Silk and Secrets: Rites of Pleasure

The smut is top notch - A+, no notes. But ultimately, while things start strong and full of potential, I personally found it all steadily slipped away until only disappointment remained. The protagonist isn't portrayed so much as a history student hungry for knowledge as an utterly mercenary reporter willing to do anything for a scoop, and it's bewildering. Why is she so focused on gaining knowledge of the current members and running of the Court of Pleasures, rather than it's HISTORY? She is a HISTORY student, and the Society would likely be far more open to sharing old historical records that would in no way impact those currently involved or even hint at the Society still existing. And there's no escaping this bizarre choice, because the entire game revolves around it, no matter what choices you make. Choices - the backbone of a game of this sort - are often ignored or even nonexistent. Your initiation HAS to be performed by Marcus. You HAVE to dig into the modern Society rather than snoop for historical facts and evidence. You WILL declare that you were initially using your chosen lover for the sake of your paper, even if you in fact were thinking nothing of the sort at any point during the growing relationship. Oh, and speaking of lovers - their different paths involve a LOT of identical content with just the names changed, including both personal and intimate scenes. There is very little replay value here. Chapter 8 is a mess, to the point where I honestly don't understand how it happened. What you requested for your event is completely irrelevant, as the game immediately forgets about it in favour of a new choice (praise, degradation, or vanilla). The praise and vanilla routes appear to be broken, and even in the degradation route the game gets confused and has you wondering if your lover is jealous watching you with himself. And then you and your lover somehow sneak away from an event meant to revolve around you without anyone noticing. The ending is so abrupt it left me reeling. Most damning of all is the simple fact that I don't get the impression the author of this story actually knows anything about BDSM or the world of kink. Like 50 Shades, it was written in complete ignorance and does the actual community a great disservice. FINALLY, because I am an actual history nerd, I have to point out that it is absolutely ludicrous to suggest that Louis XVI started anything like the Court of Pleasure. XIV or XV absolutely, but NOT XVI. The man never even took a mistress. It took him 7 years to consummate his marriage. It's been speculated that he may not even have fathered his official children. NO WAY did he start a secret sex society. Not to mention the odds of such a newly formed society surviving the Revolution would be pretty much zero.

Well, to start i definitely agree with the other review here - the smut is great, if anything i wish more HCs committed to it the way this game does. The spice is not the issue here, everything else is. The game does its best to create the illusion of choice : from the 3-4 dialogue options per page to the 8 disposition stats that should reflect mc (and we get a good range that in theory can allow for a lot of rp, calculated opportunist vs wild party girl being the 2 extremes). Problem is that's all inconsequential. Fake choices. Minimal branching. Whatever option you pick at worst you get a stat increase at best you get one/two flavour lines. You decide who your lover is, you decide if you sleep with them or not, you decide where you do it.. That's.. about it really. The rest the game decides for you. It'll even decide who mc is and how she acts. Despite my very specific playstyle of constantly prioritizing mc's goal of publishing her work no matter the cost; despite constantly calling everyone a tool and a means to an end; despite constantly lying and sneaking around and not getting caught - mc still, STILL on her own decides to override all that to confess everything she did to her boo. And i ask why? WHY? Why say that you can "manipulate others’ desire for your advantage" in your description when that's not an actual playstyle you can have. Mc will still fall in love with her designated lover; mc will still be torn between her mission and her love; mc will still throw everything out for the sake of telling him the truth because 'he looked at me softly and he deserves to know'. I picked the coldest options when the RO confronted mc about the lies, he asked 'was any of it real' and i told the guy i'd sacrifice everything & everyone for my career and somehow on the next page he's still cuddling and supporting mc?? I swear in the last chapter i just gave up and let the game gaslight me into a marriage, because does it really matter if i say no? I'm still forever stuck with this guy that i only ever used to advance mc's ambitions. But i guess joke was on me, mc wasn't lying to her lover, she was lying to herself all along. What a love story this was lol. And look, i get that this is a game about intercourse, it ain't that deep, nobody comes here for the plot, 5 peppers, pick ur favorite hot guy and shut up etc etc... but i genuinely got invested in the spycraft/undercover aspect of it and loved picking the ruthless/calculated choices along the way. To have it all invalidated left me, ironically for a s*x game, unsatisfied. I only reccommend this game if you seek to play it for the smut as a turn your brain off and enjoy it kind of thing, otherwise it's a no from me.

Quick spicy read for those who love smut.