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

[Turret]

While I do feel bad that the new update leaked so rapidly, I still went ahead and played the hell out of it; hypocrisy is a core theme to the game, right? It's a good thing too, given how long it's taken me to get this all written up. Sorry for the delay, it's just been a very hectic week.

Anyway, this was definitely a very strong update. I thought it did an excellent job handling the 'downtime' between big sex scenes by giving us some deep looks into Chuck, Hana, August, and Felicia, as well as an unexpected pairings in Ian and Rose and Hana and Mina. We even got a small dose of Ian and Hana interacting as coworkers. It does a great job setting the stage for the impending doom that is definitely befalling the Club in the near future. The only real downside is that we got very little content for Veronica and Victoria, but I can't expect the game to be about my favorites all the time.

Felicia, of course, gets the lion's share of the focus (assuming you're on her path), culminating in a bunch of very intricate sex scenes. Felicia isn't my favorite, but I think what we got here works somewhere between well and fantastically well depending on exactly which route you take through her content. And there are certainly plenty of interesting reveals to ponder as we wait to see what Part 5 will have in store for us.

To that end, let's get into the spoiler-filled details.

Spoiler: Hana (and August)

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Spoiler: Dr. Chuck

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Spoiler: Ian and Rose

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Spoiler: Felicia

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Spoiler: Felicia and Mina

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Spoiler: Scenes without the MC Present

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Spoiler: Other Stuff

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Spoiler: Bugs

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And with that I think we are finally done. Sorry for the excessive length, but there was a lot to cover here, and almost all of it was good. I'd say the update was definitely worth the long wait.

tl;dr Excellent character moments that advance the plot, good-to-great sex scenes for a bunch of paths, and plenty of intrigue for the future. I definitely recommend the update, despite the scarcity of Veronica and Victoria content.

Hi ename144!
You, like SteamedHamsInc. , wrote a really good review post, many interesting thoughts. A few commeting thoughts from me.

Spoiler

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[sunaboz]

(...) It's not like she couldn't send the note on her own and get Warren to cover for Elias' entrance (...)

Too risky, they could get to club any time and it would blow back in her face even more. If it was one person I could buy that (she could keep tabs on that person), but she has way too many people to handle. Not only August but also Chuck, Ian and now Hana even, plus any of the employees that might have noticed the new face.

Not to mention that we know that Chuck likes to check footage regularly:
Chuck: Just some footage from the previous day. I like to keep abreast of some of our patron's activities.

Let's be honest, Kat knows August and Chuck, knows what annoys them and what makes them tick (if she can do it almost immediately when meeting new people she certainly can do it with her old friends/acquaintances) so I can imagine she would know how to convince them to allow it without resorting to such covert shenanigans. But IMO she didn't have to convince them, this is a great opportunity for some really perverted stuff and this is what that club is about.

 

[Idontplay]

PS: Edwin the Gunslinger was funny

View attachment 3488430

When an amateur meets a professional…

 

[Randomguy3478]

What you two choose to completely overlook in your Felicia bashing are some facts you can gleam from the game.

- Elias and Felicia have a prenup and an agreement for boys/girls on the side. So Feli being with the MC is not really a problem and I do not count Elias´ sidegirl against him, since they have this agreement.

- Elias is a blackmailer, who blackmails several of his clients, which is a reason Felicia is against using blackmail on the unreasonable art critic. Felicia has some standards.

- And one of the biggest points counting against Elias is him not helping felicia with the school. Felicia would not even be at PC had he helped her out with the school. Elias would have gained her full loyalty had he done so. As we learned through the game, Elias is rich enough to pay the sum for saving the school from flippantly speaking the post stamp money.
He knew how important that school is for Felicia, he could have saved it with a (for him) neglible sum of money, gotten great PR in addition and the full loyalty of Felicia. Feli might be a golddigger, but even just from a business sight this would have been the choice to do. Elias did not.

While Felicia is not free of failings (which she does admit to), Elias is the bad one here. At the end of the day, when it comes to the girls of PC, Felicia, Hana and Sophia for the win! They are the most interesting girls in the game, the others are really good too, but these three are the top.

The problem is not the agreed on cheating (if we even believe fel). The problem is that she actively destroys and humiliates her husband in front of his peers by cheating. This is as evil as a wife can be.

Elias is free to choose not to entertain each and every whim of his wife. That is not the same as intentionally destroying and humiliating one's spouse in the social circle.

Elias blackmailing is immoral but affects fel zero.

The girls of PC might be interesting, but as women for a long term relationship they are all bottom of the barrel. Even hana is a perfect example for why one never gets involved with girls who have a bad relationship with their parents: sure enough she tries to get Edwin into trouble by getting him to do stupid shit around August, just because she gets off on angering her father.

The game is one long warning about women and their ways.

Btw. Felicia is also a horrible friend. When mina still feels wholesome shame, jealousy, and disgust about the degeneracy of the threesome, fel who knows by now how shallow her hedonistic life is, pushes mina against her inate resistance towards the same foolish path.

Makes for an interesting porn game, but fel is the bad friend you would never want for your own daughter.

Got around to read half through the threesome with mina and fel and the visuals are really good. Everything is so crisp and clear. Edwins mimics are incredible. The way minas nipple moves. I know no other game that comes even close to making the characters so alive with its visuals. Just the way Edwin sits says everything about his current state. And the bodies of the two girls hit the perfect spot of believable but insanely hot.

The writing of the scene is excellent as well. The taste doesn't click with me, and its a pity as there is no western AVN writer around who comes even in the vicinity of TD's H-scene writing, but I really buy it when Edwin fires off a confident command, or makes mina temporarily fall into submissive admiration. The eroticism is just unmatched.

Thanks for the tremendous effort.

Finished the threesome scene and have to say I really liked the ending. Had a similar feeling to the earlier scenes of the game where it was more about Edwins pleasure.

Honestly missed that a lot.

Thanks, was an unexpected treat.

 

[pfft0123]

Question: Is this game now complete?
Or is there more to come?

 

[Turret]

The problem is not the agreed on cheating (if we even believe fel).

Elias is free to choose not to entertain each and every whim of his wife. That is not the same as intentionally destroying and humiliating one's spouse in the social circle.

Elias blackmailing is immoral but affects fel zero.

The girls of PC might be interesting, but as women for a long term relationship they are all bottom of the barrel. Even hana is a perfect example for why one never gets involved with girls who have a bad relationship with their parents: sure enough she tries to get Edwin into trouble by getting him to do stupid shit around August, just because she gets off on angering her father.

The game is one long warning about women and their ways.

Here we have a perfect example of how different our viewpoints can be!

"Elias is free to choose not to entertain each and every whim of his wife." That is correct but you overlook here that saving her school is not just an everyday whim of Felicia. She begged Elias to save the school and made it very clear how important this place is for her. Elias could have saved the school with ease, even getting great PR with it. And more, he would have gained Felicia´s thanks and full loyalty. She would never have gone to PC. But Elias did not save the school.

"That is not the same as intentionally destroying and humiliating one's spouse in the social circle." While hardly a nice move by Felicia, the humiliation of Elias in the social circle is currently near zero. The vast majority of the PC patrons are rivals of Elias and/or disliked him well before Feli came to PC. This was actually one reason Felicia came to PC, it was outside of Elias´normal social circle. So currently Elias suffers zero problems in his social circle.

 

[Elduriel]

Question: Is this game now complete?
Or is there more to come?

it would have the completed tag in the title if it was

 

[MAGO-DAG]

Question: Is this game now complete?
Or is there more to come?

Answer: no
And again no.

 

[Pr0GamerJohnny]

Btw. Felicia is also a horrible friend. When mina still feels wholesome shame, jealousy, and disgust about the degeneracy of the threesome, fel who knows by now how shallow her hedonistic life is, pushes mina against her inate resistance towards the same foolish path.

Makes for an interesting porn game, but fel is the bad friend you would never want for your own daughter.

How is Felicia seen as the corruptor when being on the threesome path from the start requires Mina cheating on Ian with MC?

That would suggest MC and Mina are the horrible ones.

Felicia and Elias come off as your pretty standard rich douche/trophy wife couple to me. Both of them are using each other and don't really care about each other, shrug, seems like a wash.

 

[ename144]

ename144
Hats off to you for your analysis and I dare say this one is the best one up to date.

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IMO the only thing out of place was the timing. Going back and forth between different scenes severed the flow/immersion and was a bucket of cold water that made me aware again I'm playing a game/am just an observer. Not sure if it could be done better though, personally I can't think of the way to do it and if TD could, it would probably take too much of his and GIL's time.


I see it differently. Kathleen has been doing this for 5 years now and at least Chuck is her friend AFAWK (at least judging by Chuck's words) so why would she want to destroy it or reshape it?

Abel's experiments is her side project and I don't see how that could disturb the club (and I would imagine that Chuck thinks so too, he has Abel under a close watch which his interaction with Edwin showed so I'm pretty sure he roughly knows what goes on in the vault).

As for Elias, like I said, the rest must have known about it and agreed to it. IMO Kat is doing it for fun and fun only. To exploit the one in a million chance that someone like Felicia would come along (not only 100% willingly but also being of high status, someone she would meet during boring parties). I mean, for a sadist like Kat it would be a waste to not try and get Elias into the club and see Felicia squirm but even non-sadistic perverts would see potential in such a scene.

Anyway, Elias being there doesn't necessarily mean bad things for the club (for Felicia, sure) and they have a plethora of options to mitigate any blowback that might occur due to this. She might drug him for one, he might be into it for two (we know she does her research and Elias wouldn't be in her office if he wasn't a filthy pervert just like the rest of us them), Elias will know that if he would spill the beans he would be destroyed or killed, etc. The only question is whether he will have any self respect and slam the doors leaving the club behind or will he allow to be made a laughing stock and remain there as a clown and cuck.

As Kathleen said about Felicia:

(...) "Over the next month, your social status means jack shit. You're no longer Mrs. Elias Ford, you're just another pig whore deserving of contempt." (...)

(...) "You're something special alright. This summer is going to be exceptional." (...)

P.S.
I agree that old title screen was better but it might be easily remedied if the background was darker (I think).

P.S. 2
BTW, do you think that Chuck could harm Ian (read: let someone else harm him) if his actions (regarding Darius for example) would jeopardize PC club and him getting off? Personally I think he could (although not permanently), his outburst during the exhibition showed that he really dislikes if someone is getting in the way of his fun.

Too risky, they could get to club any time and it would blow back in her face even more. If it was one person I could buy that (she could keep tabs on that person), but she has way too many people to handle. Not only August but also Chuck, Ian and now Hana even, plus any of the employees that might have noticed the new face.

Not to mention that we know that Chuck likes to check footage regularly:
Chuck: Just some footage from the previous day. I like to keep abreast of some of our patron's activities.

Let's be honest, Kat knows August and Chuck, knows what annoys them and what makes them tick (if she can do it almost immediately when meeting new people she certainly can do it with her old friends/acquaintances) so I can imagine she would know how to convince them to allow it without resorting to such covert shenanigans. But IMO she didn't have to convince them, this is a great opportunity for some really perverted stuff and this is what that club is about.

Thanks for reading through it all, glad you liked it.

As far as Kathleen's agenda, we already know Kathleen has no trouble (morally or practically) pulling the wool over Chuck and August's eyes. She says as much to Abel at the end of Chapter 3 Update 3. In fact, she says even more. Remember this exchange:

Spoiler: Foreshadowing

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I think she was being less metaphorical here than it originally seemed. Whether she plans to tear the whole setup down and start over or just shake up the management so thoroughly as to be unrecognizable, I think she has something very different in mind for the arrangement going forward than her partners. And frankly I do not think she has any interest in humoring August or Chuck once the fur starts flying. She obviously thinks she's better positioned to handle the fallout, and she may well be right.

Yes, it's possible Chuck and August are okay with inviting Elias to join the Club while they're making a laughing stock of him by humiliating his wife, but I have a hard time seeing it. August is explicitly against anything that would rock the boat, and Elias is guaranteed to do that. Chuck almost certainly considers Elias beneath his standards; the guy is practically the poster child for self-centered mundanity. I suspect Chuck considers a number of the patrons the same way, but they bring a lot to the table. Elias seems to bring more headaches than he does opportunities - at least as long as Felicia is a Carnation.

Elias is a bad patron, but he's the perfect spark to ignite tensions within the Club into full-blown civil war - one Kat intends to win. That's how I see it, anyway.

Hi ename144!
You, like SteamedHamsInc. , wrote a really good review post, many interesting thoughts. A few commeting thoughts from me.

Spoiler

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Thanks, Turret!

Unfortunately, we see Abel and Sophia almost entirely differently, so I find it hard to respond to your takes.

Spoiler: Thoughts

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[bonerland]

I fully agree but she is still a shitty person who does shitty things for money. I DO feel some sympathy but she is where she is by her own choice. All that said I really enjoy her complexity and as I've said everybody I've seen in the game wouldn't really be considered a "good" person by any measure.
It's a testament to the quality writing that these characters have such believable depth and can inspire such discussion.
Calling a spade a spade isn't ganging up neither is responding to some guy getting all emotional and tossing personal insults about opinions he doesn't like.

Again great game!


P.S. Felicia is probably also my fave character with Mina pressing in.

You started the personal attacks first just because I disagreed with you about you calling Felicia “evil” by calling anyone who disagreed with you a white knight, then you and your toady friend started insulting me personally, so I responded in kind. I never even said she wasn’t a shitty person, but I guess because I wasn’t kissing your ass you started being a dick to me. You’re a lying hypocrite.

 

[Biscardone]

The game is one long warning about women and their ways.

This game is a perfect mirror of those who play it.

I really mean no disrespect, but if you look at what happens at the club in-game, and your only thought is "eh, women are manipulating whores", I'd say your view of the world - the real world - is *slightly* skewed.

 

[TalkingCat15]

how big is the last update for it to be almost 9Gb?

 

[se20299]

When do you guys think the next update will come out? I'm cautiously optimistic for a mid September- late October release, but I wouldn't be surprised by a December- February date. The update was excellent as always, and the production value is astronomical, but I hope the game doesn't reach Being a DIK levels of bloat.

 

[Elduriel]

When do you guys think the next update will come out? I'm cautiously optimistic for a mid September- late October release, but I wouldn't be surprised by a December- February date. The update was excellent as always, and the production value is astronomical, but I hope the game doesn't reach Being a DIK levels of bloat.

it won't reach BaDIK levels, there's way less stuff in this game to complicate it. No minigames, no phone, no overdone free-roam etc... also less story branching.

 

[Bill Temple]

When do you guys think the next update will come out? I'm cautiously optimistic for a mid September- late October release, but I wouldn't be surprised by a December- February date. The update was excellent as always, and the production value is astronomical, but I hope the game doesn't reach Being a DIK levels of bloat.

I haven't played BaD and wear that fact as a badge of honor, so I can't comment about its bloat. I've never felt there was much extraneous content or story lines in Pale Carnations. What in PC do you find bloated or leads to your concern that it could become BaD?

 

[se20299]

I haven't played BaD and wear that fact as a badge of honor, so I can't comment about its bloat. I've never felt there was much extraneous content or story lines in Pale Carnations. What in PC do you find bloated or leads to your concern that it could become BaD?

I meant development time. I know as the game gets better, it will take more time for updates to come out. I just hope we don't get one update per year schedule, as thst would be excruciating for a game of this quality, as I'm already hooked.

 

[ename144]

When do you guys think the next update will come out? I'm cautiously optimistic for a mid September- late October release, but I wouldn't be surprised by a December- February date. The update was excellent as always, and the production value is astronomical, but I hope the game doesn't reach Being a DIK levels of bloat.

We can't make any informed speculation until TD gives us a sense of what the next update will encompass. I doubt it will be the next Exhibition, and it will probably include a date-type event for Rose, but beyond that it's hard to say how much might be included. If I had to guess at development time, I'd say the next update will probably be smaller than this, so 6 months seems like a reasonable starting point.

As far as bloat, I'm not really worried. I'd love the next update in a month as much as the next man, but you get what you pay for: good development takes time. The question is where that time is spent.

So far this game has had a very sharp focus on the story and main characters. No one's been shunted onto a holding pattern so we can spend time with side characters or run up the episode count while teasing the same old mysteries. I'm confident we'll keep that focus even if branching has to get broader as we approach whatever climax awaits us.

 

[se20299]

We can't make any informed speculation until TD gives us a sense of what the next update will encompass. I doubt it will be the next Exhibition, and it will probably include a date-type event for Rose, but beyond that it's hard to say how much might be included. If I had to guess at development time, I'd say the next update will probably be smaller than this, so 6 months seems like a reasonable starting point.

As far as bloat, I'm not really worried. I'd love the next update in a month as much as the next man, but you get what you pay for: good development takes time. The question is where that time is spent.

So far this game has had a very sharp focus on the story and main characters. No one's been shunted onto a holding pattern so we can spend time with side characters or run up the episode count while teasing the same old mysteries. I'm confident we'll keep that focus even if branching gets has to get broader as we approach whatever climax awaits us.

You're absolutely right. TD hasn't dissapointed us so far, so there's no reason for us to doubt him.

 

[strangelandQQ]

Overall, after this update, I'm once again convinced of how balanced the writers are in their approach to Carnation's personality.
With the introduction of Denise, players now have an example in front of their eyes of what might have happened to Felicia if she had continued to live her dream.
Some players now have an additional reason to love Felicia and become stronger in their desire to help her win, while others will become even more disappointed in her because she chose money over her dreams and pride.

On the other side we have Veronica, who literally went with fanatical perfectionism towards her dream of being a champion and opening a gym with her "exceptionally correct" methods and approaches to training process, that with each failure she only buried herself deeper and deeper, which led to breaking up with her wife, falling into a financial trap and ending up at The Club.

It would seem that with the last Carnation, Rosalind, everything would be on the surface - because of her husband's debts, she is here, threatened by bandits. I guess the casual player/reader will have sympathy for her, she's just a mother trying to get out of debt and protect her child from possible turmoil.
But does that make her situation any more special, especially against the background of the other characters in the game?
Edwin's mother has become a porn star to keep the family afloat after her husband's death. Hana's mother is also a porn star. Liza joined the club so her son could get into a prestigious university . Even a third-rate character like Harper mentions in a conversation with Edwin that she needs to pick up her son from the babysitter.
With that in mind, why should Rosalind get special treatment?

great chapter, as awlays.
sorry for any mistakes, not native speaker