Kud Wafter

Kud Wafter is a romance visual novel in which the player assumes the role of Riki Naoe. Much of its gameplay is spent on reading the story's narrative and dialogue. Kud Wafter follows a branching plot line with multiple endings; depending on the decisions that the player makes during the game, the plot will progress in a specific direction. Throughout gameplay, the player is given multiple options, and text progression pauses at these points until a choice is made. To view all plot lines, the player has to replay the game multiple times and make different choices to bring the plot in an alternate direction. Throughout gameplay, there are scenes with sexual CGs depicting Riki and Kudryavka having sex. Key released a version of Kud Wafter without the erotic content. ==Plot and characters==

Kud Wafter's story revolves around , the male protagonist from Little Busters! and Little Busters! Ecstasy, and , one of the main heroines of the same games and the title character of Kud Wafter. Kudryavka has her story expanded upon than what was seen in Ecstasy, which was itself an expansion on the story featured in Little Busters!. Kud Wafter begins at the onset of the summer vacation after the events of the peaceful field trip from Little Busters!. The other members of the Little Busters have returned home for the break, leaving Riki and Kudryavka to spend their vacation living at the school dormitories as they form a romantic relationship. However, the male dormitory is undergoing renovations due to a problem with the plumbing, leaving Riki without a place to stay. As Kudryavka has no roommate, she suggests to Riki that he live with her until the renovation on the male dormitory is finished, and Riki accepts. Riki and Kudryavka try to keep the other dorm members from finding out since it is against the rules for a boy and a girl to share a room. The head of the girl's dormitory is , the only main character other than Riki and Kudryavka to return from Little Busters!. While Kanata is good friends with Kudryavka, she is concerned about Kudryavka's relationship with Riki. Kanata succeeded the previous head of the girl's dormitory, a third-year girl referred to as . Since she resigned from being the dormitory head, the dormitory rules have become somewhat more relaxed, but she still aides Kanata because Kanata inherited the position. A-chan is the president of the home economics club, which Kudryavka is a member of, and she likes interesting and strange things. A young girl named is aiming to win a water rocket competition, and she becomes friends with Kudryavka and Riki while searching for a suitable plastic bottle. Shiina is a cheerful, energetic girl without a hint of shyness around strangers. Shiina has a Welsh Corgi named Ōsumi as a pet. Her dream is to become an astronaut, but her family is against it. Her mother is a picture book author, and she has an older sister, , a second-year high school student who also stays at the dormitory, even though her house is close to the school. Ui is a realist who does not believe in achieving dreams. She is frugal with her money and works part-time at a family restaurant. Ui used to play lacrosse, but had to stop due to an injury. ==Development and release==

After the release of Little Busters! Ecstasy in 2008, Key decided to produce a spin-off of that game, which focused on the heroine Kudryavka Noumi. The project's planning was headed by Kai, who returned to Key after he last contributed to the scenario of Clannad released in 2004. Chika Shirokiri returned after his work on Little Busters!, The artists Na-Ga and Itaru Hinoue were the art directors and character designers, both of whom previously worked on Little Busters! for Key. Jun'ichi Shimizu composed the game's music and was supervised by Jun Maeda. To advertise Kud Wafter, Good Smile Racing took Shinji Orito's 2003 Honda Fit and made it into an itasha (a car featuring illustrations of anime-styled characters) with images of Kudryavka. The car was driven around and showcased throughout Japan between April 19 and June 26, 2010. The car was put onto the Japanese Yahoo Auctions website on June 25, 2010, and sold for 1,699,000 yen after starting the auction at 1 yen. An adult version playable on Android devices was released on January 31, 2013. A fully voiced version playable as a Blu-ray Disc was released on March 29, 2013, by Asoberu! BD-Game, a brand of VisualArt's. Prototype released a PlayStation Portable (PSP) port of the game titled Kud Wafter Converted Edition on May 9, 2013, which contains additional story events and visuals. Key released an all ages version on June 28, 2013, for Windows, and it contains the additional content in the PSP version. Prototype released a version of Kud Wafter Converted Edition ported to the PlayStation Vita (PS Vita) on December 19, 2013. ==Adaptations==

Print A manga adaptation, illustrated by manga artist Bakutendō and titled Kud Wafter, was serialized between the May 2010 and February 2014 issues of ASCII Media Works' ''Dengeki G's Magazine. Six tankōbon volumes of the manga were released between February 26, 2011, and March 27, 2014. Two volumes of a manga anthology titled Kud Wafter Comic Anthology were released by Ichijinsha between August and October 2010. An anthology of a collection of four-panel comic strips titled Kud Wafter 4-koma Maximum was released by Wedge Holdings in September 2010. Harvest published Kud Wafter Anthology Comic in November 2010. Taibundo released a manga anthology titled Kud Wafter as the first volume in their Earth Star Comics line in December 2010. Paradigm released a novel anthology titled Kud Wafter Anthology: It's Kud Wafter! in September 2010. Harvest published a novel anthology titled Kud Wafter Anthology Novel'' in November 2010. ASCII Media Works published an art book titled on March 10, 2011. Anime Key's parent company VisualArt's announced they were putting together a production committee for a possible anime adaptation in January 2017. VisualArt's launched a crowdfunding campaign on July 18, 2017, to fund the anime adaptation, and it reached its goal of ¥30 million in three days. The campaign reached its final stretch goal of ¥60 million to produce a 51-minute theatrical anime originally scheduled to premiere in September 2019 to be directed by Yoshinobu Yamakawa at J.C.Staff with Key having complete supervision over it. However, it was later delayed to a September 2020 release with Kentarō Suzuki replacing Yamakawa as the director. The anime's theme song is "Light a Way" sung by Suzuyu. It was delayed even further to July 16, 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. ==Music==

The visual novel has two main theme songs: the opening theme "One's Future" by Miyako Suzuta, the voice actress of Kudryavka, and the ending theme by Haruka Shimotsuki. An insert song also sung by Suzuta, , is featured in the game as well. The single of "One's Future" was released in April 2010. Kud Wafters original soundtrack was released on June 25, 2010, with the original release of the visual novel. A remix album titled Deejay Busters!, featuring tracks from Little Busters!, Little Busters! Ecstasy and Kud Wafter, were released in May 2011. A piano arrange album titled Ripresa, which also features tracks from Little Busters!, Ecstasy and Kud Wafter, was released in April 2013. Each of the albums released was on Key's record label, Key Sounds Label. ==Reception==

In May 2010, Kud Wafter ranked first in national PC game pre-orders in Japan. The limited-edition version of Kud Wafter ranked first in terms of national sales of PC games in Japan in June 2010. In addition, Kud Wafter was reported to sell the most copies of any PC game in Japan for the first half of 2010. and at No. 26 in July. The game would go on to be the No. 9 game sold for the first half of 2010, and at No. 15 for the whole year. The PSP port sold 5,733 units in its first week of sales. Both the PSP and PS Vita ports were reviewed by the Japanese video game magazine Famitsu, which gave them an overall score of 27/40. ==Notes==