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

[TD1900]

I partially agree with you, however, you need to know with what yardstick of perversity you measure other people's actions.

One of the most interesting aspects for me in the story so far is that the protagonists are in that Sodom and Gomorrah for relatively noble reasons, however, for them to achieve these goals, they have to become corrupted. This dichotomy is where much of the eroticism lies in my opinion. Knowing that they (especially Rose) can cross a point where there is no return, a level where they accept the lust that exists within them.

In short, I believe that the developers are gradually creating the circumstances for the story to become darker, they are simply in no rush to get to that moment. You need to have a concise narrative to reach the climax. Making a cinephile comparison: you first have to go through the Von trier level to reach the Gaspar Noé level of sluttiness and desolation.

I will add to this: you need the "lighthearted" moments to set a baseline for the "darker" moments to have impact. Wall-to-wall misery in a narrative is often just spectacle, and is honestly, not the kind of story I want to present.

And, as I've learned from my career as a coomer, one man's darkness is another man's quaint vanilla shit, and that will just keep going until you reach the bottom of the barrel of what humans masturbate to. Like what do people even want? Anything nonconsensual is off the table. The game is, at its core, the character's walking headfirst into corruption. No one's going to get forced to marry a pig, get their dicked chopped off, or turned into an Asagian meat cube. This scenario's edge comes from character's hopes being being dashed, their circumstances being exploited, and the unwitting compromising of their sense of self. Context is king, and in my opinion, pointing to a woman getting dunked in water as an example of "darkness" is some surface level shit.

Maybe someone asked this before... so sorry about that in advance.
But 7 months (!) for just one day ingame?

Calculating this up for a minimum of 4 weeks (Ch4Up4 = day 16, wednesday) means another 12 days... and so another 12 years? Or over 2 years for next 4 days?

Don't misunderstand me... this game is top notch and I love it!
Getting "the day" with my favorite Felicia in this update was just marvelous!

But... another 12 years?
Or 2-3 years until next carnation?
Ähm...

Not every day of the in-game calendar is made equal. In theory, the next update is going to be two days, and we're hoping will be done in less time than this update. Time will tell how that bears out, but it is also an inside joke between GIL and I that we'll be finished in 2030 - in a haha, "oh god please no" way. So hey, maybe you're not too far off the mark.

We do both want to make another game after this, but I look at it this way: if this is, for whatever reason, the one VN I get to work on in my life, no corners shall be cut and the ending will not be rushed. I don't mean that in a perfectionist sort of way, because we make compromises all the time, but because the enjoyment of our day-to-day work is tied to aspects that simply take time. Like yeah, GIL could reuse the same handful of images for every conversation and cut the image count down by a third, but why even play ball at that point? GIL enjoys crafting life-like sequences, and so that's what he does. For us, enjoying the process is just as essential as being satisfied with the end result.

Copium.

 

[dolfe67]

No one's going to get forced to marry a pig, get their dicked chopped off, or turned into an Asagian meat cube.

 

[Takkatakka]

View attachment 3525030

You can get your dick chopped off whenever you want.

 

[kegon]

That's a chromatic aberration effect, with some added blur on the corners. The idea was to convey more intensity and haziness to the moment.

That makes sense.
Considering the high quality of the images and the animations, I found it odd that I mistake would appear in the final release. But I wanted to be sure.
Thank you.

 

[Skeltom]

I got around to playing the last update. One thing I noticed on my solo Hana save is that you are severely limited to what you see. On my Hana Carnations save you still see way more content than if it's just business. It's great that you can still make choices to keep your promise though. But if you aren't "friendly" with the Carnations it also fucks with your overall investigation points from what I've seen. The balance just feels off to me.

On a side note, after setting up different saves for paths after not playing for so long I have noticed just how, uninspired, for lack of a better word, the lewd scenes are. Not saying they are "bad", but they are very, very, scripted. Compared to the other aspects of the game where there is a pretty significant attention to detail and choice the lewd scenes feel almost forced. There are some acceptations but that's my overall opinion of them. I can understand them being like that with the competition but outside of that they are still very linear.

 

[TD1900]

Compared to the other aspects of the game where there is a pretty significant attention to detail and choice the lewd scenes feel almost forced. There are some acceptations but that's my overall opinion of them. I can understand them being like that with the competition but outside of that they are still very linear.

That was a deliberate shift sometime after 3.3 or so. Treating scenes like Veronica's date, which has a very specific tone and set up, as set pieces. Because, if you've gone as far to get that point, quantum Edwin doesn't need to exist at that point. He's not the Edwin that pissed on her face. Presumably. And if you somehow managed to get there while being a jerk ass, then I'll just leave it to the player to justify the incongruity of their choices.

And just generally speaking, rather than let the player pick positions, we thought it's more satisfying to just include all the positions in a straight shot. There's still variations littered about, like in the FFM scene from the last update, and you almost always get to guide Edwin's "outlook", but we have admittedly dialed back from the template set by the Felicia scene in Elias' office.

Nothing is really set in stone design philosophy wise, and like you said, there's exceptions. Out of curiosity, what kind of choices would you want from a sex scene?

 

[Randomguy3478]

I partially agree with you, however, you need to know with what yardstick of perversity you measure other people's actions.

One of the most interesting aspects for me in the story so far is that the protagonists are in that Sodom and Gomorrah for relatively noble reasons, however, for them to achieve these goals, they have to become corrupted. This dichotomy is where much of the eroticism lies in my opinion. Knowing that they (especially Rose) can cross a point where there is no return, a level where they accept the lust that exists within them.

In short, I believe that the developers are gradually creating the circumstances for the story to become darker, they are simply in no rush to get to that moment. You need to have a concise narrative to reach the climax. Making a cinephile comparison: you first have to go through the Von trier level to reach the Gaspar Noé level of sluttiness and desolation.

Mostly a matter of wrong expectations.

The setup seemed like there could be lots of using/abusing girls and non-consent/dubious-consent scenarios to get pleasure for Edwin. And the beginning confirmed that: the rose BJ, spraying lucy/veronica in kats office, the tapes edwin watched - seemed promising.

But then the focus shifts more towards corruption (which I just generally dislike) and psychological sadism (which is too dark for me and not sexually arousing) and vanilla of course.

If there has to be suffering then I want at least dick pleasure for the MC from it lol. But the darkness in the game is more about inflicting and watching the misery for pure sadism sake - plus giving lots of pleasure while corrupting.

Its less Genghis Khan-darkness and more Dr. Mengele-darkness.

Just expectations and preferences.

 

[Skeltom]

That was a deliberate shift sometime after 3.3 or so. Treating scenes like Veronica's date, which has a very specific tone and set up, as set pieces. Because, if you've gone as far to get that point, quantum Edwin doesn't need to exist at that point. He's not the Edwin that pissed on her face. Presumably. And if you somehow managed to get there while being a jerk ass, then I'll just leave it to the player to justify the incongruity of their choices.

And just generally speaking, rather than let the player pick positions, we thought it's more satisfying to just include all the positions in a straight shot. There's still variations littered about, like in the FFM scene from the last update, and you almost always get to guide Edwin's "outlook", but we have admittedly dialed back from the template set by the Felicia scene in Elias' office.

Nothing is really set in stone design philosophy wise, and like you said, there's exceptions. Out of curiosity, what kind of choices would you want from a sex scene?

It's not about positions or anything like that. I personally don't care about picking what the two characters are doing in that sense. It's more the "lack" of approaches for me. The liner thing being my biggest pet peeve. I get that you have written a pretty scripted MC, not a bad thing per se, it's just that to me it feels like if it doesn't have to do with Eden's inner turmoil's your options are limited. When it comes to that the player actually having a say in what they will do unlike many others.

Rose's full deal for example. You can make a choice of what you want because it's part of "him", that's cool when it happens but often he/you are making choices for everyone during the lewd scenes. Like with Mia's first scene, everything that happens is 100% linear aside from where you finish, it just feels very railroaded to me. Just a small amount of player agency like many of the other scenes would go a long way I think.

I know that technically that would cause a little more work but then I think of how you as a player can choose an outfit for Mina and that whole scene is written with thee different sets in images. The actual sexual encounters wouldn't even be the same amount of work. If it were just a change in dialogue and flow that is, I'm not asking for whole separate animations or anything like that.

I'm not great at explaining myself but I hope you got some of what I was saying.

 

[Randomguy3478]

Out of curiosity, what kind of choices would you want from a sex scene?

Make her not cum.

I mean, they constantly tell Edwin they wanna be fucked like a dirty whore

 

[Shawnchapp]

I agree but that's more or less the case in a huge part of the world. Desktop PCs, especially decent ones aren't all that widespread but everyone even in 3rd world countries does have a mobile phone. It's the reason that mobile gaming is so profitable. Well that and 50% of the population are idiots.

oh i understand that but if your phone is more "powwerful" then your desktop you;'re better off just using that in the first place Lol (for this case anyways) like i still see people with 8 gigs of ram and windows 7... like come on even lots of phone have 16 gigs of ram Lol and aren't running a 15 year old outdated OS and these are the same people that cry "game sucks can't run not optimised" failing to realize the issue isn't the game its their dam potato!

 

[Bomarzo_]

I think that animation of Felish sucking Mina's nipples gave me Stendhal Syndrome.

 

[Randomguy3478]

oh i understand that but if your phone is more "powwerful" then your desktop you;'re better off just using that in the first place Lol (for this case anyways) like i still see people with 8 gigs of ram and windows 7... like come on even lots of phone have 16 gigs of ram Lol and aren't running a 15 year old outdated OS and these are the same people that cry "game sucks can't run not optimised" failing to realize the issue isn't the game its their dam potato!

8 gb ram...

 

[Shawnchapp]

8 gb ram...

View attachment 3525234

ya standard is 16 now has been for a few years for people who really game usually has 32... i have 64 myself tho, other have 128 (which is overkill even my 64 is overkill)

 

[Zarathos27]

It's not about positions or anything like that. I personally don't care about picking what the two characters are doing in that sense. It's more the "lack" of approaches for me. The liner thing being my biggest pet peeve. I get that you have written a pretty scripted MC, not a bad thing per se, it's just that to me it feels like if it doesn't have to do with Eden's inner turmoil's your options are limited. When it comes to that the player actually having a say in what they will do unlike many others.

Rose's full deal for example. You can make a choice of what you want because it's part of "him", that's cool when it happens but often he/you are making choices for everyone during the lewd scenes. Like with Mia's first scene, everything that happens is 100% linear aside from where you finish, it just feels very railroaded to me. Just a small amount of player agency like many of the other scenes would go a long way I think.

I know that technically that would cause a little more work but then I think of how you as a player can choose an outfit for Mina and that whole scene is written with thee different sets in images. The actual sexual encounters wouldn't even be the same amount of work. If it were just a change in dialogue and flow that is, I'm not asking for whole separate animations or anything like that.

I'm not great at explaining myself but I hope you got some of what I was saying.

I think you're underestimating the amount of work this would involve. Let's use the Mina scene you mention:

Only in Mina's apartment:
- Just leading up to the option to cheat or not (55 images)
- Makeout and phone interruption with brother then continue (27 images)

Give player option here:
- [Canon option] Fondle boobs: (22 images and 12 animations)
- Other option, whatever fits your fancy: Let's just say same amount as fondling (22 images and 12 animations)

Give player another option:
- [Canon option] Cunnilingus (45 images + 9 animations)
- Another option #2 (45 images + 9 animations)

- Boobjob/Blowjob (53 images + 4 animations)
- Ending bath scene (53 images)
- If you turn down Mina (38 images)

Each animation is in 60fps

So just giving 2 divergent options equal: (67 images and 21 anim = 193 total images) and also tasking the writer to make the writing and transition from one thing to another make sense.

Each branch you do on estimate doubles the work for that section considering GIL and TD's effort of detail. Which becomes exponential if you do more branching choices for the player..

 

[Shawnchapp]

snip

theres ton of way to change "scenes" without change renders the biggest being dialogue changes, which happen alot in the early game but has been slowing down..

 

[TD1900]

If there's anything this game has, it's dialogue changes.

 

[Zarathos27]

True, but why I mention the devs attention to detail. You have 2 people talk on a couch, plenty of devs use the same 2 images of each character with an open mouth and reuse it to high hell. PC doesn't do that.

Say you're not into boobs and you wanna skip the boob fondling. You can do that too. It saves images, but you need branching dialogue that fits.

Almost no other game does this. Mention some small event that happened way back like pissing on Vero. PC does this and the devs hafta now remember that you aren't a breast fiend just cuz you skipped it to keep the narrative concise.

 

[Shawnchapp]

Almost no other game does this.

actually quite few games do that... but PC is one that stands out well in the use of it.

 

[gunnarweibrink]

Not every day of the in-game calendar is made equal. In theory, the next update is going to be two days, and we're hoping will be done in less time than this update. Time will tell how that bears out, but it is also an inside joke between GIL and I that we'll be finished in 2030 - in a haha, "oh god please no" way. So hey, maybe you're not too far off the mark.

We do both want to make another game after this, but I look at it this way: if this is, for whatever reason, the one VN I get to work on in my life, no corners shall be cut and the ending will not be rushed. I don't mean that in a perfectionist sort of way, because we make compromises all the time, but because the enjoyment of our day-to-day work is tied to aspects that simply take time. Like yeah, GIL could reuse the same handful of images for every conversation and cut the image count down by a third, but why even play ball at that point? GIL enjoys crafting life-like sequences, and so that's what he does. For us, enjoying the process is just as essential as being satisfied with the end result.

Copium.

I really appreciate your quick response...but it also confirms my biggest fear.
In short: "quality takes time" and yeah, yours is really top notch!

So we'll see us at 2030, when you'd be finished and until then whishing you both the best!

 

[Randomguy3478]

And, as I've learned from my career as a coomer, one man's darkness is another man's quaint vanilla shit, and that will just keep going until you reach the bottom of the barrel of what humans masturbate to. Like what do people even want? Anything nonconsensual is off the table. [...] No one's going to get forced to marry a pig, get their dicked chopped off, or turned into an Asagian meat cube. [...] Context is king, and in my opinion, pointing to a woman getting dunked in water as an example of "darkness" is some surface level shit.

As this is talk about me: I honestly think this is commendable. Especially for someone who is afaik a fan of starless. It's wise not to spread too much darkness regardless if one's own desires may be into it or if others would like to see it. After all, the stuff one puts out there has an effect on people and on oneself.

Not sure if this sounds like sarcasm, it's not.