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

[RC-1138 Boss]

Anyone got any thoughts on that?

Only that i liked both type of scenes.

 

[sunaboz]

(...)
a more unified, singular Felicia scene would've been more potent than any individual branch while also taking less work.

Anyone got any thoughts on that?

I disagree with RHFlash.

It might be more potent but in the end we're just observers and the VN is even less of a game than it was. I ignore "kinetic novels" because I might as well watch porn, PC on the other hand is the best porn game because it really is a game. We have tons of things to do and many paths (and sex positions) to take and this is why it's so replayable. I know that many players won't notice all the branching and all your hard work and think that an update was rather short but just as many should appreciate it. /IMO

 

[ename144]

I just want to say, cutting corners is the last thing either GIL or I will do. We (in part) do this for our own satisfaction, desire to work together, and love for the process. My approach to making a visual novel has been about balance. You can always do better, you are always improving... so it's about finding the sweet spot between what's important to you, what you are satisfied presenting to the world, and getting things done at a reasonable pace. That has been our philosophy since the start, and it is why you'll never see us go back and "remaster" anything while there's still a long road ahead of us. Every update you get better; if you're a perfectionist, it would just simply never end.

With that in mind, animations tend to be a trade off. They take time to make, but they also make some of that time back from the huge swathes of text they eat up which would otherwise require static images, while adding immense production value to the project. If the script gets to a point where not doing an animation would be a glaring omission, that would not sit well with either of us. I just love GIL's animations. It's one of the things I derive great joy from, so I don't want less of them.

Instead, our discussion(s) center around my side of the things: the way scenes are paced, designed, and structured. In my pursuit to make a perfect game for me, I have a tendency to complicate scenes, which ends up running contrary to my own selfish goal when things begin to play out unevenly. selberdreher is astute when he mentioned exhibition 2; the free roam section served the purpose of continuing the club as a character, but things suffered in the back half. There was certain potential developments in the Felicia and Rosalind events that I would've like to portrayed, but ended up not doing so because of a combination of fatigue and our desire to actually see people playing our hard work. That's another impetus for the discussion: beyond finishing at a sustainable pace, releasing has become an enjoyable stage of the creative process for us.

I mean, it's not like very many people are complaining about the time our updates take; in fact, most people tell us to take our time, but it can't be discounted just how much seeing people playing, reacting, and enjoying your work is good for the soul. Having people discuss an update is like a renewal of spirit. It's invigorating, educational, and is overall good for the health of the project. I would veeeeeery much like to be a 3 updates a year kind of game. However, I also recognize that being rigid with frequent updates is not the solution, because cutting an update at an undue time just adds to more operational downtime over the long run with testing and PR'ing and other stuff.

So, I really do just think the answer is reining in my impulse to get fucking crazy at the first chance I get.

Take two of my favorite scenes for example: the Felicia sex scene in Elias' office and Mina's "all you can eat buffet." The Felicia scene has a ton of branching: vaginal or anal, and then positional choices after that. The Mina one is a lot more straight forward, you just choose the kind of tone you take with her and how you finish. I love both these scenes, but there is an argument to be made that a more unified, singular Felicia scene would've been more potent than any individual branch while also taking less work.

Anyone got any thoughts on that?

Yes, probably too many to express coherently.

I think your instincts are spot on, so don't go second guessing yourself too much. But on the specific topic of how much branching is good, I've been contemplating that a lot after my less-than-enthusiastic response to Being a DIK's Crossroad. My current take away is this: choices can be a tremendously powerful tool, but only if the game is able to reflect those choices back at the player. Some choices can be hard to reflect - and bigger choices require a bigger mirror.

Basically, I think choices help keep us players immersed in the game. They allow us to tailor the experience to our own preferences and at a very basic level give us a sense of ownership that differentiates a game from a novel/movie/etc. But to really leverage that potential, the game needs to react to those choices. The old RPG trick of giving us a list of potential dialog options can be beneficial even if the NPC will give us the same response each time, but it's far, far more effective if an NPC will call back to that option in a different (but related) situation down the line. The catch is that we need to agree with the call back; if we picked an option to sound badass and the NPC reacts as though we were cowardly, then the illusion is lost.

To return to BaDIK for a minute, that game goes to great lengths to track our choices so it can call back to them. It's one of the game's great strengths. But the game also has a complicated morality system that (among other things) gauges whether our actions at certain key points are DIK-ish or CHICK-ish, then adjusts our 'Affinity' to match. On top of that, the game also throws 5 different LIs at us (and a host of sidegirls), each of which we can pursue or decline.

Now, the Affinity system was always notoriously vague, and the question of why some girls weren't LIs was much debated, but in general those options did the important job of adding replayability and helping us define what sort of person the MC was. For me the real problem began when we reached the crossroad at the end of Season 2 where the MC was forced to pick a single LI path going forward (or reject them all if you were so inclined). The MC recognized that playing the field was going to hurt someone's feelings so he had to make a choice following a big montage; the game would even make the choice automatically if the MC had only be pursuing a single option. Then come Season 3, the MC got some extra scenes with his preferred LI at the big Halloween party.

In theory, it was a great idea. The problem is that DPC didn't consider the bigger picture, namely the way the Affinity system overlapped with the choice of LIs to define the MC. After all, if the MC was a hardcore DIK, why would he stop being fuck buddies with a girl just because she *might* get hurt - especially if she had to be talked into formally dating him in the first place? Conversely, if he was a dyed in the wool CHICK who'd only pursued a single girl, why would he need to go through a crossroads in the first place? And if he did, why would he or worry more about the Halloween party than he would about helping his new girlfriend deal with an ultimatum from her control-freak father? Or even just telling her that she *was* his girlfriend now?

In short, BaDIK had spent years training us to think that crafting the MC's view of women, in both the specifics and the broad term, was a major aspect of the gameplay only to pull rank and force us into a few narrow branches to service the plot of Season 3. To me that was thoroughly unsatisfying. It really gutted my interest in replaying the game because I no longer trusted the decisions I made to reflect the reasons I made them. Previously, alternate playthroughs felt like a roleplaying experience; now they were just a completionist chore. To be clear, my view was hardly mainstream. But I stand by my critique.

Okay, tangent over. The reason for this long digression is that I think it illustrates an important aspect of choices in a game. The more the game emphasizes a choice, the more it needs to honor the implications of that choice. Ignoring or contradicting a one-off conversation option is at most irksome, but playing fast and loose with a core gameplay mechanic can be devastating. So my advice to you, TD, is to consider carefully how a given choice could tie into the core gameplay aspects of Pale Carnations (at least as you see them).

If you think a choice is tightly woven to those aspects, then you should be willing to lavish development time on as many branching options as are feasible. Those branches will not only pay dividends by keeping the player invested, they will also reinforce that the underlying subject matter is an important part of the game. On the other hand, if you think the choice is only tangentially related to the core gameplay, then you should be very cautious allowing it to branch widely; not only would excessive branching give you less bang for your buck in the here and now, but it may wind up hamstringing the game down the line when the implications of this branch feel more important thanks to all the ongoing attention they require.

To address your example more specifically, the choice of vaginal or anal with Felicia after the interview was potentially a bit indulgent, but ultimately I'd say it was fine. This choice isn't likely to demand specific follow-up later and it probably didn't take that long to add. I'd suggest, however, the option to not have sex with her at all is far more significant because it tangentially ties into what I see as a core gameplay aspect: namely, the nature of the MC and his relationship with Carnations. Now if that was deliberate, no worries; that's branching time well spent. But if that wasn't intentional, then much as it pains me to say it, that's the sort of choice you should consider very carefully in the future because it might suggest we should try to keep Edwin from fooling around on the job if we want him to be a better person when all is said and done.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that example in and of itself is a big problem. But it's the sort of option that, if it's repeated often in the early game, could cause an issue when you no longer have dev time to support at a crucial moment.

That's my best attempt at articulating my thoughts, anyway. I'm not sure if I'm explaining it well, and it's hard to get specific when I'm not entirely sure where you intend to go with the game. You'll probably have to take this with a lot of salt.

 

[OsirianObsidian]

I just want to say, cutting corners is the last thing either GIL or I will do. We (in part) do this for our own satisfaction, desire to work together, and love for the process. My approach to making a visual novel has been about balance. You can always do better, you are always improving... so it's about finding the sweet spot between what's important to you, what you are satisfied presenting to the world, and getting things done at a reasonable pace. That has been our philosophy since the start, and it is why you'll never see us go back and "remaster" anything while there's still a long road ahead of us. Every update you get better; if you're a perfectionist, it would just simply never end.

With that in mind, animations tend to be a trade off. They take time to make, but they also make some of that time back from the huge swathes of text they eat up which would otherwise require static images, while adding immense production value to the project. If the script gets to a point where not doing an animation would be a glaring omission, that would not sit well with either of us. I just love GIL's animations. It's one of the things I derive great joy from, so I don't want less of them.

Instead, our discussion(s) center around my side of the things: the way scenes are paced, designed, and structured. In my pursuit to make a perfect game for me, I have a tendency to complicate scenes, which ends up running contrary to my own selfish goal when things begin to play out unevenly. selberdreher is astute when he mentioned exhibition 2; the free roam section served the purpose of continuing the club as a character, but things suffered in the back half. There was certain potential developments in the Felicia and Rosalind events that I would've like to portrayed, but ended up not doing so because of a combination of fatigue and our desire to actually see people playing our hard work. That's another impetus for the discussion: beyond finishing at a sustainable pace, releasing has become an enjoyable stage of the creative process for us.

I mean, it's not like very many people are complaining about the time our updates take; in fact, most people tell us to take our time, but it can't be discounted just how much seeing people playing, reacting, and enjoying your work is good for the soul. Having people discuss an update is like a renewal of spirit. It's invigorating, educational, and is overall good for the health of the project. I would veeeeeery much like to be a 3 updates a year kind of game. However, I also recognize that being rigid with frequent updates is not the solution, because cutting an update at an undue time just adds to more operational downtime over the long run with testing and PR'ing and other stuff.

So, I really do just think the answer is reining in my impulse to get fucking crazy at the first chance I get.

Take two of my favorite scenes for example: the Felicia sex scene in Elias' office and Mina's "all you can eat buffet." The Felicia scene has a ton of branching: vaginal or anal, and then positional choices after that. The Mina one is a lot more straight forward, you just choose the kind of tone you take with her and how you finish. I love both these scenes, but there is an argument to be made that a more unified, singular Felicia scene would've been more potent than any individual branch while also taking less work.

Anyone got any thoughts on that?

I'd say that you got it exactly spot on with both scenes.

Felicia's scene absolutely NEEDED to be branching because of the type of girl she is. She knows what she wants and likes to be in control of the situation. The opportunity to kiss her while fucking her ass and the look on her face where she's like 'that's not in the rules of the game we are playing' makes her a more compelling character and takes the scene out of just someone having fun into something deeper and more intense. You might say 'Well, the internal narrative and what the MC says to her could change that', but anal sex is far more submissive than vaginal sex and you could really feel the animalistic desire to destroy her soul in that scene. In short, the Felicia scene was about her internal state (even though we don't get to see it, her reactions to what is happening are what make it).

The Mina scene, on the other hand, was more about the internal state of the MC. Mina is just 'going along for the ride', so there isn't the need to create multiple branching paths because the story behind the sex is the fact that he's going to fuck his best friend's hot as fuck girlfriend. You don't need a more compelling narrative or branching stories for this. This internal state concept also works for Hana. Both of these girls aren't part of the competition so they are essentially blank canvases where it's not so much the sex that is hot but why they are having sex (I just wish you had made Hana calling the MC Daddy more like the scene with the girl rockstar and have her actually submit and call him Daddy instead of tricking her into it...but maybe this is just a precursor).

My suggestion would be to keep the Carnations as branching sex scenes (i.e. the sex is about their internal state, since they are only in this situation because they are Carnations) and everyone else (Hana, Mina, Kath, house girls) as linear (i.e. the sex is about the MCs internal state).

 

[BrockLanders]

Anyone got any thoughts on that?

Just this.

Don't second guess if you're pleasing us. I can't imagine either of those scenes being anything other than what they are. Rather, keep second guessing yourself in process. That seems to be making you churn out polished and turgid content that just flows. It may not feel like it when you are in the middle of it all, but you are. You are finding the statue in the marble. Keep it up. If it takes a while, it takes a while.

Like I was telling Gallant Trombe: create your art, we will interpret and adapt to it. Not the other way around. You and GIL do you two.

Spoiler: When will you make an end?

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Michelangelo and Pope Julius II regarding "Edwin's Ménage à Trois with Hana and Mina" painted in relief on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.​

 

[Biscardone]

To address your example more specifically, the choice of vaginal or anal with Felicia after the interview was potentially a bit indulgent, but ultimately I'd say it was fine. This choice isn't likely to demand specific follow-up later and it probably didn't take that long to add. I'd suggest, however, the option to not have sex with her at all is far more significant because it tangentially ties into what I see as a core gameplay aspect: namely, the nature of the MC and his relationship with Carnations. Now if that was deliberate, no worries; that's branching time well spent. But if that wasn't intentional, then much as it pains me to say it, that's the sort of choice you should consider very carefully in the future because it might suggest we should try to keep Edwin from fooling around on the job if we want him to be a better person when all is said and done.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that example in and of itself is a big problem. But it's the sort of option that, if it's repeated often in the early game, could cause an issue when you no longer have dev time to support at a crucial moment.

Yes! That's exactly what I meant by "watch out from the branches snowballing into an avalanche". There are choices that have an immediate impact, but no long term consequences, and others that may simply skip a scene, but they imply a significant decision for a character, and it would be a pity to hand-wave them later. So, dear TD and GIL: I'm confident in your writing and storytelling chops, and that you've planned most of the outcomes for major player choices... just get ready to chomp at the bit if the situation requires it, to avoid both internal incoherence for the characters and heavy headaches for you. (Plus, here's my usual

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to a cautionary tale about branching getting out of proportion).

 

[Zerorox]

Felicia vaginal/anal choise was godsend option, I'm not sayin' every scene must have same branching option, but at least not story-wise anal scenes (some punishment at carnation event or smth) might have at least slight different vaginal alternative.

As of scenes branching overall, I think of them as gems that make one more difference between kinetic novel and full-fledged game. Also it adds to replay ability value (yeah, I know most of us save/return but not anyone, some play in more "immerse way")

I understand it mostly doubles the work amount but still, players appreciate that.

 

[PhlebasThePhoenician]

It was Michelangelo Buonarroti who painted the ceiling of the Cappella Sistina.

 

[BrockLanders]

It was Michelangelo Buonarroti who painted the ceiling of the Cappella Sistina.

I knew it was way too late last night to be writing dick jokes

 

[Wooloomooloo]

I knew it was way too late last night to be writing dick jokes

...so what was in the post before you edited it, Leonardo, Donatello or Raphael...?

 

[Bill Temple]

...so what was in the post before you edited it, Leonardo, Donatello or Raphael...?

Master Splinter

 

[BrockLanders]

...so what was in the post before you edited it, Leonardo, Donatello or Raphael...?

 

[honkyfifteen]

I was just replaying the game today for fun and was not really paying much attention to choices, except for major ones (also subconsciously selecting every felicia choice, as she is the one!). With this casual play, i reached the end of the 2nd event night, with all three carnations tied. That was a surprise, as I had no idea if that can happen.
Now i cant wait for new update to see what situation arises due to that.

 

[RC-1138 Boss]

I was just replaying the game today for fun and was not really paying much attention to choices, except for major ones (also subconsciously selecting every felicia choice, as she is the one!). With this casual play, i reached the end of the 2nd event night, with all three carnations tied. That was a surprise, as I had no idea if that can happen.
Now i cant wait for new update to see what situation arises due to that.

Damn you got the hardest possible outcome, I had to save scum a lot to make a save like that. Want to see what Kathleen will have prepared for the trio.

 

[honkyfifteen]

Damn you got the hardest possible outcome, I had to save scum a lot to make a save like that. Want to see what Kathleen will have prepared for the trio.

Hehe yeah, got lucky i guess. Even i am excited to see the punishment now.

 

[ReservoirCreature]

Veronica is my favorite Carnation and I find myself inadvertently going easy on her during "business hours," which is probably going to make her lose in the long run. What a conundrum.

 

[RC-1138 Boss]

Veronica is my favorite Carnation and I find myself inadvertently going easy on her during "business hours," which is probably going to make her lose in the long run. What a conundrum.

No need to go easy on her. She can easily win the first week competition.
On my main save it is Veronica 1 win (first week), Rosalind 1 win (second week) and Felicia 0 win, and a tie on week 2 on my secondary save.

 

[ReservoirCreature]

No need to go easy on her. She can easily win the first week competition.

I'm sure she can take whatever punishment you throw at her, but at what cost? Will she hate me when it's all over?

Of the three, I think Veronica has the clearest way out of her situation that doesn't involve winning the pageant. It sounds like her gym would at least pay for itself if you can undo Samson's sabotage. I think I'm going all-in on that strategy. One of the other girls can have the prize money.

 

[RC-1138 Boss]

I'm sure she can take whatever punishment you throw at her, but at what cost? Will she hate me when it's all over?

Of the three, I think Veronica has the clearest way out of her situation that doesn't involve winning the pageant. It sounds like her gym would at least pay for itself if you can undo Samson's sabotage. I think I'm going all-in on that strategy. One of the other girls can have the prize money.

Just be truthfull with her in both Edwin's words and actions, no bs.
And also don't be afraid to lewd on her or let her take charge when the situation arrives, she enjoys it most of the time.

Doing that i had all the friendship points necessary to give the hug Veronica needed after that scene.

 

[honkyfifteen]

Just to truthfull with her in both Edwin's words and actions, no bs.
And also don't be afraid to lewd on her or let her take charge when the situation arrives, she enjoys it most of the time.

Doing that i had all the friendship points necessary to give the hug Veronica needed after that scene.

The hug scene really hits hard, very emotional. Even though I am not considering her path, that scene really felt good.