, remain broken. There were options to reject girls, act like an asshole, threaten those who insult MC/his family.

Summer's gone, in current iteration, is Kinetic novel. Choices do not matter.

If someone says "they will matter in the future", please keep in mind that it's on chapter 4.5 after 4 years, with ton of rewrites. Future might be 3-4 years down the line.

Renders are absurdly good and girls are incredibly good looking, but that only matters so much when there's no lewd content whatsoever (not a slight against the game, just explaining why good looking characters are not huge point in favor).

I will admit to preferring previous version of this game, where MC had choice of being a douche, outright threatening with murder and similar, over the "you've done something cruel to me, I'll eat your banana in revenge" (actual thing from the game).

And let me be honest, I don't see this game being finished in the next 5 years. A shame really, dev is incredibly talented. Wish we got some finished games.

Game is only through Chapter 3.5 currently, but wow, this is a great game. I've just completed my 2nd run through and honestly...this game is the best I've played on this site and I've played more than a few here on F95.

This developer definitely has my attention - I'm not sure if I've ever played a VN before that built up emotional attachment as well. So far nothing overly dark has happened in the story and I'm praying it doesn't go that route - keep it light, fun, certainly some obstacles for the characters to work through, but hoping things don't get really dark like some VNs tend to do.

Rendering quality is top shelf, same with animations. No sex in the game (yet), but it's not really needed at this point as this developer likes to gradually develop the story and characters so things feel more natural, which is welcome. So far this gave me around 6-8 hours of play-time and was just excellent.

I liked this game enough that I actually signed up on Patreon to support the developer a bit. Praying for quicker releases than some of the other VNs on this site - really slow releases are the only crux of these types of games as you start forgetting what's happening in the story when they take a really long time, so happy to donate a little bit to the dev to help out with hardware, etc. I'd strongly recommend folks to give this game a try if you haven't.

Amazing game if you're down with building deep relations with characters. The personalities are unique and the MC does have a good background even if it tends to be dark sometimes. Good art improving through the episodes, super story, and big blue balls !

Review based on Summer's Gone [Ch. 3.5 Full]

Summer's Gone is a unique and special AVN. Let's get this out of the way first: Oceanlab is a talented Daz3D artist, he knows how to make the eyes truly pop and his posing skill to make his renders look cinematic is beautiful. Definitely at least Top 3.

But sadly, that talent doesn't come with writing skill. Main character of Summer's Gone is insufferable. This is the type of kid back when I was in school would absolutely be stuffed in locker room. That first scene when Victoria was hit by a car made me groan, especially that gun part. I remember in previous version MC was talking about how Vic could end her misery sooner by slitting her wrist. Thank God the reworked version doesn't have that cringe-inducing scene.

As the story goes, you can tell developer is, thankfully, trying to less edgy than what he did on Chapter 1. It's getting pretty good when he tried to emphasize on the mystery part. When he's not overdoing over the top characterization, some of the girls actually intrigued me. So far the focus is mostly on Bella, which is unfortunate because I have zero interest in her.

I'm still looking forward to this because judging on new chapter, it seems like the story is getting less and less influence by Elliott Rodger, plus I'm just a sucker for beautiful renders. My rate for Summer's Gone Ch.3.5 Full is 1.5. Since there's no half star, let's just settle it at 1 then.

TL;DR since Dev loves borrowing lines from popular games, allow me to borrow line as well from a popular cartoon to help me express what I think of Summer's Gone: "It insists upon itself"

What an amazing game!

I have played this game since chapter 3, just finished 3.5. I know the update takes quite some time but damn this game is superb. I have never experienced anything like this before. Downloaded for the graphics, stayed for the storyline. This game makes me feel. Not gonna spoil anything here but the flow of every path and the arc of every characters put you in a different world. I was too engaged to realize this is just a game.

I know Ocean is making this game ALONE so I'm gonna give him a subscribe to help him out with his hardware. Cus I just cannot wait any longer for the next update.

A genuine masterpiece. I'm not sociopathic, but most things don't make me feel, and that goes doubly so for a game inherently pornographic in nature. However, this made me feel things. Some of them deeply uncomfortable, some wholesome, but it did something even few mainstream media has trouble with.

I thought Acting Lessons hits you hard, and it does, but this.... holy shit. Was genuinely engaged, and popped massively when my unfeeling MC kissed Bella. More please.

Most of what I think have already been said by the reviewers below, so I'll make this short.
This game is a Gem. It has the proper mix of slow burn actual story telling and lewdness, and humor, that sadly not many people enjoy or come here for.

Character Design: 5 Stars (Team Bella and Team Nami.)

Character Background: 5 Stars (I hope the girl gets to recover from her accident.)

Story: 5 Stars (Slowed down and left to simmer like the home made stew your mama used to make.)

Animation and Music: 5 Stars (Probably my favorite feature of the game.)

Update Rate: 1 Star: (This is just a reason to not give a perfect 5 out of 5 stars, since it's still incomplete, fans will be waiting for more improvements.)

TBH I wasn't particularly interested by the beginning cuz there wasn't any build up so it felt really abrupt, but once college life begins the story starts to get interesting. It has really beautiful & smooth animations can't believe that I've finished 3.5 & still hasn't seen a single sex scene. But it's quite clear that the story is getting clearer now & has become far more enjoyable. This VN definitely has Gr8 potential & wish Dev all the best

Really, really loved this one and then there isn't any fap fap fap yet!

Good story, likeable characters, I can go in my direction with the MC (always choose the nice alternative, that's me), humor at my level and so on. They girls are different but lovely, all of them. Even if I have a favorite, but no kiss and tell.

What can I give some constructive criticism about? Well, nothing, that's why I gave it 5*.

Keep up the good work!

Absolutely love this game. The story, the visuals and everything is just perfect for me. The only issue is the slow development time. Really hope the dev will get the amount of support he needs to speed up his work.

Dear Ocean. What can I say about your game?! In my opinion, "Summers Gone" belongs on the big screen. The way you develop the characters and the incredible psychological depth of each person in your game, in my opinion, shows your extraordinary talent as a game developer. Everything about your game fits perfectly together, in my opinion. Whether it's the soundtrack (which kicks in at the right time), the fantastic animations, the elaboration of the individual characters. You can empathize with every single character and the story gets under your skin. That's why I think the game should almost be made into a movie. Provided that the story continues to develop so great. I'm definitely one of your supporters and I don't care if the game has sex elements at some point or not. It's a pleasure just to look at these beautiful women in your game. In terms of Storybulding Thank you for your dedication and time and effort. Thank you for sharing this game with us.

The game is not for people who are not able to read between the lines and manage to understand the thoughts and emotions of each character. The intellectual demand of this game is a bit higher, if you look closer and read the story twice.

It's a generic Visual Novel with click to see next slide gameplay about a young emo-guy in college and plenty of hot girls around him that basically fell all in love from the first sight (magic big dick syndrome.) There's some amount of relationship building choices (be nice, be rude etc.) with at least 5 of those girls with love/hate points system that doesn't do anything (so far all those choices lead to nowhere.) Maybe in later episodes it will turn into any sort of adult game but as for now (episode 3) there's absolutely no lewd content at all (which is just really weird.) Dev wants to tell a story (slow burn) but forgets it's an adult game after all and this it's just missed opportunities that i doubt he'll make up later in the story as putting 5 or 10 sex scenes in final episode would be just weird and out of place (sadly, it looks like the route the dev has chosen.) All those relationship building choices boil down to two routes: dark or dominating and light or friendly. The light part is just be nice to every girl and maybe in future episodes (that will come out in couple of years) you will get a kiss or something. The dark part is straight up shooting people or saying you'll kill them (#weird).
This game wouldn't really be worth playing if not for all those pretty girls around. There's plenty of them (harem building potential) in fact there's so many, they don't all get the attention and only one or two (Bella, Nami) are really fleshed out. The rest are just supporting characters that come and go and nothing really happens. As for art, all those girls look hot but some faces look different every episode as quality of those renders changed. You can tell that making this game took some time and judging by the update schedule and number of multiple routes there are, I really doubt it will ever get finished. And even if it will, it'll take so much time, people will probably forget about it. This long-term projects should only be released as finished products. There were so many of those ambitious games that were developed for many years only to be suddenly abandoned and left so many people blue-balled that i wouldn't get my hopes up just yet.

this is a review of summer's gone chapter 3.5 beta fixed

i know that there's a newer version of this game at the moment of posting, but this is the version that i played, and i have no intention of getting back to this game.

story - 1/5 described by most of the reviewers as great, original, realistic... is actually the weakest point of the game. i can't say that it isn't original, in a way, compared to other typical college games. everything else is total disaster.
- is it neccessary to wait for 4-5 updates to find about what happened with summer and mc ?
- nojiko is a doc yet she waited for 5 years to do something about mc's mental condition ? all of the sudden she has money to finance two college freshmen, and the most expensive "elite" psycho therapist ?
- traffic accident is total mess in graphic and literal sense. probability of 3 persons meeting in a rainy early morning near mc's house is zero. later we see that maja drived mc to distant location to visit victoria, which means that victoria doesn't have a reason to be there, except if she's crazy about the same bread rolls as nami ? marla's car is first at the left side of the road, then magically in the middle, than on the right side, and finally we can see it in another position when police car arrives. victoria was hit to her right side, yet she flew through the air like she was fired from the catapult, and landed in a position parallel to the crosswalk ? no visible injuries on her bodies ? mc's going from "she is not badly injured" to "let's cut her veins to end her suffering" ? then mc's get a chance to shoot at marla from point blank right into her face. no matter the gun was loaded with blanks, shots from that distance can injure and traumatize the targeted person. police officer that arrived at the scene is a total idiot not warning mc and marla not to leave the place of the accident. mc is going even further by disturbing the scene, he's stealing a purse (wallet) with victim's id, and he's running from the place !??? really ?
- btw dev used 3 complete sentences from a copyrighted mainstream game by bioware/ea !
- next messy/ ridiculous scene is in the hospital which looks more like a travel agency lounge. no direction signs, nurse on the reception dressed casually (naked belly, no uniform), bunch of chicks in shorts posing around... then you get info that victoria is in operating room, and that her room 430 is floor below? there you hear from maja that someone also threatened to kill victoria, yet mc enjoys his freedom, he's not arrested nor interrogated ? and the culmination is when nurse drives the wheelchair with veronica from operating room. she's conscious and in her pajama !??
- more nonsens a day later, marla in her usual "terminator mode", no signs of trauma, yet she crippled victoria day before, and mc shot blanks at marla's face?
- hope you enjoyed in cuddling sessions with amber (therapist), what an elte therapist. btw she can't handle her own daughter. amber is actually a very bad, and unprofessional psycho therapist unable to protect her patients privacy.
- than we have some "splinter cell" covert action with bella and mc entering, stealing and damaging property of some bad rich guys. wow !
- we have more of a james bond style scene in the restaurant with same characters. another wow !
- what about marla the super teacher ? she informed the students that she's going to be their teacher for most of their courses ???
- i can go like this like forever, but to me it's enough to see how unrealistic and immature the plot/writing actually is.

render quality:
chapter 1-2 obsolete graphics 2/5;
chapter 3-3.5 improved graphics 5/5
- nami is a redhead with a face ful of freckles, yet her body is like milk ?
- about wounds, or even better untreated looklike wounds on mc and sasha. let's say that mc was just grazed in the fist fight, because a hit in the jaw results in tko, almost always. grazed or not, the wound like mc's bleeding like hell, and needs stiches. sasha's scar looks like a work of a blade/knife, and it looks super fresh and untreated, too ?

characters: 3/5 variety of mentally and physically crippled characters, psychopats, sociopats. they are more complex than in most of other games.

sex scenes: 0/5 i know about the dev's ingame warning, but i'm still expecting that game has some sex after 3-4 updates.

animations: 5/5 but pointless because there are no sex scenes and animations of trees, leaves and bugs do not give me a hardon.

choices: 0/5 why zero ? because mc is forced to do so many things that are very important to story, no matter how lame story is.

updates frequency: 1/5 an update or two in a year is very bad thing.

with 30 chapters planned by the dev, and the fact that he didn't finish his first game, i do not see any sense in playing or supporting this game.

game deleted, thread ignored.

This game is a masterpiece. It's not your typical AVN where you get to be with everyone who's available. To be happy, the MC must face his anxiety, hopelessness, internal conflicts. The story has somewhat a dark undertone to it. After a tragic incident, the MC feels numb, and unresponsive towards strangers. He has two women in his life, his mother and his sister.

The college year is about to start as we begin our journey, and the MC must take his first real journey to the world outside of his comfort zone. He hasn't stepped a foot outside for two months and we will witness a beautiful story full of love, hate, melancholia and mystery.

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This game has a very special place in my heart. I feel angry towards myself because that I hadn't started playing this game earlier. If you enjoy a rich story, good renders and a MC cut from a different cloth, you have to give this game a chance.

Warning: The game has no sex scenes as of Chapter 3.5. Keep that in mind.

When it's good, it's really good.

But it's hampered every now and then by the slow pacing, the writing and characterization sometimes seeming too OTT which ruins the immersion and lack of balance between various girls' screentime and character development.

I'll come back to this in a year or two and revise rating accordingly, a 3.5/5 for now.

Gorgeous graphics, gorgeous girls. Excellent score/scene music. Some animated cut scenes. Don't know where our hero's journey is headed, but where ever it is, the eye candy will be top-shelf. No sex yet, but a lot of hot girls and a fair bit of nudity. Get/use the walkthrough.

This is a real game. Not just a simple Renpy off the mill game , but a real story with music, feelings and characters you can relate to.
Although there is no sexual content yet (3.5) it is still an excelllent VN in regards of story- and characterbuilding.
Looking foward to more updates

Well, nothing to say much its the "best thing "on this site:
Renders= second to none
Story = still early , but very promising
Characters= each and everyone has a personality, they are not just. mindlessly present in the game.

And my most favourite is the background and depth created with the music and complexity of mc and the others.

If you haven't played and it just because their is no intimate scene, then i can assure you that you won't even release that while playing the game.

only thing i want from this game is keep doing what it is doing right now and don't try to indulge more in the college side of game. These characters are soo well written that their personal lives are more interesting than some random school event.
(therapy session are the best )