i've learned something here
you're an alien LOL. i see your point though, often times devs don't make use of what makes a sandbox good and only use it to pad out playtime and make their game seem to have more than what's really there. i do understand that it is necessary in some cases though. when it comes to omitting certain events and allowing for the freedom to engage in varied activities, in no particular order, a sandbox could come in handy for sure. it still needs to be intuitive though.
Haha, idk man. I like the feeling of "making progress" instead of reading along with a story sometimes. It's a nice change of pace. There are for sure a few devs who do sandboxes correctly. I still for the most part like BADIK's free roams. They add a touch of immersion because it feels like you're actually controlling the player. It's just that it gets really fucking tedious when you're doing multiple runs. Having to do the same shit over and over again but also keeping in mind minute choices you need to make in order to get alternate lines or maybe a scene that ultimately don't actually affect the story, makes it a real slog. Started getting tedious in Ep 7 at the HOTs party free roam. Then Ep 9 was 90% to 95% that.
i haven't gotten as far in as you have, but if the writing later on is anything like you've described, i can't say i'm too excited to get into it
Well, it's not that blatant (for the most part). It just feels like a general trend that's creeping in like he's run out of ideas on how to write dialogue for some scenes. There are VNs that are a lot worse than that. Ones that make you think the writer is somehow embarrassed to be working on an AVN and they feel the need to beat you over the head with stuff. Or almost like they just have no business writing because they have no style of their own and they have no "voice". DPC has a voice. It's just that I noticed a little bit here and there it starting to get more generic.
Honestly, I'd say just try them. Don't take my word for it. Plus, you can avoid the pain of waiting over a year for Ep 9 so it might work a little better. There's also no harm in waiting for Ep 10. We'll hopefully get it before December (knock on wood). Ep 8 was supposed to make "major changes", Interlude was nice and I liked Zoey but felt like a waste of time, Ep 9 in relation to Ep 8 felt like it did some backtracking in some parts or no real progress was made for the story. It just kind of felt like cleaning up after Ep 8 while also having to handle the Halloween Party that had been delayed for over 2 years at that point (Most people assumed that we were going to get the Halloween Party in Ep 8 so there was a lot of built-up anticipation).
i haven't played acting lessons myself so badik was my introduction to his writing. i do feel as though some of the conflict is scripted well enough, but even to the standard i hold him at, others fall short. i think the difference in how we perceive the plot is due to the timespan over which we watch it unfold. i'm not caught up. never have been, i've never waited for an update from badik and so i immediately see the resolution to the conflict that supposedly too soooo long to write that there needed to be how many ever months between updates. honestly, i feel like i'd want to be even more disappointed if i had to wait, but at the same time, i understand just having the desire for more content be satiated. i just hate getting the feeling that i'm taking a creator's work more seriously than they are themselves. melodrama is all good and well but change is to be expected when a creator learns, grows and develops their technique. its easy to say this is his style of writing, but if this has persisted for years, unchanged, could you say that he's gotten any better at this?
Acting Lessons was his first VN and it wasn't bad (except for the ending lol). You can try it but if anything, I feel like DPC was even more melodramatic in that one. You could say he's improved since then in that regard.
Oh, yea. For sure, dude. Up until Ep 9, I was actively waiting for new updates. It gives you a lot of time to think about shit that doesn't make sense or is just kind of corny. Plus, you get to see others point those things out as well. You can still probably catch up. In that regard, it might be best to just wait a little longer. Ep 10 will most likely be released within the next few months anyway. So when you think about it, it's probably better to take your time. And again, Ep 9 didn't really do much to move the story forward. It was mostly 1. Ep 8 cleanup 2. Zoey's here, guys. Yay. and 3. The Halloween Party everyone waited over 2 years for. To be honest, it was a lot on DPC's plate to deliver on all that but at the same time he kind of did it to himself.
Hmm, I can't really think of any other solo dev/dev team who's has as obsessed and passionate about their game as DPC is towards BADIK. It sounds contradictory because I know I said he seems like he's losing interest but I feel like that was only a recent thing I started thinking. For the most part, he's been fully committed to the game and took it incredibly seriously. It was only for Ep 9 that I felt like something broke, like he was kind of burnt out.
Gotten better at writing? Meh, kinda. It's at least better than Acting Lessons. For everything else: character posing, render quality, game features, soundtrack arrangement, sheer number of renders and animations, etc. Yes. You could argue that DPC chose to "level up" other aspects of VN development while writing was mostly just marginally improved upon after getting more experience.
There's an argument that it's not so much his writing that takes a long time. It's everything else that eats up the bulk of time. In which case, DPC is still to blame because he doesn't really know when to just stop, make some compromises, and release the update. Which is why I say DPC has a lot of passion. It's like on the level of some kind of "artist" who can't make compromises for his "vision". It's just that, that passion is usually seen directed towards a bunch of pedantic crap nobody asked for.
I think at the very end, once BADIK is all finished, it's going to be a pretty cool game with a lot of bells and whistles no other dev has included in one, whole project. Only that comes at expense of an
ongoing story with substance.
It's like, no one who plays the final version from beginning to end is going to complain about the lacking story when it feels like a cinematic experience and there all these intricate features included. On the flipside, those who are following along will just be filled with frustration at a story that just goes in circles while the dev is more worried about shining the pebbles on the side of the road instead of the actual road.
yuno has been doing 3d rendering for a while now, i looked into it some time ago and i am willing to believe this was really just a shot in an alternate direction. while i do find it bothersome to think that he never did take his project too seriously, a major gripe for most people would be the fact that he crowd funded a "passion" project that he saw going nowhere. the patreon, the subscribestar, the itch.io, the tiers and promises, all false pretense. that's not at all a good look, but the majority will be more forgiving, i've noticed that.
Yea, I kinda wish I knew what happened there to definitively tell. Was it that from the start or did he really have the drive and was too overwhelmed to continue? For the latter, I've experienced something similar so I can sympathize. I guess only Yuno himself would know. Plus, him treating it like a hobby is just my assumption so I'd take that with a grain of salt.
i don't mean to say he's a milker either, some people in this thread seem to have a good impression of the guy and he's been consistent with 3d for a while now. i only mean to say that the majority being milkers makes this leave a bad impression on most people. at least, that's how i feel about it.
Yea, I feel that. This was essentially a first impression for (from?) him. He kinda bunked it up.
your boy yuno got his rtx card, rendering on a whole other level right now, you'd think this would be the worst possible time for him to quit or go on hiatus but idk about the life he lives.
Poss. Maybe he just couldn't handle everything else that goes into a VN. Render posing, writing, etc. Also, look at DPC. He's got a whole army of machines dedicated to rendering and it's been currently 9 months since Ep 9. Plus, Yuno had some high quality renders from the start. It's like a stupid loop. Devs say they're going to upgrade graphics cards to chug shit out faster, upgrades, then proceed to work on higher quality renders that cancel out the time that was apparently going to be saved. In most cases, taking even longer actually.
either way though, i've followed too many devs that have been working on the same project seemingly indefinitely. on your last point, i feel like most people will refrain from trying new projects for reasons similar to your own, and for that reason, early/new developers don't see enough growth to remain committed to their project, which in turn, contributes to sudden abandonment. its a vicious cycle.
i see most developers only play the games that they're good at, can't close the story that they've been dragging on, way too uninspired
True, but I feel like that's just a natural filter. Not always for sure because there are good games that get abandoned due to lack of support. But for the most part, the good ones are going to break out and gain traction. There's usually some kind of hook or incredible renders. Something that sets it apart from being one of the countless, generic ones. Self-marketing also helps a fuck ton. Just look at FreshWomen.
Also, I think there are still people who try games on first release. I think they're also kind of starved for something good because of all those games that just drag on and on with the original spark kind of faded out now.
It's definitely a vicious cycle but I feel like I'm not wrong. It kind of relates back to what you said about passion. If a dev isn't fully committed to at least make it to a certain threshold (4 complete updates or 1,000 static renders) despite not gaining traction, seems like that's the dev's problem and it was most likely never going to be finished anyway.
Also, not in all cases but most if the proofreading is shit or the game itself is shit. It pretty much stays that way. It sounds harsh but I think that's the case. Usually the ones who have gone past that initial "Early Dev" stage are good and the ones that never make it out aren't. I think my personal rule usually works. Just look at Yuno. A fuck ton of initial popularity only for a first release and now we're here...
Which is why I try to tell people about smaller creators who've got some really good stuff, have a decent amount of updates, and have the resolve to keep chugging along.
