VN - Ren'Py - Completed - A Petal Among Thorns [v6.0.2-RE] [Lockheart]

I'm not really used to review anything, but this game is between "Good that was fuckin' genius" and "Why this sounded so dumb?".

First of all, I'm starting with the goodies:

Renders
The game is animated - just because of that, it already scored with me. Everything has colors and details. Even when it's kinda bright-y, the ambience keeps being good.

Skin and Bodies
Don't worry, you'll never going to be as fit as the people in this game.
MC is close to 40's and still muscular as hell.
Petal's body is something you would see at American Pie - she doesn't workout, by the way. Literally heaven's sent.

Petal has a perfect skin touch, and really feels like an angel. Funny as she often claims to "be ignored by everyone" whilst literally being perfect, pretty chatty and interesting. We can't relate, folks. No worries.
Writing
Yeah, I'm not even close to be an English expert - it's not my primary language - but sometimes, the writing fails heavily on being something natural. Others reviews pointed it out, so I'm just saying that even for a non-native person, the dialogue fails between robot talking and genially human.

If you ever talked to a woman before - I know, I know... You don't... - you could say that Petal's dialogue is incredible. The writer is someone really smart at creating dialogue between Petal and her Dad.

Petal
She clearly evolves between conversations, and you get to know her personality just by the way she talks. Sometimes she's scared and sometimes she's confident. Sometimes she just gives up opinions and mature around taboos and problems - like adults do!

Then we meet MC or Daddy

MC is her Dad - in case you missed the tags - and he's pretty rational.
Just a natural Dad who worries about his daughter and wants all the best for her.

Isn't that great? He's a lovely dad. Unfortunately that was just the plan. His real desire literally appears in seconds when he thought:

"Petal's body matured perfectly . She matches her mother's resemblance."
Translating to: "God! She's just hot as her mother. I would bang both."
Now, we know that he wants to fuck her, but... MC can't have these sex desires! But he does. But he can't. But he does!

Skipping right to the point, MC keeps repeating himself over and over that he don't wanna fuck his daughter. He has nerves of steel! Congratulations!

Besides the fact that he already touched her naked body, felt almost all her body fluids and keeps getting horny until she's on point and ready for him, then he can complain:

MC:
"NO! I'm your father and you don't want to have sex with me, ok? Sorry, we can't... am so scared of people knowing and society taboos... "

And Petal goes:
"Dad, it's okay. I'm a full-grown woman. I know all the emotional feelings that sex causes.
I'm ready for it. Please, just... love me."

MC answers:
"I want you to be healthy and safe (?).
I don't want to hurt your feelings, Petal.
Please, just let me pretend I'm not getting a bone every time I see you walking or breathing."

At this point, you probably understood why 4* instead of 5*.
Petal is saving it all.

She rationalize through emotions and feelings, knowing all the trouble of doing it with her father, and she can't help herself but love her dad.

Dad, however, keeps repeating the same line over and over.
She literally begs for any reaction - even Petal's writer notices it - and MC keeps pretending to be mature while desiring her.

This is ridiculous to the point of him saying that in the middle of a 'close-to-sex' scene.
TLDR:
Petal feels like a woman growing. A real person that gives up to her desire to be loved. Someone that you would love to talk with.

Dad looks like he should've kept being a comedian and died alone, as he can't deal with romance while whining about not being loved.

I'm really not into Dad and Daughters intimations, and I respect his behavior of trying to be her dad instead of a boyfriend, but in this case, I got pretty angry at Dad for not being acceptive even when he lost an argument that he didn't fight to win.

very good story. the fact that it doesn't go too fast is very good and different from other games. In addition the 2 girls are very cute. no story on the other side between mother and daughter? Keep it up, I can't wait to see more.

Very good dialog, well-done animations, I just love these scenes and overall in general. Characters and their behaviors are damn good. One of the best games here. Short but very enterteining. Can't wait for the next game from this developer.

I love the Petal story, Probably my all time favourite. I do hope there is a lot more to come.

Petal Is so cute and the path she is on just offers so much room for more stories.

Keep up the good work and I can't wait for more of Petal.

2.5 out of 5 stars, rounded down.

What could be an interesting and sexy story is crippled by the dialogue. It's horribly overwritten; the characters oscillate between speaking like normal humans and technical textbooks. Half of the writing is too sterile, too mechanical, and too direct to be believable or sexy. The line that finally made me bust out laughing with how terrible it was happens some way into the game (though I was cringing at a lot of it from scene one):


That's now how people talk, goddammit. Especially not in that kind of scenario. Stop trying to TELL us how characters feel and what they're doing through spoken dialogue and SHOW us through actions and expressions.

The MC saying something like "Here we are, daughter, going out to the store to buy you some chocolate like I agreed to do an hour ago!" and having her respond "Yes dad, this trip we agreed to take to the store together is so fun and I'm glad I convinced you to do it!" is completely in the norm for this game. It's fucking awful.

I give it 2.5 stars because the bones of a good game are in here- good renders, a decent premise, and characters that (if they weren't so overwritten) could be pretty interesting. The music wasn't bad either.

Trim the fat in the dialogue and make an effort to believably show us emotions and sensations rather than just have the character verbally describe them and you'll have a solid game. Sometimes, less is more.

Right, I'll start with the short review.

It's an 8.5/10 game. While that is a pretty good rating, this is a prime example of a game that had every single part and function necessary to be a 10/10 yet it made some crucial errors. The main flaw being the inconsistency and passiveness of the MC.

Long review:

The good:
Art/image quality is definitely a 10/10. Not much to add. In my opinion, the characters look both great and unique which is exactly what you want in a game like this.

Story/characters are a 9/10. The story is simple, a dad is having a week off with his daughter after his comedy tour bombs. However, the time they spend together allows their relationship to develop into something that is no longer platonic. Is it a porn game-breaking tale? Fuck no, but it is done in a way that shows thought and purpose. Mainly, because the story allows you to focus on the 2 key parts of the game, Petal and you, which is a big plus. The only issue with the story I had was that the other characters that were not Petal were kind of forgettable. Were they integral to the story? In some ways, sure. Did they all feel like they were necessary or particularly interesting? I don't think so.
Quick note, when it comes to incest games, I don't think many characters are needed, so I see the pure focus on Petal as a plus.

Kinks are a 9/10. This is a pretty good example of how to do a dad-daughter relationship the right way (in porn). There is buildup (could have been a little bit more) but there is also the key ingredient that makes incest hot, the taboo aspect. In this game, the taboo theme is constant throughout the whole story and the evolution of the relationship seems quite logical. The mild femdom is not for me, but I will cover domination and submission in more detail in the flaw section. Other kinks are pretty basic so neither good nor bad.

The bad:
There is one glaring issue with the game, the primary reason this cannot be a 10/10. The MC is both passive and inconsistent as shit. Early on in the game, it becomes clear that MC will let Petal lead the relationship, initially. That is fair enough for the start, the dad doesn't want to push it, maybe this might lead to nowhere and the relationship gets fucked. This part makes sense. What makes significantly less sense is that by the time their relationship has evolved to a point of full commitment the MC is STILL in the exact same mindset as at the start. Petal evolves, but the MC remains, what is by now a passive, overly careful MC. I mean even nearing the end before the final sex scene, you have to get coerced into doing anything even close to fucking. Your daughter literally says that maybe the reason why you fail to get on well with her mom is that you were too passive, yet he still continues to act the same way. And the funniest thing is, the first scene is literally the MC dominating Petal. In some ways, his character seems to regress as the story carries on. The issue, therefore, is not that he is submissive, it's that he is passive and unwilling which is possibly one of the worst traits a playable character can have. Passive characters don't really do anything, they just get pulled through the story with very little interaction.

Last note: I hope the character confusion gets fixed in chapter 2. If the MC is still a walking dildo who makes 0 decisions then the story will suffer even more than this one. He doesn't need to become a macho man, who ties up his daughters and rails them for days (though that does sound fun), but he does need to actually do something.

Overall, still a pretty damn good game though.

Woah this game was absolutely amazing! I will start by saying that there are not to many sex scenes in this it is more of a story build up to the sex kind of game rather then a slam fest all the time.

In which I will continue by saying it does an absolute amazing job in all of that. The story is super good and it does a really good job of building up. The CG is also really well done along with the animations being just as good. The game also came with some really nice mechanics that allow you to edit information about the characters.

The game really leaves you wanting more and hope there will be a second one since this one leaves you on quite the cliff hanger.

It has been a while since I have last been motivated enough to write a review for a porn game, but A Petal Among Thorns goes way beyond the usual games of the genre.
The renders are top-notch and the writing is fabulous. Some will feel annoyed by the extensive texts, but they are there for a reason.
The game explores the development of an incestuous relationship between a teen daughter and her father in the short span of a week. Contrary to most games of the genre, the daughter is the one that tries to always push the boundaries a step further, while the father comes across as timid and restrained, prone to use flowery words and jokes to deflect and redirect situations that to him feels uncomfortable. Given a father that is used to making a living with his words, that is not out of character, but what some players might have overlooked is that all his words and all his jokes arise from his fear of imposing his fantasies and wishes on his daughter, thus, in his eyes, causing her harm. That doesn't mean that he is not sexually attracted to her, only that he is afraid to ruin their relationship and her future.
I have been writing incest novels for a few years now, the last of which has surpassed 5 million views on webnovel and scribblehub, so I am not entirely oblivious to the genre, and I truly feel that if the developer decided to convert the screenplay into a novel, it would be successful.
So, unless you care only for the images and not the story, go ahead and try it. You will be pleasantly surprised!

Solid 3/5 game with 1 big, big extra star for actually being finished. Very close to 5, but it's just not perfect in my opinion. The dialogue during/before sex is way off, the teasing is still there, but it's not fully natural. It's still great and for sure feels complete. Protip: the game is signfiicantly more enjoyable if you skip past dialogue in sex scenes and only read when its 1 line/1 sentence

It's weird to see 2 or 3 stars here. The story is great, the characters are great, the renders are really good. There is only about 3 other creators that are exceptional in their renders in comparison. The main thing that needs to be improved on is the animations.

The best part of this is the dirty talk. I don't think anyone can beat Lockheart at it. So many need to take lessons from this creator on how to do it right.

I wanted like this game but can't. The character is so strange, how old is she supposed to be? She acts like a 14 year old and a 20+ year old at same time and has body of like a 17 year old girl at least.


In general her character just don't make sense to me, did the main character groom the shit out of her as they grew up or what? Just can't get immersed in it. 2 stars for the renders.

I enjoyed the game and I will outright say that you should probably play it. Especially if your favorites are in between updates.

Basically I feel like the game has an interesting story but it kind of stumbles quite often. The main issue I have with it is that it's very wordy. One example of this is that the MC acts like he's never seen a pair of boobs before. He basically showers the daughter in all kinds of super cheesy adjectives as soon as a new step in their relationship is reached.

Another scene of this is when they watch a movie and it doesn't just fade to black with a short text. You get to see the "movie" and I'll honestly say I skipped it shortly after by just spamming next for some time. I think the dev just wanted to play around with some different environments and models. I felt like I missed nothing by skipping this way.

The premise is really good though and I WANT to give it a higher score but towards the end of the current content (chapter 4) I just wasn't enjoying it all that much. I think the second big issue is that the daughter is basically all "I want you to just grab me and have your way with me" and MC never does! She is always the one moving forward. It's almost like she's the middle aged person and MC is a 18 year old boy who has never seen boobs or naked butts.

I sound super negative but I did enjoy it, guess I'm just kind frustrated because it sends such mixed signals within the game.

great work i am really enjoying the role play between the characters.
I really hope you put Petal in your new game with bliss the scenes she was describing in this games text were truely erotic. I with this game would be a bit longer as it is very original and explores some wonderful taboo topics.

-Amazing! Thought it would be meh but wow great writing (Sometimes a bit too cheesy but its fine)
-Fell in love with the character faces of Lockheart's games!!
-Loved the first person view! (Much more personal than third person)

Things i would've loved to see:
-More feet stuff with better toenail paint (but thats personal)
-more pet play
-more story envolvement to have inuendos with the sisters together (maybe also with mom/wendy/girl at the store) as its further corruption which is hot imho.. love it when girls corrupt each other
Cant wait for more! Will be checking out the patreon!

Thanks!

Hands down, this game offers the most imaginatives sex scenes of corruption. The build-up is one the sweetest, even if Petal lacks maybe of character to my taste . Sadly, her only trait is to wanting to please the MC all the time, even if thank God, the game takes it "slow".

My review of A Petal Among Thorns

A game with good graphics and sound and decent writing.
Unfortunately I didn't really like the characters and the story...

The MC is a failed comedian and it shows:
He constantly makes unfunny puns, which his daughter apparently enjoys.

The daughter is very sexually forward from day 1 and feels more like an escort hired for daddy-daughter roleplay, rather than MC's actual daughter.
Her character just doesn't feel believable to me.

The story itself basically is just: You take a vacation at your relative's snowy winter home to reunite with your daughter after a 1 year comedy tour.
I've played for a few hours and the most interesting thing that happened was losing electricity for one night, so I don't think there will be many interesting mysteries happening here.

Since I didn't find it interesting it only is an average game for me.

Just played this for the first time (ending on chapter 4) OK where to start. This is an absolutely amazingly written story. It is funny (I actually LOL'd a few times playing a sex game). Not only is the actual story great but the little "scenes" of other movies and stuff the characters watch are also fun. Use of language is pretty much perfect. The conversations are realistic (given the subject matter) and the personalities of the two main characters really shine in the speech.

So the story is good but what about the artwork? Well while I have played games that had excellent stories but so-so artwork and lots with decent artwork but lousy stories. I am happy to say that this ain't one of those times. The artwork is amazing. It is well-posed, well-lit and uses a setting that I haven't seen before. While some animations are just the standard two-frame jobs, there are other animations that are smooth and really well done. The female character is really cute. Her eyes are a bit larger than they should be but surprisingly it doesn't detract. I actually got to quite like the look. In addition, the other characters in the "world" all look great (the ex-GF/mother is really hot). I can't wait to see them incorporated in the next game/chapter of the story.

So the story is excellent and the graphics are excellent what about the sex scenes. Well this a daddy/daughter game the sex scenes are really hot even only 4 chapters in. In fact the ending of the last scene of this chapter has to be one of the most erotic scenes I've seen in a game on here. This porn is so good you can actually call it erotica. There isn't a massive slow buildup but it isn't needed in the story and it still works well for one main reason.


I know the game is only meant for 5 chapters but if the dev can keep the quality where it is throughout the subsequent games/chapters then I'm confident that it won't feel like a rushed ending.

I heartily recommend this game, it is one of the best ones on here.

Renders Good 5/5

Models 3/5
The models while are good quality there are litle in content

Story 1/5
I don't know for others but the story is boring many times i found my self click through a sea of text

Sexual content 2/5
This is a sex game(supposedly) but we have reached at the end with no intersource at all and while the dialogues are hot the action are none plus the non existence of other female characters as romance options make the situation worse

Summary
The game lacks in several sections this game could be very good but the lack of sexual content and female characters as well a good story are destroying it...

This game has proven to me to be one of the most interesting projects this year! Each update gets crazier and I really like it.
It started off slowly initially, giving you some scenes here and there, but with each update you feel how the father loses more and more of his control, succumbing to his desires. The scenes in the newest update (Ch.4 as of writing this review) were incredible and themes are used that are barely used in other games (Petal showing off images of Bliss while talking dirty).
Especially this last part is a big strength of this game IMO, Petal talking dirty is on another level, it's crazy! Their dirty talks make me feel things that most other games don't manage to make me feel

Render quality and animations are also really good, so nothing to complain about there.

The only change that I can think of that would maybe improve the game would be the inclusion of different locations and settings. The game would be even more interesting if the game world felt a little larger, at the moment it feels like everything happens only in their home. I assume that this will change at some point in the future when the two go back to the rest of their family.

In general I'm really happy to see this game getting support and I'm excited to see more! Can only recommend.