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

[Mr. Muscles]

I mean you just need to read post #2 from this thread... its easy for him to talk and say stuff like don't support me if bla bla bla now that he's a millionaire...

But he said you can contribute with something else that isn't money in the same post you linked. Again, it's always so simple, the people that actually pay for this game can just stop paying for it.

 

[Geralt From Rivia]

Yay! This means we'll have enough to talk about for the next seven years! Or maybe even more if we're lucky and he starts to make biennial updates!

And all seven years in the comments there will be a heated discussion of the release dates. I'll probably order a popcorn truck, that's will be fun.

 

[ffive]

DPC replied to a comment on Patreon:

(..)

Based on my answer, the question I would like to ask you to reflect on in return is the following:

Do you think it's worth cutting planned content from the game altogether to bring an update faster, i.e. cutting out content for side girls, removing a lot of lewd scenes and romantic interactions, skipping side stories, and just keeping canon story and main girls' stories?

If your answer to this question is yes, we don't share the same mindset.

(..)

I feel like he's making a mistake about the basic presumption here -- because posing it as just an on/off matter of "do you want the side content or not" is completely ignoring (or missing) that the complexity of presentation of said content isn't something set in stone. Specifically, the exact same content can be illustrated by wildly different amount of renders. Something as simple as using 3 shots to illustrate a scene instead of 4 shots can lead to huge gains when such modicum of restraint and better judgement is applied to entire episode. And to the end user the difference in quality is likely to be hardly noticeable.

 

[Harveztrau]

And all seven years in the comments there will be a heated discussion of the release dates. I'll probably order a popcorn truck, that's will be fun.

Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in

 

[DarkKiller]

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

puts tinfoil hat on
I may sound like one of those crazy conspiracy theorists but with him actually acknowledging this problem I think that when he posted that status update where he said something like "THIS UPDATE IS SO GOOD" he was already expecting shit to hit the fan when patrons realized they wouldn't be getting the episode this month so he decided to hype it up further to try and somewhat mitigate the meltdown.

 

[ename144]

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This week I completed the checklist from last week.
I've added songs and sound effects, fixed GUIs and code, and playtested several branches. I've also processed my dialogue for grammar/typos, parsing 350 pages.
I only have polishing and playtesting left while the remaining animation queue renders. When I polish, I add renders here and there and modify scenes/content/writing/coding to improve everything. As a result, there are currently over 4900 renders for Episode 9.
Comparing the size of the development folders for Episode Interlude (2.51 GB) and Episode 9 (6.78 GB), there is an increase of roughly 4.27 GB for Episode 9 alone. I estimate an additional 100-200 MB size increase for the remaining animations.
The content of the interlude and episode 9 surpass the entire Season 1 of Being a DIK (~6.2 GB), which is reflected in the increased development times that I know everyone is feeling. I have also significantly increased the render quality of both static renders and animations for episode 9, as you can see from the previews I posted; this impacted render times.
267 animations are completed. The render queue has 36 animations of varied lengths left to render.
I've estimated the remaining render time to be between 4-5 weeks. It will hopefully be faster since one of the remaining lewd scenes is slightly more demanding than the rest of the animations.
I'll keep you updated on this progress weekly until it's done.
I have alerted my testers and proofreader, and they will start work as soon as the animations are completed.
I aim for a December release, but please stay tuned for the actual release date. I will announce it on Patreon/Discord/Twitter after beta testing has started.
Have a nice weekend
Dr PinkCake

Wows, it's like the numbers have finally broken loose and DPC's decided to give us a nice countdown to beta testing rather than try to contain them. He completed over 13 static renders this week, but much more importantly he completed 9 animations, 50% more than last week. His overall average is holding relatively steady at ~140 statics and 7.6 renders per week since the Interlude launched. Here are the charts:

Spoiler: Charts - Racing the Tipping Point

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Last week I said DPC would need to average at least 9 animations per week to have a realistic shot at a mid-December release (before the holidays would get a chance to derail testing). This week DPC tacitly agreed, cranking out 9 renders and expecting to complete the artwork by the first or second week of December.

Since DPC has a better sense of how extensive the remaining animations are than we do, I think we can be a little optimistic that he's hoping the animations will be on the quicker side of that estimate. Still, there's not much margin for error, and we all know DPC's his own worst enemy when it comes to leaving well enough alone. Let's hope for the best, but I'm not counting any chickens until he announces a date.

 

[Darkwen]

puts tinfoil hat on
I may sound like one of those crazy conspiracy theorists but with him actually acknowledging this problem I think that when he posted that status update where he said something like "THIS UPDATE IS SO GOOD" he was already expecting shit to hit the fan when patrons realized they wouldn't be getting the episode this month so he decided to hype it up further to try and somewhat mitigate the meltdown.

Thats like telling a girl your going to give her a big load of cum you do but you only after teasing her pussy being up for 3 seconds

 

[UnoriginalUserName]

Reading through the 8 pages of comments I missed since taking a nap and it occurred to me that this update is probably going to be fucking Maya-focused. Just. Fucking. Super. Bitch is dead fucking last in the popularity polls and is attached to Josy because..."reasons"...I guess because nobody would bother with her ass if Josy wasn't included.
I'm really, REALLY hoping for an option to hook her up with Zoey so they can ride off into the sunset (and off a fucking cliff) together.

 

[DarkKiller]

Thats like telling a girl your going to give her a big load of cum you do but you only after teasing her pussy being up for 3 seconds

It's reverse psychology, some patrons might have been pissed otherwise, but because DPC is hyping the episode so much and they take his word as gospel, instead they just get on the hype train and help him fight back against the people who criticize the long development period.

 

[Darkwen]

It's reverse psychology, some patrons might have been pissed otherwise, but because DPC is hyping the episode so much and they take his word as gospel, instead they just get on the hype train and help him fight back against the people who criticize the long development period.

Right its a good way keep hype up when done right but this reverse psychology can have a reverse affect on people as can be seen here and even more so on reddit

 

[italianstallionxxx]

Reading through the 8 pages of comments I missed since taking a nap and it occurred to me that this update is probably going to be fucking Maya-focused. Just. Fucking. Super. Bitch is dead fucking last in the popularity polls and is attached to Josy because..."reasons"...I guess because nobody would bother with her ass if Josy wasn't included.
I'm really, REALLY hoping for an option to hook her up with Zoey so they can ride off into the sunset (and off a fucking cliff) together.

or just ignore that bullshit like i have being trying to do since fuck ep4

 

[znar25]

December was the last main release.

No...

Ep8 trickled down here through the forum around 19/20 Nov 21. A few days before that is when I adjusted the saves for all of my paths through Ep7.

Also, feel free to look through the forum here around that time period.

 

[Lightaces]

I don't want short updates, never liked them and they are infuriating when you wait months for an hour of gameplay. He just needs to buy a damn RTX4090 to speed up the rendering of those fucking slow animations.

The 4090 is having problems with DAZ, apparently. Not sure if DPC is still rendering in DAZ, I suspect he is using Blender or something similar at this point, so it may not be an issue, but none the less, DAZ doesn't play great with the 4090 yet.

 

[znar25]

ep will suck it will end with some stupid "pick zoe or not options despite the fact you already choose your girl in ep8" and some stupid mistery about mc mother, or josy idiotic scheme to help maya

After the fire, Zoey will be the only LI alive.

SAVE D-Boy |||||||||| SAVE ZOEY

 

[UnoriginalUserName]

After the fire, Zoey will be the only LI alive.

SAVE D-Boy |||||||||| SAVE ZOEY

 

[QuixoteTheDon]

Well he is aiming for a december release... dont think it will work out. 5 weeks still to go for the animations, and only after those are done the play-testers will start to test the game for him. Which will take some time too... maybe 1-2 weeks. And i dont think it will be perfect than, so he has to do some fixing here and there... another week gone.

I said it before, if hes not able to release it a week before christmas, i dont believe he will release it during or short after christmas. The release will be somewhat stressful too, is he really willing to ruin his christmas and new year with a stressful release? dont think so. In my book, he has about 6 weeks from now to get it done if he want to release it this year... and thats not realisitc anymore.

So... it will be January. Would surprise me if hes gonna make it in december... but i think we can be very sure that it will be early january at the latest.

Nah, he's gonna release it on Friday, December the 16th. I'm having my office party that day


then I'm coming back to play the new update



AND YES!!! JILLYBEAN IS DA BEST!!!

 

[QuixoteTheDon]

DPC replied to a comment on Patreon:

Spoiler

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All well and good. But there is a solution to longer and longer development time. HIRE A TEAM! Positive aspects of that decision far outweigh the negative ones. But he's anal retentive and a control freak, so... Little to no chance of it ever happening.

 

[Geralt From Rivia]

The 4090 is having problems with DAZ, apparently. Not sure if DPC is still rendering in DAZ, I suspect he is using Blender or something similar at this point, so it may not be an issue, but none the less, DAZ doesn't play great with the 4090 yet.

What kind of problems?

 

[mpa71]

I don't want short updates, never liked them and they are infuriating when you wait months for an hour of gameplay. He just needs to buy a damn RTX4090 to speed up the rendering of those fucking slow animations.
View attachment 2146828
It's easy to see that after Episode 6 he bought new equipment and needs to do it all over again.

To defend, the real indicator about that is now the sA/D (secondsAnimations per Days) which I can only check when the game is released, which is the total animation time. For example:

• the Interlude as 36 animations for 4 min 36 secs
• when Episode 3 as 99 animations for 4 min 42 secs.

This is caused because DPC now assemble multiple animations in one and create longer, Interlude have truly 51 angle-animations after check. With that +40% in mind, and since he said he wants to do more of these cinematic style, EP9 could have 424 angle/animations and not 303.

• If the actual 267 animations have that +40%, it would be 374 true number, and so an A/D ratio of 1.53, like EP7.

That's highly speculative since DPC don't communicate as AnimationsTime or TrueTotal but FullyCompleted; I might remove that A/D metric value as it's no longer the norm and might give indeed confusion or interpretation.

 

[shazba]

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.