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

[QWareZ]

I'm really wondering if there's some sort of development time limit on DPC. It's already taking 9 months to do one chapter, which means the next chapter will be out in 10 months and the finale only a year later. Then it turns out in the future episode 13 and 14 will be developed over a year and a half, which seems absolutely fantastic. I don't remember any developer in this genre doing one chapter for a year and a half. That seems like nonsense. If he launches this, he may do the finale of the whole game at all for 2 whole years.
This guy has no editor or control whatsoever. If all game developers followed his principle, it would take over 10 years for one game to come out. Just add whatever you want. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Keep only the important stuff, remove everything unnecessary.
On the other hand this status update gave us little information other than nothing burned. He's been out practically all week testing the game and so there's no progress. Probably the next update will be more accurate. It's too early to draw such far-reaching conclusions. But in general I agree with you.

Most games are created by more than one person (assuming it's just him working on the game). You have programmers, artists (audio and video), writers and so on. However, if rendering is the bottleneck, it would be similar for other developers - you just have to wait... Then the question would be if DPC could rent some cloud based rendering farm or maybe improve/streamline the creation process.

A lot VNs use the combination of a background with character sprites in the front. This allows you to easily create any combination of places and characters. This is not the case here - in Being a DIK most of the scenes are used one time only (Free Roams are notable exceptions) so a lot has to be rendered. And if DPC reused some of the older assets, people would notice (and complain).

Testing/bugfixing the game while the rendering is ongoing is a good usage of that time. I know that testing is usually done by paying customers via early access nowadays, but back in the old days, testing was a thing. What else can he do anyway? Staring at GPUs won't make them work faster.

Also we have no idea about the size of the chapter. Maybe it's big. Maybe it's so big that splitting it in two would have been better. Maybe it wasn't possible due to DPC's creative ideas (some creators prefer to release a full realization of their vision instead of parts of it).

With that being said, I share your concerns. I would prefer 2-3 episodes per year (4-6 months wait time seems reasonable).

 

[anonnyscouse]

Sharing more goings on from the Discord server.

A lot of people have been close to rioting from a lack of a proper Sage preview for Episode 10, and the crowd on Discord is no exception.

One member made a demand for Sage directly to DPC, and the good doctor provided as the good doctor generally does.

A Discord semi-Exclusive Sage Preview:

Spoiler: Tasty

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That's exactly what I would have done

 

[dalli_x]

DPC hyped the hell out of episode 9. You would have thought a new season of GOT was being released with the amount of hype he was spewing. It ended up being a colossal disappointment. I was sitting there thinking "This is it? This is what I waited over a year for? I took a day off from work for this?"

Ask yourself the EP9 hype question from DPC's point of view.

Of course he hyped it, but not to make our mouths water, but because he himself was proud of his work. From EP1 to EP8, the branching wasn't very serious. In EP9, however, the branches are like in a nexus, which required a lot of overview and also cost a lot of work.

I'm currently playing through BaDIK again, because I bought new hardware. Thereby I always notice something new. Among them is the reason why Vinny threw the books from the MC off the shelf. Because the MC is canonically a motherfucker, even if he didn't fuck Jade. But the MC definitely makes out with Isabella in EP2. Yes Isabella has no children of her own, but that doesn't have to apply to James and many assume by the children's staircase in Isabella's bathroom so that a child once lived in the house. Furthermore, we learn in EP8 at hair divorce so that Isabella knows about it. This will be a surprise for Isabella fans. The MC is a motherfucker and he won't get out of this one.

Spoiler: History

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All in all, DPC was proud of his work in EP9 because he had a lot to subtly reveal without making it too obvious.

 

[KАRАMBA]

Among them is the reason why Vinny threw the books from the MC off the shelf. Because the MC is canonically a motherfucker, even if he didn't fuck Jade.

Wait, what do you mean? Vinny threw the books because the MC is canonically a motherfucker ?!
Hmm...

 

[dalli_x]

So I’ve been hanging out on this website for almost 3 years, and when I found this game, I got obsessed, but in reality, it’s just a game. A really good one, but still, just a game.

Waiting for each episode can be gruelling, but that’s our problem, not the developers.

At the end of this game’s development, DPC will be seriously proud of his creation, and he will have created one of the best AVNs out there.

All those “unnecessary” additions, plot lines etc., are what will further elevate this game above the infinite piles of shit that pollute this genre.

I’m not “waiting” for episodes anymore, my obsession with this game has waned, so now I just pop in occasionally to see what’s up.

When the next episode comes out, I’ll definitely play it, but if it comes out tomorrow, or in a year’s time, so be it.

COVID is long over and life is back to normal, so hanging out for a porn game episode release probably shouldn’t be a priority.

I understand exactly what you mean, but I have a problem. I am an old generation gamer and for me there are no good games on the market right now. I'm not interested in another AVN because everything is just worse than Being a DIK and Battlefield 2042 has more than disappointed me.

I'm waiting patiently for "Starfield", then the long wait of Being a DIK won't bother me anymore.

 

[Takkatakka]

Among them is the reason why Vinny threw the books from the MC off the shelf.

I mean...Vinny potentially hating Isabella and due to that in extension libraries and books would explain why he took that room, just trashed it and kept living in it in that trashed state.

I understand exactly what you mean, but I have a problem. I am an old generation gamer and for me there are no good games on the market right now. I'm not interested in another AVN because everything is just worse than Being a DIK and Battlefield 2042 has more than disappointed me.

I'm waiting patiently for "Starfield", then the long wait of Being a DIK won't bother me anymore.

Honestly then you have to extend your scope. AAA games are mostly trash these days, but there are legions of amazing smaller games out there, that are amazing.

 

[Acsuka]

Ask yourself the EP9 hype question from DPC's point of view.

Of course he hyped it, but not to make our mouths water, but because he himself was proud of his work. From EP1 to EP8, the branching wasn't very serious. In EP9, however, the branches are like in a nexus, which required a lot of overview and also cost a lot of work.

I'm currently playing through BaDIK again, because I bought new hardware. Thereby I always notice something new. Among them is the reason why Vinny threw the books from the MC off the shelf. Because the MC is canonically a motherfucker, even if he didn't fuck Jade. But the MC definitely makes out with Isabella in EP2. Yes Isabella has no children of her own, but that doesn't have to apply to James and many assume by the children's staircase in Isabella's bathroom so that a child once lived in the house. Furthermore, we learn in EP8 at hair divorce so that Isabella knows about it. This will be a surprise for Isabella fans. The MC is a motherfucker and he won't get out of this one.

Spoiler: History

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All in all, DPC was proud of his work in EP9 because he had a lot to subtly reveal without making it too obvious.

OK Mr.Sherlock, we are no longer surprised by your new theory. Don't stop--this little community would be poorer without you... But my head hurts like hell...

 

[dalli_x]

I'm really wondering if there's some sort of development time limit on DPC. It's already taking 9 months to do one chapter, which means the next chapter will be out in 10 months and the finale only a year later. Then it turns out in the future episode 13 and 14 will be developed over a year and a half, which seems absolutely fantastic. I don't remember any developer in this genre doing one chapter for a year and a half. That seems like nonsense. If he launches this, he may do the finale of the whole game at all for 2 whole years.
This guy has no editor or control whatsoever. If all game developers followed his principle, it would take over 10 years for one game to come out. Just add whatever you want. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Keep only the important stuff, remove everything unnecessary.
On the other hand this status update gave us little information other than nothing burned. He's been out practically all week testing the game and so there's no progress. Probably the next update will be more accurate. It's too early to draw such far-reaching conclusions. But in general I agree with you.

There is already a bit more information.

- He has played through the entire game. Ergo, he's pretty far along with the writing and it just needs a little more to round out the story.

- He had to refresh certain things in his memory. DPC was able to really switch off and rest during his vacation.

- He two more system upgrades because he wants to continue to increase his overall render speed. This shows us so he understands his fans and acts. He always wants to bring more into the game, but he understood so he shouldn't make the fans wait too long.

 

[dalli_x]

Wait, what do you mean? Vinny threw the books because the MC is canonically a motherfucker ?!
Hmm...
View attachment 2771866

It is a subtle hint from DPC so there is a connection of Isabella and Vinny.

 

[dalli_x]

OK Mr.Sherlock, we are no longer surprised by your new theory. Don't stop--this little community would be poorer without you... But my head hurts like hell...

I can help you there.

Spoiler: Please

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[KАRАMBA]

It is a subtle hint from DPC so there is a connection of Isabella and Vinny.

Look, I understand you. We have to wait for long, so long... It's not easy. But you need to control yourself. Be strong

 

[dalli_x]

It won't take long and Kpyna will slap me again.

 

[Kpyna]

While DPC hadn't give us some numbers of progress, but most of his words sounds adorable and dope.

A whopping 4353 animation frames were produced during this time. For comparison, that's more than all static renders in episode 8.

We argue and discuss the number of animations, but damn it, this is what I've always thought about when it comes to animations. I'm glad he mentioned the number of renders for animations and compared it to the number of static renderers for an episode.
26 minutes of animations in previous episode means: 26min *60sec *30fps = 46800 frames. 47k fucking renders are hidden inside the animations. Along with static renders the whole number reaches 50+ thousands of renders. While I understand that the animation queue is not the same as static scenes renders, while most of frames produced automatically, but it's still a huge work of posing, checking for mispositions, artifacts, etc. Finally this mean, that he is able to render all static scenes within 3 weeks.

The most dissapointing thing to me is that he use the *.webm format for video. It's not the worst variant, but something like HEVC 10-bit with highest quality setting encoding would produce a great picture with very few artifacts of compression, while maintaining the same or even less size of files with animation. Webm is too lossy, especially when it comes to dark areas, shadows or some color tones. All his huge and brilliant work turns like scanning of some ancient valuable painting and then saving it with JPEG average quality preset... I just hope he saves the rendered frames originals in uncompressed state, so he may release a higher quality version later after the final release.

I've mostly spent Monday-Friday playing through the entire game and refreshing my memory regarding some specific stuff I'm about to work on.

when I played through it yesterday, I felt lots had been done.

This two moments seems very coherent to me. Last time he mentioned the episode playtesting, he said that it was only the first half of episode. Now he told just "playtesting the episode". Probably this means that he have a whole draft version of working episode on his hands, and it's cool. Refreshing memory probably refers to two things. He really didn't think a lot of the game during his vacation to really rest of all this throughs and work itself. Second - he want to fill gaps in scenes/script etc for current episode, based on some moments we seen before and some of which is wait to unfold from the very first episode.

There is much to polish and scenes left to create, so I'll jump right on it and hope to make good progress in all areas.

The new numbers would probably give us the new estimate time. It feels like he is full of energy, enthusiasm and glad to get back to work. I wouldn't bet on August release anymore, but September is still sounds quite plausible.

 

[Kpyna]

It won't take long and Kpyna will slap me again.
View attachment 2771942

Well, I changed my mind

 

[Avbk2000]

Ask yourself the EP9 hype question from DPC's point of view.

Of course he hyped it, but not to make our mouths water, but because he himself was proud of his work. From EP1 to EP8, the branching wasn't very serious. In EP9, however, the branches are like in a nexus, which required a lot of overview and also cost a lot of work.

I'm currently playing through BaDIK again, because I bought new hardware. Thereby I always notice something new. Among them is the reason why Vinny threw the books from the MC off the shelf. Because the MC is canonically a motherfucker, even if he didn't fuck Jade. But the MC definitely makes out with Isabella in EP2. Yes Isabella has no children of her own, but that doesn't have to apply to James and many assume by the children's staircase in Isabella's bathroom so that a child once lived in the house. Furthermore, we learn in EP8 at hair divorce so that Isabella knows about it. This will be a surprise for Isabella fans. The MC is a motherfucker and he won't get out of this one.

Spoiler: History

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

All in all, DPC was proud of his work in EP9 because he had a lot to subtly reveal without making it too obvious.

Damn that makes sense. I mean Bella branch was too convenient, wasn't it? Sage branch had Tybalt and Jade, Maya and Josy branch had Maya's dad and Tommy and Jill branch had her family and friends. In comparison to them Bella has a drama free and convenient route that no one is going to trouble mc. That's not DPC style. I thought in Bella branch mc had to deal with James but Vinny and Zoey? That's really something else.

 

[Takkatakka]

In comparison to them Bella has a drama free and convenient route that no one is going to trouble mc.

I mean...that route always had the biggest sword of Damocles of them all above its head due to it being kinda...illegal or at least very iffy - especially for Isabella - if it comes out.

For the Jill route the problem will likely be her mom. The "safest" route right now is the Sage path. Not sure how DPC will bring drama into that path without it feeling contrived.

 

[felicemastronzo]

Damn that makes sense. I mean Bella branch was too convenient, wasn't it? Sage branch had Tybalt and Jade, Maya and Josy branch had Maya's dad and Tommy and Jill branch had her family and friends. In comparison to them Bella has a drama free and convenient route that no one is going to trouble mc. That's not DPC style. I thought in Bella branch mc had to deal with James but Vinny and Zoey? That's really something else.

Bella is a teacher and we still don't know whether this relationship is allowed at BR or not. We don't know what happened to her husband. She has obvious mental problems, panic attacks.... I wouldn't call it drama free....

 

[ffive]

But it could be worse, and that concerns Zoey. There are two other pictures on this wall. An owl and a parrot. Zoey has an owl tattoo on the left side of her body, and it can be seen in EP9 next to the picture Jacob is drawing.

Never change, dalli_x

 

[Geralt From Rivia]

While DPC hadn't give us some numbers of progress, but most of his words sounds adorable and dope.


We argue and discuss the number of animations, but damn it, this is what I've always thought about when it comes to animations. I'm glad he mentioned the number of renders for animations and compared it to the number of static renderers for an episode.
26 minutes of animations in previous episode means: 26min *60sec *30fps = 46800 frames. 47k fucking renders are hidden inside the animations. Along with static renders the whole number reaches 50+ thousands of renders. While I understand that the animation queue is not the same as static scenes renders, while most of frames produced automatically, but it's still a huge work of posing, checking for mispositions, artifacts, etc. Finally this mean, that he is able to render all static scenes within 3 weeks.

The most dissapointing thing to me is that he use the *.webm format for video. It's not the worst variant, but something like HEVC 10-bit with highest quality setting encoding would produce a great picture with very few artifacts of compression, while maintaining the same or even less size of files with animation. Webm is too lossy, especially when it comes to dark areas, shadows or some color tones. All his huge and brilliant work turns like scanning of some ancient valuable painting and then saving it with JPEG average quality preset... I just hope he saves the rendered frames originals in uncompressed state, so he may release a higher quality version later after the final release.





This two moments seems very coherent to me. Last time he mentioned the episode playtesting, he said that it was only the first half of episode. Now he told just "playtesting the episode". Probably this means that he have a whole draft version of working episode on his hands, and it's cool. Refreshing memory probably refers to two things. He really didn't think a lot of the game during his vacation to really rest of all this throughs and work itself. Second - he want to fill gaps in scenes/script etc for current episode, based on some moments we seen before and some of which is wait to unfold from the very first episode.


The new numbers would probably give us the new estimate time. It feels like he is full of energy, enthusiasm and glad to get back to work. I wouldn't bet on August release anymore, but September is still sounds quite plausible.

I did a little calculation on frames of animations from Ep. 9, which was 41 weeks in development, and it turns out that the average speed in that period was 2282 frames / 2 weeks, now we see about + 90% performance increase.
But as you can see, this doesn't speed up the development, DPC adds new animations, including no-lewd, making the game more cinematic.
But it seems to be done by all developers who can afford powerful hardware. You have new opportunities - you want to realize them. Of course, I would like this guy to maintain balance and not go beyond the speed limits of Ep.9
Perhaps we will see riots again soon due to slow development.

 

[Acsuka]

Bella is a teacher and we still don't know whether this relationship is allowed at BR or not. We don't know what happened to her husband. She has obvious mental problems, panic attacks.... I wouldn't call it drama free....

Of course, this relationship must be made legal in some form. If you still have to keep it a secret and you have to meet like that, it's not good in the long run. It can lead to conflict and a breakup. The players don't want that. I know BR has its own rules for this... Although it's a bit of a bold idea, what if "someone" rewrites this book?