VN Ren'Py Karlsson's Gambit [v0.8.1 Part I] [Grym Gudinna Games]

[daffyrolls94]

The mines and this room are monitored by dozens of automated drones that are remotely controlled from here as well.

Don't mind the drones, they're perfectly safe for us...they can't harm anyone without a mine worker chip.

You also know what function (one of many) these chips can perform. Yes, it's the electric shock function, the power of which can be turned into killing force with a snap of the fingers. Guards with guns go down there quite rarely, because mining is quite a harmful industry. So taking weapons away from the guards and simply taking over the facility will not work.

In the mines there is total and remote surveillance of every miner and the same remote means that can instantly punish or even kill him. And trained security guards can help too.

Dozens of drones monitoring a mine network with hundreds or thousands of miners is, to put it politely, a suboptimal counter-insurgency strategy. The replacement time for those drones would be like 2 months given they'd have to operate near constantly. Also if they have and can produce drones in this universe they can also - much more easily and cheaply - produce drone jammers, which would be maximally effective in an enclosed space like a mine.

Not to mention it'd be impossible to keep them charged in those circumstances unless they're plugged in, so you'd be much better off with stationary systems anyway. And stationary systems can be evaded and/or destroyed, especially if you only have 'dozens' of them covering hundreds of hectares, thousands of feet underground.

From what we were shown in the game, I can personally conclude that the security at JF sites is perfectly thought out, otherwise all those millions of people (not only miners, but also other workers) would have risen up long ago and swept away all their masters from Karlsson Group.

Millions of people in every known civilization were enslaved and exploited, yet didn't sweep away their masters. It's a question of social organization, which is one of the many things about this game and story that's not very clear.

I got a feeling that Tess might've been inspired by works of Nietzshe and Ayn Rand for this particular setting.

Nietzsche? No. There are a few points of similarity with Rand but this society is obviously feudal, not capitalist or fascist. They just call themselves a corporation. Why? Not clear. The correct answer is Sade himself, if Sade got bored of theorizing about perfect revolution and started posting tiktoks.

 

[Stan5851]

Millions of people in every known civilization were enslaved and exploited, yet didn't sweep away their masters. It's a question of social organization, which is one of the many things about this game and story that's not very clear.

Right. That's exactly what I wanted to say (among other things), but didn't expand on my already large post. But the point is that before disparagingly calling people "biomass", which was voiced earlier (hello fascism again), it would be good to study the details of the social organisation of each particular group of people.

We know that the planet (at least the African continent where the events of the game take place) is severely lacking in water, food and energy. We know that the only place in the same Karlsson City (under which there are also mines for mining crystals and then turning them into energy) where there are no restrictions in food, water and energy is the elite neighbourhood of Kallista, where Karlsson Group executives, top managers and other such people live. The distribution of resources to the rest of the people (labourers and miners) follows strict rules set by the corporation itself.

The game mentions that miners (as opposed to mine guards) have to spend all their time in the mines, but we also know that many miners have families and even children. So it's not a "concentration camp (Nazi death camp) in its purest form" and all these people have something to hold on to and something to lose in one way or another. This is to the question of why their Masters have not yet been swept away here.

It is also mentioned in the game that children from ordinary (poor) families are taken away from their parents and given a good education and a chance to reach a higher social status than their parents had (remember Karlssom Academy Alumni with their classes for the rich/elite and classes for poor children)...

Anyway, we need more data about this world before we start making hasty conclusions or, even more so, contemptuously calling someone "biomass".

As for the dozens of drones and stuff - it's a similar situation here. I only cited a few lines from the game, but in the context of the global mine security setup, they don't mean much.

We've been hinted that KaneDom may yet have to go down to where the miners actually work (and no, I don't mean training a Wpod2 that obeys Kane). So for now, we don't know for certain what other facilities are being used at these sites. Who says there aren't equipped automated roadblocks with machine gun turrets in narrow mining tunnels? Who says there isn't a system for spraying poisonous (or soporific) gas that can cover huge underground workings and hypothetical rebels in a fairly short period of time.

Same goes for the chips implanted in the bodies of every slave, labourer, miner, low-level servant, etc. From what we have been shown, I can say that drones are not needed for instant remote activation of the chips. Moreover, such activation can also be mass activation. And I have a suspicion that the walls of the same JoyFacility or even the rocks of the mines under the main buildings are not an obstacle for these devices either. Remember how Kane, sitting in a separate undeground room (while testing the Wpod2 girls in the mines), remotely activated the girls' collars and not only them, hehe.

We don't know what kind of data transmission principle these chips use (it's simple radio waves, or perhaps some hidden and distributed island-wide system of secure repeaters operating on specific frequencies or some other wave principle used to transmit commands).

What we do know is that it would take a talented hacker of Nadia's calibre to hack into all those chips implanted in the miners' bodies to make the revolution possible. And since that's the case, it means that the system preventing possible miner revolts is doing its job so far and is quite reliable.

 

[Maviarab]

a suboptimal counter-insurgency strategy.

That's what they have collars for So all the drones and camera's, are actually perfectly optimal for their intended purpose.

 

[daffyrolls94]

The game mentions that miners (as opposed to mine guards) have to spend all their time in the mines, but we also know that many miners have families and even children. So it's not a "concentration camp (Nazi death camp) in its purest form" and all these people have something to hold on to and something to lose in one way or another. This is to the question of why their Masters have not yet been swept away here.

Hm, slight misundertanding here. I'm not including the society described in this game in the category of something that might work. For example providing food and shelter to miners within the mine itself would be logistical nightmare. Plus most of them would die from exposure to toxins. You'd spend more time hauling out corpses than minerals.

It is also mentioned in the game that children from ordinary (poor) families are taken away from their parents and given a good education and a chance to reach a higher social status than their parents had (remember Karlssom Academy Alumni with their classes for the rich/elite and classes for poor children)...

Training and then giving power to the people who hate them would be another reason the society wouldn't work. Empires recruited and deployed their auxiliary forces and institutions at their peripheries, not heartlands.

Anyway, we need more data about this world before we start making hasty conclusions or, even more so, contemptuously calling someone "biomass".

I get that this is part of a debate with someone else but out of interest, what's the moral distinction here? The game explicitly portrays non-main chars as naturally - not just politically/discursively - inferior to the main chars. You're down with exploring that concept, but calling them 'biomass' is off limits? Sorry, I just thought that was funny.

 

[Maviarab]

For example providing food and shelter to miners within the mine itself would be logistical nightmare. Plus most of them would die from exposure to toxins. You'd spend more time hauling out corpses than minerals.

Yet that's what actually happens....

I have to ask...have you actually played this ('and' digested the information given)? As Stan5851 pointed out, they do not leave the mines. Sure, the supervisors may get that 'privalige' (from time to time) but no one else does. Do you even recall the task Dominique gives you on her work placement and why?

 

[Sharpshooter890]

I find it absolutely hilarious how we as a community go full autist into every little detail of the story and the setting. I don't think I've seen it in any other thread here. I love it. Having said that, I'd recommend to not be too anal about it, or the setting might start falling apart.

For example, we've seen many yachts, helicopters, airplanes, cars, etc. To produce even one of those you need multiple factories with multiple production lines. Those factories need machinery of their own and spare parts, as well as a steady supply of power and raw materials (oil, steel, wood, plastic, glass, rubber). To get those you must have global trade, with reliable shipping of said materials at adequate prices. You also need many skilled workers at every stage of production.
Obviously, there's more than that, but my point is - such an economy is impossible in any sort of apocalyptic future (Metro 2033, Terminator, Mad Max, Last of Us, etc). Therefore, at some point we must suspend our disbelief and take the story setting for granted.

Which I do for KG. And the fact that rebellions are so rare tells me that the slaves are mostly content with their fate, they've accepted their position as worthless worms who lick the boots of their betters. So I'm not lifting a finger for them, because my Kane ain't a looser. Why should I respect those who don't even have respect for themselves? They are trash, worse than trash even, since they eat, shit and maybe even dare to think when the mood hits them. Unacceptable! Jules and me, we will devour them until we puke, and then devour some more. For that is their fate - to be a worthless toy at the mercy of their superiors.

 

[daffyrolls94]

Yet that's what actually happens....

I have to ask...have you actually played this ('and' digested the information given)? As Stan5851 pointed out, they do not leave the mines. Sure, the supervisors may get that 'privalige' (from time to time) but no one else does. Do you even recall the task Dominique gives you on her work placement and why?

That's what would happen irl. Obviously I'm aware that it doesn't happen in the game or I wouldn't make the point I did. Follow your own advice wrt digesting info, imo.

 

[daffyrolls94]

I find it absolutely hilarious how we as a community go full autist into every little detail of the story and the setting. I don't think I've seen it in any other thread here. I love it. Having said that, I'd recommend to not be too anal about it, or the setting might start falling apart.

Well my original comment was responding to comments treating the game world as a serious exploration of realistic possibilities but ain't like I got a problem with that. Altho I will admit to having a bit of a problem with people bringing real life morality into it.

 

[Stan5851]

Hm, slight misundertanding here. I'm not including the society described in this game in the category of something that might work. For example providing food and shelter to miners within the mine itself would be logistical nightmare. Plus most of them would die from exposure to toxins. You'd spend more time hauling out corpses than minerals.


Training and then giving power to the people who hate them would be another reason the society wouldn't work. Empires recruited and deployed their auxiliary forces and institutions at their peripheries, not heartlands.

Spoiler: About the realities of the game world and stuff

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The game explicitly portrays non-main chars as naturally - not just politically/discursively - inferior to the main chars. You're down with exploring that concept, but calling them 'biomass' is off limits? Sorry, I just thought that was funny.

Spoiler: About morality

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Spoiler: About slavery and struggle

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[daffyrolls94]

It's not a question of whether such a model would work in reality or not - in the game setting of the KG world it works and it's quite enough. But my message was again not in defence of such a system, when children are taken away from their parents (even for good purposes), but that there are quite a lot of nuances of the local social structure that we don't know yet. Which you also mentioned, by the way. In particular, I think we have too little information about how all those millions of workers, who can't be miners alone, actually live.

If you're going to discuss morality in the context of a fictional universe then you have establish some sort of connection between it and the real world you actually inhabit, because the latter is where morality actually exists. Otherwise there's no point. The premises and conclusions are all determined by your acceptance of the fictional universe's self-referential reality, as opposed to its correspondence with the reality you actually live in. That's called "playing out a fantasy" in layman's terms.

As for the moral issues, nobody forbids you to express your thoughts as you want, but personally for me I don't find it appropriate (for myself) to compare even unworthy people with "biomass".

You think seizing children away from their families can sometimes serve a good purpose, and want to explore the ethical nuances of a social structure described in a bdsm snuff porn game. And then you - apparently - earnestly chastise others for calling people 'biomass', i.e the fictional people in that fictional porno fantasy. Maybe it's just me, but your moral philosophy is a deranged tangle of self-serving contradictions.<<<This is an actual ethical claim, since I'm talking about you and other f95 posters - real entities - in relation to a fictional scenario, not fictional entities in relation to each other.

 

[Stan5851]

daffyrolls94, I heard you, you heard me (but you heard what you wanted to hear, not what I was trying to convey), so this is the end of my conversation with you. There is nothing more to talk about here, otherwise we will slide into offtopic. Have a nice game.

 

[daffyrolls94]

you heard what you wanted to hear, not what I was trying to convey

I assure you, I definitely did not want to hear anything you had to convey. Yet I did and that's entirely on me. Bye.

 

[Stan5851]

I assure you, I definitely did not want to hear anything you had to convey. Yet I did and that's entirely on me. Bye.

Same thing.

 

[Dark Quean Olivia]

Ok! Here to drink coffee and kick ass! And Mavi drank all my coffee!

 

[MilesEdgeworth]

why do you drive in a parkway and park in a drive way eh smart guys?

 

[Stan5851]

why do you drive in a parkway and park in a drive way eh smart guys?

Are you suggesting we park in the parkway? The truth is we Jacobs, Karlssons and DeKocks are extremely elite assholes who can do whatever we want.

 

[Silver_Crow117]

Since Miss Tess Revealed it publicly, I’ll say this-
“Kane's demon flag will be abandoned entirely, and it will not be used in any future content.”

 

[Maviarab]

Since Miss Tess Revealed it publicly, I’ll say this-
“Kane's demon flag will be abandoned entirely, and it will not be used in any future content.”

*sighs*

Guess the morons finally got to her huh....

 

[Silver_Crow117]

*sighs*

Guess the morons finally got to her huh....

Yup… there’s other things that Miss Tess Shared (KG game related and reasons why for demon Kane going bye bye) but it’s mostly those… people that did it… nothings changing on the sub side… besides saving Zach, Karlsson sister, secret ending for sub Kane, revolution route with sub Kane, and even learning about Angelica, “Her plans for the sub side were already pretty expansive/deep and don't require a tweak from my side.” Having a lot more content for sub side

 

[Silver_Crow117]

Here’s the Public Memo:


Hi everyone!

I thought I would do a public post since it's been a while. It's actually quite difficult to find non-adult images so I had to struggle a bit to put together a few images, hehe.

Sorry for Patrons for some repetitive news, but throwing out a few things I have mentioned before.
My current update is about 1,370 renders and roughly 60+ animations. I do tend to reject a number of animation for the update but this is my current count. I am almost to the point where the sub and dom paths are back at the main brach and ready to kind of move.

A few bullet points of randomness:

1) My new computer arrives tomorrow! It has been designed with tweaking it for the future with an RTX 5090, and I will later move this RTX 4090 (coming with new computer) and create a second computer that is now currently my main one with a 3090. When it arrives, I will probably take some time moving a ton of stuff over, but I should still be fine with working on the script/renders fairly normally.

2) THANK YOU so much for the well wishes and congratulations about my engagement! A few people sent me some very touching stories too...thank you! It is definitely not an exaggeration to say that right now I am about as happy as I can be about life. I won't do a long intro again like I did for Patrons, but...my fiance used to be an investment banker in NYC and now runs a few businesses out here like I do! He was born in South Africa (Cape Town being set as a main city in KG is my wink at him) and lived in New Zealand and Australia before moving to the United States for university studies, etc.

3) On my Discord, I am going to keep updating my narrative tweaks as I discussed with Patrons. I won't go into long detail on this again either, but suffice to say that I am more than happy with where I am with my outline right now. Long story short, the sub path is not impacted, but the "demon" flag with Kane on the dom path is being abandoned for two new narrative paths instead.

Some examples of what's on the Discord: (Patreon announcements/road map channels)

Juliette's Karlsson romantic path will be changed to a new narrative. More details later. Dominique will still have a romance path, but there will now be a new path for her and Juliette, not sure beyond that yet.

The Alessandra/Celeste/Phoebe harem path (my original narrative) may be tweaked and even expanded.

The secret sub path will add one more female character to this narrative, it will be either optional or an add on to the originally intended group of women involved.

Angelica will be moved up in priority to a Tier 1 romance for a specific type of dom player. Being too good or too evil is not advised for her. Her plans for the sub side were already pretty expansive/deep and don't require a tweak from my side.

Kane's demon flag will be abandoned entirely, and it will not be used in any future content.

Olivia's demoness flag will still be used.

One Karlsson sister that was planned to be killed in Episode 10 will now have a chance to live/die based on certain choices and outcomes from earlier episodes.

The original intent of the KPass at the end of Episode 8, Part 3 will still allow Kane to save/tweak a rank for himself or Jake/Zach, but also the possibiliity of unlocking an extra fun scene instead of using it for that purpose.

The five specific flags for the most secret ending of the game will be changed to six specific flags AND require World State B. If you saw Veronica tell Callista that she showed Kane the gravity chamber, this secret ending for the dom path is still alive. If you did not, this ending is closed, but there are many other endings still possible. A sub Olivia flag in this path will disqualify this ending too. (everyone involved must be fairly equal partners)

There is a similar secret ending for the sub path, but the first flag does not exist yet. In this path, it's ok for Kane to be sub given the path of course. But a higher ranking sub (above K9 someday) is advised. I bring these up only because of below...

Both of these endings will be a flag in Anais' game and relevant somehow, but I'll let her deal with that one. Her game will be announced about a month before my update is out. The only things I will say on this is that there will be three origin starts to the game and that the title will be from the letters TQA. The only big spoiler for this game relating to KG is that Astrid Karlsson will survive no matter what and somehow be involved in this later story. The other minor spoiler is that there will only be two possible World States for the new protagonist in her game -- either the secret ending happened (dom or sub) or it didn't...but it's not super important for content/story. It's just a little extra Easter Egg type stuff.

Zach was planned to be killed at Episode 8, Part 3 but I will now include a path for him to live. But he's still in a high risk position overall.

The first small hint of the Olivia sub path was coming in Episode 9, I will now put in a small tease in Episode 8, Part 2 but it won't be super extensive, but rather a hint of what may come.
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4) I will in about 3 weeks try and provide a more detailed "road map" of where I hope to be at by what point for a release. It is very hard to predict too far out because I can't get a good sense of everything without play testing past a certain point of the update, but I always try of course.
I was on a boat with spotty signal so I am sorry for not responding in the last two days very well.
Last, for those that celebrate it, Happy Father's Day! I am so much who I am today because of my father. I can never give him back as much as he given me, but I will always try! So I hope anyone that is lucky enough to have a good father takes the time to appreciate/validate him and what he means
With my computer purchase and sending my father and fiance to the NBA Finals (Father's Day gift) my purse is very upset with me! But it's ok But again, please value those that matter to you and let them know how you feel.

I want to thank everyone for their patience and support! I'm still very proud that I'm pretty consistent with doing an update and working on the game each and every week without fail. But I'm not sure I would be this consistent if not for the great people I get to interact with about the game! In the end, some of you are more responsible than even myself for being this way week after week. Some of the female characters in the game are partially a reflection of me, but for work ethic/honor (how I value working for all of you) I'm definitely like Kiyomi. Try to stay balanced, but communicate with intregrity/honor, even when stuff goes wrong.
Ok, back to some stuff, thanks all!