[text] - A Summer Story (Remake)

[tooaya]

I thought it's her uncle? lol

I think the story's pretty complete in general... her uncle killed the boy, and Maya found out about the dead body and Takeshi told her what her uncle did. Her uncle found out, and in order to cover up what he did he killed Maya (in 7).

[Samu-kun]

Well, I'm a little bit confused there too...

Considering that Takashi got into an accident unrelated to the Uncle, why did he then throw his body into the pond, mistakenly believing him to be dead? Also, considering that in the Uncle's mind, Takashi was already dead because of an accident, why would he kill his family member to cover up a crime that he didn't commit?

[Cain0425]

i did what you say to do get ending 4 but all ever get is ending 2 pls help me i got ending 7 now only ending i have hard time with is ending 4!

[Samu-kun]

All you have to do is ignore Takashi and turn off the cellphone at every opportunity.

[Cain0425]

i did but ever time do that i get ending 2 or 5

[Cain0425]

i got ending 4

for but it little crazy being alone that long and dead can be a bad thing ......

[mangakaluna]

How do you get ending 7??
That's the only one I have lefttt DX

[xleracious]

I can't get ends 6 or 3! I need help Dx

[Muse]

Wow. I played the other version a while ago, but this one has so much more detail! I love it! great job!

Heh, I've been collaborating with a friend on how to get all of the endings. We can't get 6 and 3, haha. Maybe I should draw up a flowchart of choices...

[Cain0425]

this is what you got do to get ending 6

1) turn off phone
2)apologize to him
3)look for Ai's Cafe
4)Explore the shrine
5)Leave Phone on

you have to do it this way to get ending 6

[Cain0425]

this what got do to get ending 7

1) turn off phone
2)tell him everything's fine
3)look for Ai's Cafe
4)Explore the shrine
5)Leave Phone on

you have to do it this way to get ending 7

[dstarsboy]

I played through a few endings and it's alot of fun. Excellent work, Sake!

[sake-bento]

Wow, what a response. You guys are wonderful~

A couple people have reported that ending 01 doesn't always register, so I'm going to fix that. @^@

For people wondering why there isn't a good end, or why some of it is just so weird:

The story is actually highly influenced by The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe (Wikipedia). In it, Roderick Usher entombs his sister, claiming her to be dead, when she really isn't. He falls very ill afterwards, and she eventually returns to haunt him. It's never fully explained why Roderick wanted to put his dead sister in the tomb, only that he really insists on it. The story ends with Roderick and his sister perishing along with the house.

End 06 is probably the truest to the story, although the shrine and island remain in tact. In this, Hisashi the uncle represents Roderick, and Takeshi is the sister (hm...). Maya is the visiting friend who finds all of this out, but in the end is unable to change anything. I know it's not a direct parallel, but I wanted to exude the same mood at the end of the story of being vaguely unsettling and bothering the reader into wondering why it all had to happen in the first place.

Through the story, it's shown that the uncle is slowly going crazy, sometimes even forgetting that Maya exists. By the end, he doesn't even recognize her as family, or anyone of value at all, leading to End 07.

End 04 is a tribute to The Telltale Heart.

Edit: Updated with a version that actually registers End 01.

[machinist]

wow that was pretty depressing...

anyway i love the configuration and everything... looks very professional...
great game

[mysterialize]

*Breaks through the window with a flying kick*

Just because you're Sake-bento, it doesn't mean I can't write up a wall of text about your game! No VN is safe!

*Strikes a martial arts pose*

I just got all of the endings. The story was pretty interesting, and it's impressive how much you got across in something that was almost 100% written in text messages. However, you know you're a good writer, so there's probably not much of a reason for me to go into that too much. Quite simply, it's good.

Yet, as good as it was, a few bits of the story and characters felt a little odd, and the game just seemed to lack depth as a whole.

The main part where things seemed weird was in the interaction between Takeshi and Maya. While the start of their conversations seemed perfectly normal, and I can easily see why Maya would still feel comfortable texting him when he continued to send her messages, I'm surprised she didn't start to get a bit freaked out when he started to make obvious hints at his romantic interest in her. Especially since it was only after a couple days of casual texts. The only sorts of people who do that are sexual predators, and people looking for a quick hookup. I suppose she could just be naive, but even then, once he said he liked her, even she seemed to pick up on what he meant. Just getting flattered in response seems a bit silly.

Also, as someone else pointed out, there's very little hint as to while her uncle would act the way he did in endings six and seven. While I did read your explanation that you wrote here, in the topic, it's generally a bad sign if you need to explain things outside of the game just to make them make sense. At the very least, you should make it clear that her uncle is going a bit crazy in a way that's actually dangerous to the people around him. While you gave hints at his mental health deteriorating, all of the things that were mentioned just seemed like things that a normal, but senile, old man would do. I went through the entire game actually expecting there to be some sort of subplot about his bad health, rather than having it tie into the main thing with Takeshi. It just didn't seem serious enough.

Finally, and most importantly, the results of my choices often seemed unrelated to the endings I would get, and this really started to grate on me after a certain point. While I did catch a bit of a connection to an affection system with Takeshi, a lot of the decisions that lead to him liking you more or less seemed completely random. Why does he get to like you more if you walk around the shrine? Does it really matter that much if I left my phone off while sleeping? I was only able to get all of the endings by saving at very branch, and trying every to get every combination of choices possible. Even then I eventually had to result to reading this topic to find ending 6.

I was particularly put off by the Camping ending sneaking up on me at every twist and turn. It almost just felt like filler for when there wasn't a planned result for a particular mix of actions. At least the other bad endings had obvious causes, like your phone dying from keeping it on for too long, or you going to the pond when your uncle was around. The camping ending never had a cause.

Those things aside, it's a nice little game, and I enjoyed it up to my first real ending. I just really wish I actually had some meaningful control of what happened in it.