Double Homework (by Palmer, 2019-2022)
Episode 9.1: A Dick That Is Always Open To New Experiences
In this chapter, a mysterious E-mail sent out to all the students except for Alvin becomes yet another worrying issue for our hero, until a little trick played on Henry, the "mentally weak link" of the class, reveals what his classmates really have in store for him.
Double Homework (by Palmer, 2019-2022)
Episode 8.2: Your Sister's Feet Are Always At Your Disposal
In this chapter, Alvin's carnal bond with both of his sisters continues to solidify as he spies on Johanna masturbating to a photo of him without even bothering to lock her door (perhaps she subconsciously wanted him to catch her in the process?), and then gets his raging boner taken care of by Tamara, showing herself to be quite an expert in the art of giving footjobs.
Double Homework (by Palmer, 2019-2022)
Episode 8.1: Making Friends With The Dripper On Spasm
In this chapter, while Alvin's mind is busy coming to terms with his sexual frolicking around both of his sisters, a pissed-off Dennis finally pulls off his original threat and makes public Alvin's gaming history, hoping to ruin his enemy's reputation around the school. However, the plan backfires when most of Alvin's classmates instead offer their sympathies to the poor gaming addict...
Double Homework (by Palmer, 2019-2022)
Episode 7.2: When Your Big Sister Tells You To Cum...
In this chapter, Alvin and Johanna's mutual attraction almost reaches breaking point, once their collaboration in the library begins extending to their groin areas... however, at the last moment Johanna collects herself, leaving Alvin so blue-balled that he has no choice but to make a desperate proposal to Rachel. Fortunately, she's been so horny for quite a while that Alvin's plea is granted, all the way up to ploughing his ex-lover's previously untapped asshole.
Double Homework (by Palmer, 2019-2022)
Episode 7.1: Tell Me Where Did You Sleep Last Night
In this episode, Alvin, deeply disturbed by Tamara's involvement with Dennis and unable to understand if there is really something between his big sister and the creepy nerd boy or if she is just using Dennis to fire up Alvin's temper, finally confronts her about it directly and is at least relieved to hear that nothing sexual took place between the two - although this is about as much as he is going to learn.
Double Homework (by Palmer, 2019-2022)
Episode 6.2: So Exciting To Be Totally Messed Up
In this chapter, Alvin finally consummates his new relationship with Lauren, getting to titfuck her and even cum inside her after they get away from class - yet his mind still remains preoccupied with his feelings for Johanna, and the next day he allows himself to act upon them, happy to discover that his sister's feelings also drift in the same direction.
Double Homework (by Palmer, 2019-2022)
Episode 6.1: Superb Social Skills Seduce Sexy Students
In this chapter, Johanna and Alvin's strategy of writing her own lesson plan for Ms. Walsh nearly fails when no other students show up in class - so Alvin has to use up all of his smoothness and charm to lure everybody back in.
Double Homework (by Palmer, 2019-2022)
Episode 5.2: Teacher Needs To Screw Me After School
In this chapter, Alvin finally dares to seduce Ms. Walsh (not that it takes much effort), making love to her and even cumming inside her nice teacherly pussy right on top of her desk. The next day, his luck continues when Lauren invites him on a short date only to give him a quick blowjob.
Double Homework (by Palmer, 2019-2022)
Episode 5.1: If You Really Love Me, Send Me Nudes
In this episode, Alvin runs into Rachel again while jogging, and senses that the ice between them has finally begun to melt a little, though still not enough to try and rekindle the romance right away.
Double Homework (by Palmer, 2019-2022)
Episode 4.2: Just Like A Pervert Version Of Elon Musk
In this episode, having spent an awkward night on the couch spooning Tamara, Alvin is relieved to discover in the morning that Johanna seems perfectly alright, but his good mood is soon spoiled once again by Ms. Walsh, who, for some reason, decides that her reputation might be saved by moving the students from the classroom to the library.
Double Homework (by Palmer, 2019-2022)
Episode 4.1: Not Too Desperately Seeking Johanna
In this chapter, Alvin sets most of his troubles aside in his quest to get back in touch with Johanna, who has seemingly experienced some sort of breakdown after seeing a paparazzi article about Alvin's "wild" night of clubbing in Lauren's company.
Double Homework (by Palmer, 2019-2022)
Episode 3.2: Mass-Murderer Enjoys Nightlife While Victims Rot
In this episode, our hero is taken out to a club date by Lauren, the Posh Girl, whom he even manages to sweeten up with some smooth conversation along the way. The clubbing experience, by contrast, turns out to be unbearable, both due to the loud music and to an unexpected encounter with Ms. Walsh, their teacher; fortunately, Lauren finds a nice way to make up for this torture by providing a much-needed service in the bathroom.
Double Homework (by Palmer, 2019-2022)
Episode 3.1: Disgruntled Hot Students, Misguided Hot Teachers
In the first half of Chapter 3, Alvin continues to get even more confused at his summer school class, faced with an arrogant teacher who won't teach her class, an ex-lover who detests his presence so much she cannot even share a gym with him, and a weird nerdy classmate whom Alvin somehow has to get to confess about owning nude pics of all the girls in class.
Double Homework (by Palmer, 2019-2022)
Episode 2.2: Never Too Late To Renew Your Breast Acquaintance
In this episode, Alvin's first day at summer school ends with an embarrassing, if somewhat titillating, run-in with a half-naked Rachel in the girls' locker room, and a rather strange gesture from Tamara, who manages to disturb her brother in more ways than one at the same time.
Double Homework (by Palmer, 2019-2022)
Episode 2.1: In Search Of The Nash Equilibrium For Chasing Pussy
In this episode, Johanna drags Alvin out to his first day at summer school, which begins quite inauspiciously when he discovers that none other than Tamara herself is welcoming him at the registrar's office, where she has taken a temporary summer job to pay the bills. At least the girls who are stuck in the same class as Alvin all seem pretty hot... that is, until his own ex-girlfriend Rachel joins the congregation, bringing on a whole lot more bad memories.
Double Homework (by Palmer, 2019-2022)
Episode 1.2: A Trip To The Fair With Someone Who Cares
In this chapter, after a lot of kicking and struggling and a lengthy session of small talk during which she informs Alvin that she will actually be accompanying him to summer school this year, Johanna finally drags her depressed brother into twon and all the way out to the state fair. There, Alvin manages to take a few steps toward recovery - first, when he decides to win a prize for Johanna in a shooting game, and next, mustering the courage to have a brief chat with his bumbling, alcohol-dependent friend Henry.
Double Homework (by Palmer, 2019-2022)
Episode 1.1: The Two Most Important People In My Life
In the opening chapter of Palmer's last game, Double Homework, we are introduced to Alvin, an ambitious young sportsman living together with his two relatives, the gorgeous redheads Tamara and Johanna. Having suffered a terrible skiing accident during his preparation for the Olympics (which apparently caused the demise of a number of people as well), Alvin goes into a state of total depression, locking himself in his room, seeing no one and playing video games all day...
DAUGHTER FOR DESSERT: The Official PatreonGamer
Review
General Verdict: Frustrating, But Fascinating If You Only Let Yourself Be Swept Away
Most of the people pronouncing judgement on Daughter For Dessert, the first of Palmer’s two "epic" games completed (mostly) in his lifetime (Double Homework being the second), tend to focus on the game’s negative sides, probably because they are so blatantly obvious. Let us quickly move them out of the way, as this has all been written about many times:
1) The game features its own engine rather than the standard RenPy, Unity, RPGM etc. packages — partly out of ambition and vanity, partly to prevent theft and unsolicited dissemination (which, as the very existence of F95 proves by itself, is a futile affair anyway). The engine, with its poor handling of every mechanic that RenPy does ten times better (transitions, skips, hiding the screen, saves, etc.), is cumbersome and annoying; I think there is not a single person in sight who would dare defend it against the insurmountable odds.
2) The game has relatively few graphic renders (most of the action is represented by static cut figures) and no animations whatsoever — Palmer and his team just couldn’t be bothered with something as trivial as movement on the screen. Coupled with the fact that there are long, REALLY long dialog or monolog sequences, it really sounds like a perfect recipe for boredom.
3) The voice acting in the game is weak and perfunctory; the "actresses" voicing Amanda and Kathy sound wooden, bored, and overall easily replaceable by AI these days. The samples provided for free can in no way serve as proper motivation for people to support the game financially.
4) The plot of the game, generally speaking, is stupid, unrealistic, and illogical, and it seemingly gets worse and worse, rather than improving, as the game goes on. By the time of the final denouement, you MAY want to be seriously posing yourself the question of whether the game’s writer really lived on the same planet with us and had any idea of how real people think and act on the surface of Earth, regardless of their race, nation, or creed. More details on this later.
5) The game largely develops as a kinetic novel, with your choices overall meaning very little, unless you just want to lock yourself out of sexy content with some of the girls. It does have some replay value depending on whether you are going for a more harem-like setting (although there are no true harem paths) or want to stay true to a single lady, but since the game has to be replayed as a sequence of 19 stand-alone episodes, it is a serious hassle to actually go through with the replay, and in the end you’ll probably be relying on cheat codes to see everything.
I could go on with these criticisms, but, like I said, they’ve all been done before, and even the four points listed should, for most people, already suffice to condemn Daughter For Dessert as a very, very bad game, one where unbridled ambition does not even begin to get tempered with intelligent, professional, user-friendly realization. (It should also be briefly added that the game ONLY makes sense if you play it in its "untampered", incest-oriented version, but that’s something that applies equally to pretty much any game whose creators are forced to follow the strict Patreon content guidelines these days).
So this is where the tricky part begins. Why, despite all these obvious issues, would I want to give it a four-star rating and urge everybody who still hasn’t done so to give it a try (or, at least, everybody belonging to a certain psychotype, as you’ll find out very soon)?
There are two reasons — one fairly simple and one that may be a bit harder to explain. Let’s start with the simple one in plain sight.
To put it bluntly, many, if not most, of the sex scenes scattered throughout Daughter For Dessert — alas, there are usually, at best, only one or two per chapter — are AMAZING, and I do not use that word lightly. Amazing not from the technical point (as I said, no animations), but rather from the angle of the careful build-up, the love invested in the graphic depiction of the girls, and the attention dedicated to the fine-tuning of their personalities, all of which tie in directly into the love-making. Very, very few games I have experienced here ever try to go for the same depth.
All the four main girls — the daughter Amanda, the nerdy sidekick Kathy, the rational helper Heidi, and the quirky outsider Lily — are written with such distinct, interesting, and generally believable characters that it’s a genuine thrill to then witness them bring in their character traits into bed with them (and with you, of course), with the accompanying pictures telling an even better story than Palmer’s text (although his erotic writing, as opposed to his plot construction skills, is not half-bad either).
Curiously, the main character — Amanda, the MC’s daughter — is perhaps the least charming of the four. She has somewhat of a "cute-girl-next-door" look, is written as a capricious and unpredictable human being with lots of ridiculous mood swings, and almost as soon as we are finally ready to believe her obsessive infatuation with her father, she is shown to be capable of abandoning him on a whim. Still, in places it’s a reasonably decent portrait of a young girl who chooses to confirm and strengthen her identity through surrendering it to an object of «Forbidden Love», and that’s pretty much the image she projects every time she takes her clothes off before your character. It’s a slightly disturbing, perverted (but not seriously traumatic) kind of passion that is hard to resist even if her facial and body features are (to me at least) generally less alluring than everybody else’s.
Then there’s Kathy, Amanda’s best friend, the voracious nerdy student-cum-waitress at your cafe. Kathy may be my single most favorite AVN character of all time — the classic example of that "brainy intellectual built like a brick shipyard", "stimulating conversationalist by day, fire-breathing demon in the sack by night" stereotype that so many of us dream about but so few of us ever encounter in real life. If you remember Woody Allen’s classic "woman interested in Mozart, James Joyce, and sodomy" line from Annie Hall, well, that’s more or less Kathy. She’s usually got the wittiest and funniest (yes, this game can be funny, though it fails at that just as often as it succeeds) lines of them all, she’s got an intelligent face above and reasonably big tits below, she’s willing to risk, experiment, and cross all sorts of lines, and her pictures always show her totally getting into the spirit of things. She’s totally awesome.
Heidi, the redhead bartender turned manager of the diner, is the "motherly figure" of the game, a sort of rational anti-thesis to Kathy’s wildness, which is precisely why the scene in Chapter 12 (where Kathy finally seduces Heidi into a threesome) is probably one of the hottest scenes in any AVN ever written — milking the "opposites attract" idea for all it’s worth and more. She’s the stability anchor of the group, which works just fine when packaged with red hair, freckles, and the usual voluptuous (but realistically voluptuous) mass of tits and ass.
Finally, Lily, the relative latecomer to the game, is a bit of an acquired taste, but the combination of her Far East Asian (nominally Korean) features with her naive-eccentric character gives her a completely different flair from all the other girls — she could have been just another Kathy or Heidi, but Palmer decided otherwise: first, he made her into a comic relief figure for the game, and then he masterfully gave her an adorable soul (along with a thin, slender body with very different proportions from anybody else’s). Her sex scenes on the whole just may be my favorite in the end — in some ways, she feels even less experienced and more innocent than Amanda, and her gradual falling for the MC is especially thrilling when it finally happens.
Of course, to get the proper mileage out of the game’s sex scenes, you have to spend some time with the characters, so the lengthy build-ups and seemingly boring stretches of the plot with endless conversations have their own worth. To me, the thrill of getting there and living through these experiences, even if it does not entirely justify the many technical deficiencies of the game, at least makes them forgivable. Sure, it would be great to have all that in simple, stable, trusty RenPy (maybe some day some thoughtful modder might just get around to that), but in my opinion, the experience of sharing Amanda / Kathy / Heidi / Lily as one’s waifus is still worth the pain of slugging through Palmer’s rusty game engine.
But now we get to the second reason why Daughter For Dessert is such an unforgettable piece of work, though I sense that only a certain (and not very large) category of people shall be able to bear with me here. This reason has to do with the game’s overall atmosphere — and with its writing, which, as I already mentioned, fluctuates between inspired / literate / humorous and utterly embarrassing / cringeworthy... and it sort of fascinates me.
Honestly, the late Palmer (R.I.P.) must have been a very odd person in the flesh. I would not be surprised to learn that he was some sort of shut-in all his life, like that dude in Twin Peaks, because both of his games that I have played (this and Double Homework) focus on protagonists that basically live within themselves and a tiny space that they occupy, only occasionally letting some beautiful outsider into their lives. This focus makes Daughter For Dessert a perfect game for introverts of all kinds — you know, those quiet and shy nerdy types who struggle with crossing the threshold of their own apartment, but also secretly dream of sharing it with that one special person "interested in Mozart, James Joyce, and sodomy", with an equal propensity for intellectual conversation and wild, uninhibited sex.
The heroes in Palmer’s games are definitely not normal people living in any kind of normal world. In this case, their entire life — heck, the life of the entire world — revolves around the MC’s diner, with pretty much the only road he knows of leading to it from his apartment and back there again. There is one major exception, when he and Amanda are forced to take a trip to «Whiskeyville» in order to repair a broken jukebox (!), but even then the entire road trip is claustrophobic, most of it taking place either inside the car or one or two motels along the way. People in this world do not talk or act like normal people, but more like people invented by somebody who has never talked to actual people — and yet, at the same time they sometimes say interesting and occasionally even deep things.
The central plot of the game is a trashy parody of a trashy soap opera, so ridiculous in execution that feeling any genuine emotions of sympathy or sadness is out of the question. Only a true babe in the woods could probably shed real tears for Amanda’s or her mother’s plight. On top of that, we have ridiculous incarcerations, ridiculous trials, ridiculous lawyers called «Saul» (of course, what would you expect of somebody whose conception of the real world was probably formed by watching endless re-runs of Breaking Bad?), and a mock-detective story about the theft of a precious heirloom that would make poor Gilbert Chesterton spin around his axis in the grave. Not that Daughter For Dessert is so utterly unique in this aspect — lots of adult games have equally ridiculous plotlines — but DfD seems to take things so seriously that I almost visualize Palmer himself believing in his plot and the emotional weight it is supposed to carry.
But then you have the characters and their inner worlds, and suddenly, the writing takes a sharp turn and becomes... well, not Dostoyevsky level or anything, but mature, funny, and reasonably deep. To me, that betrays the psychology of a reclusive shut-in: totally clueless and helpless when it comes to depicting life outside, but with all his senses sharpened and thoughts refined when dealing with one’s own inner world. Dialogs between the MC and Kathy, particularly in the first half of the game, can be really golden, and even morally instructive to some people. This, to me, is an absolutely fascinating contrast that I have never met with any other AVN author. Typically, people in this business are usually either consistently decent, or consistently atrocious. Palmer is the only one who’s literally like a fish, totally pitiful while above the water but comfortably at home while under it. Unbelievable.
Being a bit of an introvert myself (though hardly enough to be that clueless about the world outside my window), I can relate very strongly to this paradox, and this is why Daughter For Dessert remains a weirdly crippled favorite of mine. I realize that what I write here may be completely unrelatable for many people — supposedly all those one-star reviews on F95 are indicative of that inability to relate — but I also feel that there is a specially targeted minority that will understand exactly what it is I’m saying.
My only wish for the future is that Palmer’s successors in Love-Joint come to their senses and one day put out a proper remake of Daughter For Dessert in a "normal" game engine like RenPy. This way, fewer people will be put off during the initial episodes of the game and more will be able to concentrate on the lovable characters and their personalities rather than the grueling technical aspects of the interface.
Daughter For Dessert (by Palmer, 2017-2020)
Episode 21.2: The Long Journey To Lily's Old Bedroom
In the final part of the Lily ending, we see Lily and Richard give up their cozy and stable existence at the diner and embrace a wild, exciting life of travel and adventure...
Daughter For Dessert (by Palmer, 2017-2020)
Episode 21.1: I'm A Mess Without My Little Korean Girl
In the final alternative ending, we backtrack quite a bit to a fateful date with Lily right before Amanda's disappearance - with a nice walk in the park, some ice cream...
Daughter For Dessert (by Palmer, 2017-2020)
Episode 20.2: You Can Look, But You Better Not Touch
In the second part of the Heidi ending, Richard and his girlfriend build a business empire, get married, have kids, and indulge in pretty much the only hobby Heidi has reserved for herself...
Daughter For Dessert (by Palmer, 2017-2020)
Episode 20.1: Heidi Restructures Her Incentive Package
In this chapter, we turn back time once again and go for the Heidi ending. Since our favorite redhead is a bit more about conservative family values than Kathy, this means a somewhat less experimental and a bit more sensual relationship...
Daughter For Dessert (by Palmer, 2017-2020)
Episode 19.2: The Rise And Fall Of The Hedonistic Treadmill
In this chapter, Kathy ends up moving in with Richard, becoming a professional writer, and satisfying her sexual curiosity up to the point where it seems like the only rational future for her is to settle for just one man...
Daughter For Dessert (by Palmer, 2017-2020)
Episode 19.1: Another Season For Making Blue Eggs And Ham
In the first of several alternate universes, Richard makes the decision to break it off with Amanda and instead pledges his troth to Kathy...
Daughter For Dessert (by Palmer, 2017-2020)
Episode 18.2: And They Fucked Happily Ever After
In the final chapter of the "canon" route, after being freed in court and having solved the mystery of the toaster, Richard and Amanda make the fateful decision to start their lives anew somewhere far, far away ...
Daughter For Dessert (by Palmer, 2017-2020)
Episode 18.1: Always Have Anal Before Going To Court
In this chapter, Richard braces himself for the upcoming trial, and Amanda does everything she can do to help, including comforting her lover by offering him her butthole on the eve of the trial.
Daughter For Dessert (by Palmer, 2017-2020)
Episode 17.2: Memories Of A Very Special Occasion
In this chapter, Richard's beach tryst with Amanda ends up refueling their feelings for each other and leads the couple to a happy ending.
Daughter For Dessert (by Palmer, 2017-2020)
Episode 17.1: Quality Family Time At The Beach
In this chapter, an eerie visit by Saul somehow results in Richard being let out of prison, as Amanda picks him up at the gates and drives him to a faraway beach to relax, recuperate, and put things together.
Daughter For Dessert (by Palmer, 2017-2020)
Episode 16.2: Goodbye Casual Sex, Hello Jail Time
In this chapter, Richard invites Kathy and Heidi home to relax after their unsuccessful hotel break-in. Naturally, this quickly leads to a steaming threesome...