I followed this game when it was coming out in April, but only played it now. Some of it was me having to get over my own hangups that it had instilled in me on first blush: I recoiled hard at what I--ignorantly and hastily--perceived as yet another hollow co-opting of the nostalgic obsession towards the pop cultural residue of how we view the 1980s now, through a warped and reductive cultural lens. The signaling towards a commercially acceptable common aesthetic is everywhere once you become aware of it, in one content creator's vaporwave presentation or the next dozen's, as if to imbue the material with an inherent legitimacy in connecting it to an era so many have unbreakable emotional ties to. That is why I initially misjudged A Summer's End, in fearing it to be everything it wasn't. What it actually is instead of empty posturing is a lesbian romance tied inextricably to a place, era and cultural context without all of which its thematic throughline would fall apart, as decisively as removing the literal script from the narrative.
I can't speak for "authenticity" because late eighties Hong Kong isn't my cultural background or lived experience, only that from the point of view of an outside observer to someone else's heritage the research and love poured into this dramatized snapshot is evident in every small interaction and larger point of storytelling the game wants and does explore. The development blog alone (which I recommend reading before or after playing the game, or even on its own--it's rare that creators are this front-facingly sincere with their processes) is testament to the creators' breadth and depth of influences and their thoughtful integration to the story they wanted to tell, where the seemingly superficial trappings that people are globally familiar with can and do support a more personally intimate exploration of that shared culture, and lend context to those facets of it that are localized and unique in their specific anxieties and challenges. A Summer's End is not an educational game in the sense that it sets out to accomplish such, but that's part of how it's experienced as a reflection of gay history, Asian history, and the art histories that form its being. If you play this game, do install the free adult content patch, as the characterization it adds is integral to the development of the story, but also simply for the joy of likely the best explicitly sexual content in the medium, for depicting adult women sexily not for titillation, but for the sake of the relationship portrayed.
I don't want to go overlong with this, just recommend the game unreservedly for any possible reason that it might catch someone's attention for what it might appear to be at a glance, because it's far better.
I can't speak for "authenticity" because late eighties Hong Kong isn't my cultural background or lived experience, only that from the point of view of an outside observer to someone else's heritage the research and love poured into this dramatized snapshot is evident in every small interaction and larger point of storytelling the game wants and does explore. The development blog alone (which I recommend reading before or after playing the game, or even on its own--it's rare that creators are this front-facingly sincere with their processes) is testament to the creators' breadth and depth of influences and their thoughtful integration to the story they wanted to tell, where the seemingly superficial trappings that people are globally familiar with can and do support a more personally intimate exploration of that shared culture, and lend context to those facets of it that are localized and unique in their specific anxieties and challenges. A Summer's End is not an educational game in the sense that it sets out to accomplish such, but that's part of how it's experienced as a reflection of gay history, Asian history, and the art histories that form its being. If you play this game, do install the free adult content patch, as the characterization it adds is integral to the development of the story, but also simply for the joy of likely the best explicitly sexual content in the medium, for depicting adult women sexily not for titillation, but for the sake of the relationship portrayed.
I don't want to go overlong with this, just recommend the game unreservedly for any possible reason that it might catch someone's attention for what it might appear to be at a glance, because it's far better.
