VN Ren'Py Pale Carnations [Ch. 4 Up 4 Public] [Mutt & Jeff]

[Crepusculum]

It really isn't about reaching the most people or making the most money. All GIL and I are trying to do is tell a story we like, filled with things we want to portray, that features the kinks we like.

TD I HAVE to ask, but if its too exhausting to answer I totally get it - What the hell is your process that your output is this high quality?
There are VERY few games on here that are this engaging writing wise, even though you guys didn't go for an Acting Lessons/Leap of Faith kind of "Deep" plot. Yes, the visuals are spectacular, that's a granted. But the facial expressions, the body language, combined with the really high quality script (I doubt you guys just sit down, type whatever the fuck comes to mind and then use a thesaurus) makes this feel very realistic - How?!

 

[Crepusculum]

Problem is... they aren't as good as this one

IMO, incest is usually and for most people, about the taboo and corruption.
Most people (I believe, at least) would genuinely find the concept of "corrupting" someone attractive, and something they may want to do - but most of these people would not want to have sex with their mom/siblings.

So incest is just an easy, dumbed down and very simplistic way of delivering that sort of taboo/corruption, that's why we have dozens if not hundreds of games with the same trope, same story, over and over - it's not bad, and I like it as well.

I think fantastic games (Like this one) approach the same fundamental kink we're looking for, but in a new way, or even several ways (as nearly every girl in the movie is in that situation due to differently circumstances). That's why, while F95 programed my mind to want Victoria to be banged, Edwin feels pretty real to me (unlike most protagonists), so it wouldn't make sense.

Plus, the Dev's are super chill, support them, and maybe if you ask them nice enough they may consider eventually making a short prequal game with Victoria's story (Again, not incest, but top notch still)

 

[TD1900]

TD I HAVE to ask, but if its too exhausting to answer I totally get it - What the hell is your process that your output is this high quality?
There are VERY few games on here that are this engaging writing wise, even though you guys didn't go for an Acting Lessons/Leap of Faith kind of "Deep" plot. Yes, the visuals are spectacular, that's a granted. But the facial expressions, the body language, combined with the really high quality script (I doubt you guys just sit down, type whatever the fuck comes to mind and then use a thesaurus) makes this feel very realistic - How?!

Thank you for saying as much, but for my side of things, beyond the loose outline(s) I have set, it really is just sitting down and writing what comes to mind. Thanks to GIL, I have the luxury of not having to worry about anything other than the words. People who tackle every aspect of development are amazing. They have a lot more on their plate and as a result, they probably don't have the time to stare at a single line for five minutes trying to will a satisfying description out of it.

Other than that, I've just consumed a lot of stories, including reading nearly every eroge that got translated over a decade. I like to think I have a good feel for pacing a visual novel because of that.

As for the posing, staging, and facial expressions... GIL is just that exacting. He's been working with illusion (the company that makes HoneySelect) posers for a long time. In fact, I met him back in 2017 thanks to a comic he made that inspired me to make some comics of my own. So he's got a lot of experience, plus the kind of mind that forces him to agonize over the tiny details of scenes. In my opinion, he's the true ingredient of our success. I always doubt the stuff I write, but he convinces me otherwise by bringing it to life so vibrantly.

So, basically, I would say because there's two of us.

 

[Fappy1738]

Victoria's current character model is probably the hottest one out of all the girls (me personally) but even if there is no incest hopefully later we get to see a little bit of something from her sexually maybe with her dating app thing she was taking about with edwin .

 

[Crepusculum]

Thank you for saying as much, but for my side of things, beyond the loose outline(s) I have set, it really is just sitting down and writing what comes to mind. Thanks to GIL, I have the luxury of not having to worry about anything other than the words. People who tackle every aspect of development are amazing. They have a lot more on their plate and as a result, they probably don't have the time to stare at a single line for five minutes trying to will a satisfying description out of it.

Other than that, I've just consumed a lot of stories, including reading nearly every eroge that got translated over a decade. I like to think I have a good feel for pacing a visual novel because of that.

As for the posing, staging, and facial expressions... GIL is just that exacting. He's been working with illusion (the company that makes HoneySelect) posers for a long time. In fact, I met him back in 2017 thanks to a comic he made that inspired me to make some comics of my own. So he's got a lot of experience, plus the kind of mind that forces him to agonize over the tiny details of scenes. In my opinion, he's the true ingredient of our success. I always doubt the stuff I write, but he convinces me otherwise by bringing it to life so vibrantly.

So, basically, I would say because there's two of us.

Lol, as humble as your Edwin, i see where he gets it.

GIL really does appear to be, much like yourself, a master of his craft. I honestly don't think I've seen any non AAA product (and I've gamed, A LOT) with such amazing accuracy, it so realistic, it can actually be discombobulating in some scenes.

I find it incredible how you guys are two veterans of your craft, and on the other side (us) no one has a clue. the final product obviously speaks for itself, quality wise, but due to our retarded world considering this lesser to other creations.

Again, I appriciate the answer and look forward to enjoying the amazing stuff you guys create.

 

[ReservoirCreature]

The game medium gives you the opportunity to branch out, and tell multiple story paths (or just branch off for one or two events).

I know a ton of people are quoting you with counter-arguments and I'm not trying to dogpile you here, but . . .

I think if you try to add too much choice you eventually cross the threshold between visual novel and sandbox. I understand sandboxes are enormously popular here, but I personally find them a poor medium for storytelling. They /always/ end up being more of a simulator and less of a story. In my experience sandbox choices lead you to lots of interactions with characters but very rarely to story events. While there is a lot of overlap between the two, interactions and story events are NOT the same thing. You can have infinite character interactions without anything really happening.

It's almost a zero sum game. That is, once you've crossed into sandbox territory, the more choice you are given the less of an actual story there is. Each choice erodes the story further. I admit that that sounds paradoxical. "More choices" sounds like it should mean more possible story avenues, which I think is part of the argument you are making here. But I think it's true, too much choice splinters your story really badly over time and you can easily end up with no story at all.

I don't mean to say that choices are bad or harmful for a visual novel. After all, I love Pale Carnations and I think it has a very healthy amount of choices that are all placed at very appropriate times in the story. I just think the amount of choices needs to be exactly that, a healthy amount. Not a smorgasbord of choices to gorge yourself on.

I think it's clear that TD and Gil have a very precise vision they want to execute, which means limiting the amount of choices.

 

[Carl0sDanger]

I think if you try to add too much choice ...

I don't think it's the quantity of choice, but rather the quality. Choices need to be meaningful and the way to do that is for them to have consequences.

A good story doesn't go, "A happened, then B happened, then C happened, then ..." it goes, "A happened and the protagonist did X, which resulted in B happening so the protagonist tried to do Y but failed and as a result C happened, but then ..."

And you create that in a game by offering the player choices that shape the emerging story. That's where so many sandboxes fall flat.

 

[Biscardone]

I don't think it's the quantity of choice, but rather the quality. Choices need to be meaningful and the way to do that is for them to have consequences.

A good story doesn't go, "A happened, then B happened, then C happened, then ..." it goes, "A happened and the protagonist did X, which resulted in B happening so the protagonist tried to do Y but failed and as a result C happened, but then ..."

And you create that in a game by offering the player choices that shape the emerging story. That's where so many sandboxes fall flat.

That is the crux of the problem: if a game without choices is a straight line, a game with meaningful choices generates a tree (or a graph, if you prefer). Key word is "meaningful": two choices with no consequences do not spawn a divergent path, and are practically collapsible in a single segment of a line. However, when choices have consequences, the lines diverge, and unfortunately the complexity of the graph explodes very soon. I can't post a link because of my low post count, but if you're curious or interested you can look for the post mortem of "Alpha Protocol" (search for "Obsidian Ent. But Thou Must" on Youtube), a glorious trainwreck of a game that however is very significant for this discussion, because its greatest asset is a story that while being told linearly can be tackled in a multitude of different ways with lots of branching consequences and a relatively small number of story choke points and incoherences. However, this kind of story really pushed the devs and writers to their limits, since the resulting graph was an incredibly jumbled mess, and each modification to it snowballed and was almost unmanageable.

Speaking of choices and consequences, I don't want to derail the discussion too much, but I'd like to ask TD1900 if he played a 200x eroge named "Crescendo". I also suggest any eroge aficionado to play it: it's old, and has lots of the trappings of a "classic" eroge, complete with heavy handed stereotypes and such... However, narratively I think it's way above the average, and in particular I think it has one of the most mature handling of "bad endings" I've seen (and bad endings in general were discussed in this thread at some point).

Spoiler: Partial spoliers of one of Crescendo's endings

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[dolfe67]

For the culture: Crescendo

 

[camube]

Thank you for saying as much, but for my side of things, beyond the loose outline(s) I have set, it really is just sitting down and writing what comes to mind. Thanks to GIL, I have the luxury of not having to worry about anything other than the words. People who tackle every aspect of development are amazing. They have a lot more on their plate and as a result, they probably don't have the time to stare at a single line for five minutes trying to will a satisfying description out of it.

Other than that, I've just consumed a lot of stories, including reading nearly every eroge that got translated over a decade. I like to think I have a good feel for pacing a visual novel because of that.

As for the posing, staging, and facial expressions... GIL is just that exacting. He's been working with illusion (the company that makes HoneySelect) posers for a long time. In fact, I met him back in 2017 thanks to a comic he made that inspired me to make some comics of my own. So he's got a lot of experience, plus the kind of mind that forces him to agonize over the tiny details of scenes. In my opinion, he's the true ingredient of our success. I always doubt the stuff I write, but he convinces me otherwise by bringing it to life so vibrantly.

So, basically, I would say because there's two of us.

I didn't check "the expressions" on my first playthrough, because most of these VNs have limited expressions, lol. I just read the text.
So for me, initially it was all about the writing. Close to 100% of it.

But then after some time I did a replay, and goddamn, the expressions are top tier too.

I said it multiple times by now but I really think this game should be on steam or somewhere else that is popular. This game is really good in many of it's aspects. The story being told is admittedly quite niche and that could limit the number of possible patrons too compared to, say, a college experience game where it caters to wider range people.

But still, I do think 800 patrons is way too low a number. 1100 should be the lowest. Up to 2200, or even more. So yeah, I really think Steam or similar game marketplace would really help.

I knew BaDIK from steam. Before knowing about this forum.

 

[Deleted member 3083868]

Victoria incest can happen on Kathleen path the surprise for Edwin can be Victoria kidnapped , drugged, blindfolded and delivered to Edwin by Warren on behalf of Kathleen. The morally uptight can refuse this surprise and the rest of us incest lovers can accept to go further on that path.
Or at least give us scenes with someone else if not Edwin. Victoria in present age has to be one the best looking milfs out in adult game history would be such a shame to not have any scenes with her present character.

 

[sunaboz]

(...) I don't think it's the quantity of choice, but rather the quality. (...)

Most erotic games have either fake choices, "yes"/"no" answers or some completely arbitrary shit that dev makes up along the way (e.g. we can choose a left door or a right door and if we choose wrong it's game over or we can choose to give a spicy food or sweet food and there is no hint previously what could be a better answer).

In Pale Carnations almost all choices matter and even when it's more of a flavour than a divergent path, at least one attribute will be affected (like "toughness or we get a +1 or -1 point with certain girls) but more importantly because of good writing we can roughly guess what to expect when we do choose. For example, in the very beginning Felicia tells us to bring her some fruity drink so when we have choices:

1) dry martini
2) cherry bomb
3) tequila

it's not hard to deduce what will get us more points with Felicia.

Seems like something obvious but it's surprising how often other devs don't do something this basic and instead we get random choices.

 

[Ozygator]

Or, like any late added kink, it might alienate the current audience. Wouldn't bother me any, but seen it time and time again. The developer pivots to add a requested kink and ends up upsetting many more people than he pleases.

Usually this happens when a dev sneaks NTR into any game that's supposedly about building relatonships with characters since that specific fetish is anything but relationship building and more about power and dominance.

 

[AdmKnives]

Are you using any mods? I suspect you may have installed an outdated one and replaced the new week2exhibition script with an old one that still has the save screen at that particular spot.

No mods, I even did a fresh install

 

[nec14e]

You are correct because I see Kathleen and MC's relationship the same way as Ian and Chuck's.

would be nice if there was also male whores or women dominating men. especially kathleen with MC

 

[ReservoirCreature]

I don't think it's the quantity of choice, but rather the quality. Choices need to be meaningful and the way to do that is for them to have consequences.

Right, but I think the amount of choices in a sandbox becomes unwieldly very, very fast. Whenever you reach that point where the spiderweb is too complex for you to write choices that fit together in any meaningful way, everything falls apart. I think quantity of choices DOES matter. Maybe only because of the limits of human ability, but still.

 

[RC-1138 Boss]

Victoria incest can happen on Kathleen path the surprise for Edwin can be Victoria kidnapped , drugged, blindfolded and delivered to Edwin by Warren on behalf of Kathleen. The morally uptight can refuse this surprise and the rest of us incest lovers can accept to go further on that path.
Or at least give us scenes with someone else if not Edwin. Victoria in present age has to be one the best looking milfs out in adult game history would be such a shame to not have any scenes with her present character.

Did you tried reading ANYTHING the game developers have been saying about the matter?
There won't be incest here, ever.

If you want it so much go look somewhere else, there are literally hundreds and hundreds of choices in F95zone.

 

[TM | Twisted Games]

Victoria incest can happen on Kathleen path the surprise for Edwin can be Victoria kidnapped , drugged, blindfolded and delivered to Edwin by Warren on behalf of Kathleen. The morally uptight can refuse this surprise and the rest of us incest lovers can accept to go further on that path.
Or at least give us scenes with someone else if not Edwin. Victoria in present age has to be one the best looking milfs out in adult game history would be such a shame to not have any scenes with her present character.

I like incest as much as the next person, and more than most probably...but really, there has to be a time to step back and just respect the game that the devs are choosing to make.

There is nothing more grating than seeing in game thread after game thread the hinted opinion that having 'x' tag will make your game more successful, or you need to exclude 'y' tag because people don't like it.

First of all, looking at the top 50 games, it's incredibly clear that there is no single formula to success...and second, veiled comments, threats, requests, about tags are all very transparently just the petitioner trying to give unearned weight to their request.

Let the devs of this game, and every game, make what they want to make...and then praise or criticize it on those merits.


All that said...you guys really need to get Victoria fucked in this VN in present day. Make it happen

 

[Bill Temple]

I like incest as much as the next person, and more than most probably...but really, there has to be a time to step back and just respect the game that the devs are choosing to make.

There is nothing more grating than seeing in game thread after game thread the hinted opinion that having 'x' tag will make your game more successful, or you need to exclude 'y' tag because people don't like it.

First of all, looking at the top 50 games, it's incredibly clear that there is no single formula to success...and second, veiled comments, threats, requests, about tags are all very transparently just the petitioner trying to give unearned weight to their request.

Let the devs of this game, and every game, make what they want to make...and then praise or criticize it on those merits.


All that said...you guys really need to get Victoria fucked in this VN in present day. Make it happen

How about instead we petition for a prequel with Victoria as the protagonist? It could start with the death of her husband. It would cover her financial motivations for starting adult entertainment, her "corruption" into a MILF porn starlet, her guilt over how much she likes letting go while being GBed on camera, fears of being found out. The climax would be her struggle to get free from the industry and cover her tracks before her son and the PTA find out.

 

[TM | Twisted Games]

I'm on board, now we just need some blackmail material on Gil and TD