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

[Zarathos27]

Sounds like he wants game over screens as an out and we know the player base loves that. /s

 

[Takkatakka]

Damn, that Mina preview... I already know what im picking if given the option haha.

August?

 

[Ass prefer]

He's already a whore by that point.

 

[Birdnman993]

He's already a whore by that point.

Well, at least he's an expensive whore, which I find funny and sad because this all started to pay for college, which is something that happens a lot in reality, with better or worse results.

 

[ArsenHumby]

I mean, that's the gist of this porn game. The player character plays part in the sex stuff. Complaining about it is the same as complaining about how there isn't an option to tell Dr. Chuck to fuck off at the start. What is untrue is the assertion that the story turns on a dime and turns the player character into a whore.

He's already a whore by that point.

Irrespective of playing Kathleen's prop dick during the exhibition side of story, he became a whore the moment he accepted the job and compromised his values for money. There's no bait and switch there, because the game is about whores.

The Carnations, the player character's mother, and even Edwin himself.

Edwin is fairly set in stone for a player character. He's always hung up about his Mom's past as a porn star, he's a sadist at heart, and his heavy handed bloviating about being tested at the start is quickly answered by the scenario. It's pretty telling that the one time he outright rejects an exhibition task is when he perceives it posing as a personal risk.

The granularity in the player character's moral fiber comes from his choices along the way: how he treats the Carnations, how much he gets lost inside the role, and what he ultimately ends up doing pending a big come to God moment.

I get not digging the game because of being railroaded into being a wishy-washy hypocrite. In fact I'm surprised people seem as okay with it as they are. It's like shit or get off the horse, Edwin. Don't you know you're into a porn game? But ultimately that's just baked into premise, and is something I take less as actionable criticism and more as an incompatibility issue.

The beauty about this game to me it's that it feels real, it's not the typical big dicked Mc gets all bitches type of game. Even if the game has been out for a few years now i haven't feel like updates disappoint at all, narrarive wise it's an interesting story and one of the few where i ask myself 'what would i do if i was...'. Another point is we know this seems to not be a harem game or an incest one, so it avoids the cliches we are accustomed. Not trying to hate other projects here but since i started my adventure in adult games in 2016, i have come to hate what i loved and come to love what i hated . Drama and corruption are my bread and butter now. Anyways what i'm trying to say is beautiful game dev.

 

[MyFirstPornAcc]

The Carnations, the player character's mother, and even Edwin himself.

Aren't we all...?

 

[Fapparition]

August?

A dilemma choice: 3some with Mina and Haha or become trusted by August

The beauty about this game to me it's that it feels real, it's not the typical big dicked Mc gets all bitches type of game. Even if the game has been out for a few years now i haven't feel like updates disappoint at all, narrarive wise it's an interesting story and one of the few where i ask myself 'what would i do if i was...'. Another point is we know this seems to not be a harem game or an incest one, so it avoids the cliches we are accustomed. Not trying to hate other projects here but since i started my adventure in adult games in 2016, i have come to hate what i loved and come to love what i hated . Drama and corruption are my bread and butter now. Anyways what i'm trying to say is beautiful game dev.

Yeah, slice-of-life AVNs are the most difficult type of game to make interesing as delevopers are doomed for searching a perfect balance between realism and fantasy. It's like a gauge where those two are on the opposite ends: add too much fantasy and a game will become unrealistic and unimmersive, keep it as real as possible and it will become boring as we all have realism surrounding us 24/7. But find a perfect balance, be on that thin edge between these two and you have a AVN like no other, something truly unique and memorable. Besides this game only 2 other come to mind which nailed this balance: BaDIK and RoL. Maybe LoF

 

[Alfred the Fallen]

I mean, that's the gist of this porn game. The player character plays part in the sex stuff. Complaining about it is the same as complaining about how there isn't an option to tell Dr. Chuck to fuck off at the start. What is untrue is the assertion that the story turns on a dime and turns the player character into a whore.

He's already a whore by that point.

Irrespective of playing Kathleen's prop dick during the exhibition side of story, he became a whore the moment he accepted the job and compromised his values for money. There's no bait and switch there, because the game is about whores.

That's bullshit and you know it.

You can't just say that since he's metaphorically whoring himself out by compromising his values and is therefore also an actual whore who will preform sex acts for money. He could do one without the other, which he does in that one isolated scene. And more importantly, it doesn't change the fact that nothing of the sort was discussed beforehand, which Kathleen claims it was.

Edwin is fairly set in stone for a player character.

The game starts off by giving the players choices on how to shape his past and his personality. There are plenty of choices in the game about how Edwin views his oldest friend, and how he treats the women in his life. It gives the impression that we will continue to have many such options as the game progresses, which it usually does. But there are a few instances where choice are conspicuously absent, and that early scene with Kathleen is the most drastic.

I understand why it would not be feasible to have Edwin always defer to Killian in those scene, since it would take a ton of time and effort to do so, but that doesn't make that scene with Kathleen any less of an abrupt about-face. You can choose to refuse her, she says "You do remember your arrangement with Charles, yes?" and he responds by thinking to himself "Fuck it, she's right. If I want to get paid, I have to do this." And I'm left scratching my head wondering if I've forgotten an entire conversation because I only remembered him being told that he would have to convince the girls to preform. And as far as I can tell, that arrangement she speaks of was not mentioned at all anywhere by anyone.

 

[ffive]

You can't just say that since he's metaphorically whoring himself out by compromising his values and is therefore also an actual whore who will preform sex acts for money.

That's the thing though: Edwin only thought he'd be a metaphorical, not literal whore. He was wrong.

Always read the fine print, kids.

 

[Birdnman993]

That's the thing though: Edwin only thought he'd be a metaphorical, not literal whore. He was wrong.

Always read the fine print, kids.

That's what usually happens when you make deals with the devil.

 

[Kyo23]

Can anyone help me ? I installed the game in android and when i want to move the rpa file to Renpy_Saves folder, there's not palecarnation.v1 folder at all in the Renpy_Saves folder.

 

[Das_Peanut]

I mean, that's the gist of this porn game. The player character plays part in the sex stuff. Complaining about it is the same as complaining about how there isn't an option to tell Dr. Chuck to fuck off at the start. What is untrue is the assertion that the story turns on a dime and turns the player character into a whore.

He's already a whore by that point.

Irrespective of playing Kathleen's prop dick during the exhibition side of story, he became a whore the moment he accepted the job and compromised his values for money. There's no bait and switch there, because the game is about whores.

The Carnations, the player character's mother, and even Edwin himself.

Edwin is fairly set in stone for a player character. He's always hung up about his Mom's past as a porn star, he's a sadist at heart, and his heavy handed bloviating about being tested at the start is quickly answered by the scenario. It's pretty telling that the one time he outright rejects an exhibition task is when he perceives it posing as a personal risk.

The granularity in the player character's moral fiber comes from his choices along the way: how he treats the Carnations, how much he gets lost inside the role, and what he ultimately ends up doing pending a big come to God moment.

I get not digging the game because of being railroaded into being a wishy-washy hypocrite. In fact I'm surprised people seem as okay with it as they are. It's like shit or get off the horse, Edwin. Don't you know you're into a porn game? But ultimately that's just baked into premise, and is something I take less as actionable criticism and more as an incompatibility issue.

If I were you, I'd add an extra choice to the Kathleen scene. Something like "No. I can't compromise myself that much.", leading to some kid of immediate game over in which Edwin dies in abject poverty or something. Not that the game needs it, it would just be a tongue-in-cheek little moment of meta-narrative. I don't feel like there's any dissonance in that particular scene; it serves to dispel any remaining illusions as to what Edwin agreed to do.

 

[GokutheG]

That's bullshit and you know it.

You can't just say that since he's metaphorically whoring himself out by compromising his values and is therefore also an actual whore who will preform sex acts for money. He could do one without the other, which he does in that one isolated scene. And more importantly, it doesn't change the fact that nothing of the sort was discussed beforehand, which Kathleen claims it was.



The game starts off by giving the players choices on how to shape his past and his personality. There are plenty of choices in the game about how Edwin views his oldest friend, and how he treats the women in his life. It gives the impression that we will continue to have many such options as the game progresses, which it usually does. But there are a few instances where choice are conspicuously absent, and that early scene with Kathleen is the most drastic.

I understand why it would not be feasible to have Edwin always defer to Killian in those scene, since it would take a ton of time and effort to do so, but that doesn't make that scene with Kathleen any less of an abrupt about-face. You can choose to refuse her, she says "You do remember your arrangement with Charles, yes?" and he responds by thinking to himself "Fuck it, she's right. If I want to get paid, I have to do this." And I'm left scratching my head wondering if I've forgotten an entire conversation because I only remembered him being told that he would have to convince the girls to preform. And as far as I can tell, that arrangement she speaks of was not mentioned at all anywhere by anyone.

That's the thing mc was told that Kat runs the Carnations operation so he has to follow her rules. Wasn't Kat apprehensive about letting him join after he left the first time which Chuck had to convince her to give him a shot. So basically Edwin put himself in a bad situation by initially trying to back out and only got the job due to Chuck.

I think the scene is supposed to show that he is in the same position as the Carnations. He just gets paid by the club.

If I were you, I'd add an extra choice to the Kathleen scene. Something like "No. I can't compromise myself that much.", leading to some kid of immediate game over screen.
Not that the game needs it, it would just as a tongue-in-cheek easter egg. I don't feel like there's any narrative dissonance in that particular scene.

Those types of "choices" are the fucking worst in games and does nothing more than damage the overall experience.

 

[TD1900]

And more importantly, it doesn't change the fact that nothing of the sort was discussed beforehand, which Kathleen claims it was.

I do not know it.

Yes: contrary to ename's wording, pulling his dick out wasn't what he understood his job to be about, but the dial was moved in that scene and he accepts - just like he did when agreed to play whore wrangler, and once more when he performs in the first exhibition. At that point in the story, he doesn't grasp where he stands. There' been no lunches with Chuck, no Chuck telling Kat not to fuck with him, nor does he have a picture of the dynamic between the three owners. Nothing. He's been told he's to help Kathleen, and he goes along with it because he wants a free ride through college.

I don't think the lack of choice is inconsistent with Edwin's character or the premise of the game, but my biases being what they are, I probably wouldn't.

Ultimately we're not talking about what Edwin understands his job to be, but the disconnect in the lack of player agency. Personally, I don't see it as incongruent, because the very starting point is a morally compromised Edwin. Him participating in the club is the base scenario. It starts from that position and goes from there.

As you've astutely noted, this is the kind of railroading that is necessary. For both workload / structural purposes, but also smutty ones. The game is about a dude performing in the sex Olympics.

And then I accidentally put a bunch of stupid character building shit in it.

 

[GokutheG]

I do not know it.

Yes: contrary to ename's wording, pulling his dick out wasn't what he understood his job to be about, but the dial was moved in that scene and he accepts - just like he did when agreed to play whore wrangler, and once more when he performs in the first exhibition. At that point in the story, he doesn't grasp where he stands. There' been no lunches with Chuck, no Chuck telling Kat not to fuck with him, nor does he have a picture of the dynamic between the three owners. Nothing. He's been told he's to help Kathleen, and he goes along with it because he wants a free ride through college.

I don't think the lack of choice is inconsistent with Edwin's character or the premise of the game, but my biases being what they are, I probably wouldn't.

Ultimately we're not talking about what Edwin understands his job to be, but the disconnect in the lack of player agency. Personally, I don't see it as incongruent, because the very starting point is a morally compromised Edwin. Him participating in the club is the base scenario. It starts from that position and goes from there.

As you've astutely noted, this is the kind of railroading that is necessary. For both workload / structural purposes, but also smutty ones. The game is about a dude performing in the sex Olympics.

And then I accidentally put a bunch of stupid character building shit in it.

Everything leading up to the first meeting was extremely shady. The rational part of himself is what made him turn down the offer initially. Once Chuck dangled the benefits his greed won out. I honestly don't think he had any intentions to be a performer himself but the possible benefits to his future was something he couldn't let slip.

Now I'm curious how much of this is based on feeling that he can't let an opportunity to pay back his mom for her sacrifices slip away and the thought of helping women who are in a similar situation as his mom influenced his decision to stick it out at the club.

 

[ename144]

Uuuh, Mina meeting August and other members of the Club who are FOR SURE going to try to turn her into a whore, if not worse ?

I think the more acute risk is Mina learning enough about August to work out just what the Club is (or at least purports to be). Given her... curiosity, I find that a lot more likely to lead to problems than August being sufficiently smitten by her beauty to insist on recruiting an otherwise unsuitable woman (i.e. one who is nowhere near desperate enough to tolerate what patrons do to their toys).

That is simply not true.

Every discussion about the job was about how he would manage the girls and convince them to keep working there. There was nothing at all about him doing any sex work himself. That conversation with Kathleen where she suddenly demands that we whip out our dick because we had previously agreed to it was terrible writing because we never once agreed to anything of the sort.

Before that scene, the player's character was holding almost all the cards. The club was desperate for new help to replace the worker that quit just before their most lucrative time of the year. The player was very reluctant to join because he didn't want to risk his future career by getting involved in any illegal activities, which was clear to August who said that "I can see in your face that you're already half way out the door". They were throwing money at him out of desperation because that was their only choice.

We also need to recognize that the player character is also very close to being a nepotism hire. He should be getting preferential treatment from Kathleen, instead of her injecting him with experimental date rape drugs and everything else she's doing. There is no good reason for him not to call her bluff and tell her that he isn't there to whore himself out. They need him more than he needs them. And he should be smart enough to see that if they are going to suddenly change the rules like that, he should quit as soon as possible before they demand even more.

This is the single biggest fault with the game. It starts off as a set up for a game where the player can either gladly descend into depravity, or carefully try to walk the very thin line where he keeps his hands as clean as possible. Then it just suddenly turns on a dime and say nah he's just a desperate whore who agreed to all this.

I'm sorry, but I cannot agree with this at all. If you thought the MC would be calling the shots once he joined the Club, I don't think you were paying attention. Like TD said, the MC sold out his conscience the moment he learned Rose was sent to have sex with him purely as part of her interviewing process... and still took the job.

In fact, please note that upon learning what Chuck expected the MC to do with Rose, the MC (and player) gets no option to refuse the job, nor to call Chuck and rip him a new one for being a party to human trafficking. No, the MC takes the job, full stop. As he says to himself:


There's no player escape clause on this matter, which IMHO rather dwarfs the lack of alternative when Kathleen starts pulling our strings later on. Where there IS player input, however, is on how the MC responds to his strings being tugged. In Rosalind's case, we get the chance to accept her without any further hardship, or to indulge in the opportunity (and perhaps to regret it afterwards). In the case of Kathleen telling us to strip, we can play along with her game or deliberately sabotage it, but in the end we're still going to be working for her for the long haul.

In other words, we ARE given meaningful choices, but only within the scope of the game's overarching narrative. I find that neither surprising nor inappropriate in a video game, particularly a visual novel.

On specific point of the MC being a patronage hire, I again disagree. The Club is an exclusive, underground brothel: knowing someone already in management (or at least management adjacent) is the ONLY way to get hired. The MC's referral may be a little more senior than usual, but a) that only carries so far, and b) Kathleen ain't the one who recommended him and she's the one who decides exactly how far it carries in this case. And if there was any doubt before that moment that Kathleen wasn't a kindly lady, well, there certainly isn't afterwards. IMHO, that's another point of the scene.

I get not digging the game because of being railroaded into being a wishy-washy hypocrite. In fact I'm surprised people seem as okay with it as they are. It's like shit or get off the horse, Edwin. Don't you know you're into a porn game? But ultimately that's just baked into premise, and is something I take less as actionable criticism and more as an incompatibility issue.

I may be biased, but I do think you have the right way to view this particular issue. I know I find a number of things the MC automatically does distasteful (having to throat fuck Felicia in the first Exhibition, and going balls to the wall with Dalia prior to Exhibition 2 are examples that spring to mind). But I've always felt they made sufficient sense given the MC's canonical character and the limits of the medium to accept them as a part of the story without feeling railroaded - or at least, not more railroaded than the MC himself. That's what got me through issues like the MC having to dance to Kathleen's tune when I first played the game, and it still holds true nearly 4 years later.

Ultimately, I think anyone who really struggles with this sort of scene will probably struggle with the game as a whole. So as a relatively early indicator of where the game is going, the scene works as it should.

Plus, on the specific topic of the MC objecting to whipping it out at Kathleen's command, it feels like a preposterously hypocritical take. The MC already knows getting naked in front of a small audience is the least of what the girls are in story for, and they have even less recourse to withdraw than he does. If he'll turn a blind eye to much worse for the geese, he can suck it up when it's the gander's turn. Getting drugged was a much bigger issue, but that happened before he could respond, and he is at least able to express his displeasure at that turn of events.

(All that said - TANGENT ALERT! - it would have been nice to have an option to object *after the fact* when Kathleen injects him with the drug should he win the "prize" in Week 1. By that point he's at least developed a rudimentary working relationship with Kathleen, and there are plenty of reasons why an MC might draw the line at being routinely dosed with an experimental, mood altering drug. I think it would have been relatively feasible to add a scene where the MC can express some of the player's potential concerns/frustration and Kathleen could humor them sufficiently to explain why the MC won't make a larger issue of it. It's not a major concern (since the game does thoroughly foreshadow that the prize might be something he's better off without), and its always possible this sort of assurance might interfere with a future plot point. So I definitely don't think it needs to be retroactively changed. It's just an example of where I think the game walked closer to the line than necessary.)

 

[TD1900]

(All that said - TANGENT ALERT! - it would have been nice to have an option to object *after the fact* when Kathleen injects him with the drug should he win the "prize" in Week 1. By that point he's at least developed a rudimentary working relationship with Kathleen, and there are plenty of reasons why an MC might draw the line at being routinely dosed with an experimental, mood altering drug. I think it would have been relatively feasible to add a scene where the MC can express some of the player's potential concerns/frustration and Kathleen could humor them sufficiently to explain why the MC won't make a larger issue of it. It's not a major concern (since the game does thoroughly foreshadow that the prize might be something he's better off without), and its always possible this sort of assurance might interfere with a future plot point. So I definitely don't think it needs to be retroactively changed. It's just an example of where I think the game walked closer to the line than necessary.)

Yeeeeeeah... the drug is the one super big hand wavy aspect of the story in general. Both in Edwin's general acceptance at being dosed with it, especially as a purportedly intelligent medical student, and also it being the biggest fantastical element to the story. The perfume is one thing, but the injection was me aping Starless a bit too hard early on out of pure horniness.

If it were me, my mental health would plummet off a cliff and the next year of my life would be living in constant fear of some unknown side effect. Which should probably be similar to Edwin's anxious ass.

 

[ename144]

Yeeeeeeah... the drug is the one super big hand wavy aspect of the story in general. Both in Edwin's general acceptance at being dosed with it, especially as a purportedly intelligent medical student, and also it being the biggest fantastical element to the story. The perfume is one thing, but the injection was me aping Starless a bit too hard early on out of pure horniness.

If it were me, my mental health would plummet off a cliff and the next year of my life would be living in constant fear of some unknown side effect. Which should probably be similar to Edwin's anxious ass.

I mean, I agree obviously, but at the same time, don't count out the Edwin's ability to rationalize. Abel and Sophia have the intellectual and logistical horsepower needed to properly vet a drug like that, even in an off-the-cuff manner. Of course, that may be contrary to their eventual endgame, and whether they have the ethical horsepower to actually do so... is a question. But! The point is there ARE ways to mitigate the worst issues of the drug without resorting strictly to genre conventions. It's just the we don't really see them being discussed/employed much.

Then again, depending on just what will ultimately happen with the drug, chalking it up to genre conventions may be preferable to trying to justify it only to invalidate a lot of those justifications later on. It's hard to say for certain at this point. Given that most of us seem willing to roll with the drug as is, you probably made the right decision to leave it as a handwave. If, in retrospect, it was a bigger handwave than was strictly necessary, well, no one's perfect. Learn from the mistake and carry on.

You can always go back and fix it in that GOTY edition.

 

[Fapparition]

On specific point of the MC being a patronage hire, I again disagree. The Club is an exclusive, underground brothel: knowing someone already in management (or at least management adjacent) is the ONLY way to get hired. The MC's referral may be a little more senior than usual, but a) that only carries so far, and b) Kathleen ain't the one who recommended him and she's the one who decides exactly how far it carries in this case. And if there was any doubt before that moment that Kathleen wasn't a kindly lady, well, there certainly isn't afterwards. IMHO, that's another point of the scene.

This one is a little bit difficult. I'd say that Edwin is actually a patronage hire but the Club isn't exactly a united group. It's more like 3 owners have their own sphere of interests with their little things going on. And since those spheres collide, it's beneficial for them to cooperate or something like this. So he's kind of getting special treatment from Chuck but other two? Not so much. Still it gives him an upper hand initially and even more influence when he starts to impress Kat and/or become closer to Hana. Also there are some moments in the game that make me think that all owners have some plans for Edwin (like him getting invited to Hana's celebration of becoming an owner)

Plus, on the specific topic of the MC objecting to whipping it out at Kathleen's command, it feels like a preposterously hypocritical take. The MC already knows getting naked in front of a small audience is the least of what the girls are in story for, and they have even less recourse to withdraw than he does. If he'll turn a blind eye to much worse for the geese, he can suck it up when it's the gander's turn. Getting drugged was a much bigger issue, but that happened before he could respond, and he is at least able to express his displeasure at that turn of events.

Failed to register hypocrisy here. Carnations have their own agreements with owners, Edwin has his own (even if it's full of gaslighting). Girls agreed to whore themselves, Edwin didn't (directly). Initially, there was a certain line that separated him from carnations which only becomes blurry afterwords.

(All that said - TANGENT ALERT! - it would have been nice to have an option to object *after the fact* when Kathleen injects him with the drug should he win the "prize" in Week 1. By that point he's at least developed a rudimentary working relationship with Kathleen, and there are plenty of reasons why an MC might draw the line at being routinely dosed with an experimental, mood altering drug. I think it would have been relatively feasible to add a scene where the MC can express some of the player's potential concerns/frustration and Kathleen could humor them sufficiently to explain why the MC won't make a larger issue of it. It's not a major concern (since the game does thoroughly foreshadow that the prize might be something he's better off without), and its always possible this sort of assurance might interfere with a future plot point. So I definitely don't think it needs to be retroactively changed. It's just an example of where I think the game walked closer to the line than necessary.)

This. Maybe not right after injection since his brains were in a certain mode but surely in the sauna when Kat joined him. This was the moment where he could (and should) go full apeshit about him being drugged, especially since he's a med student. But, ah well, a little plothole.

 

[MilesEdgeworth]

Im not sure why people think that Mina would wind up at carnations. The point of that club is they use peoples desperation to get them to perform depraved acts. Nothing in the game paints Mina as a desperate woman