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

[drakken]

Replaying the sixth cepisode for the first time since the release was a curious experience as there were things that bothered me then that didn't seem that big this time around, while some aspects perhaps stood out even more. However there is a decision at the end that still drove me absolutely nuts. Now, my complaints about the game would be nothing new, especially since it related to the Josie/Maya story, but I still wanted to get the rant of my chest. I did decide to put it under the spoiler just to save some space and that those just here to be positive about the game can easily skip it.

Spoiler: Blatant negativity about the game behind this

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I thought there were sex scenes with Josy and Maya (that didn’t include the mc).

Of course they discuss the mc during those scenes, but that’s because this isn’t just a novel, it’s a game, where talking about the Mc elicits thoughts from the players that they themselves are being spoken about, so stroking the mc’s ego will result in stroking the players ego which will result in the player enjoying the game.

While it may be ironic that the fathers efforts to keep Josy and Maya apart have resulted in Maya finding the Mc, that doesn’t diminish Maya’s love for Josy, the only options so far are for Maya and Josy to stay as a couple or for them to include the mc, so it just leads to another relationship that the father would have issues with.

The key here is the father shouldn’t try to control his adult daughter’s relationships. That’s not to say that parents should dispense advice to their adult children, but they shouldn’t control them.

Can I just say it’s nice to have an interesting topic raised here. This thread has been spiraling in a bad way for a while now.

I will also add the fact that Maya isn't really into dudes. Mc is the only exception. Also as far as pda, most of what you see of Maya and josy(aside from mc being involved) is among people their trying to hide the fact that they are together from.
The flashback of Maya and josy also shows the kinda girl she is, if you notice its josy that instigates affection as well as mc in their interactions. these two facts show she a more reserved, shy kinda girl.

(And this is coming from someone who is not a Maya or Josy fanboy.)

Edit: these characters are multilayered(more so than most other avns out there) so you kinda have to dig into them to see all the layers.

 

[sorco2003]

Replaying the sixth cepisode for the first time since the release was a curious experience as there were things that bothered me then that didn't seem that big this time around, while some aspects perhaps stood out even more. However there is a decision at the end that still drove me absolutely nuts. Now, my complaints about the game would be nothing new, especially since it related to the Josie/Maya story, but I still wanted to get the rant of my chest. I did decide to put it under the spoiler just to save some space and that those just here to be positive about the game can easily skip it.

Spoiler: Blatant negativity about the game behind this

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Great thought. It's a discussion between narrative and "realism". I think the author has increasingly gone for drama rather than keeping certain things within what may or may not happen in real life. What's worse, is that most of those decisions are made just with Maya and her story, we rely almost exclusively on suspension of disbelief.
I am not going to try to defend the story by comparing it with personal experiences, not even to defend it with the logic of the universe that DPC created. I find it more interesting to write how much we can allow ourselves to believe that what happens can happen, believing first in the good work of the author, and then trying to believe in the logic imposed by the story.
Once we can believe that this universe is "alive", then we can believe that while the MC is away, the life of the LI, side girl or even all the other male characters, goes on, and in that goes on things that would be normal for men and women of that age.

 

[TripleV]

I thought there were sex scenes with Josy and Maya (that didn’t include the mc).

Of course they discuss the mc during those scenes, but that’s because this isn’t just a novel, it’s a game, where talking about the Mc elicits thoughts from the players that they themselves are being spoken about, so stroking the mc’s ego will result in stroking the players ego which will result in the player enjoying the game.

Also, while Maya does seem very excited about her new sexual relationship with the MC, there’s nothing surprising about that. She thought she was gay and now she’s finding out she’s bi, she loves Josy but the excitement of a new sexual relationship unfortunately often trumps that of an exisiting one.

While it may be ironic that the fathers efforts to keep Josy and Maya apart have resulted in Maya finding the Mc, that doesn’t diminish Maya’s love for Josy, the only options so far are for Maya and Josy to stay as a couple or for them to include the mc, so it just leads to another relationship that the father would have issues with.

An important point here is the father shouldn’t try to control his adult daughter’s relationships. That’s not to say that parents shouldn’t dispense advice to their adult children, but they shouldn’t control them.

The thing with the Maya/Josie scene is that it only triggers if the MC in a relationship with the two of them. Hence even that scene only exists in a version where the two cannot stop expressing their lust for the MC. If you do not pursue them, there is nothing in the game to indicate that they have any affection to each other, yet that end scene that asks for the player to accept this problem exists in itself.

As I don't know how to multi-quote, I'll tie another comment to this as well. I would agree that the game has a lot of layered characters. For me, you can make that argument about Sage, Isabella, Quinn, Jill and even the teachers. This doesn't necessarily mean that they were all well and badly told stories, just that they have multiple elements to their characters. This does not apply to Josie and Maya who are extremely superficial characters. The issue is that their whole story arc is tied to this 'forbidden' love they have for each other. Except in the reality presented by the game, it doesn't exist at all. Both of them are utterly driven by how much they want to have sex with the MC. The game constantly the stakes of their story and instead of addressing that despite the criticism, the author just doubles down on it.

Also, I want to repeat this, what diminishes their love for each other is that it does not exist in the game. This goes beyond PDA, I could accept them not showing that, but rather in every scene where they have an opportunity to show how much they much they mean to each other, the game makes it how much more each of them values the MC over each other.

 

[DR99]

11023 supporters. 11 thousand. ELEVEN THOUSAND.

Let that sink in

Definitely deserved IMHO

 

[badnboujee]

recently was replaying the macos version of this game and noticed that i don't have access to the petname app on the phone, any ideas for a solution? the app is just greyed out and won't let me click on it

 

[TripleV]

Great thought. It's a discussion between narrative and "realism". I think the author has increasingly gone for drama rather than keeping certain things within what may or may not happen in real life. What's worse, is that most of those decisions are made just with Maya and her story, we rely almost exclusively on suspension of disbelief.
I am not going to try to defend the story by comparing it with personal experiences, not even to defend it with the logic of the universe that DPC created. I find it more interesting to write how much we can allow ourselves to believe that what happens can happen, believing first in the good work of the author, and then trying to believe in the logic imposed by the story.
Once we can believe that this universe is "alive", then we can believe that while the MC is away, the life of the LI, side girl or even all the other male characters, goes on, and in that goes on things that would be normal for men and women of that age.

Yeah, it's not expect realism from these games, they are fantasy fulfillment after all. But this comment really encapsulates my issue as it isn't just suspension of disbelief based on real world, but from what the game chooses to show and tell us. The thing is that if this is the story DPC wanted to tell, then we need to be base our view on the components he chooses to show us about it instead of what we can imagine to fill the blank spots.

To use a positive example, I think the game does a good job with the teacher characters and does the work to show their emotional landscape that would cause them to risk so much by having an affair with a student. But, as pointed out, it also makes the stumbles in the Maya storyline stand out even more.

By the way, writing this, I keep coming back what bothers me the most is not the argued failure of the Maya storyline as not all stories work like intended. That just happens. But that rather that it doesn't feel like there's even a good faith attempt at looking at if it works. To give an example, and I won't name the game because I don't want to make it a competition argument, there is a very successul adult game in development posted on this site that also focuses on character arcs. In that game, there is a character that has been received much more coolly than a lot of the others and even the author themself has joked about it. However, what they did was that instead of just giving up, they added scenes and fleshed character out more to give it more depth and at least try to that story in a direction that they envisioned instead of just pushing on.

Again, it's not that I'm claiming DPC should give up on this storyline, it's his game, but rather considering all the criiticsm the Maya storyline has gotten, even if there are fans of it, the utter lack of effort to address those issues is weird.

 

[Daxos89]

The thing with the Maya/Josie scene is that it only triggers if the MC in a relationship with the two of them. Hence even that scene only exists in a version where the two cannot stop expressing their lust for the MC. If you do not pursue them, there is nothing in the game to indicate that they have any affection to each other, yet that end scene that asks for the player to accept this problem exists in itself.

As I don't know how to multi-quote, I'll tie another comment to this as well. I would agree that the game has a lot of layered characters. For me, you can make that argument about Sage, Isabella, Quinn, Jill and even the teachers. This doesn't necessarily mean that they were all well and badly told stories, just that they have multiple elements to their characters. This does not apply to Josie and Maya who are extremely superficial characters. The issue is that their whole story arc is tied to this 'forbidden' love they have for each other. Except in the reality presented by the game, it doesn't exist at all. Both of them are utterly driven by how much they want to have sex with the MC. The game constantly the stakes of their story and instead of addressing that despite the criticism, the author just doubles down on it.

Also, I want to repeat this, what diminishes their love for each other is that it does not exist in the game. This goes beyond PDA, I could accept them not showing that, but rather in every scene where they have an opportunity to show how much they much they mean to each other, the game makes it how much more each of them values the MC over each other.

I see your point and kinda agree. What I think here is that the story follows the MC. You get the Maya Josy scene only if the MC stays with them. In which case of course the MC will be a subject they revolve around. If the player decide to be just friends, then the story will follow the MC and not the girls. In some scenes they show affection for eachother (library, flashback). I personally do not need them to hang on eachothers tounge all the time to get that they are together. As for Mayas sexuality, it still unceirtain. She has some kind of affection towards the MC but at the full on sex scene the only comment she made was that, it feels wierd. Which gives me an interest on how this will turn out.

 

[sorco2003]

Yeah, it's not expect realism from these games, they are fantasy fulfillment after all. But this comment really encapsulates my issue as it isn't just suspension of disbelief based on real world, but from what the game chooses to show and tell us. The thing is that if this is the story DPC wanted to tell, then we need to be base our view on the components he chooses to show us about it instead of what we can imagine to fill the blank spots.

To use a positive example, I think the game does a good job with the teacher characters and does the work to show their emotional landscape that would cause them to risk so much by having an affair with a student. But, as pointed out, it also makes the stumbles in the Maya storyline stand out even more.

By the way, writing this, I keep coming back what bothers me the most is not the argued failure of the Maya storyline as not all stories work like intended. That just happens. But that rather that it doesn't feel like there's even a good faith attempt at looking at if it works. To give an example, and I won't name the game because I don't want to make it a competition argument, there is a very successul adult game in development posted on this site that also focuses on character arcs. In that game, there is a character that has been received much more coolly than a lot of the others and even the author themself has joked about it. However, what they did was that instead of just giving up, they added scenes and fleshed character out more to give it more depth and at least try to that story in a direction that they envisioned instead of just pushing on.

Again, it's not that I'm claiming DPC should give up on this storyline, it's his game, but rather considering all the criiticsm the Maya storyline has gotten, even if there are fans of it, the utter lack of effort to address those issues is weird.

Whether or not you agree with how it unfolds, it's the story he wants to tell, regardless of the fans, this story starts with Josy and Maya, and no matter how much you want to step aside, that story runs through the entire game until the end of episode 6.
And it will continue to run through the rest of the game.
After this and the need to believe that while the MC is not there, things continue to happen, it is clearly a matter of taste, while I see many virtues in the story of the game and I believe that things happen in the empty spaces, you see fallacies and that nothing exists beyond what the MC sees.
For example, after the discussion at the end of episode 3/beginning of episode 4, neither of them ran after the MC, they sat down to talk, as if nothing had happened 5 minutes before, and they reached an understanding very quickly, because what they felt exists and is there... otherwise either of them would have gone out to tackle the MC. They live in the same room, they even live together in the scavenger hunt. During all that time that the MC doesn't see... nothing happens between them?
I'm not going to try to convince you, I'm just expressing my opinion, which is as wrong as anyone else's.

 

[TripleV]

I see your point and kinda agree. What I think here is that the story follows the MC. You get the Maya Josy scene only if the MC stays with them. In which case of course the MC will be a subject they revolve around. If the player decide to be just friends, then the story will follow the MC and not the girls. In some scenes they show affection for eachother (library, flashback). I personally do not need them to hang on eachothers tounge all the time to get that they are together. As for Mayas sexuality, it still unceirtain. She has some kind of affection towards the MC but at the full on sex scene the only comment she made was that, it feels wierd. Which gives me an interest on how this will turn out.

But the curious thing is that there are a lot of scenes in the game where the MC is not present and that do not actually revolve around him in order to build up those character-specific stakes and motivations. Take for example a lot of Quinn's scenes in Episode 6. However even beyond that, the game makes the Maya/Josy storyline central to the player regardless of the choices made, so at the point it is valid, at least to me, to be critical of how it is told.

To give an example, if the cliffhanger in Episode wasn't Maya's father, I wouldn't care at all about them or have any issues with this. I would actually be happy as this would be the first episode that didn't aggressively force that relationship on the player. However, that was the choice the game made which then kind of asks what it did to do build such a cliffhanger? And the answer is pretty much nothing.

My issue with Maya's storyline isn't that she thinks she actually might like guys, it's that there's no indication within it that she finds women at all attractive sexually, is constantly initiating sex with a guy and expressing her deep enjoyment of it, at least based on everything I've seen. All that might not be for me, but it would be stupid to expect every storyline to be. My problem with the storyline is that Maya's struggle and stakes are completely built on her risking losing everying by being true to being gay. Which the story itself does not support at all.

 

[Fears]

11023 supporters. 11 thousand. ELEVEN THOUSAND.

Let that sink in

Definitely deserved IMHO

well deserved since this game is compared to all others out there just ART

 

[TripleV]

Whether or not you agree with how it unfolds, it's the story he wants to tell, regardless of the fans, this story starts with Josy and Maya, and no matter how much you want to step aside, that story runs through the entire game until the end of episode 6.
And it will continue to run through the rest of the game.
After this and the need to believe that while the MC is not there, things continue to happen, it is clearly a matter of taste, while I see many virtues in the story of the game and I believe that things happen in the empty spaces, you see fallacies and that nothing exists beyond what the MC sees.
For example, after the discussion at the end of episode 3/beginning of episode 4, neither of them ran after the MC, they sat down to talk, as if nothing had happened 5 minutes before, and they reached an understanding very quickly, because what they felt exists and is there... otherwise either of them would have gone out to tackle the MC. They live in the same room, they even live together in the scavenger hunt. During all that time that the MC doesn't see... nothing happens between them?
I'm not going to try to convince you, I'm just expressing my opinion, which is as wrong as anyone else's.

To take a little bit of step back, and by the way we are talking about subjective products so there is not fundamental truth here, I would argue that relying on people making up empty spaces is not good storytelling. To give an example question, let's pretend that this was a TV show, which of course would mean the sex scenes, but everything else was about the same. Would you then think that for the character motivation's to make sense, you needed to make up stuff that happens when it wasn't shown to you was good storytelling?

And by the way, it is absolutely DPC's story to tell, I'm just reacting to how the story has been told so far. I'm not even arguing that he should change the story. What I find weird is that when there has been the criticism, and not just from me, there have been no steps to strengthen that story. Take for example in the latest episode Quinn and how much we were shown of her non-MC related activities. Now imagine that we had one scene, regardless if the MC was in a relationship with them or not, where you saw Maya and Josie showing affection for each other or Maya even expressing some kind of attraction to women in general. Would that not make that cliffhanger that much stronger?

 

[CHAD-MAN]

11023 supporters. 11 thousand. ELEVEN THOUSAND.

Let that sink in

Definitely deserved IMHO

I am so glad this keep growing, it only means the game can become better and better in each episode and have more branches n stuff. I do think eventually DPC will form a game development team, he can only keep improving so much working solo. I am pretty sure, with the inclusion of more mini-game each episodes, DPC will want to go even further than just being a developer of an adult VN and will want to make a full pledge indie game. We're probably really far away from that but I totally see it happening.

well deserved since this game is compared to all others out there just ART

I'd say there's very little games out there that surpass being basically just porn in VN format, and BaDIK pretty much sits on the top as far development/story and even gameplay goes.

 

[Holy Bacchus]

Spoiler: Blatant negativity about the game behind this

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I see what you're saying and I too at times have thought that there are holes in this relationship, but I think it's not quite as narratively problematic as it might appear to be.

For starters, just because Maya hasn't shown signs of being attracted to other girls or even guys doesn't mean that she isn't. I remember when I went to college and there was a girl on my course who I got partnered up with for an assignment that lasted a few months, and over that time we got quite friendly, even hanging out outside of classes. Three months and many conversations later I found out she was gay but I never had any reason to suspect it from how she talked, dressed, behaved around other people, etc. I honestly couldn't tell what she was and I didn't feel comfortable asking her until she one day introduced me to her girlfriend. The point here is that a person doesn't have to be drooling over or making suggestive remarks about the gender they're attracted to in order for you to know what they're attracted to and this could easily be the case with Maya in that she does think other girls are attractive, maybe even some guys, but she doesn't feel the need to express it.

Second point, Maya's Dad is not "in the right", even if her lesbianism was a phase. No parent has the right to decide who their child loves and is attracted to, even if that person were to be a scummy drug dealer or a sexual predator. We all make our own decisions and we all make our own mistakes, and the best a parent can do is to offer support and advice but not outright control their child's life which is what he's trying to do, and for all the wrong reasons too.

Thirdly, Josy is not a "corrupting influence" but rather a positive one that has allowed Maya to express feelings which she has likely been told by her Dad are wrong but she feels are right. She allowed Maya to express herself and what she was feeling at the time and it blossomed into something that likely neither of them predicted. They both do love each other but, as with teenage love, it can be heightened by hormones and thus make them feel like it's more than it is which is completely natural and happens all the time. So right now, both with their relationship and with the throuple relationship, it's all about figuring out whether this is deeper than just hormonal love.

Finally, there was a scene with just M&J in Ep 6 that is seen only on the throuple path and the reason for that is because the MC is the focal point of that scene. Some scenes in this game don't involve the MC as the focal point, like Quinn's scenes, but that's because these are scenes that are important for advancing the story that's running in the background, but scenes involving LIs where the MC isn't present but the scene has a focus on him are not necessary to be seen if he's not in a relationship with them, hence why this M&J scene does not happen for those on the non-M&J path.

At the end of the day, we have to remember that this is a VN focused around the male MC as all games typically are, and as such, the female characters will express much more liking to him than anyone else because that's an aspect of the wish-fulfillment fantasy of these of games. We can interpret their actions in whatever way we like, with some perhaps being more accurate than others, but ultimately you're just supposed to accept that all these girls find the male MC so super attractive and they're all so super horny for him that they only focus on him even if they're with someone else.

 

[obibobi]

To take a little bit of step back, and by the way we are talking about subjective products so there is not fundamental truth here, I would argue that relying on people making up empty spaces is not good storytelling. To give an example question, let's pretend that this was a TV show, which of course would mean the sex scenes, but everything else was about the same. Would you then think that for the character motivation's to make sense, you needed to make up stuff that happens when it wasn't shown to you was good storytelling?

And by the way, it is absolutely DPC's story to tell, I'm just reacting to how the story has been told so far. I'm not even arguing that he should change the story. What I find weird is that when there has been the criticism, and not just from me, there have been no steps to strengthen that story. Take for example in the latest episode Quinn and how much we were shown of her non-MC related activities. Now imagine that we had one scene, regardless if the MC was in a relationship with them or not, where you saw Maya and Josie showing affection for each other or Maya even expressing some kind of attraction to women in general. Would that not make that cliffhanger that much stronger?

Maya and Josie do show affection for each other, they had an entire flashback dedicated to it. That was good enough for me.

But I don't think that really matters, you seem more upset that Maya likes the dick. The games not a coming of age lesbian love story.

 

[sorco2003]

To take a little bit of step back, and by the way we are talking about subjective products so there is not fundamental truth here, I would argue that relying on people making up empty spaces is not good storytelling. To give an example question, let's pretend that this was a TV show, which of course would mean the sex scenes, but everything else was about the same. Would you then think that for the character motivation's to make sense, you needed to make up stuff that happens when it wasn't shown to you was good storytelling?

And by the way, it is absolutely DPC's story to tell, I'm just reacting to how the story has been told so far. I'm not even arguing that he should change the story. What I find weird is that when there has been the criticism, and not just from me, there have been no steps to strengthen that story. Take for example in the latest episode Quinn and how much we were shown of her non-MC related activities. Now imagine that we had one scene, regardless if the MC was in a relationship with them or not, where you saw Maya and Josie showing affection for each other or Maya even expressing some kind of attraction to women in general. Would that not make that cliffhanger that much stronger?

Consider that this is a book that DPC has already written and is delivering it to you in strips, there is no way, even banning people for just mentioning it, that I would change anything about Maya and Josy's story. It is a perfect story? no, as I said before, the biggest problems are precisely with this arc, it was imposed on us, and it is still obligatory to follow it, it is up to each one to accept it or not. Of each character he has given us information, enough or not, we have it, and I fall again in the same, it is up to each one to believe what is possible or not.
In my first run, I chose to remain friends with M&J, because I didn't want to break up with a couple that was presented to me as very much in love, that forgave each other everything without a complaint, and in Maya's words in the prep party "I love Josy, and I don't even know what you are".

 

[InfiniteIgnorance]

But the curious thing is that there are a lot of scenes in the game where the MC is not present and that do not actually revolve around him in order to build up those character-specific stakes and motivations.

This is called "character development" and it's essential to good story telling. Not every minute of one life revolves around the life of another person unless you're in an unhealthy relationship. Quite frankly, he hasn't even scrtached the surface in terms of what he could turn into choices with each character. He could have gone so far as to have choices in the dialogue between two or more characters not named the MC. There are a lot of gaps in the development of these characters, including the MC's entire childhood. It's like he had no friends until ... well, it's like he has no friends. But he goes to college with a bad haircut and suddenly everyone wants him, including the gay and lesbian faction.

DPC went from suspension of disbelief to suspension of belief in about two seconds flat.

 

[shazba]

The thing with the Maya/Josie scene is that it only triggers if the MC in a relationship with the two of them. Hence even that scene only exists in a version where the two cannot stop expressing their lust for the MC. If you do not pursue them, there is nothing in the game to indicate that they have any affection to each other, yet that end scene that asks for the player to accept this problem exists in itself.

As I don't know how to multi-quote, I'll tie another comment to this as well. I would agree that the game has a lot of layered characters. For me, you can make that argument about Sage, Isabella, Quinn, Jill and even the teachers. This doesn't necessarily mean that they were all well and badly told stories, just that they have multiple elements to their characters. This does not apply to Josie and Maya who are extremely superficial characters. The issue is that their whole story arc is tied to this 'forbidden' love they have for each other. Except in the reality presented by the game, it doesn't exist at all. Both of them are utterly driven by how much they want to have sex with the MC. The game constantly the stakes of their story and instead of addressing that despite the criticism, the author just doubles down on it.

Also, I want to repeat this, what diminishes their love for each other is that it does not exist in the game. This goes beyond PDA, I could accept them not showing that, but rather in every scene where they have an opportunity to show how much they much they mean to each other, the game makes it how much more each of them values the MC over each other.

Maya and Josie do show affection for each other, they had an entire flashback dedicated to it. That was good enough for me.

But I don't think that really matters, you seem more upset that Maya likes the dick. The games not a coming of age lesbian love story.

I think it’s just a matter of how much do you need to be convinced?

• The prologue to one of the chapters is the M&J origin story.
• If the MC doesn’t end up with the two girls we see them kissing as the MC walks away.
• If he does end up with them we see their couple sex scene (which we don’t need to see if the don’t end up with the mc),
• We see their threesome (which is admittedly mc centric).
• We see them together all the time

They don’t want to expose their relationship (that’s the weirdest part - Maya has her reasons but I don’t know why Josy feels she’ll be so judged for being bi), so they’re not sucking face everywhere they go, and doing another sex scene for them just to further prove to us they are together seems unnecessary.

Ultimately we know they are together. Why do we need to be convinced even more?

This is called "character development" and it's essential to good story telling. Not every minute of one life revolves around the life of another person unless you're in an unhealthy relationship. Quite frankly, he hasn't even scrtached the surface in terms of what he could turn into choices with each character. He could have gone so far as to have choices in the dialogue between two or more characters not named the MC. There are a lot of gaps in the development of these characters, including the MC's entire childhood. It's like he had no friends until ... well, it's like he has no friends. But he goes to college with a bad haircut and suddenly everyone wants him, including the gay and lesbian faction.

DPC went from suspension of disbelief to suspension of belief in about two seconds flat.

The MC did have no friends, the whole story to Bella tells us this. He was ostracised because he was poor. Then he went to college, a place where no one knows him, and hopefully some people are a little more mature than his previous school, and... it's a porn game, we need girls to be jumping on his dick or it would fail in this genre.

 

[TripleV]

I see what you're saying and I too at times have thought that there are holes in this relationship, but I think it's not quite as narratively problematic as it might appear to be.

For starters, just because Maya hasn't shown signs of being attracted to other girls or even guys doesn't mean that she isn't. I remember when I went to college and there was a girl on my course who I got partnered up with for an assignment that lasted a few months, and over that time we got quite friendly, even hanging out outside of classes. Three months and many conversations later I found out she was gay but I never had any reason to suspect it from how she talked, dressed, behaved around other people, etc. I honestly couldn't tell what she was and I didn't feel comfortable asking her until she one day introduced me to her girlfriend. The point here is that a person doesn't have to be drooling over or making suggestive remarks about the gender they're attracted to in order for you to know what they're attracted to and this could easily be the case with Maya in that she does think other girls are attractive, maybe even some guys, but she doesn't feel the need to express it.

Second point, Maya's Dad is not "in the right", even if her lesbianism was a phase. No parent has the right to decide who their child loves and is attracted to, even if that person were to be a scummy drug dealer or a sexual predator. We all make our own decisions and we all make our own mistakes, and the best a parent can do is to offer support and advice but not outright control their child's life which is what he's trying to do, and for all the wrong reasons too.

Thirdly, Josy is not a "corrupting influence" but rather a positive one that has allowed Maya to express feelings which she has likely been told by her Dad are wrong but she feels are right. She allowed Maya to express herself and what she was feeling at the time and it blossomed into something that likely neither of them predicted. They both do love each other but, as with teenage love, it can be heightened by hormones and thus make them feel like it's more than it is which is completely natural and happens all the time. So right now, both with their relationship and with the throuple relationship, it's all about figuring out whether this is deeper than just hormonal love.

Finally, there was a scene with just M&J in Ep 6 that is seen only on the throuple path and the reason for that is because the MC is the focal point of that scene. Some scenes in this game don't involve the MC as the focal point, like Quinn's scenes, but that's because these are scenes that important for advancing the story that's running in the background, but where scenes involve LIs who are not in a relationship with the MC and these scenes have a focus on the MC even though he's not present, are not necessary to be seen, hence why this M&J scene does not happen on for those on the non-M&J path.

At the end of the day, we have to remember that this is a VN focused around the male MC as all games typically are, and as such, the female characters will express much more liking to him than anyone else because that's an aspect of the wish-fulfillment fantasy of these of games. We can interpret their actions in whatever way we like, with some perhaps being more accurate than others, but ultimately you're just supposed to accept that all these girls find the male MC so super attractive and they're all so super horny for him that they only focus on him even if they're with someone else.

Fairly argued points even if I disagree, or perhaps more accurately think that certain aspects of my argument were misunderstood.

As for this, a couple of responses. First, on the comparison of the Quinn/lack of M&J scenes, the problem there is that the game made the latter a central storyline. I can't repeat this enough, but if the cliffhanger wasn't about Maya's homophobic father. Because of that decision, their storyline is just a part of the larger storyline than the Quinn stuff. It is what drives Maya's need to secure her tuition costs is because of her father's threat because of her sexuality. Maya's whole character arc, stakes and all that are tied to her being gay, at which point it does become a glaring omission in the game that she never shows absolutely no interest in women and only expresses desire to have sex with a guy. That is what created the narrative dissonance and it why I'm baffled that there is litereally no attempt to address that with the progression of the game. If the story was just about how Maya was broke and needed money, I don't personally think that there would be that much room for criticism, even if it was still about turning the lesbian, as it wouldn't so inherently with the foundational struggle. Similarly if that cliffhanger only happened if the MC was in that relationship, then again I don't there's as much as criticism as at least had the bare effort with that one scene.

This kind of connects to the wish fulfillment thing, as I do agree that is what these games are. I'm not expecting real life. Rather my criticism is that within the story the game chooses to tell, it is doing a really bad foundational work with it. It is actually kind of odd, and I haven't been able to figure it out, but there was no other LI the game forced on the player like it did with M&J, yet it is the most lazy with their storyline that it also made a central storyline that you can't avoid. Just utterly baffling.

This isn't by the way the only narrative misstep as I do think in Episode 6 things are really spinning out of control. For example having the cliffhanger be about Mona losing her grant was so random that I just started laughing there. Again for similar reasons as my complaint about M&J as it was this grand moment where the game really hadn't done the work to justify it.

 

[shazba]

Fairly argued points even if I disagree, or perhaps more accurately think that certain aspects of my argument were misunderstood.

As for this, a couple of responses. First, on the comparison of the Quinn/lack of M&J scenes, the problem there is that the game made the latter a central storyline. I can't repeat this enough, but if the cliffhanger wasn't about Maya's homophobic father. Because of that decision, their storyline is just a part of the larger storyline than the Quinn stuff. It is what drives Maya's need to secure her tuition costs is because of her father's threat because of her sexuality. Maya's whole character arc, stakes and all that are tied to her being gay, at which point it does become a glaring omission in the game that she never shows absolutely no interest in women and only expresses desire to have sex with a guy. That is what created the narrative dissonance and it why I'm baffled that there is litereally no attempt to address that with the progression of the game. If the story was just about how Maya was broke and needed money, I don't personally think that there would be that much room for criticism, even if it was still about turning the lesbian, as it wouldn't so inherently with the foundational struggle. Similarly if that cliffhanger only happened if the MC was in that relationship, then again I don't there's as much as criticism as at least had the bare effort with that one scene.

This kind of connects to the wish fulfillment thing, as I do agree that is what these games are. I'm not expecting real life. Rather my criticism is that within the story the game chooses to tell, it is doing a really bad foundational work with it. It is actually kind of odd, and I haven't been able to figure it out, but there was no other LI the game forced on the player like it did with M&J, yet it is the most lazy with their storyline that it also made a central storyline that you can't avoid. Just utterly baffling.

This isn't by the way the only narrative misstep as I do think in Episode 6 things are really spinning out of control. For example having the cliffhanger be about Mona losing her grant was so random that I just started laughing there. Again for similar reasons as my complaint about M&J as it was this grand moment where the game really hadn't done the work to justify it.

It seems to me (and excuse me for such a blunt suggestion), this story doesn't conform to your preferred style of storytelling.

It's obvious BaDIK deliberately does not present all its ducks in a row; it does not make all information available to the reader/player upfront.

That's its strong point. That's what has people on this forum coming up with theories, conspiracies etc. 24 hours a day. When the story is done and told, if there are unanswered questions everywhere, there will be deserved criticism, but right now, the story is done this way to hook in the reader, and by fuck is it effective.

Like I said, it may not appeal to you, but it's the most appealing game on this site - and that's a fact, backed up by statistics.

Did you enjoy Pulp Fiction, where the story was broken up across different timelines, making it initially confusing and then at the end it all makes sense? Some people might find that approach confusing and therefore did not like the approach, others found it a masterpiece. This game's no Pulp Fiction, but it may be the Pulp Fiction of porn games:

• Well chosen music
• Twists and turns
• Memorable characters
• Memorable dialogue

...Ok, it's no Pulp Fiction...

 

[TripleV]

It seems to me (and excuse me for such a blunt suggestion), this story doesn't conform to your preferred style of storytelling.

It's obvious BaDIK deliberately does not present all its ducks in a row; it does not make all information available to the reader/player upfront.

That's its strong point. That's what has people on this forum coming up with theories, conspiracies etc. 24 hours a day. When the story is done and told, if there are unanswered questions everywhere, there will be deserved criticism, but right now, the story is done this way to hook in the reader, and by fuck is it effective.

Like I said, it may not appeal to you, but it's the most appealing game on this site - and that's a fact, backed up by statistics.

Did you enjoy Pulp Fiction, where the story was broken up across different timelines, making it initially confusing and then at the end it all makes sense? Some people might find that approach confusing and therefore did not like the approach, others found it a masterpiece. This game's no Pulp Fiction, but it may be the Pulp Fiction of porn games:

• Well chosen music
• Twists and turns
• Memorable characters
• Memorable dialogue

...Ok, it's no Pulp Fiction...

If you will allow me to be as blunt, isn't that essentially that everything popular isn't inherently good at storytelling? Which would mean that NCIS is apparently the golden goose of great narratives, I mean it's been on for 20 years and still gets good ratings. If it is critical response, well Ben Hur apparently still lives today as great of a movie as ever. If instead of countering points with scenes and narrative from the game your assertion is instead that it is popular, it becomes immune to critical discussion?

And by the way, I am here critical of the actual storytelling being done, not what I prefer. Hell, even in this particular situation there's a lot of games on this very site that have the MC turning the lesbian through the power of their magic dick, these are wish fulfillment games after all. I don't have a problem with a majority of those, even if I don't prefer the trope personally, as in them it is executed within the narrative framework they present.

Even the fact that I vent about this is that I do think there are several parts the game does well, which makes these fallacies stand up more. For example, I think the Sage storyline relatively well done and I've already pointed out the work with the teacher stories. With that I guess it is time for me to leave the negativity with me as I don't think any discussion can remain constructive once popularity becomes the defense.