Yarudora Series

Overview

The Yarudora (やるドラ) games are choose-your-own-adventure style FMV adventure games created by Sony's in-house developer Sugar & Rockets and the famed animation studio Production I.G. The name Yarudora is a mix between "yaru," the Japanese word for "to do," and "drama." When combined the term roughly means "performing a drama" or "a drama you do" which sums up the series's intent: presenting fully animated dramas that the player can "act into."

All of the entries in the Yarudora series play in a similar way: the game shows an animated cut-scene and every few minutes choices will appear onscreen where the player must make a decision in order to continue the story. Based on what choices the player selects, different cut-scenes will play and the story will unfold in a verity of ways. The Yarudora series is well known for its large number of endings with about 6-10 good/normal endings and 17-20 bad endings per game.

Installments

The first four Yarudora titles released in 1998 were developed almost simultaneously and where in fact originally planned to all be contained in one game called "Memories of Four Seasons" (フォーシーズンズメモリー) [1][2]. Each volume features the same setup, a young college student discovers a woman with amnesia and tries to help her regain her memories. Along with this premise, every entry is themed around a different season. Double Cast is Summar, Kisetsu o Dakishimete is Spring, Sampaguita is Autumn, and Yukiwari no Hana is Winter. Outside of these two similarities each game has a different story, characters, and art style with each volume featuring the work of a different character designer.

The last two entries in the series were released for the PlayStation 2 in 2000, Scandal and Blood: The Last Vampire, and do not follow the motifs of the initial four games. Years later in 2005 the original four Yarudora titles would be ported to the PlayStation Portable followed by Blood: The Last Vampire in 2006.

1998

• Double Cast - June 25th
• Kisetsu o Dakishimete (Embracing The Season)- July 23rd
• Sampaguita - October 15th
• Yukiwari no Hana (Snow-Breaking Flower) - November 26th

2000

• Scandal - June 29th
• Blood: The Last Vampire - December 21st

Sources

1. Surveillance Kanshisha Long Developer Interview Part 2 - (Dengeki Online, 2002).
2. Double Cast Script - Original title is on the cover of the script.