DPC may not be the best writer in the genre, but he is an excellent psychologist. His strong point is the development of characters and, in general, characters are the hallmark of this game. DPC also works amazingly with the emotions of players. I have heard many stories of scenes that made people cry and empathize with the characters; he is good at working in the area of "gray morality".
there are real suspicions that this is a lived experience, or maybe he has a degree in psychology. It’s a coincidence that you guys came across a psychotherapist who is familiar with his game; this is probably a one in a million chance. World is full of miracles.
At first it seemed to me that this was a sarcasm or subtle trolling.
I agree for the most part. I doubt that the DPC has personally gone through so much shit that he tells us about in one way or another. While working as a psychologist involves the ability to "experience" and feel what patients come with in order to share and solve their problem, get an advice on how to cope with something that they care about. Such work experience can be a source of a large number of stories and experiences of other people, and most importantly, the opportunity to correctly formalize and convey such things in the characters, plot, emotions that we are dealing in the game with and the most important thing is to be able to reach and catch the player - his experiences, his personal emotions, to make sure that what he sees could touch a nerve with him, make him worry and feel something.
Just being a good writer is not enough for that. And I also think that the moments that someone calls "bad writing" or "lacks in the writing" are due to the fact that we are limited by the framework of the game and some unwritten rules, particular "patterns" of the genre or kind of "ideology" (NTR, for example) and other things that do not allows him to realize all possible ideas and scenarios, because branching and outcomes can't be infinite, and sometimes particular limitations or attempts of preventing the excessive branching may look and feel odd.
DPC work with the emotions of the characters and reflecting them on their faces and in body language too. Even the slightest changes, during the scenes also speaks volumes. An ordinary person is not so familiar with facial expressions, its meaning, and most importantly, it is not so easy to pick the right changes in facial expressions, reflect them correctly and convey them to each spoken word or sentence. Try to write a scene yourself and then "come up" with plausible and "correct" emotions for each character, correctly displaying them on their faces. Compare the result. Perhaps this is one of the magnets that attracts me to this game as well. The characters are not just a dolls that laugh or cry, you can read just a ton of emotions in each scene. And this is very important from the point of view of immersion, to make players believe what is happening on the screen.
It's like shitty amateur actors or the work of professional actors in comparison. You want to turn off a crappy movie right away, because you just "don't believe" what is happening on the screen. So it is with games. When the characters plausibly "play" their roles and correctly express emotions, it is catchy and attractive.
Indirectly, the selection of music for certain scenes is also a talent. I've discovered hundreds of great tracks and dozens of artists/bands I've never even heard of before. And even this can be attributed to a fine knowledge of psychology, because just "good taste" is not enough in this case. The music complements the scenes, making them even more emotional and memorable. And sometimes I'm really amazed at how well certain tracks are chosen.