Darkwen

Forum Fanatic
Nov 10, 2020
4,268
10,122
Pls no, i don't think i could stand the Ewoks showing up.
Some think the Ewoks ate the stormtroopers after the battle of Endor are you telling me you wouldn't want Tybalt or Madame to run into one of those little guys :ROFLMAO:
 

ename144

Engaged Member
Sep 20, 2018
3,196
13,330
DPC replied to a comment on Patreon:

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I agree with DPC that quality takes time and I'm not going to complain about the production times in and of themselves. But I also think he's completely ducking out of the question of whether he's using his time effectively.

It's hard to believe there's no fat to cut out of the game when Madame Rose has been given such a prominent spot in the last two episodes, for example. It's also unclear how much value these lavish animations are adding to the game. Personally, I feel like the added lighting has actually make the new renders look worse than the more simplistic versions in Season 1; it makes minute flaws stand out more and calls attention away from the emotional content that (IMHO) should be the focus. And a lot of the animations in the Interlude (Zoey spinning on the stool, the small motions of characters in the tattoo parlor, etc.) were annoying distractions. The game would have been better for using simple static renders.

The term 'gilding the lily' exists for a reason: at best you're wasting huge resources beautifying something that was already beautiful, and at worst you're replacing a natural beauty with something artificial and tacky. The point being that even once the game is completed, there's no guarantee DPC's inability to cut content will have made the game better simply because it has more stuff in it.

Now obviously that's going to be a judgement call and DPC is certainly in a position to make that call. For all the high gloss and professionalism DPC cultivates, at the end of the day BaDIK is a passion project; he's telling the story he wants to see. I can respect that even if I don't agree, but does make me worry about the future of this game. Creating art is always a delicate balancing act: focus too much on the audience and you have nothing to say worth hearing, but focus too little on the audience and no one will be able to understand the message you do have. If DPC is laser-focused on his own ideal to the exclusion of all else, the end result is likely to be extremely idiosyncratic.

As far as Episodes 10-12 being smaller than Episode 9, I'm afraid I'm going to have to be extremely cynical here. I get that DPC is really excited about the Halloween events, but from my point of view he's deluding himself. First, because DPC already undermined the Halloween party by making it the third giant party in a row; if he knew Episode 9 was going to have a heavy party focus, maybe do something else in Episode 8 to cleanse the palate. It's especially bad since several of the post-crossroads relationships are difficult to mesh with a big frat party: Jill is unlikely to attend, and Bella and Maya/Josy need to be kept secret. For those branches, the party feels more like a minefield than a celebration. That's an awkward place to stage such a massive set-piece.

There's also the question of what comes next. DPC can say he plans to go smaller, but he hasn't really demonstrated he can do that. The closest thing to a smaller episode he's attempted was Episode 5, which starts with a wall-to-wall fuckfest at the preps party then slams us with the destruction of the mansion AND a side-helping of Bella/Jill antics. He doesn't seem to like the idea of lulls in the story, even though they're an important part of making the peaks feel significant. Until he shows that he's capable of restraint, I think it's entirely fair to worry about him padding out Episodes 10-12 with empty spectacle just to keep them from feeling short/cheap. That has some short term appeal, but it may actually make the story of the game worse in the long run despite the added production time.

Hopefully I'm wrong to worry. If the party-planning mini-game works like the mansion repair game (we work towards a long-term goal all season long), maybe DPC really does intend to go a little more low key in Season 3. That would help the Halloween party stand out, and at least give us a shot at some smaller, tighter episodes 10-12. So we shouldn't lose hope. But man, seeing DPC make comments like the one above does nothing to nurture that hope. :(


Being generous to DPC for a moment, I think the jury is still out on the question of whether he went overboard this time. Don't get me wrong, I'm leaning in that direction myself, but it could be that the episode is a total knockout and justifies every day it took to create. Fan response to episode 9 could be so overwhelmingly positive that it simply reinforces his belief in what he's doing and the way he's doing it. We'd only see him start to question his approach if, after playing the episode, people come out with comments like this in sufficient numbers:

"Sure, it was good...but was it really 9 months' worth of development time good?"

That's a crunch question, I think. And by taking as long as he has this time around, he's pretty much guaranteed that it will factor in to how a lot of people play the episode. After the initial buzz has faded...was it worth it?

Among the things I'll be looking out for is the 1 minute 23 second long animation that is included somewhere in episode 9. Remember we know from the status updates that that animation alone took very nearly one whole month to render. It could be amazing...but will it be amazing enough that you wouldn't trade it to knock about four weeks off development time right now?

Like any creative endeavour game development is about choices: what do you spend your time and resources on, what's worth spending your time and resources on. For the verdict on whether he got the balance right for episode 9 we'll have to wait another 1 minute 23 seconds worth of development time and cross our fingers that it was worth it.
Yes, precisely this. If that 1:23 animation achieves something a short animation could not (be it staging, emotional content, titillation, what have you), then DPC is doing the right thing and the long production times, while unfortunate, are ultimately a good thing. But if we could achieve the same effect with a couple of 10 second animations and some better editing, then DPC's perfectionism is ultimately harming his own game, whether he wants to admit that or not.

We'll see where we stand (relatively) soon.


i mean, i appreciate his work ethic and i trust that he isnt deliberately and maliciously stalling to get more money over time. but this does kinda seem like a long winded series of excuses that always amount to "it's my way or the highway" and implies that there is literally nothing possible on this earth that he could ever do to speed up production or to trim the fat overall on BaDIK. If every single major story beat is already "mapped out in advance", then there is no reason other than his own lack of self control (or desire to stall) for every episode to be bigger than the last and take longer to release.

also some of the stuff he said is kinda confusing to me: like him talking about how if he didnt use his current system that players on different branching paths would have differing amounts of content. Do people expect every single path to have 1:1 ratio of equal content??? That seems stupid because each of the LIs have different stories, and they cant possibly all be of equal importance in the big picture. so some girls would get more content but that doesnt make it "wrong" that makes it a natural story that is not padded out with filler crap to make each path be "fair" and equal with the others. Like Sage and Maya are clearly major players in the story no matter what path you are on, so it makes perfect sense that if you are on their designated path that they will "feel" like the have more content because they kinda do and thats okay. then some of the other stuff he says kinda comes off as like veiled threats, which im not sure if that was his intention or not.

if i could ask him a question, it would be "Does he think its okay to continue to balloon each new episode, even though he said himself that everything is already planned out in advance?" If his answer is "no", then we dont share the same mindset. And id say that since he already makes more money than most of us combined ever will in our lifetimes, maybe if he decides to add new stuff that delays the episode (or make something like the Interlude) that he should pause all the donations on Patreon himself until he is back on schedule. just my two cents
Honestly, I'm not really a fan of pausing Patreon payments. Obviously milking exists and it's a bad thing, but at the same quality DOES take time and I don't think creators should be ashamed of that. To me, pausing payments should be reserved for cases where the game production really is halted, like if a dev needs to shelve his hobby for an extended time to focus on his actual job, that sort of thing.

Otherwise, even if the dev isn't working as quickly as they themselves want, I think it would be better if they left payments on and left it up to us as patrons to decide whether their output is worthwhile. If we want to hold devs' feet to the fire, I think transparency is a much better tool: we should insist on regular communications that properly convey what is being worked on and where the targets are. In that sense I think DPC scores fairly well despite the long production times, though a few more numbers in the early process would be nice.


Just a little optimistic perspective to share regarding the duration of episode 9's development.

A lot of popular games here follow a tradition of a Halloween and/or a Christmas special. I find these tedious as they are typically a complete break from the game's canon. It's painful because it has nothing to do with the story other than using the same characters (even if some of them aren't even in character for the special), and obviously the main game development grinds to a halt during this process.

We've already had the deviation of the Interlude that many feel was highly unnecessary, so if DPC took another break from the game's core just to do a random Halloween special, that'd be another kick in the balls.

Instead, we have a fully integrated Halloween special embedded into the main story. An episode, and a special, all rolled into one. Where instead of a deviation from the main story, the Halloween component continues the story. I'd rather that, than a special, anytime.

So, at the end of the day, or year as the case may be... When episode 9 comes out, it'll be episode 9 plus a special. Perhaps justifying the excessive wait this episode has enforced on us. And perhaps future episodes won't be this long.

Like I said, an optimistic perspective, even if shrouded in delusion. :p
Not to rain on your parade, but as I said above, I'm not sure how well integrated this Halloween special is going to be. It's an awkward fit with 3 of the 5 branches, to say nothing of reintroducing Zoey. I feel like it's another victim of the way DPC mishandled the crossroads.

But we'll see. I appreciate you trying to keep my spirits up. :)


I'll never understand the people who get worked up over this. He won't hire a team because he doesn't want to. He doesn't need to. He will not be personally benefited in any way whatsoever if he does.
  • DPC enjoys making the game - why would he hand it over to others to do things he likes?
  • The time it takes to develop the game directly converts to money - why would DPC do something he doesn't want to do purely to speed the game up and result in less revenue over time?
  • Hiring people costs money - why would DPC commit to an ongoing cost for something he doesn't want to do?
It's fucking crybaby children who want the game faster and can't think past their own flaccid cocks.
There may be some crybabies out there, but I think the vast majority are just frustrated because building a team *IS* the proper response to a project that is beyond the scope of a single individual. Even in the world of art, visionaries still benefit from support. It took a lot of supervision by George Lucas for ILM to deliver the special effects that make the original Star Wars trilogy legendary, but I doubt we'd have been even better off waiting for Lucas to personally craft each of those effects himself. Indeed, the success of Empire suggests we might have benefitted from Lucas needing to work through the right intermediaries.

But at the end of the day, running a business is a very different thing than developing a game. George Lucas was comfortable becoming a businessman to make it easier to create movies; Dr Pink Cake isn't comfortable becoming a businessman to make it easier to produce games. It's a shame for us, but it is what it is.

So no, I don't think people wishing DPC would hire a team are being crybabies. I do think they're ultimately lamenting that we live in an imperfect world, so there's not much to be gained debating the matter. But they aren't being malicious or stupid, and it can be cathartic to vent about it once in a while. Cut them a little slack. :p
 
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Geralt From Rivia

Forum Fanatic
Jun 15, 2022
5,295
32,075
Poor Riona, she's definitely going to be fucked over by narcs at some point. :cry:

And if Lily turns out to be a narc, my mc may consider not fucking her anymore! :mad:
Everything must be done so that the MC's dick becomes the last for our Rio, the narcs can peck each others asses. :cool: She just needs to get rid of Quinn's influence.
I don't think Lily uses anything stronger than weed.
You're right there was a massive spike in November 2021, but if you pay attention to the graph below you can see there was an cumulative increase in patrons over time and the curve was ascending; now, it's descending. Yeah... I believe there will be a massive upsurge in patrons when the new episode is released, but I don't think it will reach the last November apex.

View attachment 2148983
I am generally sure that DPC has reached the peak of its capabilities in the number of audience and has reached a plateau. By the way, you can see a small surge, this is the release of Interlude, then stabilization at the current 11.5-13.5k / month.
 
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Thekingofdope

Newbie
Apr 8, 2019
25
22
After reading DPC's messeage, I have to say, I've never doubted that he's totally commited with his work, he's not deliberately stalling the developement in order to get more money from patrons, you can tell that he love Being a DIK as his own son, but that being said... It's really worth it to have that long, complicate and hard to render animations that have caused to miss Halloween as a realistic realease date? I'm aware that it's just a matter of taste, some people will love it, but for me, it's just not necessary or worth it. I've deeply enjoyed episode 3, 4 or 5, where the animation count was shorter.
We will see, if this update is just so much better than everything else.
 

The Dick

Member
Oct 22, 2022
143
2,092
My guess is now that we've selected the main LI, the plot will thicken (we're roughly at the half way mark through the story). I expect there will be some bigger drama than all this random shit that's been going on. Something a little more sinister perhaps (involving Vinny, Quinn and their drugs).

If not, then it's just gonna be a lot of random college shit with random drama. It's still fun, but kinda directionless.
According to the blueprints of scriptwriting, it's time for the shit hit the fan, bad guys will close in, and the MC will enter in the dark night of the soul.

large_save-the-cat-structure-post-107b32.jpg

Incipit tragœdia
 

DarkKiller

Active Member
Sep 3, 2016
585
8,840
Yes, precisely this. If that 1:23 animation achieves something a short animation could not (be it staging, emotional content, titillation, what have you), then DPC is doing the right thing and the long production times, while unfortunate, are ultimately a good thing. But if we could achieve the same effect with a couple of 10 second animations and some better editing, then DPC's perfectionism is ultimately harming his own game, whether he wants to admit that or not.

We'll see where we stand (relatively) soon.
When you play earlier episodes it's quite easy to spot some of the causes of such long development times during season 2 and after.
Like this for example, during the first episodes if he wanted to show off a girl he'd make a render for her:
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And then he'd put a renpy built-in pan over animation over it like this:
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Then you go play EP8 and you have a similar instance:
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Except now it's a full blown animation, it barely has any movement in it, it's very subtle, but DPC's so addicted to improve upon his previous work and add detail that he keeps piling this kind of stuff onto the development process.

After seeing this it's quite easy to understand why it's starting to take so long to pump an episode out, if he could he probably would turn this whole thing into an interactive TV show but seeing as he can't, he just keeps adding animations on top of animations that add little touches here and there.
Now, I'm not saying the animations are bad, on the contrary actually, I enjoy them more than I thought I would, but I don't think the trade-off between having said animations and the time it takes to make them is net positive unfortunately...
 

Geralt From Rivia

Forum Fanatic
Jun 15, 2022
5,295
32,075
I agree with DPC that quality takes time and I'm not going to complain about the production times in and of themselves. But I also think he's completely ducking out of the question of whether he's using his time effectively.

It's hard to believe there's no fat to cut out of the game when Madame Rose has been given such a prominent spot in the last two episodes, for example. It's also unclear how much value these lavish animations are adding to the game. Personally, I feel like the added lighting has actually make the new renders look worse than the more simplistic versions in Season 1; it makes minute flaws stand out more and calls attention away from the emotional content that (IMHO) should be the focus. And a lot of the animations in the Interlude (Zoey spinning on the stool, the small motions of characters in the tattoo parlor, etc.) were annoying distractions. The game would have been better for using simple static renders.

The term 'gilding the lily' exists for a reason: at best you're wasting huge resources beautifying something that was already beautiful, and at worst you're replacing a natural beauty with something artificial and tacky. The point being that even once the game is completed, there's no guarantee DPC's inability to cut content will have made the game better simply because it has more stuff in it.

Now obviously that's going to be a judgement call and DPC is certainly in a position to make that call. For all the high gloss and professionalism DPC cultivates, at the end of the day BaDIK is a passion project; he's telling the story he wants to see. I can respect that even if I don't agree, but does make me worry about the future of this game. Creating art is always a delicate balancing act: focus too much on the audience and you have nothing to say worth hearing, but focus too little on the audience and no one will be able to understand the message you do have. If DPC is laser-focused on his own ideal to the exclusion of all else, the end result is likely to be extremely idiosyncratic.

As far as Episodes 10-12 being smaller than Episode 9, I'm afraid I'm going to have to be extremely cynical here. I get that DPC is really excited about the Halloween events, but from my point of view he's deluding himself. First, because DPC already undermined the Halloween party by making it the third giant party in a row; if he knew Episode 9 was going to have a heavy party focus, maybe do something else in Episode 8 to cleanse the palate. It's especially bad since several of the post-crossroads relationships are difficult to mesh with a big frat party: Jill is unlikely to attend, and Bella and Maya/Josy need to be kept secret. For those branches, the party feels more like a minefield than a celebration. That's an awkward place to stage such a massive set-piece.

There's also the question of what comes next. DPC can say he plans to go smaller, but he hasn't really demonstrated he can do that. The closest thing to a smaller episode he's attempted was Episode 5, which starts with a wall-to-wall fuckfest at the preps party then slams us with the destruction of the mansion AND a side-helping of Bella/Jill antics. He doesn't seem to like the idea of lulls in the story, even though they're an important part of making the peaks feel significant. Until he shows that he's capable of restraint, I think it's entirely fair to worry about him padding out Episodes 10-12 with empty spectacle just to keep them from feeling short/cheap. That has some short term appeal, but it may actually make the story of the game worse in the long run despite the added production time.

Hopefully I'm wrong to worry. If the party-planning mini-game works like the mansion repair game (we work towards a long-term goal all season long), maybe DPC really does intend to go a little more low key in Season 3. That would help the Halloween party stand out, and at least give us a shot at some smaller, tighter episodes 10-12. So we shouldn't lose hope. But man, seeing DPC make comments like the one above does nothing to nurture that hope. :(
I'm sure that Episodes 10-12 should have some powerful drama with a cool script that will keep the player in a tense state, make them worry, cry and scream.
For example, I'm waiting for a story about the real origin of the MC. I feel like my hair will stand on end. The DPC didn't just give us Lynette's diary.
Or even more interesting scenario. When Sage finds out about Quinn's dark dealings within sorority and that her "father" is also involved. How will she realize that her best friend was cheating on her and using the girls to earn money, how Sage will react and how Quinn will defend herself. I want to see something like a power struggle in sorority, Team Sage vs Team Quinn. Civil War. Such a small local Dance of the Dragons.
A cool scenario and a break in the plot at the most interesting place will help the player's interest not to cool down during the long wait of 9-10 months.
He knows how to break the plot in the endings :LOL:
 

felicemastronzo

Devoted Member
May 17, 2020
11,097
21,713
You're right there was a massive spike in November 2021, but if you pay attention to the graph below you can see there was an cumulative increase in patrons over time and the curve was ascending; now, it's descending. Yeah... I believe there will be a massive upsurge in patrons when the new episode is released, but I don't think it will reach the last November apex.

View attachment 2148983
AVNs are basically a bubble that has already peaked in the lockdown years, now it is much easier to drop than to rise, this especially for games that have already reached a large audience
 

TTGhost

New Member
Sep 7, 2022
13
57
**EPISODE 8**

* 10/22/2021 – Final status update / Start of beta testing
* 02/11/2021 – Final preview released
* 03/11/2021 – Beta testing status report
* 09/11/2021 – Release date announced
* 19/11/2021 – Episode 8 released

Historically, there is about 1 month between when DPC announces beta testing starting and the episode being released. If we are hopeful that the animations will be on the faster side of the 4-5 weeks, that puts us at the status update for 02/12/2022.

If that turns out to be when he announces beta testing, it is feasible that a January 2023 release is possible. I think a lot of the initial testing will be internal during this month of render time and so hopefully the work load for his beta testers will be smaller, however this is still the largest update to date and with an assumed huge number of variables due to the new path system. We could be looking at a normal to long beta test period.
 

shazba

Engaged Member
Aug 4, 2020
3,506
19,694
Now obviously that's going to be a judgement call and DPC is certainly in a position to make that call. For all the high gloss and professionalism DPC cultivates, at the end of the day BaDIK is a passion project; he's telling the story he wants to see. I can respect that even if I don't agree, but does make me worry about the future of this game. Creating art is always a delicate balancing act: focus too much on the audience and you have nothing to say worth hearing, but focus too little on the audience and no one will be able to understand the message you do have. If DPC is laser-focused on his own ideal to the exclusion of all else, the end result is likely to be extremely idiosyncratic.

As far as Episodes 10-12 being smaller than Episode 9, I'm afraid I'm going to have to be extremely cynical here. I get that DPC is really excited about the Halloween events, but from my point of view he's deluding himself. First, because DPC already undermined the Halloween party by making it the third giant party in a row; if he knew Episode 9 was going to have a heavy party focus, maybe do something else in Episode 8 to cleanse the palate. It's especially bad since several of the post-crossroads relationships are difficult to mesh with a big frat party: Jill is unlikely to attend, and Bella and Maya/Josy need to be kept secret. For those branches, the party feels more like a minefield than a celebration. That's an awkward place to stage such a massive set-piece.
At this point, if DPC doesn't deviate from his own style as set out in the first 8 episodes, I don't see how he's at risk of alienating his audience.

His style of humor is, from what I gather, rather universal. His timing with scenes and music is very enjoyable, and the sex always integrates well (in AL I found it was very jarring, but BaDIK nails it - pun intended). His scene direction and dialogue is very engaging. So far, it's been a very fun ride, and this is all using his own intuition, not bending to client requests.

The Madame was the only misstep in my book, and that could just be me, not being into grotesque, aging, fetid, animated corpses, I don't know how well she rates on that scale.

The concern with parties: To me, there needed to be more. The DIKs are a party frat, and they've had a reason for putting the brakes on (the mansion being trashed and all), but they are back in business, and there needs to be parties all the time (well not all the time, but like every Friday and/or Saturday night if we're gonna use real world comparisons here).

This is college life, parties, drinking and sex are what it's all about (you might be looking to get a degree or something, but that's secondary :p), but of course it's got to be kept from become mundane (we all know how wall to wall sex in our own lives just becomes a drag after a while :sneaky:).

With the new party planning minigame, parties are sure to focus throughout season 3. This is exactly where I wanted the game to go. For me at that age, there were no fraternities and shit at out universities, but we'd go "clubbing" (going to night clubs/dance clubs) to hook up with girls (a few years before dating apps kinda fucked that scene up). Those were just legendary times. Screaming into some girl's ear who you've been dancing with for the last hour:

dude: Hey, wanna fuck?!​
hot babe: WHAT?​
dude: I SAID, WANNA GO FUCK SOMEWHERE?!​
hot babe: I CAN'T HERE YOU!​
dude: ...​
hot babe: HEY, YOU WANNA GET LAID TONIGHT?!​
dude: WHAT?! IT'S TOO FUCKING LOUD IN HERE!​

Ahh, the good old days. :giggle:

Not to rain on your parade, but as I said above, I'm not sure how well integrated this Halloween special is going to be. It's an awkward fit with 3 of the 5 branches, to say nothing of reintroducing Zoey. I feel like it's another victim of the way DPC mishandled the crossroads.

But we'll see. I appreciate you trying to keep my spirits up. :)
He's managed the intertwining paths so far without it feeling fucked up or out of place, mostly. Not sure why people are concerned he suddenly can't handle this. The only difference (and I guess it's quite significant) is that in the past, events with different LIs took place in different locations. In this case, it'll be the same location, with similar events but plotted around the LI of choice. It should be pretty cool to see things pan out differently, but similar, when replaying the scenes with different LIs.

Kinda makes me think about how if you're on Jill's path, you meet her friends, but if you're on Quinn's path, you see two of her friends fooling around with eachothers' partner. That was pretty cool.

There may be some crybabies out there, but I think the vast majority are just frustrated because building a team *IS* the proper response to a project that is beyond the scope of a single individual. Even in the world of art, visionaries still benefit from support. It took a lot of supervision by George Lucas for ILM to deliver the special effects that make the original Star Wars trilogy legendary, but I doubt we'd have been even better off waiting for Lucas to personally craft each of those effects himself. Indeed, the success of Empire suggests we might have benefitted from Lucas needing to work through the right intermediaries.

But at the end of the day, running a business is a very different thing than developing a game. George Lucas was comfortable becoming a businessman to make it easier to create movies; Dr Pink Cake isn't comfortable becoming a businessman to make it easier to produce games. It's a shame for us, but it is what it is.

So no, I don't think people wishing DPC would hire a team are being crybabies. I do think they're ultimately lamenting that we live in an imperfect world, so there's not much to be gained debating the matter. But they aren't being malicious or stupid, and it can be cathartic to vent about it once in a while. Cut them a little slack. :p
If he had imposing deadlines, or he was getting paid for the job, not for the time it took, that'd be incentive to get a team in to speed things along. But alas Patreon's incentives are the complete opposite to that.

Anyway, I'm not sure if I wanna cut those crybabies some slack. :unsure::p[/QUOTE]
 
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DatBoit

Member
Dec 2, 2018
265
1,151
DPC replied to a comment on Patreon:

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This response gives a clear picture of DPC's mentality. As anyone could have hypothesised, he is developing this game for no one else's sake, other than his own. This is his life's work, and he wants it to be perfect, down to the tiniest of details. That is why he will happily increase the quality of renders, the length and quality of animations, as well as include more characters, free roam events and mini-games. In his mind, this makes the game more perfect, and he could not care less if it means the player will only get to play one episode per year.

He is refusing to make any sort of compromises that could benefit the development cycles. To avoid needing to compromise, he defends himself with arguments that don't make sense, and are contradictory to other statements he has made. For example, he says shorter update times would inevitably mean cutting content and deviating from what he has planned. This clearly is not true: he has repeatedly stated that he is increasing the quality of both the renders and the animations, as well as writing code that is increasingly complex. Could he not, then, settle for an appropriate level of quality in order to avoid longer rendering times? Could he not choose to make less elaborate minigames that are less taxing from a programming standpoint? Of course he could, but he does not want to, because he is developing the game for himself.

Additionally, he states that the episodes are planned long in advance, and that his hands are therefore tied. He simply cannot reduce the size, because it has already been determined. This is also a lie. DPC said he planned for Episode 9 to be smaller than Episode 8, yet that did not happen. This proves that his plans are not set in stone, and that he adds elements that weren't planned, or else he would never have been able to say that the episode was going the be smaller in the first place. Could he not choose to not include all of the extra, unplanned content he evidently decides to include? Of course he could, but again, he is developing the game for himself.

It is a fact at this point that DPC is adding content that doesn't matter to the overall impression of the game. Madame must be the most obvious example of this. She is there for one reason, and one reason only, which is to provide an opportunity for lewd scenes. More lewd scenes, in a game that already has 15 other more interesting characters to choose from, and which is already packed with lewd content. To say that this is unnecessary is an understatement - it is a complete waste of time. Yet still, plenty of rendering capacity has been dedicated to her. By no means is Madame the only example either, the game is riddled with a whole range of "nice-to-haves", that aren't crucial for your experience. D&G, the mansion mini-game, characters such as Becky, Nora and Sandy, and improvements to a render and animation quality that was already stellar, are factors I would easily place into the "nice-to-have" category. This could have been done differently, but once more, he is developing the game for himself.

Should DPC compromise on his vision? I think he should. It's a nice argument in theory that Patreon is just a platform for people to make goodwill donations to support the work of creators, but this just isn't true in practice. When you make the game a reward for pledging, you are essentially selling a product, and your patrons become your customers. At that point, I feel like you should factor in how long you are taking to produce the product in question. I expect nothing to change, though, because patrons are some of the most uncritical individuals I have ever come across. They will accept just about anything, regardless of whether the creator is trustworthy or not. This is also why DPC can make claims such as "my recommendation would be to stop supporting me", because he knows that he has a massive audience of people who will mindlessly praise anything he puts out. The statement makes him seem grounded, but I doubt he would be so dismissive of criticism if he didn't have such a huge backing of patrons who have no expectations whatsoever.

It truly is extremely unfortunate that the development is heading in this direction. Without a shadow of a doubt, Being a DIK is the best AVN out there, but we will soon reach a point where we only get to enjoy it once per year, and will need to remain committed for another ten years to see its completion. That just isn't reasonable. If DPC told you after Episode 1 that the game is likely going to take 14 years to finish, I don't think your reaction would have been "sounds good", so I don't see why that should be acceptable now.

I guess you can still hope that, even though DPC says he will not change, he still got himself some food-for-thought that could subconciously affect the time between updates. I still wouldn't expect it, though, because he is developing the game for himself, and has a tremendous number of supporters that have no problem with that.
 
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