My review of Being a DIK [v0.7.2]
There isn't much to be said that hasn't been said by 900+ other reviewers, so I'll just give a quick rundown.
This game is the best game on this site, in my opinion, even though I don't even like college games.
All characters (apart from the comic-relief rich guys) act and talk like real people and the main characters have enough interesting stuff going, they could have been made MC of the game and it would still a be great story.
The story is mostly realistic, slightly exaggerated to never be boring, and the right mix between sad/happy/neutral/funny moments.
It is linear with a lot of branching later on, and scenes can change dramatically depending what choices you picked, even if you made them quite a while ago.
I usually never laugh, but when an old choice that I've already had almost forgotten about dramatically changed a certain character's college presentation at the end of chapter 7 I was laughing uncontrollably for about half a minute.
The scene directly after (last scene of the chapter) where you see a minor character that you've only seen briefly the very beginning of the game with one of the story's main characters was absolutely mind-blowing.
The story generally is so good I still remember all of it, even though it has been many months since Chapter 7 was released.
Speaking about presentation the graphics also look very good.
The female characters are all attractive and very varied, with no sameface- or samebody-syndrome.
Music in freeroam mode or when nothing special is happening is a selection of generic, but good sounding music, that is randomly chosen and can be skipped over if you don't like a specific track.
Special scenes have their own music that really add to the atmosphere and improve the scene at lot.
One scene with Quinn is so good I regularly rewatch/listen to it outside of the game.
So after all the praise here's also some minor flaws:
- MC's dad looks like a creepy Nathan Drake clone with shiny skin and chrome teeth in Chapter 1 - This should maybe be re-rendered.
- MC's dad is basically the perfect father with zero flaws - This feels a bit unrealistic compared to the other characters.
- There are two currencies in the game: Normal dollars and dollar symbols (which are capped at a very small amount and you never know when you will need them or when you can get more again without backtracking) - I recommend just cheating here.
- The navigation through new buildings by clicking random arrows on the screen can be very confusing and time-consuming. In the later chapters you can select the rooms directly, but I don't know if that's the base game or from a mod.
- Not all the girls that players are interested in have routes as-of-yet
- With the huge amount of money the developer makes (well deserved!) it would be nice if the game had full voice acting instead of just text.
- Now lastly the biggest flaw: New updates are basically like the Game Of Thrones books - Great writing, but the waiting between each update can feel like years.
Overall it is an amazing game that I would recommend to anyone - even people that don't play games or visual novels.
edit:
Chapter 8, where you suddenly have to commit to a single love interest and break up with everyone else, ruined the game for me.
First, it doesn't really make sense for MC to suddenly become a pussy, after fucking almost every single girl in the game.
Secondly, the breakups are extremely anti-climatic and feel like they were written by a bad AI chatbot (completely out-of-character dialogue for some girls).
Then in the later chapters another problem appears...
Instead of content, the amount of obnoxious freeroam minigames suddenly explodes — turning trying out different routes into a big chore instead of fun.
TLDR: I don't see this game going anywhere, but I would still recommend playing it for earlier chapters, because they're very good and contain lots of content.
Just be warned that the fun ends at the end of episode 8 (chapter 1).
