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

[Tranquil Rain]

Dr Pink Cake seems to have a really hard time understanding that creating an emotional rollercoaster of a story is a good thing IF you give the player a choice to avoid final catastrophes. Haven't played this game yet but just the bullshit disclaimer doesn't bode well.

"Are you in a dark place in your life?"

"No, but i am not the one who kills off his characters without giving the player a choice in a game that is supposedly about choice, you are, lol."

Maybe he should spend some time thinking about a valid critique instead of turning around and creating some infantile "disclaimer"
As good as "Acting Lessons" was, the unavoidable *SPOILER* was complete bullshit. It has nothing to do with someone "having a tough period in their life". Killing off your Main Characters, just to create a cheap emotional thrill, is not good writing. Think "Die Hard" would be a classic if John McLane stumbles and falls off the Tower halfway through? Don't think so. But maybe i am just immature, lol.

By the way: The fact that people were upset was a giant compliment. How many games exist where you give a fuck about someone dying? Yeah ...

His production values are absolutely amazing. If it weren't for his immature attitude in this matter I would be a Patreon, but oh well, it's his choice.

The ending of Acting Lessons while it was sudden I cant say it was bad writing, while there could have been an ending where you avoid that scenario but it wouldn't be nearly as interesting. Picture the game ending super peacefully without anything bad happening, the game wouldn't be rated as high as it is and it would be the same as half the other games.

Well as for the disclaimer warning, the deaths weren't the only dark part, the cheating, drugs and robbery were worthy mentions. Anyways the dev is getting better and better, the atmosphere/setting in this game is something else, no other games have drawn me in like this one... Well other than The DeLuca Family

 

[Penfold Mole]

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[jdoch]

Well as for the disclaimer warning, the deaths weren't the only dark part, the cheating, drugs and robbery were worthy mentions.

These are all things you can come back from and they enhance and further the story.
Killing off Characters without so much as a "how do you do?" and doing it in a way that does not advance the story in any meaningful direction is just lame. Even if he wanted to force the player into that ending he could have done it way, way better. For example by foreshadowing it or doing a "Everybody's dead .... 3 days earlier:" thing.

But we're not all going to see Eye-to-Eye on the matter and that's fine. There are just some people who get off on emotional pain. It's not for nothing that on Story sites they have a "tear jerker"-tag nicely nestled between incest and anal. It's fine, everybody has their fetish, but then turning around and insulting people who don't jerk off to dead bodies as immature or "in a dark place" is just ridiculous.

 

[ShiShi!]

Acting Lesson was quite linear yes I agree. I don't necessarily agree that it's bad writing, like I've mentioned before, the only grudge I ever have with that game is forcing the player to date Megan anyway and make the player feels like shit for cheating on the one they truly wanted if they didn't want Megan.

But I get it, it's for the sake of the theme of the story, that life sucks but you got to move on. It's a visual novel made by one guy, not a well budgeted game like the Japanese visual novel games such as Rance and Evenicle, etc. While more choices would have been great, I can imagine at the time Acting Lesson was in progress, his budget wasn't much and this wasn't a full time job for him so the time that needed to make a crap ton more choices would have increased by a lot and release dates would have been pushed back even further.
(Sengoku Rance was great by the way, there are horrible endings that you can avoid due to how many choices it gives the players, highly recommend, it is a Harem game though)

I truly wish he revisit Acting Lesson and make a 2.0 (like a sequel) to it, after he finishes Being a DIK. Always interesting stories to be written out there. See new stories to be made and how the choices that you've made led to. Plus I want to see more of Rena and Melissa.

 

[jdoch]

the only grudge I ever have with that game is forcing the player to date Megan anyway and make the player feels like shit for cheating on the one they truly wanted if they didn't want Megan.

Exactly. But, see, in the Aftermath is where the cheese is for somebody who is addicted to strong emotions and who has to watch sad movies, read sad stories, or, in this case, play sad games so they can have a good cry and really feel alive. Then they wipe their nose and laugh about how silly they look with their mascara running down their face. It's not a coincidence that famously girls bundle up with ice cream after a break-up and then watch sad shit so they can have a good cry. Disturbingly it actually makes them feel better.

That's what was so funny about this Disclaimer at the beginning to DIK: Classic Transference. Somebody who has a great time in their life doesn't need to watch "emotional empathy porn" so they can cry and jerk off at the same time and they also don't need to write a story about a person, just so they can kill them off. That he actually seems to think that somebody is immature, just because they don't want to see people go through tragedies is hilarious and also just a tad bit sad. But not the kind of sad where somebody else needs to die.

At least now we know what kind of storyteller we're dealing with, so hopefully we don't get lured into a false sense of security with DIK.

In fact I think it is great that he put a Disclaimer in front of DIK. The way he did with the voice-over etc. was really great too, I just wish it would be less childish and more of an honest, explicit Warning along the lines of:

"BEWARE: This Story will start of as light-hearted, sexy fun and then turn extremely dark and disturbing after Chapter X. You have been Warned!"

(Sengoku Rance was great by the way, there are horrible endings that you can avoid due to how many choices it gives the players, highly recommend, it is a Harem game though)

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll try that out.

 

[DrPinkCake]

seriously this game is awesome it has the life is strange feel to it and the music is really good

LiS and Bully are both inspirations to BADIK. I'm glad you like the music, that's what made LiS so special imo.

Awww the Mass Effect Dilemma. It's like, you want to be a good guy, but you also want to draw penises on that picture!

Why not follow your heart and do both?

Mr Pink cake your game is good, all beatiful but i cannot understand why dont you put a text box, my fucking eyes hurt everytime i try to read the text is so difficult so can u pls add a text box? and if it doesnt possible why xd?

Hm... I've tried my best to have enough contrast between text and background. I made this choice as I prefer the minimalistic look without a textbox that obscures 15% of the render. Maybe someone will mod it in the future, I'm going to keep this interface but pay extra attention to text/bg contrast. Thanks for the feedback!

Nah, he's going to use both styles, it'll depend on the scenes.

Yup and this is not exclusive to Sage.

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[Penfold Mole]

/opens last spoiler

 

[ThunderRob]

LiS and Bully are both inspirations to BADIK. I'm glad you like the music, that's what made LiS so special imo.


Why not follow your heart and do both?


Hm... I've tried my best to have enough contrast between text and background. I made this choice as I prefer the minimalistic look without a textbox that obscures 15% of the render. Maybe someone will mod it in the future, I'm going to keep this interface but pay extra attention to text/bg contrast. Thanks for the feedback!


Yup and this is not exclusive to Sage.

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Spoiler: DONT LOOK ETHEL!!!

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[Penfold Mole]

...and i'll never look at DrPinkCake's spoiler's again!!!

Never-ever again! I have a psychological trauma, scars for life now...

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[fenixblack]

LiS and Bully are both inspirations to BADIK. I'm glad you like the music, that's what made LiS so special imo.


Why not follow your heart and do both?


Hm... I've tried my best to have enough contrast between text and background. I made this choice as I prefer the minimalistic look without a textbox that obscures 15% of the render. Maybe someone will mod it in the future, I'm going to keep this interface but pay extra attention to text/bg contrast. Thanks for the feedback!


Yup and this is not exclusive to Sage.

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[yandex]

The first outfit reminded me of this a lot.

View attachment 271939

Could you tell where this is from ?

 

[login2me2]

Could you tell where this is from ?

It's from Lollipop Chainsaw.

 

[JustADude321]

Huh. Is it just me or are the slider puzzles impossible? I've ran them through a solver a couple of times and they all seemed to just return a "no solution" message.

Otherwise, game's pretty damn good for what it has right now. First one in a while where your phone actually feels like a phone and not a glorified set of buttons.

 

[Ghos[t]]

Huh. Is it just me or are the slider puzzles impossible? I've ran them through a solver a couple of times and they all seemed to just return a "no solution" message.

Otherwise, game's pretty damn good for what it has right now. First one in a while where your phone actually feels like a phone and not a glorified set of buttons.

Yes, they're impossible in some cases, i usually had to restart 2-3 times before getting solvable combinaton. It gets fixed in next update.

 

[Dasati]

Mr Pink cake your game is good, all beatiful but i cannot understand why dont you put a text box, my fucking eyes hurt everytime i try to read the text is so difficult so can u pls add a text box? and if it doesnt possible why xd?

I'm curious how you have problems with it? I'm blind in one eye and short sighted in the other and i have zero issues.

 

[Sirxtias]

I'm curious how you have problems with it? I'm blind in one eye and short sighted in the other and i have zero issues.

Well yes a little idk how you read but the truth that is difficult try to read without it, not every scene but when it happens that the scene use white or any color brilliant on the bg i cannot read

 

[lancelotdulak]

I'm not a fan of the story.. its generic um.. er beta who secretly worships jocks and fatnasizes about being them???

But your renders are mindblowing. Especially the skin. I consider myself far far far better at rendering/3d than99.5% of the game designers here.. but im literally awestruck at your rendering. (and to be clear: rendering isnt the #1 skill in these games.. there are 2 games with very Meh or actually BAD renders i absolutely love)

Hope you make some $$ off this. IF not id seriously suggest teaming with a good writer.

 

[Tranquil Rain]

I'm not a fan of the story.. its generic um.. er beta who secretly worships jocks and fatnasizes about being them???

But your renders are mindblowing. Especially the skin. I consider myself far far far better at rendering/3d than99.5% of the game designers here.. but im literally awestruck at your rendering. (and to be clear: rendering isnt the #1 skill in these games.. there are 2 games with very Meh or actually BAD renders i absolutely love)

Hope you make some $$ off this. IF not id seriously suggest teaming with a good writer.

To be fair we only just completed the intro, so I think its still too early to judge the story. As for beta worships jocks I don't get that one, the DiK group aren't jocks just some alpha dudes having fun. I don't even think the chick route will go that direction of fantasizing about being a jock. Anyways wait til next update to judge the story since I heard its very large.

 

[andrea931]

so nice

 

[kymico]

Whenever my friend asks me if I want to go have some Japanese food.