''Cross Days'' is a Japanese erotic
visual novel
A , often abbreviated as VN, is a form of digital semi-interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with and used in the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with sta ...
developed by
0verflow
(stylized 0verflow) is a Japanese video game division of specializing in the production of mature interactive fiction. The Overflow label is known for its game franchise '' School Days''. Stack's headquarters are located in the in Kanda, ...
, released on March 19, 2010 for
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
and later ported as a
DVD game
An interactive film is a video game or other interactive media that has characteristics of a cinematic film. In the video game industry, the term refers to a movie game, a video game that presents its gameplay in a cinematic, scripted manner, ...
and for the
PlayStation Portable
The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PAL regions on September 1, 2005, ...
(PSP). The story, a dramatic
slice-of-life
Slice of life is a depiction of mundane experiences in art and entertainment. In theater, slice of life refers to naturalism, while in literary parlance it is a narrative technique in which a seemingly arbitrary sequence of events in a character ...
, follows the life of Yuuki Ashikaga, a high school student who becomes the ambivalent love-interest of two girls during his second term, and the effects this has on himself and his relationships with other characters. Though the game requires little interaction from users, ''Cross Days'' engages the player through a nonlinear plot that they are given opportunities to change the course of during play. The game is the third installation of the ''
School Days'' line of series, succeeding ''
Summer Days
''Summer Days'' is an erotic visual novel developed by 0verflow, released on June 23, 2006, for Microsoft Windows and later ported as a DVD game and for the PlayStation Portable (PSP). It is the second installation of ''School Days'' line of s ...
''.
0verflow announced work on ''Cross Days'' in December 2008. From February 2009 to March 2010, the game was postponed a total of six times, going on to perform marginally-well upon release. In the weeks following this, after it was illegally found on
peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer n ...
(P2P) networks, a
trojan horse
The Trojan Horse was a wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war. The Trojan Horse is not mentioned in Homer's ''Iliad'', with the poem ending before the war is concluded, ...
disguised as the game was released, publishing the personal information of unknowing users online for public access.
Following the game's release, ''Cross Days'' made transitions into other media: a manga was serialized in the
Kadokawa Shoten
, formerly , is a Japanese publisher and division of Kadokawa Future Publishing based in Tokyo, Japan. It became an internal division of Kadokawa Corporation on October 1, 2013. Kadokawa publishes manga, light novels, manga anthology magazines su ...
magazine ''
Monthly Comp Ace'' from April 26 to August 10, 2010; three
light novel
A light novel (, Hepburn: ''raito noberu'') is a style of young adult novel primarily targeting high school and middle school students. The term "light novel" is a ''wasei-eigo'', or a Japanese term formed from words in the English languag ...
s were published from September 15 to October 29, as was a strategy guide; a
radio drama
Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine ...
was broadcast during development; and the game's original soundtrack was also published by
Lantis from April 24 to July 21.
Gameplay
''Cross Days'' is a visual novel. These are essentially played by watching and listening to episodic sequences of story and then selecting, or ignoring, clickable actions or responses when they are presented to the player. These choices are intricately linked to alternating routes of plot, moderately changing the direction of the story as each is made, ultimately leading to erotic scenes between characters and one of various endings. In the game's ''
yaoi
''Yaoi'' (; ja, やおい ), also known by the ''wasei-eigo'' construction and its abbreviation , is a genre of fictional media originating in Japan that features Homoeroticism, homoerotic relationships between male characters. It is typi ...
'' routes, the protagonist crossdresses as a maid and engages in homosexual intercourse.
Like the games before it, ''Cross Days'' is presented with
limited animation
Limited animation is a process in the overall technique of traditional animation that reuses frames of character animation.
Early history
The use of budget-cutting and time-saving animation measures in animation dates back to the earliest commerci ...
.
The game is audibly stereophonic with lip-synched voice acting, sound effects and background music.
Plot
Yuuki Ashikaga is a high school freshman in his second semester at the fictional Sakakino Academy, who from his regular visits to the library, grows enamored by Kotonoha Katsura, a classmate who also comes to read. Despite being in a relationship, she genuinely reciprocates his interest. However, things become complicated when his sister, Chie, introduces him to Roka Kitsuregawa, a friend of hers. In an attempt to make herself seem harder to get, Roka claims that she is equally interested in Makoto Itou, another schoolmate. Her lie is unsuccessful, as Yuuki, aware that Makoto is Kotonoha's boyfriend, decides to ask her about the affair.
Setting
Unlike in ''Summer Days'', the story in ''Cross Days'' is not rewritten as a spin-off of the original story, but occurs during the events of it,
making the game a
parallel
Parallel is a geometric term of location which may refer to:
Computing
* Parallel algorithm
* Parallel computing
* Parallel metaheuristic
* Parallel (software), a UNIX utility for running programs in parallel
* Parallel Sysplex, a cluster of IBM ...
series to ''School Days''. As such, the undisclosed location of the story remains the same with focus being around the school. All signature characters and their established relationships appear in the game, with six new cast members.
Characters
''Cross Days'' follows Yuuki Ashikaga, a bespectacled young lad whose withdrawn school life goes awry when his affection for two girls begins to affect his relationships with his friends and peers. Though unaware of each other, the girls in question constitute the premise of the game: Kotonoha Katsura, a character well known throughout the franchise as the pivotal love-interest of Makoto Itou, and Roka Kitsuregawa, a newcomer whose efforts to make Yuuki jealous only serve to further complicate her relationship with him. Chie Ashikaga, the mildly abusive older sister of Yuuki, and Kyouichi Kasannoin, Nanami Kanroji's boyfriend,
having only previously made cameo appearances in the ''School Days'' anime, return to make more prominent roles, as does Ai Yamagata, a character last seen from ''Summer Days''. Rounding up the set of the cast are Ion Ishibashi and Kira Youka, a couple of friends who also make first appearances in the game.
Development
News of ''Cross Days'' first surfaced in the December 2008 issue of ''Tech Gian'', a magazine published by
Enterbrain
, formerly , is a Japanese publisher and division of Kadokawa Future Publishing founded on 30 January 1987 as . Magazines published by Enterbrain are generally focused on video games and computer entertainment as well as video game and strategy ...
, on October 21, showing first ever screenshots, reporting on the story and characters, and mentioning that ''Cross Days'' would contain 3D animation with a meticulously reworked plot and male protagonist. Also in October,
ASCII Media Works
ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because of ...
and
Gakken
is a Japanese publishing company founded in 1947 by Hideto Furuoka, which also produces educational toys. Their annual sales is reported at ¥ 90 billion ($789 million US).
Gakken publishes educational books and magazines and produces other ...
published articles about the game in their respective issues of ''
Dengeki G's Magazine
is a Japanese magazine published by ASCII Media Works (formerly MediaWorks) and sold monthly on the thirtieth that primarily contains information on bishōjo games, but also includes an entire section on anime based on bishōjo games, and seria ...
'', ''
Dengeki Hime
was a Japanese magazine published monthly by ASCII Media Works (formerly MediaWorks) publishing information mainly on adult visual novels. The magazine started as a special issue of the now discontinued ''Dengeki Oh'' in 1997, and in 2001 it be ...
'' and ''
Megami Magazine
is a Japanese monthly magazine which focuses on bishōjo characters from anime and Japanese computer and console games, edited by IID and published by Gakken Plus. It is known for having many posters, pinups and large pictures among the articles ...
''.
Promotion began shortly after. Besides periodically keeping the public informed on development and characters, 0verflow consecutively released downloadable, non-playable
benchmarks of the game from November 1, 2008, to May 4, 2009. Company staff attended Dream Party, an anime convention, in
Osaka
is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...
on November 16, 2008, selling ''Cross Days'' telephone cards while stores took pre-orders for the game, reportedly filling reservations in days. On December 5, 0verflow announced that a set of
USB
Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad v ...
teledildonics
Teledildonics (also known as cyberdildonics) is the name coined for virtual sex encounters using networked, electronic sex toys to mimic and extend human sexual interaction. The term became known after technology critic and writer Howard Rheingold ...
, collectively known as SOM, would be compatible with ''Cross Days'', manufactured by Goods Land. Trial versions of the game, released to about 95 select retailers, were disclosed by 0verflow on December 26 and at
Comiket
, more commonly known as or , is a semiannual ''doujinshi'' convention in Tokyo, Japan. A grassroots market focused on the sale of '' doujin'' (self-published) works, Comiket is a not-for-profit fan convention administered by the volunteer-ru ...
75.
On January 8, 2009, 0verflow announced that starting that day,
Lantis would be airing a weekly, episodic internet radio drama of the game's characters, titled ''Radio Cross Days''. Broadcasts were made regularly on Thursdays, finishing up on March 25, 2010 with 64 sessions aired.
''Cross Days'' was originally scheduled to come out on February 27, 2009,
but its release was postponed six times: to April 24,
June 26, November 20, December 18, January 29, 2010, and to March 19, 2010, when it finally came out. The much-anticipated game was released to several promotional campaigns, many of which were intercity screening venues that spanned operation from March 5 to 14.
Release history
On March 29, 2010 0verflow announced that an outdated
DLL had been released with retail versions of the game. A 372 KB replacement was provided via download.
The following day another patch was released to bring copies of the game up to version 1.00a.
''Cross Days'' was
ported
In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...
to two other platforms. AiCherry, an
interactive movie
Across the many fields concerned with interactivity, including information science, computer science, human-computer interaction, communication, and industrial design, there is little agreement over the meaning of the term "interactivity", but mo ...
developer, re-released ''Cross Days'' as a DVD game on April 28, 2011,
as did PalaceGame, a
UMD publisher, for the PlayStation Portable (PSP) on July 29, 2011.
Trojan scare
On April 15, 2010, roughly a month after ''Cross Days'' was released,
BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...
reported on the spread of a virus named
Kenzero masquerading on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks as unlicensed copies of erotic games;
one of which, according to software developer SPAMFighter, included ''Cross Days''.
Users tricked into installing the virus, termed a form of "
ransomware
Ransomware is a type of malware from cryptovirology that threatens to publish the victim's personal data or permanently block access to it unless a ransom is paid off. While some simple ransomware may lock the system without damaging any files, ...
" in the report, were asked for personal information and then had all of their web history posted to a blog, operated by
shell corporation
A shell corporation is a company or corporation that exists only on paper and has no office and no employees, but may have a bank account or may hold passive investments or be the registered owner of assets, such as intellectual property, or s ...
Romancing Inc., for public access.
NetAgent, a property rights company, reported that at least 5,510 people were collectively infected.
Those wishing to have their information removed could do so after acknowledging to viewers that they had attempted to download the game illegally. SPAMfighter has noted that the intrusive nature of the trojan was "in fact explained in
he software's terms of service".
Sales
''Cross Days'' for Windows premiered as the third most sold game on ''Getchu.com'', a major redistributor of visual novel and domestic anime products, during the month of its release, ranking twelfth for the first half of 2010, and thirty-first for the whole year. The DVD game ranked as the most sold DVDi for the first half of 2011, and forty-seventh most from November 26 to December 27.
''Cross Days'' for the PSP additionally ranked as the fifteenth most sold UMD game during that time as well.
Media
Manga
Based on the story of the game, ''Cross Days'' was published into a manga, written by Yoko Kagura and illustrated by Homare Sakazuki. 0verflow announced on April 4, 2010 that it would make its serialization debut in ''
Monthly Comp Ace'' on April 26. The series was circulated until August 2010,
published by
Kadokawa Shoten
, formerly , is a Japanese publisher and division of Kadokawa Future Publishing based in Tokyo, Japan. It became an internal division of Kadokawa Corporation on October 1, 2013. Kadokawa publishes manga, light novels, manga anthology magazines su ...
into a first and second volume, released November 20, 2010 and June 22, 2011, respectively.
Books and publications
In addition to the manga, ''Cross Days'' was made into other print. The first of these was a strategy guide and artwork book by Junji Goto, character artist for 0verflow, titled and published by Kinema Junpousha in August 2010. The subsequent three releases were light novels by different authors but whose cover art was drawn by Goto and illustrated by Jet Yowatari; each book retold the story of the game. ''Cross Days'', a novel, was published by Harvest Books on September 15, written by Mutsuki Mizusaki. Another novel, titled , was released on October 22, 2010 by
Shueisha
(lit. "Gathering of Intellect Publishing Co., Ltd.") is a Japanese company headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The company was established in 1925 as the entertainment-related publishing division of Japanese publisher Shogakukan. The foll ...
, authored by Hiro Akizuki. The final novel, was written by Yoko Kagura, author of the manga adaption, and was published on October 29 by Kill Time Communication.
Audio CDs
As was the case for ''School Days'' and ''Summer Days'', the original soundtrack of ''Cross Days'' was reproduced for distribution alongside the game, initially scheduled for February 27, 2009. As this was the first of the later six postponements, however, the album was republished and deferred to June 26.
Following the second delay, the soundtrack was held indefinitely until 0verflow announced on April 16, 2010
that it would be released April 21. The album contains all of the game's background music, all of which was composed by HIKO of KIRIKO/HIKO Sound, and theme songs performed by
Yozuca*, iyuna,
Ceui
Ceui (, born January 31) is a Japanese singer–songwriter originally from Chiba Prefecture, Chiba, Japan, though she grew up in Fukuoka. Ceui's name is derived from the Portuguese language, Portuguese word for sky, céu. She has been singing since ...
, Kotaro Odaka and Riryka, totaling 25 tracks.
''Radio Cross Days'', a radio drama broadcast from January 8, 2009, to March 25, 2010, was the second and final set of audio compilations made for the game by Lantis. Released as a first and second disc on June 23 and July 21, 2010, respectively, each album contained thirty-two segments of the broadcast, comprising the sixty-four total that were aired.
Merchandise
Considerable effort was made to market and promote ''Cross Days'' before and after its release, including the sale of brand merchandise. The limited edition of the visual novel came with a figurine of the Kotonoha character,
and 0verflow and its partners also sold
wall scrolls and
Zippo
A Zippo lighter is a reusable metal lighter produced by Zippo Manufacturing Company of Bradford, Pennsylvania, United States. Thousands of different styles and designs have been made in the nine decades since their introduction, including milita ...
lighters, as well as shower curtains, cushion mousepads,
dakimakura
A ''dakimakura'' (; from ''daki'' "embrace" and ''makura'' "pillow") is a type of large pillow from Japan. The word is often translated to English as body pillow or waifu pillow. In Japan, ''dakimakura'' are similar to Western orthopedic body ...
cases.
References
External links
''Cross Days''at
0verflow
(stylized 0verflow) is a Japanese video game division of specializing in the production of mature interactive fiction. The Overflow label is known for its game franchise '' School Days''. Stack's headquarters are located in the in Kanda, ...
''Cross Days''at AiCherry
''Cross Days''at PalaceGame
*
{{Good article
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Cross-dressing in video games
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Manga based on video games
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