Ren'Py - Fashion Business [Ep.5 v1.01 Extra] [DecentMonkey]

The Victoria-Melanie relationship and Monica's adventures are fantastic. Melanie and Monica are very attractive. The play will have multiple endings. Monica's husband-selection meetings and Victoria's activities for Melanie are so much fun. I also loved the photoshoot. Kickboxing was a nice surprise.

If you looked up 'mixed bag' in the dictionary you would get a description of what the phrase means. It probably wouldn't mention the porn game Fashion Business because that would be weird...

...But if I wrote a dictionary it woud be the primary example.


So much content. A crushing, titanic amount of content. And some of it, is VERY good. I am currently making a list of my 25 favourite scenes in any adult game and Fashion Business shows up a couple of times. The scenarios, the characters, the graphics. Sometimes it just HITS. I am about to say some mean things about the pacing, but there are some pockets where the slowness works. Where there is proper setup and payoff. Where a sequence is made just that much hotter because of all the little steps and angles and dynamics that built it up.

There is no better example of this than the beginning. There is no adult game with a stronger opening than this one. The 'prologue' sequence is a masterpiece. The build up is emaculate, the character of Monica is this enthralling psycho bitch you cannot wait to see fall. And then when she does it is a delight. I also adore the alternate endings. The idea that if you play Monica to be kinder and less abrasive than the game assumes you deserve an offramp is genius. It really gives the story this morality play vibe. That in order for the onscreen events that follow to work Monica has to be truly irredeemable. Like this is some divine punishment. A Monica who treats people around her like they are human gets to be spared. Its brilliant and allows even squimish players to fully submerge into the fantasy.

There are so many threads in this game I love. The wife rivalary, the sleazy boss who takes over Monica's company, Melanie, the stepson...

And here the problems start. Because although I love some of the subplots of this game. It has WAY too many. There is so much stuffed in that the following the threads you like feels like finding a needle in a haystack. You just cannot focus on the content you care about. Although there are several subplots I like there are FAR more that I do not give a fuck about.

The two prostitution routes, the divebar, the lesbian photographer lady. Plus there are subplots that have simply run their course. The evil secretary that blackmails Monica is great. But she is in way too much of this game. It just gets old.

That's not to say subplots don't end. They do. A lot of the subplots I like were either removed or have ended 'naturally'. the stepson subplot in particular was my favourite in the game and it has been dead for a long time now. Butch is gone and I liked his subplot too.

The pacing isn't just slow because of the sheer volume of subplots though. It is also just a chore to navigate the gameworld. So many clicks to do anything.

Wake up, leave house, leave street, enter new street, enter building, take escalator to top floor, enter office, walk to desk, talk to Butch, select the new scene on the menu, Watch the scene, return to home street, enter home, go to bed, specify amount of time you want to sleep for, sleep.

You have to do all that. To see ONE scene. Anybody who has played this game knows I didn't exagerate a thing there. It is CRUSHING. If the game had any sandbox mechanics, economy, random events or whatever. Then maybe this would be justified. But the world is essentially just a collection of triggers for scenes all hidden away behind walls and walls of clicking.

The sex too has also gotten monotonus. At this stage what has Monica not done? There is no sense of escalation or corruption anymore. She has had sex with like 50 people in like 300 positions. It is too much. The fantasy of this desirable but untouchable woman being corrupted is dead. It died years ago. Now its just routine.

So in 2025 what is this game? It is a very, very long game with some very good content. But a crushing amount of mid. I firmly believe it slowly gets worse as it progresses. Once again that opening is phenomenal. The early-midgame is very good. Then its... Alright... Then it becomes very tedious.

I no longer check to see what is in new updates. At this stage the Betty subplot is the only one that holds any real value for me and since it is competing with like 12 others, it struggles to get the attention it deserves.

This is a game you need to try. You need to experience its highs... And you also need to have the forewarning to avoid getting sucked into the slow disheartening grind. You need to trust you instincts and stop when things start to feel dull. Because as of now it never gets better.

I just wish the dev wrapped this up a while ago and put their obvious talent into a fresh new project. Something to make me feel the way this game did years ago.

Could have been a really solid game by reducing the grind because there's soooo much of it, like sometimes a lot of games make repetitive content fun but here it feels like a chore. It definitely would have worked by making it like partially sandbox and partially VN like to just press skip and speed up some repetitive stuff.

Monica's model is probably my fav 3D model ever so it hurts more because i wanted to replay the game since I've stopped during 3rd and I can't play the game without having to spend hours behind every little thing. I hope things might have changed in the future chapters.

Great game, some of the best CGI out there. and they are not skimpy with the art. Its huge so it will take some time to complete there are numerous path you can take. so unzip your pants and start playing

This game has a good concept where a rich arrogant lady gets real life, mostly sexual, treatments from people she has despised. It also comes with an incredible amount of content, especially images and animations. But I stopped playing the game, just after 3-4 sub-episodes in the game as the stories were not engaging nor arousing without emotion and anticipation. The results of each sub-episode were so predictable and boring that sleeping, going to the action scene, or occasional photo shoot felt so chores and grinding. Simply, this game shows you how boring those sexual actions can be without the basic components of erotica.

Very excellent game! Continue Updates, nice render, good storyline. One of the game which continue to be last without down sizing in any parts of the game.

Game keep updating - 5/5
Render - 4/5
Storyline - 3.5/5
Overall - 5/5

Overall, one of the better games on the site. I'm not really one for spending much time for parsing out the story, but the writing is better than most and even interesting at times. The renders and animations were what stood out, and the amount of options available for the MC were great. No noticeable bugs or issues during playthrough. Would recommend.

The graphics and animation in the game are very good. But the gameplay is very depressing. Even a glass of water on the table is clickable, and a couple of lines of text are written about it - why? The developer limited the use of rewinding dialogues and tons of text, and repeating scenes (for example, how Monica gets into the car) - cannot be skipped. A lot of unnecessary actions must be performed during the game - select an object or character and get into a small icon to talk or interact. The idea is not bad, but the execution greatly complicates both the gameplay itself, and, I think, the development process too.

It's extremely long, and there's an insane amount of empty running around. Unrealistic behavior. The lack of a coherent plot. (except for the first part). 1 part assessment 5. all the others are just one.

TL;DR: Beautiful artwork, but exhausting, stagnant story. For hardcore fans of the corruption/abuse/exploitation theme, highly recommended, although progression is slow. For anyone else, story not worth the time investment required.

* please have in mind my experience and thus this review is limited to the first three episodes of the game.

THE GOOD:

STORY: author managed to integrate well many different "questlines" and characters. There are plenty of characters, but they mostly make sense for the story and their screen time is relatively balanced, unlike some games which introduce dozens of characters most of which you only see once or twice and have no significant impact story wise. Equally, the different questlines seem organic, in the sense that they fit together well in the narrative - save for some minor issues explored below.

GRAPHICS: renders for Ep1 and 2 are ok, but there is a noticeable improvement in quality with Ep3. Models vary in quality, but the characters are well posed and scenes are set up well. Animations throughout these episodes range from ok to excellent, which is very positive, considering there are very few games which manage to pull off even decent animations at all. I particularly liked the eye animations in static renders of the main character, for example - which was something I found to be novel. It's a "minor" addition, but breathes life to the MC and was very well executed.


THE BAD (exhausting mechanics, Sisyphean story, game-breaking bugs):

Most of the issues exposed here are related, invariably, to the developer's choices in mechanics and story development. Fashion Business is a freeroam game, in which events are tied to specific days of the week or time of day. Some quests also require MC to complete specific activities - and all of it soon becomes a drag and boring because of its repetitiveness. We have all been there, I guess. Every time you wake up, the same two or three dialogue boxes of the MC complaining about this or that will greet you. Try travelling to a new location and many renders later you will discover you can't because of the specific outfit you're wearing. Try and go to sleep - you can't, as MC is hungry and must eat. Photoshoots will take at a minimum two tries to fully complete, and even longer as some you can only progress with enough corruption. In all, a lot of repetitive, generic dialogues which while the first or second time are ok, bloat the game with time and are no fun, artificially and unnecessarily inflating the game.

The game is long and spans four different episodes, but incredibly none of the episodes are fully finished themselves! There are story branches not yet implemented or only partly implemented, as well as greyed-out choices not available at all, which tricks you into thinking there's more content to unlock. Some questlines are also logically and chronologically inconsistent with when they are unlocked (for example, escort quest unlocks in Ep2; but the street prostitution questline only unlocks much later in Ep3! Why would Monica resort to selling herself for pocket change while earning much more as a high-class prostitute is beyond me). Although I understand much of it has to do with the developer's preferences and/or external pressures, I particularly find this development model counter-intuitive. And not only that, the asynchronic updating of episodes can lead to game-breaking issues as well. For example, if you start fresh with the latest version of Ep3, you will inevitably find a bug which essentially stops one of the main quests from advancing. The solution? Well, downgrade to an earlier version, load an earlier save compatible with it, finish said quest first, then upgrade to the latest version again to access and complete the new content. In a traditional non-freeroam game that may be incoveninet, but doable. In a game such as Fashion Business, this is simply not feasible. Because of this bug I ended up giving up on the rest of the game, as going back to fix it would be too time consuming.

Now for my main grip: the story. For anyone thinking of playing this game, please take into consideration this quote from the author:

Fashion Business is not a "vanilla" game and is primarily about the humiliating and blackmailing Monica Buckfett (MC) and some other girls, not about their pleasure. Although there are a lot of sex scenes and various fetishes/kinks are present, and MC is capable of experiencing orgasms, she doesn't like sex or any physical intimacy. FB is not the "happy slut simulator" that the most of adult VN games with a female protagonist are.

Click to expand...

This is important because it is not found in the intro page, but buried in a FAQ post, itself also not linked in the intro page. And I imagine that in light of this information, many, like me had I known, would not waste their time with this game. Is the story bad, per se? No. The idea is quite interesting. A rich, arrogant socialight suddenly finds herself ejected from her former glamourous life, a sucessful business woman now having to wonder the streets in search of food and shelter and exposed to a harsh new reality. The individual questlines that show Monica's downward spiral are not bad in themselves, either. It is actually quite interesting to see the ways in which the MC copes with this new reality, shifting the burden to her alter egos to clear her conscience. The problem is that the story never bursts this bubble: Monica vows revenge, strives to reach at least the illusion of power, but it is always for naught and comically frustrating. It's a Sisyphean cycle where Monica is always rolling that same boulder up and down, with no closure in sight. Yes, she manages to attain revenge against some minor characters and attain some position of relative authority, but it always seems the costs are greater than the gains - a one-step-forward, two-steps-back situation. Every character we encounter with the exception of a very few have a hidden agenda or are outright seeking to exploit Monica. To add insult to injury, there is no character growth. As per the author, Monica doesn't seem to enjoy sex. She herself has a cynic, exploitative personality, constantly in self-denial about what she is doing. While she paradoxically does show pride when she is praised for her body, looks and even performance (in line with her egocentric, narcissistic personality), she does not accept her new reality, sees no future in it, and strives to regain her status. From the player's point of view, why would you subject Monica to any of these adversities if in the end, there is no hope of getting her out of any of it? On the contrary, the further the story progresses, the more entangled she gets in all of it, while she herself enjoys none of it. Monica only does it in the hope of liberation, of achieving her goals. But we as the player know that it is unachievable. The answer: you only subject Monica to it because you, the player, enjoy watching her predicament.

In the end, for those who are simply looking to satisfy their humiliation/corruption/abuse fetish urges, this game, although tedious, can deliver that if you're patient and don't mind the slow burn; for those looking for something more, they will be sorely disappointed, as the story never manages to transcend it: on the contrary, corruption is the end in itself, and not the means to progress the story.

Great game! I love it! Nice story... good dialog, stimulate the imagination... The gameplay is better from episode to episode, I think the developers do this with a lot of love. Thanks for this versatile game ... I hope it will be further developed for a long time!

I have played Fashion Business EP 1 years ago, I dropped the series for a specific reason, too grindy and not much reward pretty much.
I picked up EP2 and feel I wasted some 6 hours and barely done content.

Story/Plot: They are interesting, it is good.

Sandbox: The sandbox part of the game is annoying too much, pretty much, you need to click on multiple location to reach the objective you have, it takes so much time to do especially as you need to do it everyday ingame. To unlock a scene you need to do the same action 3 or more times. The game loop is annoying.

Scenes: While the graphics are great, the scenes are rather short and don't always feel rewarding, for a 10 minutes of grinding you get a scene of 1 minute or so. Just annoying

I would rate this game even lower but yeah the concept is great, the grindness is too bad.

I found the first 3 episodes pretty grindy. But recently I started playing episode 4 and I found it much more enjoyable and less grindy compared to the first 3.

There is one particular ending in the fourth episode which was simply perfect for my liking, and after finishing episode 4, I am definitely going to revisit the first 3

Beautiful graphics (and animation).
- Lots of exciting and very detailed events (mostt based on humiliation and blackmail).
- Good text.
- Many character and nicee.
- The game is growing.

Fashion Business is a unique game with the story god damnn, enjoyable

Top quality renders, nice animations. Interesting story and still only 2 star rating.

After completing EP1 of the game I was amazed by the title. But EP2 is just simply terrible. They have made game that took me around 20 hours
(and still didn't complete it) while there's maybe 5 hours of contet.

Terrible ammount of grind and bad quest desing. The fact that you can do 1 part of specific questline per ingame week is just poor choice.

I'm not sure if this was improved in EP3 and then EP4 but to be honest after amount o grind i had to go through I don't even want to find out.

They really should re-work EP 2 and fix gltiches blocking progress of the game .

So yeah unless you really enjoy pointless grind i can recommend this. Otherwise just avoid this title..

the 4 stars are only because monica and other women are not the (huge tits, small or tiny waist, huge ass/thighs) alien looking like woman we see in 80% of the games .
i will not complain about the grind because there is not so much grind, i can see the dev made the effort to balance it in a good way, the grind/content ratio is quite good.
no complain about monica, she is quite hot,

for the rest, i won't mention all the flaws.
but the obvious bad things aboiut the game are :

sex scenes, man i'm not asking for raw and brutal sex but this game : sex scenes movements are so slow it's like 2 koalas are doing it.
which is comical because you get those dialogs " take that ... etc" while the guy is moving like a 90 year old granpa.
strangely enough the 2 sex scenes in chapter 1 with the waitress at the pool and the woman in the fuel station were rather good but sadly in chapter 2, 3 and 4 every sex scenes are slow and not exciting.

cartoonish villains, basically everybody is able to abuse monica, even a little brat kid like in this grotesque chapter 2, hell it's ok when smart and powerfull people can abuse but this game features too many "dumb and non powerfull" characters being able to do what they want with monica, it's like the dev wants the whole world to be able to do what they want : extreme cartoonish setup.
for sure you have the choice for monica to refuse which is good but when you do so, well you just miss game lewd content, so what's the point.
also the villains always smile, for exemple the car driver, it's so boring and cartoonish. this unthouchable boring victoria etc ....
btw how strange the dev decided to remove the little kids in chapter 3 and 4, probably realised how grotesque and boring it was storywise.

i don't know, what felt realistic or believable and pleasant ( for gamers searching "domination" stuff ) in games like "special request" or "the interview" is just not present in this game.
this game feels more like a tex avery version of those.

once again: the sex scenes , not sure why some people say they are good.
they're not, they are so slow they just put you to sleep so if you consider going throught this awfull tex avery story setup to see some good scenes, just forget about it.
you'll waste time for nothing.

for sure the game has some good moments and qualities, but they are ouclassed by bad design flaws,

i'm not blaming the devs, i think he gives the audience what they want, in the end, to make money, everybody will choose the option to please the maximum people.

sadly, i think this game is not grounded enough and is just an "abuse" fiesta just for the sake of it, without realism nor balance.
to the point that i cwouldn't be surprised if a dog in the street manage to convine monica to bang with it....

as i said at the beginning, 4 stars for monica and some women having realistic body, the rest.... just no.

The game starts off with a lot of promise, drawing you in with an intriguing opening that sets high expectations for what’s to come. Unfortunately, those expectations quickly begin to unravel as you realize that neither the story nor the characters evolve in any meaningful way. Each scene unfolds in a predictable pattern, with little to no character development or progression. The only element that changes is the renders, but even those feel hollow as they’re locked behind a frustratingly convoluted and grind-heavy progression system.

The game quickly devolves into a repetitive grindfest, where the player is left slogging through monotonous tasks just to unlock the next scene. This cycle not only diminishes any sense of excitement but also creates a sense of pointlessness. The primary draw of the game—its beautifully rendered images—becomes overshadowed by the sheer effort required to access them. Instead of enjoying the game’s content, you’re left wondering if the grind is truly worth it.

If your main interest is seeing high-quality renders, I’d recommend simply using the gallery unlocker rather than wasting time on the tedious progression. Unfortunately, the story, characters, and the grinding mechanics simply don't justify the effort, leaving you with a sense of disappointment rather than fulfillment.

Playing this game feels more like a tedious job than an enjoyable experience. The gameplay is a constant grind, where unlocking new images or scenes requires repetitive effort without much reward. The game’s interface is clunky and unintuitive, making it frustrating to navigate. Every action, from simple movements to interactions, feels like a chore rather than something engaging.

One of the most off-putting aspects is the stats system, which adds unnecessary complexity to the game. It seems designed to discourage progress rather than encourage it, and the only ways to make any real headway are through cheating or spending an excessive amount of time grinding. This system undermines any remaining enjoyment, as the focus shifts from exploration or narrative to simply “grinding” through a series of monotonous tasks.

Even something as basic as getting out of bed and walking outside requires multiple clicks, making every interaction feel laborious and drawn-out. The scenes themselves, which should be the highlight of the game, fail to justify the effort required to unlock them. Ultimately, the game feels more like an exercise in frustration than a fulfilling experience, leaving little incentive to continue playing.

This is a unique game with its story. Normally a game with this much sex becomes boring but that's not the case with this one. As every new scene brings new heights to the game.
The quests that Monica does are so diverse that you get every tag you desire for in FMC game.

Very pretty main character. I am impressed by the graphics in this game and all the quality of the erotic scenes. The plot may not be extraordinary, but I do not expect that from an erotic game. I like that we can turn the main character into a whore, because I like such games. Additionally, we have the opportunity to make various choices, which is important in the game world. The game also has humorous elements. I will add that if we become a stripper, we can expect hot views. I recommend the game.