Ren'Py - Fashion Business [Ep.4 v10.00 Extra] [DecentMonkey]

This one is a head scratcher. The graphics are top notch, but honestly everything else is fairly subpar. The gameplay (at least for the first hour or two) is entirely linear but at least the story is interesting.

It just comes across as really mean-spirited in just about every way. I don't know, perhaps some people get hot over that, but the main character is legitimately awful. Then you hit "the twist" in the gameplay and everything that happens to her is legitimately more awful.

I was really hoping this wouldn't be a game where the main character wasn't abused/used by physically ugly men of low moral character.

Pros

• Lovely character models
• Interesting, well developed scenes/outfits/backgrounds. (For the most part.)

Cons

• The engrish is terrible.
• An unlikable main character and very few characters in the game you'd find relatable.
• The game is set in a nebulous country that I'm positive is called ShitCanistan, which is a lot like the US/UK except that the laws are specifically constructed in order to fuck the main character over. Really pulled me out of the story.
• Greasy, scummy, incredibly ugly men everywhere. All of them come across as these sad, cowardly schemers who have no motivation beyond trying to come up with a way of abusing the main character.
• A classic disempowerment plot line that relies on plot hammer alterations to the central premise in order to allow for a corruption story line.

Seriously, I get that this is the point of the game and I was trying to keep my personal preferences out of it.... but how many games do we need where people are genuinely shitty to women? If that gets you hard, then 3/5 stars, if that's not your thing then 1.5 out of 5. Out of fairness for fans of that genre I'll leave the actual review rating at 3, though a 2.5 is probably more fair. (It's Average, it's okay, it's fine if you like the plot.)

Just read the genre notes and know they really mean it!
Edit: To clarify, I am a super huge fan of the corruption tag. I'm more of a fan where the women actively enjoy the experience. So I did like the fact that things were happening to alter the main character's world views and morals, but the way they were implemented was not to my taste.

Reviews as of v0.3:

I was one of those that gave the RPGM version of the game a try and actually really liked it even with all its faults. But I was also one of those that almost begged on my knees for him to move over to Renpy instead.

And here we are a few updates later with it running in Renpy and actually showing some real promise for whats to come for Monica and the rest of the cast. The story is about Monica being set up by his (now ex) husband, or that's what I think is going on so far. You have the choice of having her being a real bitch towards everybody which will down the road get her into even more trouble, or you could be nice towards everybody and have a nicer time getting into trouble. This was actually something people wanted in the RPGM version as she was just a bitch, which is a nice change for those that found her to be a bit to much. I find her perfect in the bitch role, as I know somebody who behaves almost identically. Graphics and scene wise so is DecentMonkey up there with some of the greats, he have chosen models which for some of them I have never seen (Monica) and others rarely (Dick), the overall scenes just look great, heck almost professional in the way he stages them.

The game is open world but is easy to navigate, though the open world segments between each story/scene can be a bit of a grind at times, luckily there is a handy log book that you can look trough to get a good sense of what to do next, so getting stuck should not be a worry.

The game is currently a little low on h scenes, I imagine that will change with a update or two.. but for whats there so is it really hot.

I highly recommend this game as it has a lot of promise and Decentmonkey has been a real sport when it comes to taking feedback/criticism. Keep up the great work.

Firstly, i apologize for my bad english. (I'm Turkish)
Although my English is not good, i'm saw the end of this game.
I will summarize in one word "legandary"
I hope you'll give more effort to this game.
I think I'm a fan of this game.

-----LIKES----
It's a very powerful/different/good story.
Dialogues that do not disturb fluency.
Very good rendering.
Too many camera angle
The story is different and original.
It's gripping.
The choices we can make.

--UNLIKES--
What are you looking at? This game is perfect.

Good, unique renders, with original story line. Unique character models, not the same reused ones in 90% of other games. Open world, with some tedious grinding, but the creator has cut it down a bit. Hot female protagonist is a plus. Fairly regular updates for bonus points.

The good
--Gorgeous renders

The Bad
--really confusing interface to use. It's really hard to figure out how to play the game. I spent a lot of time wandering around trying to figure out what I needed to do next.
--Critical game choices make no sense.

The MC is initially presented as an authoritative, controlling, but ultimately successful woman. Yet she frequently engages in irrational behavior. For instance, early on you were given the choice of reacting to the maid's perceived slight by either ignoring it or destroying your own carpet and blaming the maid for it. What?? Why? Why not just fire her?

Later, the entire basis of her fall from grace is forcing her to engage in illegal behavior. No, she doesn't engage in illegal BUSINESS behavior or at least not the parts I got to. Instead, she once again irrationally reacts to a perceived slight and commits illegal acts in order to get even with those she perceives as having slighted her.

Just weird. So, playing the MC means I'm left with being a doormat or doing really stupid and irrational things in order to be the bitch and be corrupted. The seminal corruptive elements in the game are built on a structure of irrationality. Once again, even figuring out what those things you needed to do were not obvious and took a lot of mindless searching to figure out.

The sad thing is, I can totally see a bad or illegal business decision as leading to her economic fall from grace. Then she could either be corrupted trying to exonerate herself or trying to "get it back." Similarly, those same things could lead her on a path of redemption. So, it just seems weird that the Dev chose such an implausible initial path to corruption. It's unnecessary and really took me out of the game. I just didn't want to do stupid, irrational things as part of the gameplay.

My problem is that I take the narratives of these games too seriously and don't just randomly press buttons to get to the porn content. The narrative really matters to me.

This is not only a gem, its the Queen of lewd games.

Because its NOT just the usual.
The renders are superb, the main character actually has a noticable personality, and you actually make a difference on the story, reshaping the MCs personality in the way you like. This game takes its time, MC wont be whoring herself out in 5 minutes. Even if you want her to.
Now if you dont feel like doing the usual corruption/slutty path, fine! Do the bitchy revenge path and experience a different story.
So here we dont just skip a whole game when refusing to be a slut, we (need to) find other ways to get our stuff done.
Of cause its still a lewd game. And its still in the making.
Many paths are just opening or about to come.

But I see a legend of a game being made here.

The protagonist looks good but all of the men look comically ugly to the point where I want to stop playing because I just can't stand looking at them. Their ugliness combined with their exaggerated personalities and the game's silly music and sound effects makes it a rather displeasing experience.

Episode 1 had decent structure with the "good" and "corrupt" paths but it all gets thrown out the window in Episode 2. The second episode seems to be put together without much planning or thought. It's literally Episode 1 with added scenes and text so you get a ton of redundant locations. The gameplay and story is terrible as it seems to be made up on the spot, with poor pacing and too much repetition/grinding. The "good" path is heavily downplayed as the protagonist no longer has the option to say/do nice things and there's only a corruption meter (which even increases by cleaning? WTF?).

The events of Episode 1 were a bit of a stretch, but it is way more ridiculous in Episode 2. The protagonist acts in an completely implausible manner so that the game can push the corruption angle, making her seem incredibly stupid. Likewise, the other characters also act in a very exaggerated and unrealistic manner to maintain the corruption angle. Suspension of disbelief can only go so far.

Buckle up, pals. I feel like rambling about my favorite game of this genre.

I would love to give this game 5 stars even though I don't consider the game perfect, but it represents this genre of games so well, and many things some other titles do in an unsatisfactory manner, this game nails them.

Let's start with the basic gameplay design. I like ren'py alot, especially when it's used in a way that gives you a lot of freedom of movement around the locations. Optimally that would go hand in hand with different ways of completing quests, exploring the setting etc. Here we get to roam free at episode 2 especially, but there isn't a huge amount of different things to do yet.

The characters are really good, the MC is absolutely perfect for this role. She is beautiful, especially in a way that makes her a believable 1st grade bitch. But she's sweet too and there's a hint of innocence to her sometimes to be seen (of course depending a lot on your choices).
The characters are also fairly realistically designed. Absolutely beautiful bodies, and most importantly for me: 1. Good butts, most of the characters look like they have some meat on their thighs and ass. 2. Realistic breasts. I hate it when some games have their MCs look like they have been designed by a 10 year old boy (of course gigantic boobs are a fetish of their own, so not judging, just a personal dislike).

What I love about this title the most, compared to most other games, is the character development: In many other games, you spend some time to work on you MC's corruption, and voilá , you're sucking cocks and getting shit pushed in by every pedestrian and their pets. That kinda makes the whole story and indeed, the journey of the gameplay, completely trivial after that. Once the character has been liberated (I prefer to use that instead of the more negatively loaded "corrupted" ;D ) the rest of the game is just hunting different scenarios.
In 'Fashion Business', we see that no matter what direction you choose to lead her to, she's still a normal person, in the sense that she will not just suddenly rid herself of all her insecurities or boundaries after being felt up a couple times, or forced into a sexual deed. I thoroughly enjoy the ride, seeing how she slowly grows and maybe let's loose a bit.

Now , most of the negative feedback I think I can give, are matters of taste. My biggest turn-off with this game (and this is one of those cases of personal taste) is the design of the world when it comes to the whole "animal farm" thing. I understand that the situations in these games are supposed to be entertaining, and that makes some of the stuff leading to them inherently unrealistic. That said, I wish there would have been a more realistic way of getting Monica in trouble than randomly the world (or country) becoming the most insane, Kim-Jong -wannabe police state where the cops can do anything they want, no due process or any sense of judicial process.

In the end, I love this game, and the main character. Say what you say about Monica, I feel for her Yes, she's a bitch, probably not by choice but by the environment she's grown up in. If this project continues, I'm sure we can lead her down from her ivory tower, and show her all the fun that's waiting for her around the corners of the streets...

One of the best games I've ever played. Renders are absolutely amazing and they are unique. Story and characters are well made. In my opinion the game has no minuses. 6 stars from 5. I wish the developer a lot of inspiration for new episodes.

I do not get the great ratings. The dialogue is terrible, there is an enormous amount of grinding, and the grinding is not even useful: it's purely a function of the incredibly poor design.Every morning, go through the same routine: take a shower, get breakfast, leave the house. That process takes around 100 clicks, for no good reason.
Renders are great, and situations are sexy. But it takes so long to get from one to the next, and you have to read so much poorly written dialogue, that it kills any hope of satisfaction.

I kind of want to give 4.5 stars because Monica's relentless bad luck is getting to me. I'd just like her to catch a break. I think the girls are hot and I feel Monica has a personality even if you control it yourself. There are a lot of twists but it is like being in a maze when someone tells you the way out and suddenly someone presses the flip button.

It's one of those games with terrible writing and asshole male characters (though to be fair the MC is the worse of them). It has a lot of pointless exploitative angles and the dialogs are plain awful, though having an arrogant MC doesn't help.

The renders can be pretty good and the character designs and clothing are nice. Specially the backgrounds that are top notch. The fact that almost all objects are interactive is a nice touch.

The game play is fairly simple and on point though it's a bit annoying that you can't save during dialogs.

All in all it seems like it's a game that took a lot of work to make but the end result isn't enjoyable.

To be fair and honest, the story is fantastic, the renders are super amazing but there is one thing that made me drop the game and close it forever is the way it is built to grind the hell out of the player and makes me bored to death with doing stuff over and over and over with no point...... show me a stripper that takes 0.5 dollars for squeezing her boobs and ass....... really? it is totally annoying to keep scrolling through the whole process over and over and over and over again!! this game has become gamer-enemy and it is really making me sad with the quality of such a game ... sometimes working too hard does not mean you are doing it right, I fully understand the process of making such a game and the amount of time it takes to put things together but you need to work right along with working hard....

I hope the developer sees this and realizes that it is only constructive criticism and do something about it

From the start I wanted to something bad happened to the MC but when she got into prison I wanted to get out and start my vengeful path. I wanted to get my high life back. I felf really pitty because everybody was a dougebag to me through I helepd them in the first episode. I had nowhere to sleep, nothing to eat and I had to survive in icy rain. The game awaken some feeling I did not expect and I love it. The models are high-quality, the game also has sounds, animated scenes, nice quest log.

I finally found time to try this game, and I can say that this is one of the worst games ever made.
There is unavoidable sexual content related to, for certain people unappealing fetish, and players are forced either to watch it or to delete game into trash bin, as I did. (Funny thing, all other previous sex scenes were avoidable, so questions are raised why this one wasn't? ) Besides that, MC's going around with some, for certain players, unappealing dude on dates...Seriously? Where is option to decline him?
Characters are bad, very bad written. MC especially, she acts like she have some kind of mental disorder, cause she's doing things highly conflicted to her own personality. It's absolutely unrealistic, even for a porn game. That is also big minus.
Storyline is ...just meh...It could be much, much better.
Game mechanics are beyound horrible. VN combined with RPG - it's recipe for absolute disaster. Recipe for boring and annoying.
Quality of renders is satisfying. Good thing is unique character (at least I didn't saw that model used as MC anywhere else). Which is only positive aspect of this game.
My rating is one star, but yet, I'm under impression that one star is way more than this game actually deserves.

Awesome game! The perfect balance between "hit a button to read another text window" and "grind your ass to death" types of games. Zero grind with some of real "gameplay" (not just hitting one "next" button). Perfect character, amazing CG (and LOTS of them). Plus intriguing story. Not like 99% other "motherfucker stories" or "5 min in the game and I'm so shy that I'll suck all the dicks that I meet". Also has some variety. Yeah, not that much as some would prefer, especially in Episode 1, but a lot of games are much more linear than this one. So, Keep the good work, dude! Hope you'll get the fame you deserve soon. 9.5/10.

Story: You play as a wife of some rich dude and now she's rich. The story provides a decent environment for the female protagonists corruption. You can make her bitchy or nice, both of which are not erotic. Bitchy is annoying, nice is boring.

Character beauty: The main characters face is problematic, unattractive and lacks make up. You'd think a rich woman would wear more makeup. In DAZ Studio there are simple one click makeup overlays. Makeup makes a huge difference. Her face proportion features aren't appealing.

I found one attractive female NPC in the game: img_1268.png. The rest of the woman were ugly and plain looking with pudgy faces, nose too big, too much cheekbone and chin. Body proportions on most women are not good. I could give examples of better body proportions, but review guidelines prohibit me from mentioning other games content.

The maid is ugly and her hair is nappy. She has no makeup.

Render quality: Render quality ranges from poor to decent. I'm used to top notch IRAY renders of high quality.

Porn images vs Non-porn image ratio: Most of the renders are not pornographic. Too much time was spent on making non-pornographic renders. If you look through the image folder of the game, most of the renders are not pornographic. Sometimes games focus too much on build up and not enough time on delivering a solid climactic, erotic impact.

Mechanics: The game is tedious. Everything is an extra click or takes 2-3 clicks to achieve something that should've taken one click. The game wanted me to find a piece of laundry and then iron it. The game literally made a tutorial just to show you how to iron and laundry in a porn game. That makes no sense. If you look at the help folder the game offers a tutorial for basic mechanics that should never have required a tutorial in the first place.

Bugs: No bugs, the game seems properly tested which I gave an extra star.

An excellent game who put in your hands the destiny of Veronica, a young and beatiful model.

The graphics are very beautiful and clear, this game is perfectly written and look like more erotic novel than a hard game and it's very good in my opinion.

There is two ways who really interesting to explore and the game have regular update and the APK version is prefect, one of my favorite game

The female protagonist has a perfect looking face and body, and there's a focus to make her feel "alive" (great number of facial expression, poses, clothes etc.). Story is very compelling and manages to make us feel empathy even when you decided to make her a bitch through the dialogue choices. There are some flaws in ergonomy, and the game could be more fun to play, but it managed to transcend all my experiences with past games.

I love it! Nothing like trashing that High society evil queen, it's great that every decision that you made while she was powerful comes back to haunt her later! Full perversion mode!!! Keep u the good work, this game gets my seal of perversion approval!