VN Ren'Py Being a DIK [v0.10.1] [Dr PinkCake]

[Hahn1900]

At this point I wouldn't be surprised if he already surpassed the 100 posed animations mark, how many of them are already rendered we can know for sure, but more than 80 wouldn't be absurd considered previous data DPC revealed.

80 rendered animations at this point would be a desaster, nothing less.

65 rendered animations at January 5th. If we were at 80 now this would be sooo so so so so really bad, 4-5 animatiosn a week, yeah that would mean the next episode is out christmas... but christmas 2025.

Normally he was able to render 7-8 animations a week, or simplier said, 1 per day. So he should be at 100 at LEAST now, but he mentiuoned that everything goes faster now... so that means he should be way ahead of 100 already, otherwise it would be a disapointment. A decent number for now would be, lets say, 105 animations rendered. a really good one would be 120. Everything less than 105 would be pretty much the same pace has he had in the past, so only the "headstart" makes it a decent numer, but we dont know when he started to work on those 65 animations, could very well be that he has done them before episode 10 was released. Which is very likely.

 

[Porthas]

You really dont know what you are talking about here.

He planned out the whole game already, but not in detail what goes in which episode of course.

What DPC means when he talks about writing and plan out the episode, he means every scene, when and where those scenes will take place and who will be included in them, every line the characters will say and so on... Its more or less pretty much already coding the episode beforehand... you are talking about a storyboard for the whole game, that is done since day 1.

Of course I know what I'm talking about here. I would have already written what he says he's writing now. There's more than one way to skin a cat.

 

[Hahn1900]

I've seen a lot of comments saying that the game will have 16 episodes, but is that really confirmed anywhere? Is DrPinkCake a solo person creator? It's really sad that you have to wait a year for one episode to be released. Hasn't the creator got a sense of laziness? I think waiting a year with such a successful game to release a new episode says a lot.
Imagine how many people won't even finish the game and how lucky those who will start playing the game after it is already fully done. Let's not rule out the possibility that the game may be abandoned.

yes.

yes.

Waiting almost a year is long (and yeah, too long, and he could be faster if he would cut out many animations), since you are new around here... some numbers for you, DPC is capable to do more than 300 animations in about 1 year and the last episodes had more than 4500 renders each... i could let you guess now how many games there are on F95 which are close to those content numbers. But i do it for you, there are.... ZERO games close to that. Not one DEV not even a whole team came even close to those numbers yet, and DPC is making it alone and in a high quality standard that most other games cant touch either.

DPC has many flaws (he is a prick) and could release episodes faster if he wouldnt go overboard with so many unnecessary things... but there is really no other game on F95 which delivers the same amount of content in the same time... which is kinda remarkable considered that DPC is making EVERYTHING alone. And he started to create his own music too... yeah he is batshit crazy, so much is clear.

 

[Hahn1900]

Of course I know what I'm talking about here. I would have already written what he says he's writing now. There's more than one way to skin a cat.

erm yeah... no... not even a author like stephen king does that.

You should talk with a screenwriter once, its practically the same approach (not the same in deatil though, cause developing a game from episode to episode is a little different with much room for improvements and improvisation)... and DPC is btw more or less the only one on F95 who already planned out the foundation of his game

 

[Porthas]

Still nothing to work with.

400 static renders is nothing, he can do those in a week if he want to. And already did that in the past. So those numbers arent anything we can grab to figure out how things are going. So more than 1 month already gone into development, and we know nothing... at January 5th he had done 65 animations already... which was nice to know, but to figure out how things are going forward we would need another number soon. The static renders were never a problem in development time for him, he is very fast and accurate with them. Doing hundrets of them in a week is really nothing for him. Usally he writes the scenes and start than with art... the writing part cost him more time than the static renders.

But all this doesnt really matter for a estimated release time... there is only one bottleneck, the animations. Its really good that he started with so much early on. Never did that before. He "kickstarted" the last episode dev shedule with animations too, but slowed down on them very soon and has done a lot of animations in the end. Everything was done and he added about 80 animations on top which lead to a 2 months waiting game on the render queue. This should not happen again.

If he is writing now, we will not get serious numbers in the next DEV report either guess.

Yeah, if he's tossing out numbers without an end-goal total that's completely useless.

 

[Porthas]

erm yeah... no... not even a author like stephen king does that.

Of course he does. He writes the book.

I would write the book first. That's exactly what I'm saying. For some reason you're telling me I'm talking about storyboards or something. That's not what I'm talking about.

 

[soprano31]

I've seen a lot of comments saying that the game will have 16 episodes, but is that really confirmed anywhere? Is DrPinkCake a solo person creator? It's really sad that you have to wait a year for one episode to be released. Hasn't the creator got a sense of laziness? I think waiting a year with such a successful game to release a new episode says a lot.
Imagine how many people won't even finish the game and how lucky those who will start playing the game after it is already fully done. Let's not rule out the possibility that the game may be abandoned.

Saying the word"abandoned" with a pfp like that..
you know who made it,right ?

 

[Hahn1900]

Of course he does. He writes the book.

I would write the book first. That's exactly what I'm saying. For some reason you're telling me I'm talking about storyboards or something. That's not what I'm talking about.

Well, congrats, you are the first author on this world who would write a book on the fly from start to end with every detail, curious how this will turn out.

 

[Porthas]

Well, congrats, you are the first author on this world who would write a book on the fly from start to end with every detail, curious how this will turn out.

I don't know what you're talking about now. Who said anything about writing a book on the fly? I would go through whatever process I usually go through to write a book (outlines, whatever) - a branching book in this case (like a choose your own adventure book) - then I'd build the visuals on top of that.

What are you getting grumpy with me for? I didn't say he was doing it wrong. I'm just observing his process and comparing it to how I would probably approach it. There's no "right" or "wrong" here, just different approaches.

 

[lobotomist]

See. I would have written the whole story then built a VN around it. I wonder if he's at least got an outline. This is not a criticism, just an observation.

it's general knowledge that he has an outline, but he tends to change things during production.

And guess what that is true for every major production, that's why breaking bad which is arguably the greatest series ever made introduced main characters later on.
In fact series that "stick to the plan" tend to do bad, that's the reason how i met your mother is considered as having the worst finale ever, because the producers decided to stick with the finale they had pre recorded on the first season even though so much had changed since then.

So you might want to take a page out of the pros book, and ignore your own advice.

 

[Porthas]

it's general knowledge that he has an outline, but he tends to change things during production.

And guess what that is true for every major production, that's why breaking bad which is arguably the greatest series ever made introduced main characters later on.
In fact series that "stick to the plan" tend to do bad, that's the reason how i met your mother is considered as having the worst finale ever, because the producers decided to stick with the finale they had pre recorded on the first season even though so much had changed since then.

So you might want to take a page out of the pros book, and ignore your own advice.

One. I wasn't giving advice. Anybody who read what I said would know this.

 

[felicemastronzo]

You really dont know what you are talking about here.

He planned out the whole game already, but not in detail what goes in which episode of course.

And how do you know all this? Apart from trusting what DPC himself said some time ago. He hardly claimed otherwise .. .

 

[Porthas]

it's general knowledge that he has an outline, but he tends to change things during production.

And guess what that is true for every major production, that's why breaking bad which is arguably the greatest series ever made introduced main characters later on.
In fact series that "stick to the plan" tend to do bad, that's the reason how i met your mother is considered as having the worst finale ever, because the producers decided to stick with the finale they had pre recorded on the first season even though so much had changed since then.

So you might want to take a page out of the pros book, and ignore your own advice.

Two, "the pros" do things in different ways. There are authors who write books with outlines, and there are those who don't.

But of course, that's beside the point.

I have no idea why people are getting so defensive about this.

 

[Porthas]

And how do you know all this? Apart from trusting what DPC himself said some time ago. He hardly claimed otherwise .. .

I think some people didn't read carefully what I said and started assuming I was criticizing how he makes his game. Which of course, is not what I said or did.

But you do make a valid point and I do wonder if DPC has ever thoroughly talked about how much of his game and story are already set in his mind.

That's all beside the point, he can make the game and write the story however he wants, of course.

One of the fundamental things you learn in writing classes is the several approaches to writing and editing. People usually will pick one, try them out and then go with one or tailor an approach to how their mind works.

 

[Hahn1900]

it's general knowledge that he has an outline, but he tends to change things during production.

And guess what that is true for every major production, that's why breaking bad which is arguably the greatest series ever made introduced main characters later on.
In fact series that "stick to the plan" tend to do bad, that's the reason how i met your mother is considered as having the worst finale ever, because the producers decided to stick with the finale they had pre recorded on the first season even though so much had changed since then.

So you might want to take a page out of the pros book, and ignore your own advice.

Thats about it, nothin to add. Wish i could phrase it like that.

 

[felicemastronzo]

I think some people didn't read carefully what I said and started assuming I was criticizing how he makes his game. Which of course, is not what I said or did.

But you do make a valid point and I do wonder if DPC has ever thoroughly talked about how much of his game and story are already set in his mind.

That's all beside the point, he can make the game and write the story however he wants, of course.

One of the fundamental things you learn in writing classes is the several approaches to writing and editing. People usually will pick one, try them out and then go with one or tailor an approach to how their mind works.

DPC has, on more than one occasion in the past, reassured that the story has already been set. And I believe it, at least in the general events. I have many more doubts that there have been changes and even substantial additions to the plot, between the desire to enrich the story and pressure from the patreons to give more space to otherwise secondary characters

 

[Porthas]

Thats about it, nothin to add. Wish i could phrase it like that.

I wish you both could actually read and pay attention to what a person said.

 

[jd8097619]

See. I would have written the whole story then built a VN around it. I wonder if he's at least got an outline. This is not a criticism, just an observation.

Ah the sage old advice of people saying what they would do knowing full-well they'll never actually do it.

 

[Hahn1900]

And how do you know all this? Apart from trusting what DPC himself said some time ago. He hardly claimed otherwise .. .

Well, to some point i trust him... thats it. Of course he could lie his ass off all the time, what do i know about that? But if i would approach everything in life like that... well, bullet to the head would be a better idea i guess.

DPC made some posts like that a long time ago, some in discord, some on patreon, where he said that the maingirl paths and endings are already planned out beforehand, same goes for the mainplots (where we can argue which is mainplot and what not) I tend to believe him there and considered how things out of earlier episodes appear again later on its kind of obvious he did planned that way before.

"Trust" is a difficult thing, it has to be earned, especially if we are talking about DEVs on F95 games around here... lets face it, 99% of them are liars.

You can accuse DPC of many things (again, i said it, he is in general a prick) but flat out lying about the game and how he approached it? Nah, not so far.

We all know the excuses many devs give "my cat died, my dog has eaten the dead cat is dying know too because of the disease you get from eating cats, so... yeah release will not be october, it will be next month" next month... "ah i had technical issues, so yeah... not gonna happen" and so on and on and on. There is not much to be trusted about when a DEV starts giving ETAs and has one excuse after another without ever making his ETA in the first place. And ETAs are only one example... some others talk much about "going fulltime" and well, the amount of content they are creating for a release could be done in one month if they really would work 8 hours a day.... all that you cant say about DPC. So... all in all, DPC is a prick, but i wouldnt say a liar, and he has no reason to lie about the fact that he has a overall storyboard for the game from start to end for the main-parts. And that he wanted to do 16 epsiodes wasnt mentioned by him only once, but several times, why say it when he doesnt want to? No reason for that. Last time he kinda "underlined" it was with the interlude, and before the interlude he talked a lot about his work and how he has done it in the past... but that he has to change it cause he cant go on like that cause he was near a burn out.

But nontheless, he is pretty much the only DEV on F95 who makes weekly DEV reports, who else does that? And we get serious and correct numbers along the way too, who else does that? I wish he would give us more numbers, he clearly could give us some numbers now, but i guess... those numbers arent that impressive yet, so he waits for it.

If he would lie flat out about some important things, this trust is down the drain forever... so far he didnt gave a reason for that. To be sceptical or suspicious is ok, but just cause a DEV tells us something and than to think "well, i dont buy it could be shit-talk" is kinda a difficult appraoch to handle things dont you think? I would say... innocent until proven guilty and until than, i trust his word, even if it was years ago. But of course you can call that "knowledge" or that i KNOW things... but, well, thats kinda counting peas in my book.

But 99% of the DEVs around here are indeed already guilty, and i dont believe a single word from those DEVs... and i will never understand people who still throw money to them. The numbers of DEVs who i think can be trusted so far is really really small. Maybe... 10? Not more. At this date, i support 4 of them. DPC is not one of them by the way... but the reason is easy. The DEVs i support give the updates out for "small" supporters too, so i can get a update for about 10 bucks... Thats not the case with DPC, so i pay when and update comes out for one time... and thats it. But its support too i guess? Just not during the dev cycle.

 

[Hahn1900]

I have many more doubts that there have been changes and even substantial additions to the plot, between the desire to enrich the story and pressure from the patreons to give more space to otherwise secondary characters

Which lead us to this question...

What is considered main plot and what not? (DPC himself never made that clear by the way, besides the maingirls)

And to be honest, i couldnt tell anymore...

Is Maya-Tuition a mainplot? It feels like it, cause its more or less the mainfocus... but i would rather say the burke-plot is the overall "mainplot" and this had not much progress so far...

I couldnt tell what was added, or made bigger on the way... there was a lot added no doubt. One reason could be, that DPC was confident along the way that he can handle "more" but didnt thaught so at the start... i mean looking back, each epsiode got bigger and added more and more stuff, not just minigames and subplots, compared to epsidoe nowadays episode 1 is a joke...

He planned out the route for each maingirl, namely... Sage, Josy, Maya, Jill and Bella (no not Quinn), he made that very clear and it feels like it too. And than he planned out some mainplots... but iam not sure which are those mainplots, and DPC never told us, because it would kinda be a spoiler no? But we can be very sure that the Burke plot is a mainplot, and the drugs/prostitute-circle too i would say, they are even intertwined...

We have to consider here too, that DPC is capable of doing MORE than he was at the start. Just comparing Acting LEssons with being a dik now shows that... with "selfimprovement" there comes more opportunities too. And... DPC isnt able to let go of those opportunities. He rather adds something to the game instead of cutting something even if it means that it will take longer to develop everything... that goes for animations, mingames and such, like it goes for additional plots and content for already established plots too i guess. Which doesnt mean the "mainpart" isnt planned out. More like... it "improves" the whole game along the way. (or adds unnecessary things too... sadly)