Everlasting Summer is a visual novel, produced by Russian game developer Soviet Games, that tells the story of a 25-year-old man living in modern Russia who finds himself mysteriously transported to a summer camp somewhere in the Soviet Union. It was originally produced in Russian and was first released in December 2013. The English translation was released in November 2014 when the game was made available on Steam. The game includes some adult content which was removed from the Steam release. An online version with restored adult content was released on Nutaku in August 2015.
Story
Semyon is a reclusive 25-year-old living in a large city somewhere in the early 21st century Russia, spending most of his time in his flat interacting with others on his computer and earning enough to keep the bills paid. One winter day he boards a bus to attend a reunion, falls asleep along the way, and awakens to find it's now summer and he's dropped off at the front gates of a place called Sovionok. Semyon soon discovers it is a Pioneer Camp populated by youth, including several attractive girls who show interest in him; furthermore, he has reverted to his 17-year-old self and it is now the mid-1980s Soviet Union. In the days that follow, Semyon must navigate the relationships and possibly find love with the various people he encounters, while trying to solve the mystery of how and why he was brought to this place, and how to escape and return to his former life once it becomes evident he may be trapped in a time loop. The game uses texts and sprites in a manner similar to many Japanese visual novels and runs on the Ren'Py visual novel engine. At various points, the player must make choices which will affect dialogue and determine what path the game will take. The game has multiple endings, some of them portraying Semyon forming a romantic relationship with one of the female characters, while others end badly. Some of the endings are not available until they are unlocked by completing other endings.
Characters
Primary
;Semyon/Семён ;Slavya/Славя ;Lena/Лена ;Alisa/Алиса ;Ulyana/Ульяна ;Miku/Мику ;Yulya/Юля All of the girls except Ulyana are portrayed as being plausibly 18 years old.
Game development started in May 2008 based off an image posted to the Russian IIchan imageboard. The project soon moved to IRC channels and had some drama and personnel changes over the years. Little was heard from the development team until a preliminary version was released on November 5, 2013, followed by the general release of the Russian version on December 21. The English version was released on November 19, 2014. A web version was released in August 2015 on Nutaku.net. This visual novel is also available on both Android and iOS devices.
Reception
Feedback for the game has been generally positive. Two Russian-language gaming sites, itndaily and Kanobu, gave it generally positive reviews, while a reviewer at Thumbsticks gave the English-language version a less favorable review following its release on Steam. As of March 2020, the Visual Novel Database gives it an average rating of 7.06 with over 1866 votes, and of more than 37,340 Steam users, 95% have given the game a Recommended rating.
