Ren'Py Summertime Saga [v21.0.0 wip.5091] [Kompas Productions]

[TheGrandMasterCory]

I think I made clear what I meant in previous posts. They should simply avoid situations in which characters act outside of their character. For Eve's story that would simply mean a branch close to the end, where you have a choice between her and Grace. If you choose Eve you'll have her, while Grace and Odette do their thing, if you chose Grace, Eve will become a buddy and you'll have fun with Grace. I mean, they even introduce dialogs which hint this (all these choices were MC is asked if he likes Eve or if he wants to be Eve's boyfriend or not) yet they don't really lead to anything.

So in short, choices should just be as for Mia currently, as an example.

With regards to Grace, I don't think she was ever really intended to be a major/primary character.
Now I may be entirely wrong on this since you are more informed and experienced.
But based on everything we've seen so far, Grace doesn't really seem all that important in the game.

The MC doesn't really do anything special with her nor does he spend any real time alone with her.
At least with Helen, the MC was helping her with the rituals.
With Grace, there isn't much. Therefore, it would be weird if the player was suddenly presented with the option of either exclusively dating her or Eve.

Also, Grace is a character whose sexual frustration is being used by Odette to get her to have sex with the MC.
And Eve doesn't know anything about the MC having sex with Odette or Grace.
How are these characters acting "outside of their character" like you strongly claim?
How is this poor story writing or insufficient game design?
Especially when you take into consideration your ability to just not sexually interact with characters that will have you cheat.

I wouldn't go as far and to claim it should be/can be consistent across the game. It won't be. But I'm saying is that it should be somewhat consistent within a story's circle of charcters, like Mia/Helen, Judith/the Latinas, Eve/Grace, etc.


That's what this whole discussion thing is about, though. If you remove the choices they'll have to be or MC will have to cheat. You may want to read a few pages back in that case. We seem to be talking past each other massively.


As said, there'll always be some minor inconsistencies, though I'm sure some of this can be adressed once the dating comes, where dating several girls at a time will lead to point deductions. But it's certainly something for the final balancing once the game is done.

You are right. We were talking past each other.
I thought you wanted to turn this game into a single-girl per playthrough dating simulator.
In reality, based on my current understanding of your position, you just want there to be a good amount of branching choices that make it impossible for the MC to be able to get most, let alone all, of the girls in a single playthrough.

Personally, I like there being branching some of the time, not all of the time.
Ideally, for every route with branching I'd like to see three or four without.
I'm more of a harem-preferring guy but I understand the need to have consequences in the game to make it more interesting.
But having every route end with a branching choice, like I feel you desire, just doesn't work for me personally.

Also, if you remove all the choices that won't automatically make all the girls polyamorous like you claim.
It'll most probably lead to more of what we have now, every girl the MC dates being totally oblivious to him dating other girls.

Removing all the choices isn't the same as making threesome and foursome content for every girl in the game.
Now I'm not saying that I want all branching choices removed, I'm just stating your claim that this action will lead to all the girls being polyamorous is false.
So is your other assertion that if all the girls are polyamorous, it'll lead to a lack of difference/diversity regarding the girls.
At worst, removing all branching choices will just make the MC a

P.S. Did DarkCookie mention anything about Judith's route being related to the Latinas' route? Without that context, it seems to me that you are jumping to conclusions based on one early scene where Judith and the Latinas briefly interact.

I understand that and I disagree with it. Mainly because it's not what DC said was his vision of the game. I'm following a decent number of his streams for years now, and he even said a few days ago, that he'd like these choices, yet now they may be gone. He said that he didn't like the harem stuff, yet he implements it. I mean, he can do what he likes but I don't think it's a good idea.


The game was/is supposed to get a dating system which will lead to point deductions in case you date several girls at once. Once you finish a story, let's say in Roxxy's case you beat Dexter, you won't get the current sex scenes right away, but you'll have to start dating her. Good dates will give you points, bad dates will lose points and once you've collected enough you'll get small things like BJs etc. (that's why there aren't any for schoolgirls at the moment, I'd guess) and you'll be able to get the sex scenes and take that girl to prom. If you date several girls at once, you'll lose points.

That has been DC's vision so far as he explained it several times.

(Mid late edit: Of course you'll be able to further complete stories or fool around with other non school characters at that time, just no past-story-completion-schoolgirl-datinig as it sounded)

I'll state right now that I'm a little skeptical of this dating system that you're speaking of.
The devs have done great work so far, so I'm not too quick to dismiss their new ideas.
But this whole dating system thing seems quite different from what were currently getting and I (along with many others) like what we are currently getting.

Even so, DarkCookie is free to do as he wishes. I'm just pointing out that the development of a game has to always be a balancing act between what the developer personally wants and what his audience desires.
And right now, it seems his audience, near unanimously, wish for this to be a more harem-type game.
The one positive thing I will say about this whole dating system thing is that it seems like it will increase the replayability of this game.

You can do that in any scenario, though. Again, I'm not arguing for single girl approaches at all. A threesome with Eve and Odette fits perfectly in every possible scenario, just as an example.

I'm arguing to have branches which make sense.


Again, that's what this whole thing is about. It's about REMOVING branches and thus you'll always get every(!) girl one playthrough, no matter whether that really makes sense or not.

It means they'd have to write a story that includes Judith and the Latinas, it means they'll have to bring Mia and Helen together, it means getting June and Mrs. Johnson at once, etc.

As said, there's still a chance DC won't follow through with sticking to that poll but I think it's fair to have some criticism about the poll in the first place.

Cool, you're not arguing for a single girl per playthrough version of this game. Awesome.
In turn, I'm not arguing against having branches.

I just want there to be more branch free routes than there are branch routes.
I want the MC to have a lot of different girls he can cycle through in a single playthrough.
That's just me.

 

[Badjourasmix]

The premise of this game was always you go around town and fuck every girl and get them pregnant. I'm not even completly against having branching paths, as I said before I like the idea of helping Erik get with June. But this whole thing of "oh it doesn't make sense for him to be with Eve and then cheat on her with Grace and Odette", he is cheating on her with half of the town inclunding his family. The same thing with Judith, "oh if you get Judith you shouldn't get the latinas", but it's ok to be fooling around with all the other girls? None of that makes sense. It's a silly porn game. For me the appeal of this game was always the fact that it never took itself too seriously. If you choose Eve or Mia, it doesn't make sense for you to be having sex with any other girls aswell. But the game encourages it, if you're playing the main story and you have finished other girls stories you are forced to have sex with Tina you can't refuse her, isn't that cheating too? You can still have interesting characters and stories without the need of locking content out. Having linear stories doesn't equal bad stories, the same way having branching paths doesn't equal good stories. This isn't meant to be a hyper realistic game, you have monster girls and magic. Enjoy the game for what it is. Porn games don't need to be this intricate web of choices. Just make the stories fun and enjoyable with good sex scenes and you will have a great porn game.

Edit: Does anyone have any update on the poll results?

 

[srksrk 68]

With Grace, there isn't much. Therefore, it would be weird if the player was suddenly presented with the option of either exclusively dating her or Eve.

You're totally right. Except that MC saved the tattoo parlor

I want the MC to have a lot of different girls he can cycle through in a single playthrough.
That's just me.

You are not alone. For me, being able to have every girl in town makes half the fun playing the game. I am completely confident DC will find a way to make that happen in a plausible way.

 

[Badjourasmix]

You're totally right. Except that MC saved the tattoo parlor

You are not alone. For me, being able to have every girl in town makes half the fun playing the game. I am completely confident DC will find a way to make that happen in a plausible way.

Yeah that is that makes this type of games fun, you get to experience fantasies that would be very hard to experience irl. Like going around having sex with every single girl. IRL no one really wants to bang their moms but people like porn games with incest.

 

[srksrk 68]

The premise of this game was always you go around town and fuck every girl and get them pregnant. I'm not even completly against having branching paths, as I said before I like the idea of helping Erik get with June. But this whole thing of "oh it doesn't make sense for him to be with Eve and then cheat on her with Grace and Odette", he is cheating on her with half of the town inclunding his family. The same thing with Judith, "oh if you get Judith you shouldn't get the latinas", but it's ok to be fooling around with all the other girls? None of that makes sense. It's a silly porn game. For me the appeal of this game was always the fact that it never took itself too seriously. If you choose Eve or Mia, it doesn't make sense for you to be having sex with any other girls aswell. But the game encourages it, if you're playing the main story and you have finished other girls stories you are forced to have sex with Tina you can't refuse her, isn't that cheating too? You can still have interesting characters and stories without the need of locking content out. Having linear stories doesn't equal bad stories, the same way having branching paths doesn't equal good stories. This isn't meant to be a hyper realistic game, you have monster girls and magic. Enjoy the game for what it is. Porn games don't need to be this intricate web of choices. Just make the stories fun and enjoyable with good sex scenes and you will have a great porn game.

Edit: Does anyone have any update on the poll results?

My thoughts exactly. A game where a shovel fits into a backpack should make it possible to fuck every girl in town.

And the polls, they ended at 54% for "I prefer having access to all the content from a story in one play-through."

 

[Badjourasmix]

My thoughts exactly. A game where a shovel fits into a backpack should make it possible to fuck every girl in town.

And the polls, they ended at 54% for "I prefer having access to all the content from a story in one play-through."

Well now the question is, will DC abide by the poll or will he ignore it? If he doesn't have any intention of going by the results of the poll, there is really no point it making it in the first place. He will only get more complaints in the future.

 

[srksrk 68]

Well now the question is, will DC abide by the poll or will he ignore it? If he doesn't have any intention of going by the results of the poll, there is really no point it making it in the first place. He will only get more complaints in the future.

I think it's also possible to satisfy everybody. If you have the right dialog choices, you may be able to get every girl, or lock out some options if you choose so. It can be totally up to the player.

Of course, that would also mean to make some events like the Tina pizza delivery optional somehow.

 

[Badjourasmix]

I like the idea of freedom in this type of games, you should be able to get with all the girls if you want to. And I also think you should not be forced to be with any girl if you don't wan't to. Those are the type of choices I like in these games. That is why I liked Eve's story even though I wasn't really interested in her. The game gives me a meaningful choice without locking me out of any content.

 

[srksrk 68]

Let's be realistic. If this game would be an adequate image of reality, most of us would not bang one single girl in one playthrough.

That's why you play games. You already have all the realism you would want in real life.

The only realistic thing in Summertime Saga is MC's dick size. I never understood what people think would make that so special

 

[Badjourasmix]

Yeah it's a form of escapism. It's the same reason why people watch regular porn. If porn movies were realistic in their stories they would suck.

 

[Chris_Joe]

is anyone here from the fallout vault 69 thread? everybody says fv69 is the ripoff of ss. is it true? the only thing i know that its a pity that fv69 is abandoned it had so much potential

 

[Omnikuken]

^ There's way more obvious SS ripoffs around here ......

 

[j4yj4m]

@TheGrandMasterCory:
I'll answer quickly because I don't want to write even more too long posts which nobody will read.

1. Of course Grace isn't a primary/main character, but she's one of the very few "more important secondary characters" (in line with Helen, Mrs. Johnson, etc.) who doesn't have her own solo scene. Now it looks like she may won't even get a small subplot, as some others have it.
2. Grace for example really cares for Eve and thus I don't really see how DC could actually introduce a proper solo scene for her without breaking that plotline. More sexual frustration would be quite sad indeed.
3. Judith branch was always linked to the Latinas. Up until now the plan was always to either have a path in which you support Judith to "beat the Latinas" or to have path in which you are somewhat on the Latinas side and solve Judith's problem in some other way (we can guess that a good dicking may make them less interested in bullying Judith).
4. Live is just less fun without any kind of consequence. I know it's just a porn game but the linear ones are usually way more boring because you always know where you'll end up. I know, that's what many people want but I still don't have to agree with it.

I want the MC to have a lot of different girls he can cycle through in a single playthrough.

That would have always been the case and I never argued against that. I was talking about specific branches which could/should really use choices and that I would have liked at least one more in Eve's path. Roxxy certainly doesn't need a branch and I don't think Annie and Ronda will need one, either. For Mia and Judith on the other hand I think they are almost mandatory and for June/Mrs. Johnson it would be nice to have at least one.
The point is that the current poll could indeed lead to most, if not all, of these branches being removed. Again, I still feel we talked past each other most of the time.

And I also think you should not be forced to be with any girl if you don't wan't to. Those are the type of choices I like in these games. That is why I liked Eve's story even though I wasn't really interested in her. The game gives me a meaningful choice without locking me out of any content.

Are you sure about that? If you don't like Eve but want to have Grace or Odette you'll still have to fuck Eve first. I'd prefer the sitatuion you mentioned aswell, but it's currently not in the game.

Saldy I don't see the situation change. As you say, there's no way to avoid Maria and Tina in the main story, either, which I think is another medicore idea but that's probably just how the game is going to be.

 

[Badjourasmix]

I don't see why branching paths have to be mandatory for any of the stories. Lets analyze some scenes and stories. You have one scene where your mom, who you have been having sex with, catches you having sex with your aunt. After a couple of minutes of them talking about it, they say fuck it lets just have sex with him together. That same aunt has a milk delivery business where she uses her own breast milk, and when the demand gets too high, she decides to get pregnant with her nephew's child to increase production. Then you have a nun who is doing some weird bdsm shit with one of your classmate's mom at night in the church. These are just some examples of the ridiculous stories the game has. Is being able to get both Judith and the latinas or Mia and her mom more ridiculous than those stories that I mentioned? I don't think so. I actually think that is what makes this game so fun. I don't think adding limitations to the number of girls you can get with, makes the game any better. Unless you can only pursue on girl per playthrough the mc will always end up with multiple girls.

 

[j4yj4m]

@Badjourasmix:
It's indeed the level of writing that actually matters in my opinion. Sure, the game is full of strange stories and things, but DC said again and again that he wants characters to have a purpose and that he wants them to act in charcter. Of course you'll take shortcuts etc. at times but there's just so much you can do without making it just look badly constructed. There's simply a line to walk until immersion breaks and things become random and somewhat boring. Until now the game was great in managing that compromise.

He had many great compromises which I personally really liked, like Jenny staying bitchy, Debbie not fucking Jenny, Mrs. Johnson rewarding MC for getting Erik June as GF, Mia being happy because Harold and Helen were back together, etc. and now it looks like much of that is going out the window and we'll end up some cheap harem stuff. I may be damaged by reading quite a few manga in the past, but having a perfect protagonist who gets all the girls is just so extremely boring and at least for me there's almost no redemption. Many other games at least compensate with an abundance of sexual content but SS can't deliver really that for obvious reasons, which is probabably why the writing is actually important to me.

As said, it's my opinion. I canceled my pledge and I'll see how it develops.

 

[Badjourasmix]

@j4yj4m
I think you are right, it comes to personal preference. I personally love harem games. I think the reason why so many people like the game and why it is still so popular is because the game never really took itself too seriously, it always had a more comedic tone and had these crazy stories that would never happen IRL. Basically this game is every teenage boy's wet dream where you go around having sex with all the girls and they all fall in love with you. And it was how DC sold it at the beginning. I Started playing this very early on and when I watched his streams, he was always saying "Yes when the game is done you will be able to have sex with all the girls and get them pregnant". And I remember him talking about the harem feature very early on in development. I think he just didn't know that the game would become so big and have so many characters.

 

[artyomrusty]

I assume you had a dirty shutdown of your PC or a crash or such, resulting in corrupt save files in your save directory. Look for saves of size 0 and delete them (also consider your %appdata%\RenPy\SummertimeSaga directory).

I explained it here: https://f95zone.to/threads/summertime-saga-v0-20-1-kompas-productions.276/post-2815147

You could also install my mod (see signature), which has a fix for that error (your saves will still be corrupt but you don't get a crash any longer).

Bruh you are the fucking man I was about read to break my machine. I spent hours yesterday trying to fix it but honestly I had no idea what I was doing. And I already had your mod downloaded just didn't add it to the game since when i went to play it again it was broker than a bitch. Again thank you man

 

[srksrk 68]

2. Grace for example really cares for Eve and thus I don't really see how DC could actually introduce a proper solo scene for her without breaking that plotline. More sexual frustration would be quite sad indeed.
3. Judith branch was always linked to the Latinas. Up until now the plan was always to either have a path in which you support Judith to "beat the Latinas" or to have path in which you are somewhat on the Latinas side and solve Judith's problem in some other way (we can guess that a good dicking may make them less interested in bullying Judith).
4. Live is just less fun without any kind of consequence. I know it's just a porn game but the linear ones are usually way more boring because you always know where you'll end up. I know, that's what many people want but I still don't have to agree with it.

Just my 3 cents:

2. I always thought DC planned to enhance Grace's story a bit to give her a solo scene. In fact, the game's sources indicate that the game ia already prepared for that. There are times when Grace sits solely and naked in her room, Odette not being there. You can only talk to her, though, no naughty action. It would be very easy to integrate a solo scene for her there, re-using the existing animation, without Odette in the background. I would have modded that into the game long ago if I only knew if DC plans something like that or not. Only thing would be a matching dialog for that scene.

3. People keep saying this. I don't share that opinion. You could also say Judith's path would be linked to Mia's or even Ms. Ross because of the whole art session branch (or, very remotely, to Ms. Dewitt because of the broken flute quest during the music class quest or to Okita's because of her glasses).

4. What you say is true for real life. But for a porn game, I expect sex without consequences. Because that's what makes it different from real life. It feels strange that I must point that out...

 

[Badjourasmix]

3. People keep saying this. I don't share that opinion. You could also say Judith's path would be linked to Mia's or even Ms. Ross because of the whole art session branch (or, very remotely, to Ms. Dewitt because of the broken flute quest during the music class quest or to Okita's because of her glasses).

The reason people say that is because DC confirmed on stream multiple times that the latinas will be part of Judith's story.

4. What you say is true for real life. But for a porn game, I expect sex without consequences. Because that's what makes it different from real life. It feels strange that I must point that out...

Yeah that is also why I play porn games. It's a fantasy it is not supposed to be like real life at least that is what I look for in a porn game.

 

[srksrk 68]

@j4yj4m
I think you are right, it comes to personal preference. I personally love harem games. I think the reason why so many people like the game and why it is still so popular is because the game never really took itself too seriously, it always had a more comedic tone and had these crazy stories that would never happen IRL. Basically this game is every teenage boy's wet dream where you go around having sex with all the girls and they all fall in love with you. And it was how DC sold it at the beginning. I Started playing this very early on and when I watched his streams, he was always saying "Yes when the game is done you will be able to have sex with all the girls and get them pregnant". And I remember him talking about the harem feature very early on in development. I think he just didn't know that the game would become so big and have so many characters.

That's the problem. The game is huge. In terms of story and in terms of art. In fact, the naughtiness is lacking lately, because there is simply too few of it compared to the great story. What the game really needs are more naughty scenes, or positions, during a single naughty event. Some scenes have different angles or positions (Diane's breeding scene or Ms. Bissette's scene) or clothing options (Jenny, Consuela). Even pregnant options are beginnig to be integrated (Maria). We need more of those.