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

4.80 star(s) 1,553 Votes
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Roelandt

Roelandt

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Jul 10, 2020
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537
fireball11121 said:
True, and honestly there have clearly already been dark themes in the story already. Abandonment by Maya's father, prostitution and drug use (though it's only a bit of weed which is legal in so many parts of the world at this point anyway). I don't mind the dark themes by any means, my worry is that he's gonna pull a Zack Snyder and make things needlessly dark and gruesome just for the sake of being dark and gruesome. There's a line between having dark themes and being edgy. I really hope the story doesn't slip into the latter.
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Mean parents, prostitution, and drug use (you forgot the Ep 4 Quinn Tommy heroin scene) are conflicts and plot devices. These elements can and are in any genre. Doctor Detroit was a hilarious comedy with prostitution, abusive parent (Mom), and drug use, and it isn't considered "dark" by any stretch of the imagination. "Dark" is a genre, like "westerns," "action," "romance," "sci-fi," "situation comedy," "drama", or "musical." "Dark" is a mood, an atmosphere, a theme that is grim and borders on the thriller and horror genres. The (rather brilliant) game City of Broken Dreams is a great example of the dark theme. If you want to SEE what the dark genre looks like, play this game, or watch shows like Dark Matter, or Space Above and Beyond, Blade Runner, or Escape From New York for some Dark Sci-Fi, or just about any Tim Burton movie. The Adams Family movies are dark comedies, etc. I'm reasonably sure you would not suggest that BADIK share the genre of these movies. BADIK has more in common with Glee than Blade Runner!

BADIK has not a single shift in theme so far up to Episode 5 and has remained true to its format. It is currently firmly a romantic sex college drama with strong comedic elements, with crime, intrigue, romance, betrayal and other interesting dramatic subplots. But there is yet to be the grim, dread, fear, terror, depressed mood, perpetual darkness, constant rain, and similar elements that make stories dark. These elements emerged (in the form of psycho-horror) in a sudden splash in AL act 3, which had been a romantic/sex drama up till that point. This was intentional on the part of the writer. He was going for shock value and subverting expectations by suddenly derailing the theme to something utterly dark. It was a gamble but in the end, it didn't work. It was sudden, emotionally violent, and painful (as intended). The characters you had come to care about were suddenly made to suffer brutally before your very eyes where moments before you were smiling and enjoying the romantic tension and humor. Shocking changes that, as one player put it "as I was forced to watch." Many people were very put off by that.

Of course there are conflicts going on in BADIK. Conflicts must be present to form a series of words into a story. Something bad happened to Ashley at the AnO party. Something's creepy with Bella. And other conflicts. None of which has to change the entire genre and theme of the story. That is the concern.

If City of Broken Dreams suddenly turned into a light hearted family friendly comedy in the 3rd act, you can be sure, people would be pissed.
 
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Ghostly Hale

Active Member
Jan 26, 2018
862
781
Cokebaths said:
I think you're taking the situation a bit too seriously. They weren't partners. At most it was puppy love seeing as how they barely interacted. A little lie means very little about a person's character especially considering what the lie was about. What matters is how they develop after that. To completely write someone off for that is a bit childish. But to each his own. Someone disliking a character doesn't matter to me lol
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Nah, was just stating not all people lie just to lie. Or maybe i'm trying to say some people are just better people.
 
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AvatarStormBringer

AvatarStormBringer

Well-Known Member
Dec 20, 2019
1,213
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Roelandt said:
you forgot the Ep 4 Quinn Tommy heroin scene
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I am not familiar with drugs but was it mentioned bit was Heroin? Maybe it's just sugar since Quinn likes to switch everything with sugar and the high content of sugar made them hyper as proven in kids overeating sweets making them hyperactive?
 
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Roelandt

Roelandt

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Jul 10, 2020
255
537
flippityflop said:
Well, that's just goes to show that DPC has done a remarkable job at sparking so much controversy and heated arguments over two fictional characters. And he didn't even have to light anything on fire or kill anyone this time.

What would you like us to talk about though?
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Ooo! I know! Let's talk about Mona. Mmmm. Mooooona. So pretty. I'm a sucker for redheads.

Mona1.jpg
 
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Roelandt

Roelandt

Member
Jul 10, 2020
255
537
Holy Bacchus said:
But it doesn't necessarily mean we'll get the kind of tragic, deadly ending we got with AL, as some people seem to think it could mean. After all, this game already has things like cheating, drug use and drug dealing, heartbreak, death of a parent (MC's Mom), death of a sibling (Jill's sister), strained family relations due to sexual orientation (Maya), all things that some people could find to be sensitive issues if such things have affected them personally. Even if people haven't experienced things like this in their lives, they could still be affected by the feelings and emotions expressed and the events that unfold, and if you're "not in a good place" then it could hit even harder.

There are still plenty of ways that DPC can play with peoples emotions that would warrant that warning at the beginning without having to kill off a character, and after what happened with AL, I really don't think they'll do that again.
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I agree with your sentiments completely, Bacchus and am hopeful that is the case. AL really hit me hard though. The "wounds" are fresh. But I exaggerate a bit. Hehe.

I do hope that Lt. Columbo shows up to B&R and starts an investigation into Quinn and Tri-Alpha. Hehe. Major shift of genre, but hey, I'm a Columbo fan!!!

"Oh, and uh...one more thing...."
 
ename144

ename144

Engaged Member
Sep 20, 2018
3,367
13,961
Holy Bacchus said:
Not necessarily. I think ep 5 gave us a fairly good preview of how DPC will handle friendship paths and relationship paths going forward. If you're not FWB with Sage, you can still talk to her but you don't get the sex scene, and if you're not in a throuple with M&J, you can also still talk to them but don't get either of their sex scenes or the "picnic" scene. There are, however, several sex scenes with side girls - Camila, Lily, Sarah and Melanie - even a small bit with Jade.

So it's probably likely that they will thread that "branching" needle by having plenty of scenes with the LIs that have "relationship" and "friendship" variants, but also include plenty of scenes with side girls on CHICK and DIK to ensure there's always some sexy action. Maybe they could even have "alternate" scenes, for example, a Jade scene where there would be a M&J scene on their path. This, in my view, wouldn't add anything more to the workload than was probably going to be there in the first place.
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But several of the girls know each other, so there would need to be some sort of varied interaction between them to account for the multitude of possible relationships states between them; this is especially true if DPC intends to wring some drama out of the MC dating multiple girls at once, and I'm sure as hell not betting against that!

It's not so bad now, since the MC has just barely formalized a single relationship with M&J. It will get worse as there are not only multiple relationships, but they all start advancing. Again, I'm all for that, but it does take time and effort.
 
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imfedupdawg

Newbie
May 8, 2020
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Rusty's 3 stages of flirting in a nutshell.

Stage 1:
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Stage 2 (This is where most of Rusty's success with girls come from I'd imagine) :
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Stage 3:
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4.80 star(s) 1,553 Votes