Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet
"Planetarian" was released on November 29, 2004 via download over the Internet playable on Windows PCs, and was first made available only to Yahoo! Japan Broadband users. The game was opened up for general sale on December 6, 2004. Key released a CD-ROM version for Windows PCs on April 28, 2006 in limited and regular editions. An updated version of "Planetarian" compatible for Windows Vista PCs was released by Key on July 31, 2009 in a box set containing five other Key visual novels called Key 10th Memorial Box. Another updated version compatible for Windows 7 PCs called "Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet Memorial Edition" was released on April 30, 2010. The "Memorial Edition" also came bundled with the three previously released "Planetarian" drama CDs. An HD edition for Windows was released on July 29, 2016. "Planetarian" was released on Steam by Sekai Project in English for Windows on September 12, 2014, with later support planned for macOS and Linux devices. The Steam release was updated on September 17, 2014 to allow the user to switch to the original Japanese version of the game.
Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet
"Planetarian" is Key's fourth visual novel, and had a small staff of three main people that did the majority of the work for the game's first release. Unlike previous Key titles, "Planetarian"s art director position was given to Eeji Komatsu instead of Itaru Hinoue who had held the position for the three previous games. Komatsu was chosen not only because of his specialty in depicting mechanics and robots, but also because he could represent short scenes which touch on a robot's existence to reproduce a person's ideals. Furthermore, Key was not short on staff at the time, and was not forced to outsource the artwork of "Planetarian". Jun Maeda, Key's main scenario writer and project planner, was left out of the project, and Yūichi Suzumoto was given the position of planning and scenario. The music, excluding a single piece composed by Shinji Orito, was arranged or composed entirely by Magome Togoshi, one of Key's signature composers. "Planetarian" was the first game under the brand name KineticNovel to be described by the term "kinetic novel".