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

[shazba]

Hi. I'm completely lost on the issue... Do people are requesting scenes of other people than the MC banging during the game or they are just asking the other characters sexual relations could be talked about and be more explicitly presumed to be existent? Because I agree with the latter but not the former... Coherently with what I think about the Interlude (a completely mistake), I don't think it would make any sense for other characters being seen having sex without the MC being in the scene (except for some flashes, like it already happened with Elena and Johnboy having sex during a party, during one of those episode prologues). I think even Maya and Josy's 2nd scene was conceptually a mistake (and not because I'm NTR-averse, but because it changed the POV that was established until then). As for the Interlude, I think it was a mistake, but, since it was telling a story from Zoey's POV and she isn't the most prude of the human beings, it would make perfect sense for her to have sex with other characters -- but only in this situation (i.e., the change on the POV, which I hope won't happen again in the future).

If DPC had Zoey fucking some other dude when she left, then had her realise she wanted to be with the mc after all and return to him, do you really think the snowflakes of this forum could deal with that? Half of them aready hate her guts simply because she needed a sea change after the death of her grandma. If she started fucking other people in the meanwhile, that would be the opposite of trying to endear her to the player.

 

[RNasc4444]

If DPC had Zoey fucking some other dude when she left, then had her realise she wanted to be with the mc after all and return to him, do you really think the snowflakes of this forum could deal with that? Half of them aready hate her guts simply because she needed a sea change after the death of her grandma. If she started fucking other people in the meanwhile, that would be the opposite of trying to endear her to the player.

I could deal with it. Doesn't really bother me if she's a virgin or if she's fucking every and anything with a pulse. I wouldn't touch her with an hazmat suit and a ten-foot pole. I honestly hate her as much as Jill. The less of her I see, the better.

 

[The Dick]

If DPC had Zoey fucking some other dude when she left, then had her realise she wanted to be with the mc after all and return to him, do you really think the snowflakes of this forum could deal with that? Half of them aready hate her guts simply because she needed a sea change after the death of her grandma. If she started fucking other people in the meanwhile, that would be the opposite of trying to endear her to the player.

Oh, I completely agree with you! But I wasn't thinking about them; I was more like talking what I'd do if I were the storyteller: 1) I wouldn't do the Interlude in the 1st place; 2) In case I were I doing it, I'd go all in and make it more realistic, that is, tell the story of a wild girl, having fun in LA, going to parties and fucking around, and not that half-assed story he gave us.

I think Zoey was a character nobody cared except those that were fond of her looks and/or attitude during the small flashback she appeared. DPC wanted to bring her back to the story and knew most people didn't care about her; so he created the Interlude to make people like her, but failed miserably, because I think those who liked the Interlude were those who already liked her; and those who didn't care about her, couldn't care even less about the Interlude. I think it's even more probable that there were people who liked her but would rather not to have the Interlude than those who started to like her because of the Interlude... I think it backfired... And unless people show up telling me "I used to hate/be indifferent about Zoey, but, after the Interlude, I started to love her!", that's what I'll believe to be the truth (and one or just a few people telling me this doesn't count, because, statistically speaking, the exception proves the rule).

 

[SomboSteel]

If DPC had Zoey fucking some other dude when she left, then had her realise she wanted to be with the mc after all and return to him, do you really think the snowflakes of this forum could deal with that? Half of them aready hate her guts simply because she needed a sea change after the death of her grandma. If she started fucking other people in the meanwhile, that would be the opposite of trying to endear her to the player.

yes there are some who will hate the interlude regardless, but im positive that plenty of people dont like it because it wasnt an effective story. if it actually showed Zoey experience things, adapt/react/overcome believable problems, interact with other people in even a semi-romantic way to have ANYTHING to compare and contrast to MC then maybe her "growth" and change of heart would actually be believable. people dont like it because it actually feels like a waste of time, we dont see her experience anything and so the whole thing is basically summed up by her inner monologue and we just have to believe how she feels is genuine.

but even then you can do some showing and still not have to show anything super explicit. she never even went out on a date with a single guy the whole time she was out there. have her deal with some dude bro surfers who just want to fuck her and only pretend to be interested, have her date some guys that dont have MC's heart or humor or passion, have her interact with fucking anybody else besides the lame "friends" she gets stuck with for story reasons.

conceptually the Interlude is supposed to help us identify with Zoey, become sympathetic to her situation, and feel the same catharsis she supposedly feels when she shows up with that smile on her face. but it doesnt do that, and thats why people dont like it. and id even argue that thats why people dont like it, even if they themselves arent aware of the reason.

 

[Cramone]

people are weird when you are succesfull at this game... gonna have people who hate some thing and others who love...

 

[DarkKiller]

So regarding the past love lives of LIs, what do we need to see? Nothing really.

Sage and Chad, do we need to see it? Not really, but I'm really curious to know how that lasted so long and how it began in the first place

 

[SomboSteel]

Sage and Chad, do we need to see it? Not really, but I'm really curious to know how that lasted so long and how it began in the first place

thats what im getting at. we have these characters in established relationships, yet we almost never even see them share screen time with each other. and when we do see them together its weird/awkward. i dont like that character development might be cast aside in order to not upset people with the fact that people in relationships do relationship things together.

with Sage and Chad, its hard to believe their relationship was perfectly fine for the last x years or whatever. i honestly seems like these issues they have now would have come to a head a while ago if it all comes back to lack of intimacy from Chad. its just irritating cause if DPC wants us to believe that they were in fact happy and had something together that was actually worth keeping, then he should show us that occasionally and flesh things out a bit so we can better understand why Sage would be so upset that everything is falling apart (rather then always just having to take the characters at their word that the feelings they have are real and valid).

and as stated before, Bella and her husband have their own similar issues with their portrayal together...

these feel like either narrative shortcuts or the desire to deliberately not show any of the other girls potentially happy with anyone other than MC. its just weird, IMO

 

[Darkwen]

Sage and Chad, do we need to see it? Not really, but I'm really curious to know how that lasted so long and how it began in the first place

How about Chad and Troy thats where its at, Sage is only a side bitch in that story. I mean which do I want a red head thats full of herself or find out who is on top

 

[allanl9020142]

So you think the number of saves you can transfer over to season 3 will stay limited or will that change in the future? Not like anyone would need like 20 playthroughs, though.

Also, man look at you guys trying to keep this thread alive before ep 9 is released. Even resorting to endless posts and debate(?) over NTR. That's commitment.

 

[ename144]

By official beta testing you mean giving the game for other people to test it, right? Then, I agree with you. But he can do bug catching on his own even without animations, since he could put static images as stand-ins, and adding animations later would be quite li'l prone to any bugs. In fact, he could even do that with beta testers, unless he doesn't want them only for catching bugs, but to give him a general feedback of the game.

That's not how bugs work in my experience. Even tiny additions always manage to break something that should have been unchanged but wasn't. Hell, there are times you could get me to believe *thinking* about changing the code is enough to add a bug.

Anyway, as I said, I'm sure DPC will do some testing on his own while he waits, but that will only speed up the beta testing by (hopefully) thinning out some of the obvious bugs. We'll still need to formal beta test once the animations are finished, and DPC will still give it 1-2 weeks just to make sure the code has been thoroughly tested.

As for feedback, I very much doubt DPC will make a habit of soliciting story feedback from anyone, even his trusted QA team. I've obviously never seen how the process works, but from the outside it sure seems like DPC is a real control freak.

thats what im getting at. we have these characters in established relationships, yet we almost never even see them share screen time with each other. and when we do see them together its weird/awkward. i dont like that character development might be cast aside in order to not upset people with the fact that people in relationships do relationship things together.

with Sage and Chad, its hard to believe their relationship was perfectly fine for the last x years or whatever. i honestly seems like these issues they have now would have come to a head a while ago if it all comes back to lack of intimacy from Chad. its just irritating cause if DPC wants us to believe that they were in fact happy and had something together that was actually worth keeping, then he should show us that occasionally and flesh things out a bit so we can better understand why Sage would be so upset that everything is falling apart (rather then always just having to take the characters at their word that the feelings they have are real and valid).

and as stated before, Bella and her husband have their own similar issues with their portrayal together...

these feel like either narrative shortcuts or the desire to deliberately not show any of the other girls potentially happy with anyone other than MC. its just weird, IMO

My take is that Sage/Chad was always intended to have been a hollow sham the whole time, it's just that it's been portrayed as such a sham it's hard to see how it lasted as long as it did (and bear in mind I'm assuming it only lasted ~6 months, BTW). Love can make us blind, but Sage needed to be blind, deaf, dumb and incapable of touching things to fall for Chad's boyfriend routine. It winds up making her character feel disjointed; as I've said before, how can she be so surprised at the MC turning her down in Episode 5 (assuming you're not on her path) when that's been the entirety of her love life lately? It's another case where DPC pushed the drama to 11 when cruising at 5-6 would have been more effective.

Now as far as Bella and her husband go, I have no idea what to think at this point. As shazba noted, it looks like her marriage was in the process of failing even before James... let's go with 'left.' How are we supposed to make sense of that? Who knows, none of the theories seems to cover all the available evidence. We're just going to have to wait for DPC to explain it. I'd like to believe we'll learn something more about it in Episode 9, but I just don't; the MC's already ignored bigger elephants and DPC has made it clear his mysteries have no sell-by date. If we're very lucky maybe we'll learn something in the cliffhanger, but my money is having to wait until Episode 11 or so to get any real answers.

 

[Raziel_8]

yes there are some who will hate the interlude regardless, but im positive that plenty of people dont like it because it wasnt an effective story. if it actually showed Zoey experience things, adapt/react/overcome believable problems, interact with other people in even a semi-romantic way to have ANYTHING to compare and contrast to MC then maybe her "growth" and change of heart would actually be believable. people dont like it because it actually feels like a waste of time, we dont see her experience anything and so the whole thing is basically summed up by her inner monologue and we just have to believe how she feels is genuine.

but even then you can do some showing and still not have to show anything super explicit. she never even went out on a date with a single guy the whole time she was out there. have her deal with some dude bro surfers who just want to fuck her and only pretend to be interested, have her date some guys that dont have MC's heart or humor or passion, have her interact with fucking anybody else besides the lame "friends" she gets stuck with for story reasons.

conceptually the Interlude is supposed to help us identify with Zoey, become sympathetic to her situation, and feel the same catharsis she supposedly feels when she shows up with that smile on her face. but it doesnt do that, and thats why people dont like it. and id even argue that thats why people dont like it, even if they themselves arent aware of the reason.

I didn't care about Zoey before the interlude and honestly the interlude did nothing to change that...well she got that large ugly tattoo in memory for her grandmother.

Having her go party, dating and fucking around wouldn't improve the interlude imo.
What i was missing after how the interlude started was more dealing with her feelings.
Her grandmother which was important to her just died, she left for that large dream, she left her best friend behind (with the goal that he comes after her), the parting with her mother, but what of that did we see ?

Yeah the water was wet and cold, she got a tattoo and a few lines regarding the MC but that's it.
I really expected some struggle with the surfing, i mean that was her dream which she also wanted to fulfill for her grandma.
So now she is there and confronted with the reality that it doesn't work for her...but that fell near completely flat, her dealing with the loss of her grandma fell flat, her solving the issues with her mother nope, her feelings regarding the MC got dealt with in a few lines and the plan for him to follow her was never mentioned again.

I wanted to see a character which struggels with her feelings and how she comes on terms with them, how she comes to the conclusion that the MC is so important for her and see character growth/depth.

The majority of what we saw was her hanging out with that idiotic bunch of friends (i really hope we never see them again) and her working in a tattoo shop...i mean, out of all things you could have the interlude focused on that was the one with the least importance and just utterly boring.
And don't get me started about that totally pointless fight at the end, which came out of the blue, you could mean Zoey was the first girl which became friends with that pink haired clown in years...


As for Bella, again i do not need to see her getting it on with her hubby, i mean that's natural if they are married, the one scene we actually did see was strange thought, on that i agree.
But i did not see it so much as DPC shying away from a kiss, because of ntr, but i always assumed this strange behavior was related to what the MC in ep 3 (was it, i think) was talking about. As well my impression that there is something really off with Bella regarding her hubby and whatever that is, is more complicated than he just left or died.

As for Sage/Chad i agree, i would really want to know how that relationship formed.
From that flashback Chad was clearly not interested in her, even several years ago, while she was all in love struck stalker mode.
Not to mention how they started out, i really can't imagine how their relationship worked for 2 or 3 years...

 

[shazba]

thats what im getting at. we have these characters in established relationships, yet we almost never even see them share screen time with each other. and when we do see them together its weird/awkward. i dont like that character development might be cast aside in order to not upset people with the fact that people in relationships do relationship things together.

with Sage and Chad, its hard to believe their relationship was perfectly fine for the last x years or whatever. i honestly seems like these issues they have now would have come to a head a while ago if it all comes back to lack of intimacy from Chad. its just irritating cause if DPC wants us to believe that they were in fact happy and had something together that was actually worth keeping, then he should show us that occasionally and flesh things out a bit so we can better understand why Sage would be so upset that everything is falling apart (rather then always just having to take the characters at their word that the feelings they have are real and valid).

and as stated before, Bella and her husband have their own similar issues with their portrayal together...

these feel like either narrative shortcuts or the desire to deliberately not show any of the other girls potentially happy with anyone other than MC. its just weird, IMO

As far as not giving other relationships screen time to avoid upsetting people, I think it's more of a case of most people not being interested.

We get scenes with Quinn with other characters, consolidating Quinn's character as a controlling, unpleasant person (the way she treats Riona), as well as seeing what shit she's up to, and I think it's important to see these scenes.

But do we need to see intimate scenes between, say Tommy and Heather? We know their relationship isn't on the best footing, we can speculate that they are both using each other: Tommy's happy to have a girl on his arm while looking elsewhere, and Heather is happy being the girl of a vice president. I personally don't need to see more depth to that relationship.

With Chad and Sage, we don't know if they've been together for years. We know from the DIK flashback that Sage was after Chad for party planning and he was dismissing her. Were they a couple then, and was Sage president then (not likely)? They may have only been together for a year, and due to their commitments as presidents, they may not have had the opportunity to form a strong relationship (and Chad would have capitalised on that for as long as he could, "Too tired after working out", "Got a lot of things on my plate right now" and so on).

Do we need to know how long they were together? Do we need to know if they were intimate at some point and then Chad started distancing? How important to the story (the mc's story) are those details? Josy questions whether Chad was just using Sage or whether he's bi, but I think it's pretty clear to us that he's gay. And once that was confirmed, their pasts' details aren't important .

To be honest, I don't even care to see Maya & Josy getting it on together. Their one scene in Maya's room was kinda boring (though I didn't mind the flashback to their camping trip when Josy was putting the movies on Maya, that was fun to watch, and it was a pivotal bit of information for the story).

Zoey's back story was definitely underwhelming for sure, but everyone considers Zoey to be this freaky, sex crazed girl. But remember, she was a loner, spent a lot of time in detention, and eventually latched on to the mc. She may have been the dominant one in that relationship, mainly because the mc was so naïve and malleable, but it's not like she was sleeping with the entire high school football team at the time. If it wasn't for the mc, it seems like Zoey wouldn't have had any friends at all. She was a loner kid who loved her granny and was wrapped up in her own silly dreams.

So for Zoey to go to San Diego, and end up only hanging out with a bunch of misfits, it's not really that hard to believe. I also don't think Zoey would have put up with a bunch of guys hitting on her, so it's not hard to believe she didn't find a boyfriend in that time, was she even looking for one?

The only relationship I think we definitely need more details on is Bella's and James'. The story has hinged on the unknown aspect of Bella's past. To not deliver a satisfactory explanation as to what it was all about will undermine Bella's character. For one room in Bella's house to be so mysteriously significant, for her to remain frigid for 3 years, for her to freak out and literally run from a date, there needs to be something very significant. Either she loved James deeply and lost him (the flashback to the library definitely didn't instil that feeling) or they lost a child or something like that. Right now, we got nothing.

 

[Star Gazer]

Loving this game, I recently finished the Jill content and Josy/maya content as well. So I think before the next update hits I'm gonna go the full Dik route and see the content I missed with the Chick route.

 

[shazba]

Actually, Ren'Py code is very simple and, though you can complicate it, in most parts, it's almost declaratory. So, for instance, in Ep. 4, Jade's scene, we have this snippet:

scene anim_jade_doggy9_ep4 with dissolve
mc "SHIT!!! This is what you meant!!!"
mc "My dick! It's fucking swelling up!!!"
ja "MMMM!!! MMM!!!!!!"
scene anim_jade_cum_ep4 with dissolve
mc "AAAAHHH!!!!"
scene anim_jade_cum2_ep4 with dissolve
mc "FUCK!!! THAT'S TOO INTENSE!"
mc "AAAHHH!! Is it supposed to feel this much!?"
scene ep4_jade_lewd85 with dissolve
ja "HAHAHA! OH FUCK! HAHAHA!!!"
ja "I'm trembling!!!"
mc "AAHH!!!!"
scene ep4_jade_lewd86 with dissolve
ja "Thank you..."
ja "You have no idea how much I needed that."

mc is the MC and ja is Jade; what follows each prefix are their dialog lines.
Every scene anim_jade_[label]_ep4 is an animation.

Animations are declared in a separate file. For the example above, we have:

image anim_jade_doggy9_ep4 = Movie(channel="anim_jade_doggy9_ep4", play="images/movies/ep4/anim_jade_doggy9_ep4.webm")
image anim_jade_cum_ep4 = Movie(channel="anim_jade_cum_ep4", play="images/movies/ep4/anim_jade_cum_ep4.webm")
image anim_jade_cum2_ep4 = Movie(channel="anim_jade_cum2_ep4", play="images/movies/ep4/anim_jade_cum2_ep4.webm")

There's no difference between declaring movies or images, thus, he could substitute anim_jade_doggy9_ep4.webp for anim_jade_doggy9_ep4.webm (he could even use a blank image or any other image); when anim_jade_doggy9_ep4.webm is ready, he just change the extension.

As you can see, it's very simple and to mess with it one has to be very dumb (which is not DPC's case). So it's perfectly possible to test it with stand-ins without adding any bug because it can't even be considered an algorithm to have a bug for starters.

I agree that DPC's implementation of Renpy is very simple. Placeholders could easily be substituted for animations that aren't completed yet and everything could be tested before their completion.

It'd be worth going back and replaying the scenes with those animations once they are done, to ensure he hasn't fucked up the naming and also because the duration of the scene impacts what songs are played at roughly what time if he's got a playlist happening for a scene, but that's less important considering people's reading speed influences that anyway.

There's definitely no good reason to not start testing everything just because of a few movie files.

 

[ename144]

Actually, Ren'Py code is very simple and, though you can complicate it, in most parts, it's almost declaratory. So, for instance, in Ep. 4, Jade's scene, we have this snippet:

scene anim_jade_doggy9_ep4 with dissolve
mc "SHIT!!! This is what you meant!!!"
mc "My dick! It's fucking swelling up!!!"
ja "MMMM!!! MMM!!!!!!"
scene anim_jade_cum_ep4 with dissolve
mc "AAAAHHH!!!!"
scene anim_jade_cum2_ep4 with dissolve
mc "FUCK!!! THAT'S TOO INTENSE!"
mc "AAAHHH!! Is it supposed to feel this much!?"
scene ep4_jade_lewd85 with dissolve
ja "HAHAHA! OH FUCK! HAHAHA!!!"
ja "I'm trembling!!!"
mc "AAHH!!!!"
scene ep4_jade_lewd86 with dissolve
ja "Thank you..."
ja "You have no idea how much I needed that."

mc is the MC and ja is Jade; what follows each prefix are their dialog lines.
Every scene anim_jade_[label]_ep4 is an animation.

Animations are declared in a separate file. For the example above, we have:

image anim_jade_doggy9_ep4 = Movie(channel="anim_jade_doggy9_ep4", play="images/movies/ep4/anim_jade_doggy9_ep4.webm")
image anim_jade_cum_ep4 = Movie(channel="anim_jade_cum_ep4", play="images/movies/ep4/anim_jade_cum_ep4.webm")
image anim_jade_cum2_ep4 = Movie(channel="anim_jade_cum2_ep4", play="images/movies/ep4/anim_jade_cum2_ep4.webm")

There's no difference between declaring movies or images, thus, he could substitute anim_jade_doggy9_ep4.webp for anim_jade_doggy9_ep4.webm (he could even use a blank image or any other image); when anim_jade_doggy9_ep4.webm is ready, he just change the extension.

As you can see, it's very simple and to mess with it one has to be very dumb (which is not DPC's case). So it's perfectly possible to test it with stand-ins without adding any bug because it can't even be considered an algorithm to have a bug for starters.

I understand that. But as the old saying goes, in theory there's no difference between theory and practice; in practice, there is. Mistakes can happen even in simple changes.

 

[meanmike]

Interlude to the interlude soon

 

[BorgiaBou]

A Bella interlude, who's with me?

 

[Leonin]

A Bella interlude, who's with me?

I do not think we need a full interlude but I suspect that a long flashback scene will happen once the MC learns what is in the locked room.

 

[felicemastronzo]

I think this is possibly the case. I can’t remember what else DPC isn’t a fan of, but he stated in one of his Q&A’s that he wouldn’t include certain things because he wasn’t interested in them.

Showing Dawe struggling to fuck Arieth is done for a laugh, showing Elena bouncing off John Boy in random locations is part of who they are, and that’s about it.

DPC’s not interested in explicit gay content, that kiss between Troy and Chad looked so awkward. And we’re probably not gonna see any more of that.

So regarding the past love lives of LIs, what do we need to see? Nothing really.

first, let's start with the premise that the fact that the alternative is between showing all of the LIs' previous sex life and selling us pseudo-virgins is false. there is no need to show anything, just telling and showing some intimacy, a hug, a kiss do their narrative job very well. second premise continuing to quote NTR only serves to confuse and raise the barricades

But then in what sense would that serve?

you defend an animation of Mc turning around in his room because it values an important moment in his life, and you really miss the narrative weight of showing a Sage whose every behavior is incomprehensible?

her whole attachment to chad, to their relationship has no explanation in what we see. what reason does she have for wanting to be with a guy who has never shown any interest in her? even after he cheated on her. from the first moment to the last moment we see Sage buzzing around him and him acting annoyed.

do you see no problem with Sage doggedly seeking a fuckbuddy being two years begging Chad for attention?

and with Bella the argument is less tragicomic but the same, how do we understand her pain, her sense of abandonment if nothing conveys it to us? at the end of the narrative we are passed a madwoman who talks to herself often and is therefore likely to have done so in the flashback as well

 

[Lovetities]

What people don't understand is that most of the player base cares more about their Mc and their chosen girls rather than other side characters. We have multiple photos of Dik fucking areith, Hooking up Jacob, Johnboy and Elena, etc. So, no there is no Anti-Ntr or whatever bs you people form. Lmfao, if Dpc cared about Anti-Ntr Areith would be a Virgin, it just most people are not interested in watching other characters bang. I am not in Josy/Maya route, so does that mean I want to see them fucking? If Zoey is going to become a main love interest, I don't think many people would actually try to date or be interested in her after watching her bang multiple dudes, that cuckshit. Ah yes, I like Zoey for her personality not because she bang other people and I jerked off to it.