VN - Ren'Py - Being a DIK [v0.11.1] [DrPinkCake]

This is my review for the game as a whole. I'm not a very articulate writer, so please excuse me if it's a bit short

Easily my favorite game on here. The Strongest aspect to me with the game has always been its writing, with characters i actually care about. Between that and some great music choices and good renders, i give it 5/5 stars.

PS. Sage best girl, fight me.

At this point this game is just pontlessly overinflated, directionless, repetetive and boring. It relies too much on an absurdly exagerate presence of minigames and freeroams that, honesly, add nothing to the experience to stretch to the nausea the gameplay. The progression of the story has the pace of a sloth under sleep inducers and even the new releases are nowadays, more then a year apart from each other. This game is like those TV series that span on 13 seasons but they had nothing left to say since seaon 5. Just let it die mercifully.

The story is simple and the art is nice, but isn't remarkable. The characters has their goofy charm, in the "everyone wants have sex with MC" style, so don't expect deep character constructions. They often are used only to drive to lewd points of the story. The humor doesn't stand out so much, it could be better if it didn't focus so much on the silly and commonplace criticism of feminism. The choices are reasonable and have nice outcomings, but without great surprises. The lewd scenes are quite satisfactory. Some chapters are way better than others.
At least, it's a good try if you like this type of game and don't mind the cons.

(played v0.10.1)

I'll never really understand why people consider this to be the best AVN.

Is it good? I suppose so. Is it great? No.

First of all, the visuals are certainly attractive, but both the models and animations are far from the best in the genre. I'd put it at a solid 4/5.

Second is the character writing. This seems to be where most people claim Being a DIK to be the best of the best, but I have to disagree. Like the visuals, I'd put the character writing at a solid 4/5, but I feel like too many people are completely smoke-screened by all the melodrama. Giving every single love interest a tragic backstory doesn't somehow make the writing better.

Finally, the story. The story is by far the worst part of this game. The pacing is terrible, switching between way too fast and glacially slow. The plot is completely uninteresting and meandering for 99% of the game so far. Games like this make me wonder why they even bother with the story at all, if all of your effort is going into the character writing, then just make it a slice of life game. Why add elements of mystery and overarching plot if you're going to completely half-ass it? Worst of all, the fact that the story in this game is soooo long and boring is made so much worse by the fact that there is no harem route. You're telling me I need to trudge through hours and hours and hours of mediocre plot just to get all the content for each love interest? Fuck that noise, 2/5

Again, this game is not bad. It's pretty solid and has a decent amount of content. But the really bad story, lack of a harem route thereby forcing dozens of replays, some forced fetish content, and a lot of fake choices that don't actually matter really brings down my opinion of this game.

Updating my rating 3/5 (previously 5/5)

Being a DIK is the namesake for my account. It should come as no surprise that I am a fan of Dr. PinkCake's work. This game has an incredible depth of content and sustained quality that few, if any, other games can boast. Characters are generally likeable and attractive (when meant to be), and most (not all) are more than paper-thin caricatures. I need not retread the virtues of this game and why it earned a 5/5 from me originally. However, I will here downgrade to 4/5 and attempt to explain some of my rationale.

This review contains spoilers from the latest update v0.11:
This is still unarguably a good game, but I can no longer call it my favorite, which is a god damn shame.

Edit from 4/5 to 3/5 after a couple months consideration. None of these feelings have gone away - if anything they are stronger now. This episode was such a disappointment, destroying my enjoyment of the throuple route with that non-avoidable BDSM crap. This was really the only route I still enjoyed playing besides the vanilla Sage damsel in distress route, which is boring but well done and better than Jill. I'm not sure DPC can repair the damage anymore, and I may need to change my user name if this drops from my top 10, of which it is now on the verge. Ugh.

I won’t say that this has become a bad game over the years, because I still believe that, despite its flaws, it remains one of the best AVNs on the market. If you like the classic college-themed AVN where "MC fucks every girl he talks to and/or can ultimately find love", then this might be for you. The story has never been BaDIK’s strong suit to me—it’s always been about the characters and their interactions. So I'll give this 4 stars because of the girls -- and the music.


However, from Season 3 onward, this game has become too tedious and exhausting. The minigames (which can be disabled, but only at the very start, and with some consequences—because DPC is such a lovely individual) were initially few, quick, and fun. But starting from Season 3, they became too many, too difficult, and too long—even with guides. They suck all the enjoyment out of the game. The grinding is too much, and in a game with billions of paths, having to replay them all every time is exhausting.


Besides the math, English, science test, and the party planner, in every single free roam (which are taxing per se) you’ll get to enjoy tackling Tiles, Shuffle, the Fish tank minigame, and Brawler with a whopping five different opponents—because otherwise, you won’t have money (since DPC, being the lovely individual he is, decided in Episode 9 to prevent players from earning money through tests). I won't even talk about the box minigame, purely nonsensical. Oh, and in Episode 11, there was a drastic difficulty spike, because DPC thought the grinding wasn’t quite enough yet—


This game has also become way too punishing. Tons of people can’t unlock scenes even with their Main Girl, and no one knows what the hell variables are at play. If you mess up a single text or said something to someone six episodes ago—poof, scene locked. So guess what? Time for the 400th rerun! You literally can't play this game without a walkthough. I’m one of those who came for the porn and stayed for the story, but since the story isn’t that great and the plotlines are getting resolved in disappointing ways, it's starting to become tiring.

This game used to be 75% fun teasing with girls, sex scenes that had some soul to them through setup and dialogue, and general fun stuff with the DIKs. Now it's 75% boo-hoo let's cry together and melodrama.

I don't mind drama or if things get darker. The whole drug deal subplot is exciting. But the rest at this point bores me to tears.

And I get that this is subjective, but I used to be so excited to see the "Others" option pop up way back. Yes! I don't have to be chained to this lovey-dovey bullshit as a 19 yo guy in college, with characters I do not care about. Nope, you're still forced into that friend group, even if your MASSIVE DIK character should have basically nothing to do with them.

Kinda lost all interest after this update. It's not a bad game by any means, but the vibe of the whole thing has shifted for the worse IMO.

it is a popular one. it is a big one. but it is not a 5 star game

major problems:
- the mini games are irritating as fuck. you can turn them off, but then you lose out on extra cash renders etcetera
- the story forces you to make choices about relationships but then really forces you into certain plotlines regardless of them
- there is a meanness to the depiction of anyone outside the core cast which just kind of grows as the game goes on
- the renders are good but sloppy and using very common assets

i will concentrate mostly on the plot here as it is a dr. pink cake issue that was also in acting lessons. there is a pair of love interests that it is clear he wants to be the main plot. if you check the lines of dialogue graphs someone made, you can figure out who they are.

you can spurn these characters. you can break up with them. but the plot is always going to come back around to them. given this, the cast really needed to be slimmed down. you can spend far too long chasing one or more love interest, only for them to get next to no development in further chapters.

add in the extremely long development time of a year or more per chapter and this is just ok.

It's sad to see people complaining that the game has gone downhill. This game has been consistent and has a good track record. Even if you don't like this game, it's the most anticipated game by a lot of people. The community of this game is pretty massive and active; just look at the discussion page numbers of this game. Be thankful that the dev didn't fall under the remake limbo like some other devs.



Pros:



Engaging Storytelling – The game excels in narrative depth, offering choices that significantly impact the story and character relationships. The branching paths provide high replay value.



Well-Written Characters – Each character has a unique personality, backstory, and character arc. The romantic interests feel dynamic rather than one-dimensional.



High-Quality Visuals—The 3D-rendered models and animations are among the best in AVNs, making interactions and intimate scenes visually appealing. Even though the earlier episodes look dated, the writing carries it hard. New-age AVNs excel in the 3D department but have way worse writing and are not as engaging as this game.



Humor & Drama Balance – The game blends comedy with emotional moments pretty well, keeping players invested beyond the adult content.



Mini-Games & RPG Elements – Unlike many AVNs, Being A DIK incorporates mini-games, stat-building, and free-roam sections, adding depth to the gameplay.



Soundtracks – A solid soundtrack enhances the atmosphere. DPC does add some bangers, and you folks know it.



Frequent Updates – DPC has maintained a good update cycle, delivering consistent content expansions. Even if the dev cycle has progressed to a year-long cycle due to massive branching, he's still consistent with his updates and sneak peeks.



Cons:



Grind Mechanics – Some mini-games can feel like a grind rather than a fun addition. It's fun for one or two runs but does get tiring if you have multiple paths to play.



Some Choices Feel Limited – While the game offers branching paths, some decisions ultimately lead to similar outcomes, reducing the impact of choice at times.



Slow Pacing at Times – Certain sections, especially the free-roam moments, can feel unnecessarily stretched.



Heavy Download Size – Due to high-quality renders and animations, the game requires significant storage space.





Overall, I'd say it's a good game with consistent updates over the years. Though it has fallen a bit in the 3D rendering, the writing makes up for it. If you hate minigames, you can easily disable them. Memorable LIs, good story and relatable characters. Please give it a try yourself before getting a preconceived notion by reading the reviews. It all falls on you personally to like/hate this game.

Rating - 4.5/5

It was a good game for me for a long time, but recently there are two main problems im having with the last couple of updates.

First problem is the sandbox element. As many have mentioned, it is so fucking time consuming to replay every sandbox event because u want to see every path. I could understand why those elements where implemented, but I found it so frustrating clicking in every room on every person on every furniture every time i loaded an older save.
These saves didnt even work all the time when u saved during sandbox events what made it even more time consuming cause i had to load an older save in order to catch up to the content i was at (even with config.console and forcefully reloading via command didnt work all the time).
And the sandbox elements where also so long or sometimes even unnecessary cause u only had 3 options to begin with

Second problem i have is, are the animations. Not the quality but the length, quantity, and when one was implemented. Every time I saw another animation that lastet over a minute i was thinking "damn all this 'wasted' time put into some animation where we see the surroundings or some girl standing on a balcony blinking could have been reduced to maybe pictures or maybe even left out".
When i think about how many animations with such fucking length there were, i wasnt surprised anymore why every new update takes over a year. In some animations when people where shown doing something specific it looked horribly unnatural too imo.

I think in order to play this game and enjoy it really, u need a mod like scrappy or even 0x52urm imo. It saves so much time to just change the path or stats, without replaying every damn sandbox element.
The enigmas were also getting annoying overtime and i started to just changed some variables in urm in order to avoid those at one point, cause sometimes there wasnt even a big reward like i expected or something like that but whatever.

(was kinda hyped about becky the last update cause she looked fucking hot but she was then made so fucking unlikeable and made like a harlot that i was so dissapointed and even the sex-scene was so sad. Guess u could say the dev did a good job writing her, to be such a dissapointment).

In terms of quality its not a bad game, it was kinda my favourite game in season 2 tbh, so im not trying to berate it at any point and would still recommend to play it (if its ur first time)

This game was once the absolute pinnacle of college-themed western VNs on this site, but as time went on it got dragged down by two main factors for me: bad sex scenes and being forced to view the stories of certain characters.

COWGIRL -> COWGIRL (ANAL) -> MISSIONARY -> CUM

Starting with the sex scenes, it's ironic because DPC is clearly a fucking PRO at posing/dressing girls to look sexy, despite the occasional VERY dubious ass and tit proportions (I actually stopped playing the first time I saw Bella, and only got through the game on a 2nd try).

However, most sex scenes (Especially recently) simply boil down to a bunch of poses with the MC pumping until he cums. Sometimes the girls are shown to cum, sometimes they're not, a few times there's even 0 dialogue and it's just mindless clicking - I get that the author wants to focus on the non-sex writing, but this is a porn VN, so that's literally half the expected content? Sorry to break it to you DPC, but there's more to sex scenes than simply what the guy does and feels, just like there's more to an action scene than just a single shot of an explosion being repeated over and over again.

If this game had the same attention to sex scenes as some others, it would truly shine despite its age. But if I just wanted an animated slideshow, I'd look at porn gifs online. I can't imagine someone putting that much effort into modelling, rigging, animating, and then shrugging their shoulders at actually writing the scene and saying 'Fuck it, just flip through poses until it's done'.

'LOCAL STUDENT BECOMES GROUP THERAPIST'

The second big issue is that the game forces you into a gang of friends (Not the fraternity, most of them are great) despite how you might feel about it. I've played other games in which you can choose to grow a friends group, invite people, or just wind up alone, but BADIK is adamant about you liking ALL the main girls and hanging out with them. I would have gladly left this group and skipped all those scenes, even if it means less content, because I can't stand most of them and like to have, you know, CHOICES in a visual novel.

I laughed when the game asked me to budget for giving them Christmas gifts, since I had no emotional connection to any of them but one and couldn't care less. It quickly becomes clear that the author controls the actions of the MC far more than you do, and even when fully on the DIK path he behaves more like a therapist than a college student. None of the 'main' girls can be sided against, shrugged off, or even ignored - you HAVE to befriend and hang out with them all, even if you're not romancing any of them. You'd think going on the 'Others' path would mean you're not actually interested in the main girls, right DPC?

So yeah, two issues that built up over time until they snowballed in Episode 11, where I started skipping unread dialogue for the first time - the telltale first sign that a VN is dead to you.

If you're fine with kinetic novels and consider the 'adult' part of adult visual novels to be the MC brainlessly pumping away while paying 0 attention to the eroticism of what the female partner is feeling, then this game might just be 4 stars for you. But the fact that it's also updated ONCE PER YEAR, features models older than God and shows no end in sight, definitely keeps it from ever reaching 5 stars imo.

(One more thing - the music choice really needs work. Never thought I'd watch a girl get railed in the ass while the OST sings a family carol about Jesus being born, but... yeah.)

At first, I actually liked the story, the scenes, alternatives and mini-games. Then, it got boring. I'm not the kind of nerd who has time to waste brain energy trying to get through a bunch of silly challenges and finally find the reward: one of the game's many routes. It's interesting to go through some challenges and such, but the game turns everything into a boring win-lose game. After going through long dialogues and laborious mini-games, you end up with one of the girls at the party! Oh, how cool... I have more to do. A part of me would even like to keep playing, get involved with the stories and reach different endings, but at this point, the only curiosity I have is accessing the scene gallery, even if it's in some five-minute video. In short, when you get to the fun part of the game (I'm not just referring to the scenes, but to the spicy, interesting dialogues and such), you're already tired of going through boring parts

DrPinkCake jump from Acting Lessons to this is just incredible, he has set the standards so high that I havent seen anything even remotely close in a complete package.

Incredible consistency and very reliable as a developer, the writing is undisputed goat to me its great humor and the texts are easily read, the storylines in later chapter is becoming better and better i dont agree with other peoples opinion here. The characters are all loveable and interesting all in their own way, but I love the MC, Derek, Tommy, Jacob, Josy, Sage.

So many routes, amazing soundtracks, great lewd scenes, different ways to play.

You have to play this one, and this one has it all.

Great visuals, writing, animation, story, comedy, romance, brotherhood, friendship, life lessons. Just incredible....

simply incredible, graphics, story, character development.... Everything, by far the best game NSFW, no matter how long it takes for updates, just maintain this level and we will all be very happy and grateful.

This game was once the pinnacle of all Daz VNs. For the time it released, it had decent storywriting, decent animations, decent characters. had it all. It basically set the standard.

But time passed. And it hasn't been kind to BaDIK. When you're a solodev releasing an update once a year, others will eventually catch up and surpass you.

Right now, BaDIK just looks dated. Stock Daz models that you can see everywhere is now a cliche. Half the girls in this game are in some other game too with some other name. The animations have aged terribly, actual professionals are now getting into the porn game industry and the robotic crap we have in this game now looks egregious in comparison.

And the writing has generally overstayed its welcome in this game as years have passed. I'll still concede that storywriting hasn't improved much in the industry and BaDIK still has something going on there.

In general though, the game's ridiculously high rating is mostly just historical and don't expect much from it at this point. It really should have ended years ago.

Literally the best AVN out there. I've played through a few of them and the choices/story element to the game is unrivaled. I just wish it didn't take a year for the newest release to come out. DPC literally created the "meta" with how Visual Novels should be. It will be a long time before someone creates something better but, creators have really been stepping their game up with some of the newer releases of the last year or so. A lot of them attribute that to DPC and Being a DIK. It laid the foundation on what we as consumers of this genre of game expect.

Being a DIK is an amazing adult visual novel that completely breaks away from the usual expectations of the genre. The world-building is absolutely fantastic. Even though it’s a visual novel, it never feels like you’re just reading a script. The world feels alive, and you’re really part of it. With all the mini-games and decisions to make, it feels more like you're controlling the whole experience, rather than just being a passive player.


One of the coolest features is the DIK and Chick meter. The choices you make directly impact your score—good decisions bump you toward the Chick side, while bad ones push you toward DIK It's not about right or wrong, though—it’s about being a college kid, figuring things out, making mistakes, and sometimes doing the right thing. It makes everything feel more real and relatable.


Even though I’m not American and don’t really know anything about frat life, the game does a great job of letting you experience that side of college life. It’s a world I’ve never lived in, but it feels so immersive and well done. Sure, the main story might be more linear, but the love interests, side stories, and branching paths make every choice feel like it matters. It’s really rewarding to see where your decisions take you.


And the replayability? Being a DIK nails it. With so many choices, different paths, and outcomes to explore, you’ll definitely want to jump back in to see how things can change with different decisions. It’s one of those games where each playthrough offers something new and keeps you coming back for more.


Overall, Being a DIK is like watching an awesome series that you can control. The story is full of twists, the characters are engaging, and the choices actually mean something. It’s a game that really delivers and is totally worth playing, no matter where you’re from.

This game was "a masterpiece" but now it's just "a good AVN".
And all that it's fault of season 3, for starters... everything related to Zoey doesn't really contribute anything, on the contrary it feels more like a nuisance all the time even in the single path and i'm not even talking about the filling hole that was the "interlude" ... Aaah but not satisfied with the shit that was the interlude, Chapter 9 is a tedious free roam at the Halloween party, which may be fun the first time but this is a game that requires multiple playthroughs, and the free roam just makes the replayability worse, if you are going to force the player to replay your game at least worry a little about the replayability
But that is not the only bad thing, there is also the story that is falling into what we could call "a Dr Pinkcake cliche" because his only way to add drama to the story is that all the characters are related in some way and maybe the first chapters is fine but when you abuse that resource all the time the story becomes boring and predictable, and don't say it in a porn game... because even if the Dev wanted to pretend to be something more serious this is still a porn game and you can't punish the player for doing what he's supposed to do in a porn game, too much realism kills the whole purpose of a porn game. But at the same time there are things that are not realistic at all, like the MC behaving like a p*ssy even on the Dik path, like when the MC pressures Sage to "talk about her feelings" or on the single path when the MC whines that he feels lonely...
But despite those inconsistencies, the Dev clings to "realism" and is that is what is killing this AVN... If the MC has a relationship the game becomes a "don't be a cheater" simmulator, which is obviously super boring to play in a porn game...
The best thing that could happen to this game is to stop complicating life, end it and start a new project that isn't limited by common social morality... but taking into account that this game is updated once a year I highly doubt that the end is close... Anyway, I would be happy if there is a good ending with Lily

And for Dr. Pinkcake and any other Dev who is reading this:
NO MORE FREEROAM/SANDBOX!!! STOP MILKING WITH THAT SH*T!!!
Thanks...

OK, so where do we start?

Being a DIK is the most popular game on this site. In fact, it's the only thing that convinced me to play it, even though I wasn't too keen on the description at first.

The first chapter was... nice but nothing more than that, nothing to get worked up about. But I kept going, and it was as the story progressed that I understood.

This isn't the deepest game ever, it's not the most incredible story, nor the most detailed. But it's good, you get to know the characters, you laugh at the adventures of some, you find yourself afraid or sad for others.

I quickly got my hand out of my pants and simply enjoyed the story. Because the NSFW scenes are present, sometimes pleasant, but ultimately of little or no importance. You want to know what happens next and you really feel what Tremolo is going through. Each decision is seen as our decision, each one has an impact, however minor. And in the end, that's what makes a visual novel so interesting. Not to have a wank, but to feel that you're having an impact on the game's universe.

Being a DIK is clearly not the best sex game. On the other hand, it is without doubt the best visual novel I've ever played. And I can't recommend it highly enough.

I came for the cum and stayed for everything else!

Joking aside this is not just my favorite NSFW game but probably in my top ten fiction stories all time and I have hundreds of novels under my belt. I have pulled many all nighters playing games or reading books, but I have only once before gotten so attached to a character that I woke up wondering how they were feeling.... this game got me to that second one. So here's my pros and cons.

Pros:

Story thus far is incredible, it blends romance, comedy, and drama so well that I can't believe I thought Friends was a good show before this. It is also 100% believable, which is hard to find in this genre.

Animation is something that I don't want to comment on the technical side of given that I have no clue what goes into making something like this. But my experience on this site has shown me that this is at least 8 out of 10 for that.

Music choice is perfect, I've heard many of the songs before in other games which I get, but the forced change to the right song at the right moment has been spot on.

Sex is last on the list, not because it isn't hot or drive the story or too infrequent (because it definitely is not) because it meets all my expectations on those fronts. I just wish I could chose more of the details a little bit lol the choices are just the normal stuff you would see though. I know my take sounds like a con, but the scenes are hot so I can't put it there obviously

Cons:

Choices: I don't have a big problem with the major choices really, they seem like they fit the setting and vibe of the game. but sometimes I feel like I get a choice taken away from me that I normally would have gone with even though I've been myself up to that point so maybe some of the major ones should be readdressed later on, like a way to gain back a point on either scale at some point so as not to lock you out too much.

Overall Impression: 9.999/10

This game is the tits... literally and otherwise.