[RPG] School Tales: Summer Days (v0.1)

[arinori]

School Tales: Summer Days is a high-quality RPG Maker game with Visual Novel elements and 18+ adult content.

Plot:
The protagonist of this game moves back to his old home to start a new life. A series of unfortunate events on his first days of school get him into deep trouble. As if that wasn’t enough, the young man gets involved into the business of shady people. On his path of reaching his life goals our hero finds himself in absurd funny situations, dangerous scenarios and erotic moments with hot babes!


Screenshots:

Spoiler

Planned/current features:
· Role-Playing Game Mechanics: Relationship System, Quest System, Time System, Monetary System
· Non-linear Storylines
· An open City to explore
· Multiple Endings planned
· Lewd Scenes

A small list of planned/featured fetishes (this list is not complete):
· Anal
· Blackmail
· Corruption
· Exhibitionism
· Group MM/F, M/FF
· M/F, F/F
· MILF
· Teacher
· Voyeurism

Download Link to the current build v0.1 Beta (167 MB Win only):
DOWNLOAD HERE

Playtime: 25 - 30 minutes
(assuming you don’t skip any dialogs and take your time to explore the area a little bit)

If you like this game and want to help me with the ongoing development, please consider supporting it on my PATREON PAGE. Supporters get additional benefits (like early access and poll participation), but School Tales: Summer Days is and will always be FREE TO PLAY!

It’s the very first release and hasn’t much content yet. For now, I plan to update this game every 6 - 8 weeks. I hope I’ll be able to release more frequent updates in the future.

Thanks for checking it out!
​

 

[DawnCry]

Overall this post needs additional information related to fetishes and in fact it would be nice to know some information about how the game works. For example, following the concept we are a man involved in shady business and we have dangerous situations and all that, ok, but can I fail things or make mistakes?, or it would be rather just a plain bad ending and that's done?, time has an effect on missions?.

The concept can vary a lot depending on it. In fact the relationship system is another thing I would like to know about, overall it changes a lot if it's a simple system of "earn love points and go out with the girl" compared to something that has more depth like being able to be submissive or dominant in the relationship and other fetish stuff.

To end just a tiny critic to the art, all women in this game seem really masculine because of their faces, I don't know if it's intended but that's how I personally see it. Good luck with the project.

 

[arinori]

but can I fail things or make mistakes?, or it would be rather just a plain bad ending and that's done?, time has an effect on missions?

Absolutely! I don't intend to make every quest/mission super complex, but yes, you can fail some quests or quest objectives. This will have consequences (you'll lose relationship points/lose money/in rare cases it will change the direction of someone's storyline).
Bad endings (game over) will also happen, if you make a wrong decision. But these encounters will be very rare. So, just like in most games it's recommended to save often

As for the time system, yes, it has an affect on most quests. Let's say you have to get item X --> it is only obtainable during night.
What I don't intend to make or I am at least very hesistant of are time limits (for example: receive quest X and finish it within 3 days). I want to give the player the freedom to choose which quest/storyline they want to follow without the fear of missing out content. Also, this could end up very messy and buggy when multiple quests are active. In the worst case you might get in the frustrating situation where you have to chose between two quests.

the relationship system is another thing I would like to know about

The relationship system is a little bit more complex than "earn X points and get the girl", but I am not reinventing the wheel here. I think I explained it pretty well in the little tutorial section of the game. Maybe I should have pointed that out somehow, sorry.

But you brought up an interesting point that I didn't explain there yet, that is character development.
Most girls will change their attitude/behavior/opinion towards you as you play. They will learn to love or hate you. But that will be more determined by the decisions you make rather than the amount of X points you have.
While sub/dom also plays a thing here, I have a different approach to integrate submissive and dominant scenes. I must admit it hasn't been fully thought through yet, so explaining it now would be a little bit pointless.

I hope overall the concept makes sense.

To end just a tiny critic to the art, all women in this game seem really masculine because of their faces.

That's fair criticism. I guess it's just my art style, but I'll take it into consideration. I always try to improve.

Thank you for your feedback! I also added a short list of planned/featured fetishes.

 

[DawnCry]

I don't want to ask too much but I can't help but ask about a few topics more (you could make a Q&A with just me haha):

-In the game there are multiple girls that are cheating or it's more than possible that they may end up cheating their partners, be it the case of the rich boyfriend or the one about the gold-digging stepmother, so this makes me wonder if the girls can end up cheating with other people while being the MC's girlfriend.

-Lust and morality feels like they may end up having their boundaries really next to each other, it would feel weird that a higly lustful girl was a high morality one, it feels weird on a conceptual level.

-About the MC's stats I would like to ask if we can lose stats or it's just about getting them maxed, related to stamina could it happen that our MC could leave a girl sexually frustrated if it's too low?.

To end just a tiny note, "my manager and dad were going through a divorce in a time I barely remember", is it just me or there is a red alarm that is giving a warning towards the word manager? haha, this game doesn't hide at all "the secret fetish".

P.D: Towards timed quests... I would say that life itself is timed, if you want to try an interesting way to make the game rather than quests it could be story points of influence, overall characters would always follow their stories with more or less success, Emma for example will try to find proof of her step-mother being a gold-digger and it wouldn't make sense to wait for you to help her forever, the same applies to the rest of characters, but I understand that while interesting it restrains the freedom of the player, I just wanted to talk about it.

Overall I would just say that if you feel that a situation is urgent (for example the girl is going to be raped, she has a big debt, or any conflict that feels important enough) it should have some kind of time limit, other than that you don't have to.

 

[arinori]

I don't mind answering your questions at all. I appreciate your interest in the game!

makes me wonder if the girls can end up cheating with other people while being the MC's girlfriend

We are talking about Nice Time for Roo/cuckold here. This is in fact a really sensitive fetish. You either like it or you don't.
I don't want to bring heavy Nice Time for Roo scenes into this game. However, the other male chars will possibly also get a chance to get laid, but the player should never get the feeling that they're stealing MC's girl.

it would feel weird that a higly lustful girl was a high morality one, it feels weird on a conceptual level

Lust is the main attribute and morality acts as second parameter when it comes to scenes. So, they are indeed very similar in their function.
The difference lies the way how you manipulate these attributes.

Let me walk you through a small example to explain:
Kiss-Scene: need 25 or more Lust
HJ-Scene: need 35 or more Lust & Morality below 60 (-5 Morality)
BJ-Scene: need 50 or more Lust & Morality below 45
...
These are clearly just random numbers.
To get the BJ-Scene you have to repeat the HJ at least 3 times (HJ's will decrease the girl's morality by 5 if morality > 45)
You have several options to increase a girls lust. You could give her a present/toy or flirt with her. But then again, if a girls morality is high, flirting with her might not be very effective and may even result in losing lust. This way you have to take small steps at the beginning.

Of course, this example above doesn't apply to every girl since everyone has individual boundaries.
Some girls, especially the lustful ones with the slutty attitude, do have a low morality right from the beginning. In their cases you don't have to bother with morality.

I would like to ask if we can lose stats or it's just about getting them maxed, related to stamina could it happen that our MC could leave a girl sexually frustrated if it's too low?

Losing stat's was originally intended. For example, if you don't hit the gym for a certain time, you will lose one point in strength.
But I figured out this would make the game too grindy and repetitive. So yea, it's just about getting them maxed.
Leaving a girl unsatisfied if stamina < X is something I didn't take into account yet when I have to be honest. I'll think about it, thanks!

this game doesn't hide at all "the secret fetish"

Hiding it was never my intention. I'm just following Patreon's policy here since the "secret" fetish is obviously something I can't simply advertise.
Basically, I had two options here; rewrite the story and add the fetish later via patch or customize the wording. I preferred the second option.
While I try to adapt the script as best as I can, it just doesn't always work out. Awkward text passages like the one you mentioned are the result if you don't change the roles of the female characters right at the beginning.

I have to admit I'm not 100% happy with this solution. It leaves me with some restrictions when it comes to dialogs. For example:
Girl: "We can't kiss, you're my Roommate!" - Doesn't make sense right?
Do you know any games which handle the same issue better?

Timed quests work great in a linear game and I am not completely opposed to this type of quest. But in an open world game it's really just a pain in the ass to event/code them without blowing things up.
I guess I could add just a few of them, but that won't happen any time soon.

edit: spelling

 

[DawnCry]

Overall to end I'm just gonna say that if you add any "sensitive fetishes" I would recommend to just add an option to disable them for the players that can't tolerate them.

Heavy femdom, Nice Time for Roo and things like that I would recommend that players choose if they are on or off at the start, I'm just going to give an example so that you can optimize your playerbase, let's take the Nice Time for Roo one, the optimal thing would be that a player could choose from:

-Disable Nice Time for Roo: There won't happen any event between a male that isn't the MC and a female in the game, for those that just want to enjoy a harem of girls without issue on this aspect.
-Enable light Nice Time for Roo: Events can only happen out of consent from the MC, you can help your friends to get a girlfriend or have a threesome MMF.
-Enable Nice Time for Roo: Low friendship characters will try to steal your girlfriend, it's important to maintain a good relationship and be careful so that it doesn't happen, albeit it's hard to maintain a high friendship when you are both trying to get the same girl.

The same can be applied for femdom and any other fetish that could bother other players, people are complex and there are many that get turned off by many things, overall people have many preferences, some would love to get a pure harem sim in which, if there are males, they will be pure decoration while they become harem king, others like a bit of voyeurism and don't have a problem to help a mate to get a girlfriend and finally we have the fully option that actually integrates it into the gameplay, but still a good player should be able to stop it from happening if they want to.

Basically my recommendation would be that, toggle option for certain fetishes that lock some stats at 0 so that certain events never happen, it isn't hard to code and has a good effect by preventing a fetish for happening when people disable them while at the same time give you freedom to actually integrate said fetishes into gameplay as something to fight off.

Be aware that I'm not saying that you have to add any sensitive fetishes, I'm just explaining what I found as the best choice to deal with sensitive fetishes.

P.D: Try to appear on as many forums as possible, even pirate ones, overall it's important that you get a lot of visibility if you want to have a successful patreon, overall best of wishes with your project and hope my questions and feedback helped a bit.

 

[arinori]

For everyone who enjoys a particular fetish there's bound to be someone who doesn't care for it or finds it upsetting. You already mentioned it, people are complex.
To integrate a simple switch to turn off/skip unwanted fetishes would be indeed the simplest solution if I want this game to appeal to many people as possible and not just a few. However, it's clear that I cannot please everyone, no matter how much I try to tweak and adjust things.

Here I have to ask myself if I am willing to undermine the integrity of my work for the sake of success.
What I'm implying is that I am not a fan of switching off content. It's like reading a book when it suddenly says "skip the next 3 pages if you don't want to read the following violent part". (You can't compare a book with a game, but you get what I mean.) If I choose to add a controversial fetish, then it's going to be a part of the game. I am absolutely aware of the possibility of people dropping this game and that is to be expected. But instead of saying "if you don't like it don't play it", I'm going to be transparent of what I am doing while being open-minded to suggestions and new ideas coming from my playerbase. So, I think the best way to go is just doing my thing while being honest and communicative.

I don't expect getting much support until the first or second update arrives, where people will see that I can actually deliver.
But you are right, a little bit more advertising won't hurt.

Thank you very much for your input. You definitely helped me clearing my thoughts.

 

[DawnCry]

Fair enough, albeit rather than compromising I actually find it as a way to be able to make the game with more risks and things happening, all toggle on would be the game as intended while the rest are diluted versions for those that dislike them or don't want to fall into it even by mistake .

Good luck with the project mate.