Angel Beats! 1st Beat

Following the conclusion of the Angel Beats! anime television series in June 2010, Jun Maeda mentioned during a lecture at Kyoto University in November 2010 that he started writing the scenario for a possible video game adaptation.[5] Maeda continued to develop the project, although he prioritized other work he was involved in at the time, which led to the game's announcement in September 2013.[6][7] Takahiro Baba, the president of Visual Arts, initially conceived it to be an episodic video game released in multiple volumes, despite Maeda's misgivings and opposition to the idea, but Baba said he would take responsibility for any criticism from fans. One of the reasons for multiple volumes was with the large number of characters and scale of Angel Beats!'s story; Baba thought it would take at least five years to complete if they waited to release it as a single game. Baba also felt that an overly long play time could be avoided by dividing the game into multiple volumes.[6]

Maeda led the production team as the game designer and one of the scenario writers.[8] Two additional writers included Kai, who previously contributed on the scenario of Key's 2004 game Clannad, and Leo Kashida, who had worked on the scenario of Key's 2005 game Tomoyo After: It's a Wonderful Life and 2007 game Little Busters!.[8][9][10] In addition to each writer being in charge of certain characters' scenarios, Maeda also supplemented the scenarios written by Kai and Kashida by leading the writing in a collaborative effort. In designing the game's branching plot line and the choices the player can make, Maeda did not want to include choices for the player that would not have a meaningful effect, so the choices given were designed to have an effect on the plot and character interactions. Primarily based on the Angel Beats! anime, 1st Beat covers up to the ninth episode of the anime, including content unique to the game, before diverging into the individual character routes.[6][11] The plot was designed to diverge during both special event scenes accompanied by CG artwork and normal scenes before converging again. Maeda originally wanted to make Angel Beats! a role-playing game as opposed to a visual novel adventure game. Maeda also felt that it should have been released first on the PlayStation Vita.[6]

Na-Ga, who had previously provided the original character designs for the Angel Beats! anime,[12] also created the designs for characters introduced in the game, as well as some of the character art.[8] Several other artists worked under Na-Ga's supervision to initially decrease the release time between subsequent volumes,[6] including: Nazuki Fuei, Yūnon Nagayama, Juri Sakuraba and Falco Suzuki.[8] Much of the focus on 1st Beat is on a large amount of CG artwork, which has about as many CGs as Clannad according to Baba, which he found odd.[6] Rated for all ages and initially intended to be split into six volumes,[11] Baba had aimed for a release schedule between the volumes to be about six months. The first volume was planned to have the most content, and installing subsequent volumes onto the same computer would have overwritten certain scenes in 1st Beat.[6] However, in the afterword of the 11th volume of Angel Beats! Heaven's Door released in December 2016, Maeda revealed that subsequent volumes had been cancelled, with the content that had been planned for future games used as a basis for the manga Angel Beats! The Last Operation.[13]

A free demo of 1st Beat became available for download at Key's official website on May 15, 2015.[14][15] While 1st Beat was originally planned to be released on May 29, 2015,[16][17] the game was later released on June 26, 2015, as a limited edition version for Windows.[8] The limited edition came bundled with a 36-page official guide book titled Shinda Sekai Sensen Katsudō Hōkokusho (死んだ世界戦線活動報告書, Afterlife Battlefront Activity Report), a music album titled Holy, a CD containing exclusive recordings of the Internet radio show Angel Beats! SSS Radio, a rubber coaster, three rare cards from the mobile game Angel Beats! Operation Wars, and one promotional card each from the Weiß Schwarz and ChaosTCG trading card games.[18] A game patch for 1st Beat was released on July 10, 2015.[19] An official English version of 1st Beat was considered in 2016, but never confirmed.[20]

In 2015, Angel Beats! 1st Beat ranked four times in the top ten in national PC game pre-orders in Japan. The rankings were at No. 7 in February, No. 5 in March, and twice at No. 1 in April and May.[22][23] 1st Beat ranked first in terms of national sales of PC games in Japan in June 2015,[24] and ranked again in the top 50 highest selling PC games in Japan at No. 5 in July and at No. 20 in August 2015.[25][26] The Japanese video game magazine PCpress reported that 1st Beat sold the most of any PC game in Japan for the first half of 2015.[24] 1st Beat premiered as the No. 1 game sold on Getchu.com, a major redistributor of visual novel and domestic anime products, during the month of its release,[27] and at No. 12 in July.[28] The game would go on to be the No. 4 game sold for the first half of 2015 on Getchu.com.[29]

In a review on Famitsu.com by Taiga Asaba, Angel Beats! 1st Beat is described as not merely complementing the anime it is based on, but instead using the characters and setting to produce a wholly new story, which creates a separate charm surrounding the separate versions of the story.[30] Asaba notes that the theme revolving around family already present in the anime is expanded upon in the game for each of the characters.[4] Regarding the game's mechanics, Asaba found it fairly difficult to go down specific character routes, noting that a small change in how to diverge the plot line results in large changes to the characters. Asaba writes that its game structure makes it feel more like a game compared to other adventure games released around the same time, which have less choices available to the player and less-divergent plot lines.[4]

• Official website (in Japanese)
• Angel Beats! 1st Beat at The Visual Novel Database