Summer Days
Encyclopedia
is a Japanese erotic visual novel
developed by 0verflow
and published by Stack, released on June 23, 2006 for Windows
. It was later adapted into a DVDi by AiCherry, released on April 11, 2008. The original computer game is notorious for being released in a highly unstable condition littered with software bugs and the sheer quantity of patches that followed in response. Summer Days was preceded by School Days
and succeeded by Cross Days
on March 19, 2010. A new game known as Shiny Summer Days is set to be released sometime this year, or the next. It has been rumored to be a either a remake of the first version with a new chraracter and senario, or different story with a yuri
genre.
Although the gameplay of Summer Days isn't different from its predecessor, it does adhere to the same presentation that made School Days popular. Instead of traditionally static CG artwork
with captions and subtitles for narration or dialog, the game is presented in a limited animation
format and style with voice acting; collections of scenes divided into acts, similar to episodes. The game is audibly stereophonic with a music score of 31 songs, sound effects and voices. Progress can be recorded in 10 save slots.
The limited edition game disc additionally contains an Adobe Flash
minigame called , featuring a super deformed
parody of the School Days ending . The player controls Sekai, who attempts to force off a manically assaulting Kotonoha by repeatedly pressing the Z and X keys in quick session, gradually filling a progress bar. The player wins if they are able to fill the bar to the maximum.
and is unable to attend to her part-time waitress job at Radish, the family restaurant, Setsuna opts to fill-in until Sekai is better. Although she comes to find the job is a little more demanding and stressful than expected, she befriends a handful of acquaintances at work, becoming particularly infatuated with fellow student and patron Makoto Itou.
, using new and original characters but having them meet during summer vacation instead of the first two semesters of high school. The fictional and unmentioned location of the story thus remains the same as it was in School Days, but with students out of school, focus is predominantly made around the urban and suburban areas, particularly the Radish restaurant and residences of the main cast. Except for friendships between characters that had preexisted prior to the story, the cast is unfamiliar with each other; effectively disestablishing the recognized love triangle between Makoto Itou, Kotonoha Katsura and Sekai Saionji.
With the exception of a few minor changes, the original Summer Days computer game has been ported to a current one other platform. On April 11, 2008, based on version 2.01, AiCherry released a four disc DVD TV game edition. Changes include the removal of time restrictions during choices, male voice mutability, route map and progress saving; replaced by password access chapters.
in spots. The company investigated the complaints and found that a major oversight had resulted in the game being released in a heavily defective condition. Previous updates that had been made to Summer Days while in development were not all entirely removed when Stack published and shipped the game, leaving in portions of faulty source code that caused unexpected crashes
, inaccessible scenes, routes, endings and muted voices. In response to this discovery, 0verflow issued an apology to customers on June 28, stating that work on patches
to fix the problems had started, and that customers who had registered their copy would be sent a new game disc when it was brought to its most stable version.
censor in erotic scenes, leading to a recall. Patches 1.01 and 1.021 followed the recall, distributed by 0verflow through torrents to prevent server outages, yet, despite these patches, more software bugs were found which in turn prompted the release of even more patches.
Patch 1.03 had a bug in itself that erased save data, patch 1.04 cycled the game in an infinite loop and patch 1.06 was unable to even apply itself. On July 23, patches 1.09 and 1.09B were released, solving most of the problems. Version 2.00 of the game was released after these patches with patch 2.01 later bringing Summer Days to its most stable build.
, Koriyama, and parts of Tokyo such as Akihibara, to showcase the game and a few of the character voice actors and actresses. This marketing effort proved to build up considerable excitement, and following about three weeks of promotion, Summer Days was officially released to the public on June 26, 2006. It premiered as the number one game sold on Getchu.com during this time, subsequently ranking eighth in the company for the overall year.
In spite of the eventful advertising campaign, however, the aforementioned buggy release of the game and series of unusually large, frustrating and numerous patches made it very unfavorable among players. As a result of this, a rumor surfaced that 0verflow was forced to layoff half of its company employees. Conclusively, Summer Days ranked eighteenth for the entire year of all eroge
sales, selling a total of 23,480 copies.
Depending on what choices the player makes throughout the first half of the game, it is possible to enter into a relationship with Kokoro Katsura, the younger and noticeably prepubescent sister of Kotonoha Katsura. If this occurs, two erotic scenes will eventually play; one where Makoto forcibly restrains and molests Kokoro and a second where he blatantly has intercourse with her. Although this generated contention, the scenes were never actually removed from the game, even after it was patched and re-released twice as version 2.00 and 2.01.
Visual novel
A is an interactive fiction game featuring mostly static graphics, usually with anime-style art, or occasionally live-action stills or video footage...
developed by 0verflow
0verflow
, erroneously Overflow, is a Japanese video game division of Stack Ltd. specializing in the production of mature interactive fiction. The company is best known for its popular game franchise School Days, which has spawned numerous multimedia adaptions and two sequels...
and published by Stack, released on June 23, 2006 for Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
. It was later adapted into a DVDi by AiCherry, released on April 11, 2008. The original computer game is notorious for being released in a highly unstable condition littered with software bugs and the sheer quantity of patches that followed in response. Summer Days was preceded by School Days
School Days (visual novel)
is a Japanese adult visual novel developed by 0verflow and published by Stack, and was originally released for the PC on April 28, 2005. It was subsequently released as a DVD TV game by Stack, followed by an all-ages port titled School Days L×H published by Interchannel for the PlayStation 2, in...
and succeeded by Cross Days
Cross Days
is a Japanese erotic visual novel developed by 0verflow and published by Stack, released on March 19, 2010 for Windows. It was subsequently redeveloped as a DVD game by AiCherry and for the PlayStation Portable by PalaceGame...
on March 19, 2010. A new game known as Shiny Summer Days is set to be released sometime this year, or the next. It has been rumored to be a either a remake of the first version with a new chraracter and senario, or different story with a yuri
Yuri
Yuri is a common first name in several languages, with alternately masculine and feminine denotations depending on the specific culture. In Russia, for example, Юрий is a common male given name meaning 'George', while in Japan it is a traditional female name meaning 'lily', and in Korea, it is also...
genre.
Gameplay
Summer Days, like traditional visual novels, is played by watching and advancing through scenes of plot and selecting actions or responses when a situation or character asks of them. These choices are structured hierarchically so that each one will redirect the already developing story in another direction, ultimately leading to erotic scenes and one of seven endings. If however, the player fails to establish the grounds to a relationship in the beginning, the game will prematurely end.Although the gameplay of Summer Days isn't different from its predecessor, it does adhere to the same presentation that made School Days popular. Instead of traditionally static CG artwork
CG artwork
CG is a term most commonly known in the West for its use in Japanese webpages to denote digital artwork. In traditional Japanese, it is an abbreviation of the Japanese gairaigo , used to refer to any form of digital artwork, from digitally shaded dōjinshi to legitimate cinematic art...
with captions and subtitles for narration or dialog, the game is presented in a limited animation
Limited animation
Limited animation is a process of making animated cartoons that does not redraw entire frames but variably reuses common parts between frames. One of its major trademarks is the stylized design in all forms and shapes, which in the early days was referred to as modern design...
format and style with voice acting; collections of scenes divided into acts, similar to episodes. The game is audibly stereophonic with a music score of 31 songs, sound effects and voices. Progress can be recorded in 10 save slots.
The limited edition game disc additionally contains an Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
minigame called , featuring a super deformed
Super deformed
Super deformed or SD is a specific style of Japanese caricature where characters are drawn in an exaggerated way, typically small and chubby, with stubby limbs and oversized heads, to make them resemble small children...
parody of the School Days ending . The player controls Sekai, who attempts to force off a manically assaulting Kotonoha by repeatedly pressing the Z and X keys in quick session, gradually filling a progress bar. The player wins if they are able to fill the bar to the maximum.
Plot
Setsuna Kiyoura is a typical high school student enjoying the summer break off from school with her family and peers. When her close friend, Sekai Saionji, falls bedridden with a common coldCommon cold
The common cold is a viral infectious disease of the upper respiratory system, caused primarily by rhinoviruses and coronaviruses. Common symptoms include a cough, sore throat, runny nose, and fever...
and is unable to attend to her part-time waitress job at Radish, the family restaurant, Setsuna opts to fill-in until Sekai is better. Although she comes to find the job is a little more demanding and stressful than expected, she befriends a handful of acquaintances at work, becoming particularly infatuated with fellow student and patron Makoto Itou.
Setting
While Summer Days is the successor to the original School Days computer game, the story is moderately rewritten as a spin-offSpin-off (media)
In media, a spin-off is a radio program, television program, video game, or any narrative work, derived from one or more already existing works, that focuses, in particular, in more detail on one aspect of that original work...
, using new and original characters but having them meet during summer vacation instead of the first two semesters of high school. The fictional and unmentioned location of the story thus remains the same as it was in School Days, but with students out of school, focus is predominantly made around the urban and suburban areas, particularly the Radish restaurant and residences of the main cast. Except for friendships between characters that had preexisted prior to the story, the cast is unfamiliar with each other; effectively disestablishing the recognized love triangle between Makoto Itou, Kotonoha Katsura and Sekai Saionji.
Characters
- Ai Yamagata is a student in year one of class three. Is good friends with Sekai Saionji, Hikari Kuroda and is an acquaintance of Makoto Itou from middle school.
- Karen Katou is the playful younger sister of Otome Katou. Unlike her older sibling, Karen is cheerful and unabashed who is just as playfully teasing as she is concerned of Otome. Of both girls, Karen is bustier. She is good friends with Kuzuha and Futuba Nijou and looks up to Makoto as her mentor and role model.
- Kuzuha Nijou is the older monozygotic twin of Futuba Nijou, distinguishable by her red headband and sailor outfit school uniform. Is a fellow classmate and good friend of Karen who looks up to Makoto as her mentor and role model.
- Futuba Nijou is the younger monozygotic twin of Kuzuha, distinguishable by her beige headband and dressy clothes. Like her sister, Futaba is a fellow classmate and good friend of Karen who looks up to Makoto as her mentor and role model.
- Employed waitress of Radish. Oruha Hashimoto initially does not like Setsuna and teases her with ridicule and put-downs, but eventually grows to accept her. Is good friends with Noan Murayama. Of the entire female cast, Oruha is the only girl with an established boyfriend from the start.
- The second waitress of Radish, Noan Murayama is roughly the same as Oruha, though she is more gentle and easygoing. Is looked up to as a role model by Setsuna.
- Mai Kiyoura is the biological mother of Setsuna. She is a restaurateur with friend, and slight rival, Youko Saionji.
Release history
Summer Days was publicly released in Japan on June 23, 2006. On October 27, Stack re-released the game, patched up to 2.01.With the exception of a few minor changes, the original Summer Days computer game has been ported to a current one other platform. On April 11, 2008, based on version 2.01, AiCherry released a four disc DVD TV game edition. Changes include the removal of time restrictions during choices, male voice mutability, route map and progress saving; replaced by password access chapters.
Technical issues
Shortly after Summer Days had made its commercial debut, 0verflow began to receive large amounts of mail and telephone calls from upset customers who complained that the game was buggedSoftware bug
A software bug is the common term used to describe an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program or system that produces an incorrect or unexpected result, or causes it to behave in unintended ways. Most bugs arise from mistakes and errors made by people in either a program's...
in spots. The company investigated the complaints and found that a major oversight had resulted in the game being released in a heavily defective condition. Previous updates that had been made to Summer Days while in development were not all entirely removed when Stack published and shipped the game, leaving in portions of faulty source code that caused unexpected crashes
Crash (computing)
A crash in computing is a condition where a computer or a program, either an application or part of the operating system, ceases to function properly, often exiting after encountering errors. Often the offending program may appear to freeze or hang until a crash reporting service documents...
, inaccessible scenes, routes, endings and muted voices. In response to this discovery, 0verflow issued an apology to customers on June 28, stating that work on patches
Patch (computing)
A patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, and improving the usability or performance...
to fix the problems had started, and that customers who had registered their copy would be sent a new game disc when it was brought to its most stable version.
Patches
The first of the patches to be released was an exorbitant 2.3GB in size. The scope of users and volume of traffic downloading this file was so great that the company servers reportedly became overloaded and crashed. While this patch did in fact resolve a few issues, it ended up creating additional inconsistencies, such as the removal of the pixelizationPixelization
Pixelization is a video- and image-editing technique in which an image is blurred by displaying part or all of it at a markedly lower resolution. It is primarily used for censorship...
censor in erotic scenes, leading to a recall. Patches 1.01 and 1.021 followed the recall, distributed by 0verflow through torrents to prevent server outages, yet, despite these patches, more software bugs were found which in turn prompted the release of even more patches.
Patch 1.03 had a bug in itself that erased save data, patch 1.04 cycled the game in an infinite loop and patch 1.06 was unable to even apply itself. On July 23, patches 1.09 and 1.09B were released, solving most of the problems. Version 2.00 of the game was released after these patches with patch 2.01 later bringing Summer Days to its most stable build.
Reception
Summer Days was generally received poorly. Anticipation of the game had been strong, as School Days had previously been a commercially successful title. To promote Summer Days and elevate hype, 0verflow visited select cities, notably OsakaOsaka
is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
, Koriyama, and parts of Tokyo such as Akihibara, to showcase the game and a few of the character voice actors and actresses. This marketing effort proved to build up considerable excitement, and following about three weeks of promotion, Summer Days was officially released to the public on June 26, 2006. It premiered as the number one game sold on Getchu.com during this time, subsequently ranking eighth in the company for the overall year.
In spite of the eventful advertising campaign, however, the aforementioned buggy release of the game and series of unusually large, frustrating and numerous patches made it very unfavorable among players. As a result of this, a rumor surfaced that 0verflow was forced to layoff half of its company employees. Conclusively, Summer Days ranked eighteenth for the entire year of all eroge
Eroge
An or Ero-ga is a Japanese video or computer game that features erotic content, usually in the form of anime-style artwork. Eroge originated from galge, but unlike galge, they feature erotic/pornographic content.-History:...
sales, selling a total of 23,480 copies.
Controversy
Besides the negative reception the game received for its bugs and patches, Summer Days garnered additional controversy in Japan for depicting instances of pedophilia.Depending on what choices the player makes throughout the first half of the game, it is possible to enter into a relationship with Kokoro Katsura, the younger and noticeably prepubescent sister of Kotonoha Katsura. If this occurs, two erotic scenes will eventually play; one where Makoto forcibly restrains and molests Kokoro and a second where he blatantly has intercourse with her. Although this generated contention, the scenes were never actually removed from the game, even after it was patched and re-released twice as version 2.00 and 2.01.