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

[Harveztrau]

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View attachment 2806916

I focused on and completed three scenes this week, two of which were big, and the last one was a short free-roam event.

I wrote dialogue, carried out environment design, and prepared 18 characters for the scenes to be able to pose renders. I posed roughly 270 static renders and some ambitious SFW animations.

At the moment, I've just started working on a lewd scene. So, there will be a mix of animations and static renders on the schedule for next week.

The animation queue has 18 animations and is chugging on at a good pace. If all goes as planned, I can replace another render station next week with an upgrade. So, there is likely some PC maintenance on the schedule too.

I have 15 events left to create on my episode flowchart. To explain what I mean by that, an event is the equivalent of a scene or a complete free-roam event (including all its sub-scenes). It's rather vague and the events can vary a lot in size.

I've estimated that one of the shorter scenes needs 35 renders for the writing, whereas the remaining biggest one needs ~350-400 renders. I've completed the writing for 8 of those 15 scenes and done partial writing and art for several. This is the best estimate I can give you at the moment.

Have a nice weekend.

Dr PinkCake

"Remember, remember! The fifth of November,"

or maybe in December

 

[ProxyGist]

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View attachment 2806916

I focused on and completed three scenes this week, two of which were big, and the last one was a short free-roam event.

I wrote dialogue, carried out environment design, and prepared 18 characters for the scenes to be able to pose renders. I posed roughly 270 static renders and some ambitious SFW animations.

At the moment, I've just started working on a lewd scene. So, there will be a mix of animations and static renders on the schedule for next week.

The animation queue has 18 animations and is chugging on at a good pace. If all goes as planned, I can replace another render station next week with an upgrade. So, there is likely some PC maintenance on the schedule too.

I have 15 events left to create on my episode flowchart. To explain what I mean by that, an event is the equivalent of a scene or a complete free-roam event (including all its sub-scenes). It's rather vague and the events can vary a lot in size.

I've estimated that one of the shorter scenes needs 35 renders for the writing, whereas the remaining biggest one needs ~350-400 renders. I've completed the writing for 8 of those 15 scenes and done partial writing and art for several. This is the best estimate I can give you at the moment.

Have a nice weekend.

Dr PinkCake

That he made 270 renders and animations in a week inspires a certain optimism.

 

[gamingdevil800]

I just estimate the release by the amount of preview images now and each release has more preview images than the previous one

 

[Darkwen]

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View attachment 2806916

I focused on and completed three scenes this week, two of which were big, and the last one was a short free-roam event.

I wrote dialogue, carried out environment design, and prepared 18 characters for the scenes to be able to pose renders. I posed roughly 270 static renders and some ambitious SFW animations.

At the moment, I've just started working on a lewd scene. So, there will be a mix of animations and static renders on the schedule for next week.

The animation queue has 18 animations and is chugging on at a good pace. If all goes as planned, I can replace another render station next week with an upgrade. So, there is likely some PC maintenance on the schedule too.

I have 15 events left to create on my episode flowchart. To explain what I mean by that, an event is the equivalent of a scene or a complete free-roam event (including all its sub-scenes). It's rather vague and the events can vary a lot in size.

I've estimated that one of the shorter scenes needs 35 renders for the writing, whereas the remaining biggest one needs ~350-400 renders. I've completed the writing for 8 of those 15 scenes and done partial writing and art for several. This is the best estimate I can give you at the moment.

Have a nice weekend.

Dr PinkCake

Well at least we know there is 15 events left if he stay at 3 events a week maybe more since two where big we might be ok, but I'm not holding my breath on that yet

 

[anonnyscouse]

As Green Day said Wake Me Up When September Ends. But unlike them I could probably have another couple of months sleep.

 

[Jumbi]

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View attachment 2806916

I wrote dialogue, carried out environment design, and prepared 18 characters for the scenes to be able to pose renders. I posed roughly 270 static renders and some ambitious SFW animations.

[...]

I've estimated that one of the shorter scenes needs 35 renders for the writing, whereas the remaining biggest one needs ~350-400 renders. I've completed the writing for 8 of those 15 scenes and done partial writing and art for several. This is the best estimate I can give you at the moment.

Have a nice weekend.

Dr PinkCake

 

[ProxyGist]

I used to be sure of a late August or early September release, now a September release seems unlikely to me. October is the most likely release window.
Well from the looks of it this episode is going to be huge : new minigames, a big party, new lessons, branching, relationships. DPC has definitely lost control of development.

 

[Gunizz]

I posed roughly 270 static renders and some ambitious SFW animations.

...and some
ambitious
SFW
animations

Damn! Here we go again. No please no. Someone please warn the guy he's no Kubrick, before being banned from his Discord of course.

 

[Darkwen]

I used to be sure of a late August or early September release, now a September release seems unlikely to me. October is the most likely release window.
Well from the looks of it this episode is going to be huge : new minigames, a big party, new lessons, branching, relationships. DPC has definitely lost control of development.

Did he ever have control?

 

[I'm Canadian bub]

You must be registered to see the links

View attachment 2806916

I focused on and completed three scenes this week, two of which were big, and the last one was a short free-roam event.

I wrote dialogue, carried out environment design, and prepared 18 characters for the scenes to be able to pose renders. I posed roughly 270 static renders and some ambitious SFW animations.

At the moment, I've just started working on a lewd scene. So, there will be a mix of animations and static renders on the schedule for next week.

The animation queue has 18 animations and is chugging on at a good pace. If all goes as planned, I can replace another render station next week with an upgrade. So, there is likely some PC maintenance on the schedule too.

I have 15 events left to create on my episode flowchart. To explain what I mean by that, an event is the equivalent of a scene or a complete free-roam event (including all its sub-scenes). It's rather vague and the events can vary a lot in size.

I've estimated that one of the shorter scenes needs 35 renders for the writing, whereas the remaining biggest one needs ~350-400 renders. I've completed the writing for 8 of those 15 scenes and done partial writing and art for several. This is the best estimate I can give you at the moment.

Have a nice weekend.

Dr PinkCake

Based on his "estimate" I'd say the release is on a late-September to early-October schedule. Probably October 6th, making my last estimate a month too early, damn. Also pushing release time to a week longer than ep 9 but excluding the 2 weeks he took to vacation, it's a week shorter of active development time. Nothing to be proud of but he may yet pull through on his promise of the next episodes taking a shorter time to release.

Still, I signed up for this when I decided to pay him throughout the last three episodes of AL and the first four of BADik. Hell, I was one of the stupid idiots who told him he should just let his creative juices flow when he asked his patrons about making BADik over 5 years ago.

 

[Gunizz]

That he made 270 renders and animations in a week inspires a certain optimism.

He posed them, not rendered. Rendering takes a lot of time (for animations).

I used to be sure of a late August or early September release, now a September release seems unlikely to me. October is the most likely release window.
Well from the looks of it this episode is going to be huge : new minigames, a big party, new lessons, branching, relationships. DPC has definitely lost control of development.

October or November seem both plausible at the moment. With many branches, some scenes will need fixing as usual, so after the first testing a few new changes are expected. If the animations are long, they become the bottleneck as it happened in previous releases.

 

[TremoloBD992]

Im almost 100% sure that he finished game already and just put status updates after reading how fans react to status updates and development , to give us illusion that he is still working on it and depends how fans react - next status is more optimistic then previous or vice versa , i mean he said he have 21 events in may , he "left pc working while on holiday" , he finish 270 renders and animations and some writing this week and before "playtest and polish a bit"

 

[Geralt From Rivia]

DPC phenomenon should go down in the history of the gaming industry. All game studios cut their games mercilessly before release: they are limited by investor pressure, publisher pressure, tight deadlines. In the large gaming industry, corporate jackets rule the roost.
As a result, a huge amount of creative ideas go under the knife and only then we can see them in the form of DLC.

Here we see a game made by one man who is his own boss. No one limits him and he can implement all the ideas that he wishes. Nothing is cut out of this game, it only grows. Is it good or bad? I don't know, time will tell. Perhaps the answer to this question can only be given when the game is done completely.

We now have ~4500 renders completed, and from what he said about the remaining work - that's about 1000 renders left, I assumed earlier that the episode size would be ~5500 renders. There are 9 weeks left until the Ep.9 temporary deadline. I'm aiming for late September.

 

[ProxyGist]

He posed them, not rendered. Rendering takes a lot of time

Posing is the hardest part, rendering is the easiest. Besides, I'm sure his statics render pretty fast.

October or November seem both plausible at the moment. With many branches, some scenes will need fixing as usual, so after the first testing a few new changes are expected. If the animations are long, they become the bottleneck as it happened in previous releases.

I don't believe in November. He has 2 months to complete all tasks and mid-October seems most likely. November is too negative a scenario even at the current pace of development. His current PCs are pretty powerful.

 

[ProxyGist]

DPC phenomenon should go down in the history of the gaming industry. All game studios cut their games mercilessly before release: they are limited by investor pressure, publisher pressure, tight deadlines. In the large gaming industry, corporate jackets rule the roost.
As a result, a huge amount of creative ideas go under the knife and only then we can see them in the form of DLC.

Here we see a game made by one man who is his own boss. No one limits him and he can implement all the ideas that he wishes. Nothing is cut out of this game, it only grows. Is it good or bad? I don't know, time will tell. Perhaps the answer to this question can only be given when the game is done completely.

It's actually pretty bad. DPC does not have time management skills and does not know how to separate the important from the secondary. Some things can be removed from the game without losing quality. Eventually the sheer number of scenes will bore the player. Just imagine a free-roam where the player has to talk to 18 characters and run around the entire location. It's very boring. Scenes should be unique, colorful and memorable.

 

[hakuna-matata]

Im almost 100% sure that he finished game already and just put status updates after reading how fans react to status updates and development , to give us illusion that he is still working on it and depends how fans react - next status is more optimistic then previous or vice versa , i mean he said he have 21 events in may , he "left pc working while on holiday" , he finish 270 renders and animations and some writing this week and before "playtest and polish a bit"

Honestly, no one will ever know for sure. DPC and any Dev could do that and Patreons will never know. There's nothing that could stop a dev from doing this.

It's actually pretty bad. DPC does not have time management skills and does not know how to separate the important from the secondary. Some things can be removed from the game without losing quality. Eventually the sheer number of scenes will bore the player. Just imagine a free-roam where the player has to talk to 18 characters and run around the entire location. It's very boring. Scenes should be unique, colorful and memorable.

Like last episode? I didn't even complete all my playthroughs because it was annoying.

 

[Chutoro]

I really like the brainstorming made by the people about how the story will evolve. Then again, the complete picture is in the DPC and it's difficult to make it out.

Now go back to BaD. Who is our antagonist? Is it an opposing force? A person? A general sense of corruption? It could be any of these, but we need to start seeing it come up right away and it needs to be a BIG problem. The MC needs to fail at something, he needs to be defeated. He needs to lose, then tie, then lose again maybe. There need to be consequences for his bad decisions, sacrifices to pay for his successes, losses and pain and suffering. At least, if DPC still wants to make an actual story. Cause right now, its just a gentle narrative on easy mode.

Thoughts?

And who do you think the opposing force of this game is/was? I'm curious.

I also mentioned this in one of my posts, about how the antagonists drive the story forward. In the first episodes, Quinn did this job pretty well. There were a lot of unknowns and it made the story progression very interesting. But like you said, now Quinn is becoming a love interest in the DIK route, and even in the Chick route MC's relationship with her kind of softens a little (MC was calling her evil, if you speak with Maya).

Anyway, after the incident, the cops intervened, the investigation begin, the Quinn's buisness is exposed, the connection with Burke is revealed, a huge scandal, everything is ruined in B&R. Headlines: "B&R University was front for drug dealing and prostitution.", "Dean Burke denies any involvement in buying sexual services from students. Several students had previously accused him of harassment.", "New evidence of drug-dealing activity on campus grounds has been unearthed, including on a fraternity house run by the son of one of B&R's co-founders." (same goes for the sorority house, run by the daughter of dean Burke). I'm sorry here for my English, I feel that I may sound ridiculous but I can't correct it myself.
I think there is more than enough fuel for the drama. The Sage's arc alone is worth something! Her father is a predator in disguise, her sorority is a whorehouse and drug store, her university has gained a reputation, her mom cheats on Sage's dad with Sage's boyfriend. Hey Fuckface, antagonize this

Another direction an antagonist might come from is the MC mom's lineage. I find it hard to believe these conspiracies about Jill's blood relation to the MC through his mom. But we know almost nothing about his relatives from his mother’s side, only that they have been assholes to Neil and the MC all their lives. Maybe one of them is going to interfere and ruin the MC's life.

People who think if this is dark how do you think this story ends ? With this branching & all the stuff, we need a story conclusion that's going to hit all of em MC, MGs, SGs, DIKs, HOTs.

I fear all routes are heading towards a bad ending，or at least mc should lose something very valuable in the end, much like Acting Lessons. And it's definitely something DPC would do.

Back to the introduction of ep1 initially, it said:

# "Either way, I was happy back then. We didn't have much, we...erm..."
# "...we had enough."
# "We had each other."
# "As for now?"
# "Let me tell you what happened."

Obviously it suggests that mc is not so happy now.

For Jill's path, there is a great risk that we see a repeat of the sorry story of Lynette；

For Bella's path, having an affair with a married teacher is dangerous enough;

For Sage's path，Sage is graduating from college while mc is still a freshman. And mc may not be so equal to the headmaster's daughter in position. Also, if you chase Jade at the same time, then you're done;

For Maya&Josy, throuple won't last long. Harem is not DPC's style;

For Others'path(mainly Quinn. Besides sex, I don't think other girls have romantic options, personally), mc will deal with drugs, which Neil warned him about on the first day of school.

However, if Zoey is an available option，I think I haven't noticed any signs of a bad ending yet.

I don't think DPC will make this game have bad endings as canon and i don't think EP8 choice will last through the rest of the game(cheating points and others(alone) branch) i think we'll have another choice in EP12 or at the very end. **Edit Sage even tells you that she'll wait for you but you shouldn't take long if you don't choose her.

I agree on throuple even if this is a game it's not fantasy where you can all marry each other and right now society in game wouldn't accept that kind of relationship (hell they don't accept homosexual relationships a poly one Hell, naw)

Zoey is the one without drama right now, and i FUCKIN hope she stays that way.

If there is going to be a bad ending, it has to be only one and has to be unrelated to the branch we take. Otherwise, it is an almost impossible task at this point to create bad endings for every possible LI's branch like mayrrrrrain mentioned. The one option that seems feasible for me is the police involvement with Burke's actions and prostitution/drug activity which has a connection to some students like Quinn, Lily (or Vinny), like yossa999's theory. Depending on the MC's decisions with these characters, it may lead to a bad ending.

In the current situation, as walker188 mentioned, the story does not have any strong antagonists. I think DPC needs to spice things up, we need an escalation event that MC needs to fight with. Maybe some secret antagonist may show up (like Acting Lessons). But as the story branches with different LI's and events, creating a generic escalation event for all possible branches gets difficult. I hope DPC has something planned for us.

 

[ProxyGist]

Im almost 100% sure that he finished game already and just put status updates after reading how fans react to status updates and development , to give us illusion that he is still working on it and depends how fans react - next status is more optimistic then previous or vice versa , i mean he said he have 21 events in may , he "left pc working while on holiday" , he finish 270 renders and animations and some writing this week and before "playtest and polish a bit"

Honestly, no one will ever know for sure. DPC and any Dev could do that and Patreons will never know. There's nothing that could stop a dev from doing this.




Like last episode? I didn't even complete all my playthroughs because it was annoying.

Yes. There are many scenes in the episode, often useless and pointless, that could have been left out. It's just boring. On the second and third run through, the player just skips scenes.

 

[lipe2410]

some ambitious SFW animations.

Oh fuck yeah! Can't wait to watch the animations characters walking or doing others useless things

but he may yet pull through on his promise of the next episodes taking a shorter time to release.

Stop delude yourself

 

[Geralt From Rivia]

It's actually pretty bad. DPC does not have time management skills and does not know how to separate the important from the secondary. Some things can be removed from the game without losing quality. Eventually the sheer number of scenes will bore the player. Just imagine a free-roam where the player has to talk to 18 characters and run around the entire location. It's very boring. Scenes should be unique, colorful and memorable.

The problem is that everyone has their own subjective opinion about what should be removed. I think there isn't much content in the game that needs to be removed that the majority of the fanbase will reach a consensus on. And this creates a dangerous precedent: as soon as DPC agrees with the opinion of a group of people and removes some content, "screamers" will immediately crawl in from all the cracks and demand from the devto remove everything they don't like. So I probably agree that let him do everything with his vision.

Yes, management is a tough thing. People have been teaching this in college for years, no wonder. DPC can be incredibly talented at creating interesting and exciting stories, can work well with DAZ, be a good programmer... but a bad manager. It is not for nothing that separate specialists are engaged in management in companies.

In the last part, you did a great job of describing the Ubisoft-type issue of open worlds. In Ep.9 there were objective problems, free-roams were somewhat...overloaded. It was ok for me, but some didn't like it. Free roams like HOTs party Ep.7 with no more than 1000 renders, I consider the golden mean.