Devronman

Newbie
Nov 25, 2018
90
101
Hello everyone. I was just wondering if I could get some different opinions on this. I'm planning on making something soon and want to figure out what people like most in these types of game. Summertime Saga has been massively successful obviously, and I'm wondering what in particular, in your opinion, separates it from it's competition. Is it the writing, sandbox, art (2D vs 3D, original art vs repurposed, like in the games that use Koikatsu Party), etc. And where does competition fall short? Or do you think the success is more luck, marketing, or something else? If anyone is willing to take the time to answer, thank you very much!
The writing absolutely. Sometimes it can be hit or miss but it is LEAGUES better than the competition. Having a story where the women you're trying to date seem like actual people, and trying to go for a story that isn't just trite porn cliches at every turn makes this game a lot more interesting. Original art also helps a lot. The stuff you do in the sandbox is good, in that it lets you pick and choose your own way forward for the most part (even if a lot of us are completionists). The 2D art that isn't just copy-pasted from something else also helps a lot, its true.

It doesn't always succeed. But it tries to do its own thing, and that's worth a lot. Whatever you do, make sure it adheres to your vision, if nothing else.
 

Viressa

Well-Known Member
May 24, 2018
1,522
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  • Choice of models: This might be controversial, may seem counter intuitive, but I prefer it when a developer does not make every female character "look like they just stepped out of a Victoria's Secret catalog." It may be an "Alpha Male Power Fantasy" to have every LI look like a model, but I think games with a normal distribution is more relatable. In the case of SummertimeSaga, there are many body types included, but skewed a little toward the porn tropes.
This is actually something that bothers me quite a lot: Chubby tummies/muffintops are adorable but it feels like every developer is scared to death of adding a girl who doesn't have an hourglass waist. Except for the specialty fetish games made for chasers, of course, which make me uncomfortable in the opposite direction. And even those games shy away from realistic details of body fat like cellulite or stretch marks.

(And if you're reading this post and thinking, "But cellulite and stretch marks are gross!" then you're part of the problem.)


Anyway, as for me and why I enjoy this game, I'll play any game that has a nice selection of big titty MILFs, to be honest. SS also has pretty high quality art for a completely 2D game, and doesn't cut corners on details like backgrounds. The writing quality is... alright, but that puts it in the upper percentiles as the standards for storytelling in this genre are extremely low: I'm happy if the author can compose a non-broken sentence. It's not a perfect game by any means: If I could snap my fingers and make my ideal WEG a reality it would focus much more on the MILF half of the cast and make the teen characters minor additions at best, for example, but it's definitely top 10 and that's not going to change anytime soon.
 
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Overfoxed

Member
Dec 23, 2021
146
410
The writing absolutely. Sometimes it can be hit or miss but it is LEAGUES better than the competition. Having a story where the women you're trying to date seem like actual people, and trying to go for a story that isn't just trite porn cliches at every turn makes this game a lot more interesting. Original art also helps a lot. The stuff you do in the sandbox is good, in that it lets you pick and choose your own way forward for the most part (even if a lot of us are completionists). The 2D art that isn't just copy-pasted from something else also helps a lot, its true.

It doesn't always succeed. But it tries to do its own thing, and that's worth a lot. Whatever you do, make sure it adheres to your vision, if nothing else.
This seems like a good summary. There isn't one aspect of SS that sets it apart from all the other games; it's the sum of its parts.
 

j4yj4m

Forum Fanatic
Jun 19, 2017
4,130
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This is actually something that bothers me quite a lot: Chubby tummies/muffintops are adorable but it feels like every developer is scared to death of adding a girl who doesn't have an hourglass waist. Except for the specialty fetish games made for chasers, of course, which make me uncomfortable in the opposite direction. And even those games shy away from realistic details of body fat like cellulite or stretch marks.
To be fair, Judith kinda proves the point that chubby girls (even if they have great tits etc. and look actually pretty good) aren't as popular as many other characters. As a matter of fact she is really the least popular school girl and she'll have to gain her popularity by having a really good story.

So while I'd agree that games with a larger cast should have no issues adding a variety of bodyshapes, I can see why many devs are kinda reluctant to do so once we are talking about smaller casts.
 

Viressa

Well-Known Member
May 24, 2018
1,522
3,197
To be fair, Judith kinda proves the point that chubby girls (even if they have great tits etc. and look actually pretty good) aren't as popular as many other characters. As a matter of fact she is really the least popular school girl and she'll have to gain her popularity by having a really good story.

So while I'd agree that games with a larger cast should have no issues adding a variety of bodyshapes, I can see why many devs are kinda reluctant to do so once we are talking about smaller casts.
Judith doesn't super interest me either tbh because she's a teen, and even when I was a teen myself I just wasn't interested in young girls.

I *am*, however, looking forward to meeting her mom, as that seems to be the trend in character updates.
 
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kaki2017

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Game Developer
Sep 22, 2017
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Judith doesn't super interest me either tbh because she's a teen, and even when I was a teen myself I just wasn't interested in young girls.

I *am*, however, looking forward to meeting her mom, as that seems to be the trend in character updates.
Same, really just here to fuck the Milfs
 

Black-Wolf

Member
Jun 9, 2019
221
848
Hello everyone. I was just wondering if I could get some different opinions on this. I'm planning on making something soon and want to figure out what people like most in these types of game. Summertime Saga has been massively successful obviously, and I'm wondering what in particular, in your opinion, separates it from it's competition. Is it the writing, sandbox, art (2D vs 3D, original art vs repurposed, like in the games that use Koikatsu Party), etc. And where does competition fall short? Or do you think the success is more luck, marketing, or something else? If anyone is willing to take the time to answer, thank you very much!
The three things you need to have to make a successful game is:
1.Art
2.Art and
3.ART!
99.9999 percent of all games on this website are absolute fucking garbage because the art is just plain awful. Think of all the artists that have good careers just drawing lewds. Do they make games? No, because their art stands on it's own.
 

Johnny90H30

Newbie
Apr 11, 2021
60
39
This is actually something that bothers me quite a lot: Chubby tummies/muffintops are adorable but it feels like every developer is scared to death of adding a girl who doesn't have an hourglass waist. Except for the specialty fetish games made for chasers, of course, which make me uncomfortable in the opposite direction. And even those games shy away from realistic details of body fat like cellulite or stretch marks.

(And if you're reading this post and thinking, "But cellulite and stretch marks are gross!" then you're part of the problem.)


Anyway, as for me and why I enjoy this game, I'll play any game that has a nice selection of big titty MILFs, to be honest. SS also has pretty high quality art for a completely 2D game, and doesn't cut corners on details like backgrounds. The writing quality is... alright, but that puts it in the upper percentiles as the standards for storytelling in this genre are extremely low: I'm happy if the author can compose a non-broken sentence. It's not a perfect game by any means: If I could snap my fingers and make my ideal WEG a reality it would focus much more on the MILF half of the cast and make the teen characters minor additions at best, for example, but it's definitely top 10 and that's not going to change anytime soon.
Amen to you!
 
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PyoT

Member
Sep 3, 2020
307
395
... to get back on topic, some additional impression to my post a few pages back.

I think I saw most of the content now (or very nearly all, if you exclude alternative content, and stuff like "go around make everyone pregnant"). As is usual with these types of games the content got "less dense" to further I got along; right, in the beginning, chances are you'll have something to do in the morning, the afternoon, the evening, often even multiple events and you'll have to decide which to tackle first, plus you want to train stats and money. At the end there's a lot of bits where there's only one single thing left to do and you have to wait with nothing really to occupy you for it to happen ...

Obviously this depends on how you play the game. There's probably some that first max their stats and sit down to grind (or cheat) 100,000 moneyz and then progression for the game will be different than someone who perhaps does all of one route first and then the next, or somebody who deliberately only wants to the main quest first (or perhaps deliberately keep it to the end).
I'd say I played "normally" without any sort of deep plan; I trained stats when I had extra time or needed to to advance a story, I made money when I had nothing else to do or needed to to advance a story.

That meant that a big chunk of the main story got delayed a long time since the 5000$/10000$ cars are huge hurdles (plus waiting for the pregnancy) while all the other routes don't require anything too extreme.

Now one of the things the game does is keep the writing and the branches very simple - nearly everything happens independently from whatever else you are doing. Which for the most part is fine, although occasionally I'd say some bits are a bit jarring. But for the main story I really thought it was ridiculous at times; esp. the first bit with Iwanka - the reactions of the main character and his friend would have made sense at the beginning of the game, but really not at that stage anymore. And again, it makes the main story sorta that thing that happens at the end of the content and generally it doesn't feel like it necessarily should be that way.

I don't have any particular genius suggestions for this - obv you could lower the hurdles or increase money made, but the cost already feels low (btw - the beach house should be more expensive ...) and the income is already fairly high for everything else. So my none-genius suggestions are the following:
a) Fishing is useless and awful, but the evening slot generally has least events and other options, so allow an upgrade for night fishing so you can fish in the evening (and possibly get additional tries for more fish). That'd give it some niche use at least.
b) Streaming and the barn could give a small passive income. So even if you don't actively do them, depending on how far you got into those routes, they'd give a small extra bit every week. Heck, the characters involved even talk about how they'll share profits, it's just that ingame it's only "for doing it right now", it could easily be taken as "once a week you get a small share of the profits for your help" (on top).

I don't think either would fundamentally change too much but add up to a bit of extra cash over the time of the game so that perhaps the "buy new pizza delivery vehicles (and solely for the purpose of pizza delivery)" (which is of course critical to solving the criminal conspiracy of the city ... somehow) becomes less giant obstacles and more in sight of the player.

As for the story ... eh, I don't really know; not sure what I was expecting. I guess it was okay on balance; some things, eh, not the biggest fan maybe, but whatever.
 

srksrk 68

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Modder
Sep 17, 2018
4,396
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... to get back on topic, some additional impression to my post a few pages back.

I think I saw most of the content now (or very nearly all, if you exclude alternative content, and stuff like "go around make everyone pregnant"). As is usual with these types of games the content got "less dense" to further I got along; right, in the beginning, chances are you'll have something to do in the morning, the afternoon, the evening, often even multiple events and you'll have to decide which to tackle first, plus you want to train stats and money. At the end there's a lot of bits where there's only one single thing left to do and you have to wait with nothing really to occupy you for it to happen ...

Obviously this depends on how you play the game. There's probably some that first max their stats and sit down to grind (or cheat) 100,000 moneyz and then progression for the game will be different than someone who perhaps does all of one route first and then the next, or somebody who deliberately only wants to the main quest first (or perhaps deliberately keep it to the end).
I'd say I played "normally" without any sort of deep plan; I trained stats when I had extra time or needed to to advance a story, I made money when I had nothing else to do or needed to to advance a story.

That meant that a big chunk of the main story got delayed a long time since the 5000$/10000$ cars are huge hurdles (plus waiting for the pregnancy) while all the other routes don't require anything too extreme.

Now one of the things the game does is keep the writing and the branches very simple - nearly everything happens independently from whatever else you are doing. Which for the most part is fine, although occasionally I'd say some bits are a bit jarring. But for the main story I really thought it was ridiculous at times; esp. the first bit with Iwanka - the reactions of the main character and his friend would have made sense at the beginning of the game, but really not at that stage anymore. And again, it makes the main story sorta that thing that happens at the end of the content and generally it doesn't feel like it necessarily should be that way.

I don't have any particular genius suggestions for this - obv you could lower the hurdles or increase money made, but the cost already feels low (btw - the beach house should be more expensive ...) and the income is already fairly high for everything else. So my none-genius suggestions are the following:
a) Fishing is useless and awful, but the evening slot generally has least events and other options, so allow an upgrade for night fishing so you can fish in the evening (and possibly get additional tries for more fish). That'd give it some niche use at least.
b) Streaming and the barn could give a small passive income. So even if you don't actively do them, depending on how far you got into those routes, they'd give a small extra bit every week. Heck, the characters involved even talk about how they'll share profits, it's just that ingame it's only "for doing it right now", it could easily be taken as "once a week you get a small share of the profits for your help" (on top).

I don't think either would fundamentally change too much but add up to a bit of extra cash over the time of the game so that perhaps the "buy new pizza delivery vehicles (and solely for the purpose of pizza delivery)" (which is of course critical to solving the criminal conspiracy of the city ... somehow) becomes less giant obstacles and more in sight of the player.

As for the story ... eh, I don't really know; not sure what I was expecting. I guess it was okay on balance; some things, eh, not the biggest fan maybe, but whatever.
What you say makes total sense. However, the game is not yet finished and DC once said that when everything is more in final shape (character story wise) they would spend more on inter-character story writing, i.e. put more context into quests and dialogs. That might be what you are currently missing.

I also agree with the money making aspect. In addition, I would find it reasonable that MC had to pay for a living, at least for all the offspring he is fathering. That would make for a continous need to make money, to pay for the daycare alone.

The beach house once cost 20.000 bucks until they made it as cheap as now, btw.
 
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Viressa

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May 24, 2018
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As for the story ... eh, I don't really know; not sure what I was expecting. I guess it was okay on balance; some things, eh, not the biggest fan maybe, but whatever.
The main problem I have with this game is, to have a romance story you need both an appealing heroine and an appealing hero (or two heroines/two heroes if you're writing a gay love story), and you need to have a good chemistry between the two. All the writing in this game is focused on the heroines while the protagonist is a dumpy, boring, loser everyman. And it just makes me ask, every single time, "So, wait, why is she interested in him again?" Sometimes it feels like these girls are being mind-controlled into wanting to have sex with this MC they have no chemistry with and no reason to be attracted to.

(Actually, that could be a cool twist for one of these games: The protagonist is unknowingly in some kind of Westworld scenario where everyone in his town is actually a robot, and the girls are all literally programmed to want to have sex with him.)

The only route that kinda makes sense is the french teacher, who is written as some creepy child molester who is desperate to have an illicit affair with one of her students and the MC is just the only one who takes the bait. Which is, uhh, not great.

Plus, the humor is... not great, it ranges from "Porky's" on the low end to "Bad SNL skit" on the high end. The "Rump Family" and the mob boss being Putin was dated and cringe on arrival, much less here in 2022.
 
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j4yj4m

Forum Fanatic
Jun 19, 2017
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The main problem I have with this game is, to have a romance story you need both an appealing heroine and an appealing hero (or two heroines/two heroes if you're writing a gay love story), and you need to have a good chemistry between the two. All the writing in this game is focused on the heroines while the protagonist is a dumpy, boring, loser everyman. And it just makes me ask, every single time, "So, wait, why is she interested in him again?" Sometimes it feels like these girls are being mind-controlled into wanting to have sex with this MC they have no chemistry with and no reason to be attracted to.
Honestly, I don't think it's that bad in SS's case. At least not when you look at the stories that are supposed to have some depth (like Eve, Roxxy, Jenny, etc.). It's essentially your standard high school story of which there have been 1000s over the years with some lewd elements added to it.

In the end SS isn't supposed to be a classical VN, but a sandbox and as such there'll always be significant limitations of what you can and can't do.

Reading what you've written before about your preference, I'd even say it's very likely that you aren't really the focus group of the game, given there's actually only one "older" main character who'll get a full story (that being Debbie), while everybody else is younger.

I think SS is pretty clear across the board that it doesn't want to take itself too seriously and to me that's fine.
 
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PyoT

Member
Sep 3, 2020
307
395
Yeah, I mentioned that disconnect in my previous post and didn't want to go over that entirely again. I think it's largely okay...ish, but certainly not great.

The problem I find with the more serious (and generally) better bits is that they just make the problematic bits more problematic. Like, Consuela, and the whole "unthinking rescue makes the situation worse" thing; you can say that's good commentary on game protagonists and such, and, eh, you're saving somebody from sexual harassment, good on you.

But then you employ her and fuck her and while having a maid in a porn game that you can have sex with whenever you want isn't typically anything you'd give much thought, in THIS specific case, for a character that was precisely in that unwanted situation previously, it just makes it a bit "eww" (sure, through the magic of this being a fictional story we know she's into is and there won't ever be an actual problem with it, but still).

I also agree with the money making aspect. In addition, I would find it reasonable that MC had to pay for a living, at least for all the offspring he is fathering. That would make for a continous need to make money, to pay for the daycare alone.
Yes, I didn't want to overcomplicate the suggestion by "introducing" entirely new systems, but I agree that generally it'd make sense to have a sort of weekly balance where certain things have costs (cars, house, children) and other things give money (interest, being partner in a business, possibly something like a basic investment system on the computer or somesuch).
And then if you need some extra bit on top you do the various things that give you some cash.

Money in the game is otherwise essentially just repetitive grinding and while it never gets too bad I have a hard time believing that anyone actually thinks it's great fun. Kudos for the variety of mini games and such but ... they aren't fun. Just tolerable. So in my opinion it should be a small part of the game, and ideally one that still feels believable without making it an enormous grind.
 

mightybored

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Jul 5, 2021
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The number of kids in the daycare is however many MC has made in all the various playthroughs. So child costs will probably always be just short of insane.
 

twichman

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Dec 4, 2018
1,118
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The main problem I have with this game is, to have a romance story you need both an appealing heroine and an appealing hero (or two heroines/two heroes if you're writing a gay love story), and you need to have a good chemistry between the two. All the writing in this game is focused on the heroines while the protagonist is a dumpy, boring, loser everyman. And it just makes me ask, every single time, "So, wait, why is she interested in him again?" Sometimes it feels like these girls are being mind-controlled into wanting to have sex with this MC they have no chemistry with and no reason to be attracted to.

(Actually, that could be a cool twist for one of these games: The protagonist is unknowingly in some kind of Westworld scenario where everyone in his town is actually a robot, and the girls are all literally programmed to want to have sex with him.)

The only route that kinda makes sense is the french teacher, who is written as some creepy child molester who is desperate to have an illicit affair with one of her students and the MC is just the only one who takes the bait. Which is, uhh, not great.

Plus, the humor is... not great, it ranges from "Porky's" on the low end to "Bad SNL skit" on the high end. The "Rump Family" and the mob boss being Putin was dated and cringe on arrival, much less here in 2022.
It's just a fun porn game, not even a romantic novel, much less your real life. Take it easy;)
 

j4yj4m

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Jun 19, 2017
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The problem I find with the more serious (and generally) better bits is that they just make the problematic bits more problematic. Like, Consuela, and the whole "unthinking rescue makes the situation worse" thing; you can say that's good commentary on game protagonists and such, and, eh, you're saving somebody from sexual harassment, good on you.

But then you employ her and fuck her and while having a maid in a porn game that you can have sex with whenever you want isn't typically anything you'd give much thought, in THIS specific case, for a character that was precisely in that unwanted situation previously, it just makes it a bit "eww" (sure, through the magic of this being a fictional story we know she's into is and there won't ever be an actual problem with it, but still).
In the end it's not as bad as you make it sound. In one case she really needed the job and was molested by her boss. In the other case she works voluntarily for MC (after all, she's got the job at the hospital so she wouldn't have to) and she herself is the one who wants him to have sex with her. I don't even really think there's that much "magic" or "fiction" needed, it's just a different situation. I mean, it's not like she's got no alternative and MC is the one who made a move on her.
 
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