Hello there!
Just discovered this game last week and wanted to input my opinions, perceptions and thoughts, both good and bad. For reference, i did 2 playthroughs. A blind one in which i favored Veronica and Mina at maximum toughness and another one with the walkthrough with Rosalind and Hanna at sub 10 toughness. Wall of text incoming.
This is not really my style of VN's i usually play. I am ok to some degree with non-extreme degradation and corruption as long as my MC does it. The type of scenes i would personally hate and despise for example would be like in that 'public use' video tape where the 3 girls have to blow and get fucked by a busload of blokes and those club assholes, especially. If it would happen, which it might, or not, i would most likely finish the update fast skipping the scenes, finish the chapter and delete the game because of it. I don't like games where you are a female MC either, as it never feels good to accept being fucked by an asshole that basically wins, taps you and dumps you. While i do understand it is a brothel setting, i still would like a distinction between the 'main girls' and the other girls, which i think we have right now.
I think in my first game, the toughness did me dirty. Based on the in-game description, it felt to me like was a representation of your dominance level, having a backbone to talk back when insulted, more risk taking, more confidence, but i started to find it suspicious when Mrs Pullman started to like me a lot and i was getting all of her scenes as well as mainly degenerate choices, which i didnt really want. Then i went to the gallery and replayed a scene, where it offered me 3 choices, names kind, mischievious or... asshole. I didnt want to be an asshole, just a confident dom. Lesson learned.
What i found good:
I do not like VN's where our 'main' girls, LI or not, get fucked and treated like shit by assholes in front of not the MC, but 'us' as sometimes it happens off camera, but we still have the scene as a 'meanwhile over there". For now, there is some events i do not like, but i am very happy that in all cases thus far, i ALWAYS had a mean to avoid what i didnt want to happen. Examples: At first when i played the scene where you film the porn shoot with Rosalind, i just let Kilian do it, as his help with Felicia was ok, and i wanted to include him so he wouldnt do temper tantrums, but i didn't like the outcome of that sex scene. I think deep down it's probably not because he was such a disrespectful asshole, but because i knew that unlike my MC, he wasn't only an asshole for the movie shoot, but that was his real personality outside the club as well. Reloading the save, i was happy i could do the scene myself and skip this outcome.
I did not mind things like when the looser gets drowned in jizz, when Veronica has to down the cup of jizz or when Mrs Pullman fucks Veronica with the big black dildo. I do not know yet how i am gonna react to the threesome with Rosalind. In my 20 ish VN's plyed ths far, i never got that scenario of MMF. I tried going that way to see how it plays out, but i will admit it is mainly because i know i have other options to find money, dodge the threesome and just do her myself. I've read the last maybe 300 is posts to get a feel and if what the dev said is true, that you can be whatever and do all the 'main' women without consequences between them bar the choice of 'your main single LI' at some later point in the game, that for me is great as i can combine non-exclusive girls in one playthrough and make a save at the choice fork instead of having 1 run for each individual girl.
What i found bad:
I can foresee actions i will not like and stuff that will make no sense that i will also hate coming. I am already seeing a setup being installed that i despise in all the few VN's it's been utilized as a cheap way to make impossible event happens or girls change personalities: drugs and pills. I do not like non-consensual events, rapes, etc and drugs are usually always the easy setup to make a girls saying no into a nympho saying yes. If it is revealed that its only an aphrodisiac making the male perform longer, or cum more, or a quicker recharge between activities, it is what it is. Hopefully i am wrong and the drug will be used in a different way, but the fact that when it was used on the MC he turned into an incoherent aggressive sex freak (and jizzed on Mrs Pullman) tells me otherwise as well as the fact that is it pretty dark to have their slaves whores be guinea pigs in the basement.
The dev said he liked / was inspired? by Starless. I went to investigate and i can say by the tags and descriptions and pictures, it is something i would never play and would find in bad taste, so hopefully only lightcore stuff will be included in this game. I also dislike physical abuse and i hope we will be able to deal with the Warren-Emma situation, give him a taste of his own medicine and hopefully mor than a black eye if he doesnt get the memo.
The girls:
Veronica.
It is my favorite girl. I visually like this model a lot. It goes with my fantasy of a redhead that is taller than me and that is a bit toned. As i am pretty tall IRL, it is a quasi impossibility to find such a person which makes it unique and interesting and is a nice break from usual VN's templates of medium or shorter massive tittied harems of girls. Also, i swear, the dev gave this character the best looking and expressive faces ever, rarely found in any VN's, totally nailed it, top tier. If Samson lays his dick in/on her, i am gonna find the devs IRL house and set it on fire
Her motive for participating is pretty stupid, as she didnt even ask for the whole amount to cancel all of her debts and just enough to patch it, which is pretty stupid for having to go through that ordeal. For the polls, i hope she wins.
Rosaling:
Decent loveable mom-like character to make the MC empathise as he sees her in the same boat his mom was which gives a good connection and motivation to help. Her reasons for being in there are also pretty stupid. First of all the debt shouldve been 200k and not 23k. Such a low amount of money is easily borrowable from a bank, or even easier taken against a credit card. Doesnt fix the issue, but at least you set your payments and dont have thugs after you. And again, how is she even related to her husbands debts? Unless she co-signed her husbands loans, it is none of her business and she should go to the cops and tell them to just find the husband themselves.
Felicia:
Ok character for me, but not my cup of tea and i dislike heavy tan lines. Her reason for being there is the stupidest of them all and shows how un-intelligent she is. Basically, get humiliated, degraded and get a train of old fucks plus 3 football teams to fuck her only to be able to do the same thing to the next victims? To get her own money? She already has money as she stated, just use it and start your own business and make your own contacts. The members already do not respect Mrs Pullman as a women in a mans club, so why would they respect and give their precious, mostly all corrution related contacts to her? Who would make deals and talk business face to face with you after they already treated you as a whore and used you as a whore? Thats what they always see her as, win or loose. Or they will use her as blackmail to her husband, which can result in a divorce and her being poor forever.
Hanna and Mina:
IMO, those two characters are the same, two sides of the same coin, but that work in opposite ways. As i understand, the dev wants the game to be about corruption, and i can see both going the lovey-dovey route, or go down in an amoral and degenerate direction depending on how you push them. I do not understand how Mina knows so little about sex if she got banged by that asshole for 10 months. Unless he was different with her (i doubt it) or because he didnt do much with her and spent more time banging every other girl to make her leave him or to make her life miserable. I like Mina (my 2nd best girl) and i like that we have the option of breaking the couple. I can easily see threesomes happening with both Veronica and Hanna, tough im not sure the greedy red-head lesbian would share her and include us. Hanna is decent also, but i am not a fan of heavily tattoed girls, or blueballing demons. Will still tap.
Mrs Pullman:
I do not like her sadist personality, but as a character she is great, interesting and totally has her place and role to play in this story, far more then the other 2 owners. If she continues to be the one that pushes buttons (but not to the extreme, no gore, no rape no physical violence that results in hospitalisations), i will make a save for her.
Killian:
Fuck this guy. He somehow gets whatever girls he lays his eyes on instantly and has the shittiest personality of all VN's MC buddies. I hope i can set a fire in the house hes in with my perk.
As of now, i like this game. I think it is unique, it is not a college setting and doesnt have 5 millions LI's and a limited cast of characters which makes them easier to build more in depths. I like the darker setting, i just hope it will not descend in the extreme or the hardcore but for now, kudos. My curiosity is piqued. I will follow and totally play the next update as soon as it releases. The four endings i think were a nice way to have little special extra moments and i will enjoy seeing all four as i am a story enjoyer that prefers a decent story with some sex scenes better than a sex scene generator with some filler in between.