xsssssssss

Active Member
Jun 17, 2017
811
1,039
Well. That was boring.

Not so much because "Zoey bad" but more a "Zoey, don't really care". I am sure DPC is going to up the drama, but if it is through Zoey it just going to be annoying if it can't be skipped or otherwise avoided through branched paths.

Edit: IMO, If DPC wanted Zoey to be a bigger part and have a bigger impact on the story with this return, he should had Zoey part of the first 1-2 chapters before being whisked away for $reasons.
Yeah very much this. Either have her majorly involved in the beginning or leave her as one-off memory flashback imo.
 
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MadMonk

Member
May 26, 2017
128
548
Overall not a bad or great update, maybe would care for Zoey more if she was introduced this way at the start of season 2, but now I could not really care less for her, there are other characters that grew on me over the past few updates.
Anyway now we wait for another 6 months.
 
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van321

Member
Jan 7, 2021
196
346
What's the name of the surf rock song used in the second lesson? Kinda sounds similar to a cover of Bustin' Surfboards, but it isn't.
 
Mar 3, 2022
24
59
Overall not a bad or great update, maybe would care for Zoey more if she was introduced this way at the start of season 2, but now I could not really care less for her, there are other characters that grew on me over the past few updates.
Anyway now we wait for another 6 months.
Personaly i do believe thats the problem, its already to late for this, this should happen before season 2 or someting like that.
 
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Lostanddamned

Engaged Member
Mar 29, 2019
2,825
17,900
i dont want to just echo what several others before me have already eloquently summed up about the Interlude, so i'll just say "meh".

some good things: production value was high as per usual, things are very good on a technical level. thats about it i guess

some less than good things: "minigame" was so simplistic and pointless it probably could have just been omitted.

i dont think the binary choices he allows us to make actually make sense in this type of game when we arent the MC. if he had an origin/story that he wanted us to know about Zoey and who she is as a character then DPC should have told us what she is like himself. in BaDIK he determines the other characters personalities and we as the players decide who we are into, but with this system he is trying to shortcut this due to the fact she is plot relevant again out of nowhere by putting her "personality" into the hands players themselves in a attempt force endearment or attraction. like imagine if all the other LIs have flashback episodes where we could choose what they were like ourselves? knowing this board, tons of people would make sure all the girls were canonically virgins like Jill lol. if this type of character building doesnt work with the other girls then it should stand that it doesnt work with Zoey either. to me it makes her seem less than the other girls because she feels less like an organic part of a larger story that DPC has already written and more like a fabrication he views as necessary at this point in time. to me it just makes her feel like she isnt really a part of the story like the other characters. this Interlude probably should have just been like an actual visual novel/slideshow for everything minus the sex scene where the player can choose what to see.

also i know that DPC has said that Life is Strange was a big inspiration for him. and that is a REALLY good game so thats not surprising. but this episode put too much in my face how blatant that inspiration can be. this is just a personal preference for me, if you havent played that game you likely wouldnt notice a thing. but while the notebook was well done it felt like an actual rip off of LiS, coupled with the fact that there is a blue haired girl named Zoey (not Chloe) that has a tough exterior that hides her emotions and tries to run from her problems and whatever was a little to on the nose for me. the music in the games were already a nice inspiration/reference to LiS, there didnt need to be more obvious stuff than that IMO.

and finally i dont actually believe DPC when is says this was "integral" to the BaDIK story. he literally just wanted to force our MC to make a final choice regarding our LIs and then have Zoey swoop in for some obligatory drama immediately afterwards. i'll say im not a fan of this tactic of storytelling, tbh. on that note, having another ending like the last episode where the final cliffhanger scene is basically identical no matter what your choices have been is lame. this just reinforces the appearance of the illusion of choice as opposed to legitimate branching paths we are supposed to think we have

anyways, now back to the long and tedious wait for the real stuff that is coming waaaaaay down the line. Good luck everyone :)
I find it strange that he used Life is Strange as an inspiration. I always thought that he took ideas from Bully, to be honest, but maybe it's from both.

Overall though, without going too much into spoilers - Interlude was better than I expected it to be. Zoey was well-written and defined, her motives were clear and we found out there were reasons behind each of her actions (unlike some other characters written in the story, which make you scratch your head).

But most importantly, Zoey was relatable, at least to me as a person, unlike other characters in the game like Jill, Bella, Rusty, Sage, Quinn or Chad.

We all have dreams and ideas and you have to be very brave to leave everything behind to chase them. Her Nana storyline is beautifully written and at the same time, it's heart-wrenching, it's emotional. I've already said it in an another thread, it's probably the first time I got so emotionally invested in a VN and it seems that DPC has kicked his writing up multiple notches (or maybe it's because the episode is smaller in size and he isn't as rushed as to get things done in time so he can outdo himself once again).

The part where we define Zoey's character is questionable, since she really isn't the MC, so we'll see the outcome of it in the next episode probably. I'm assuming it's going to be something related if she'll be a DIK or a CHICK character depending on our choices.

But overall it's been a very very good update, even though I was very sceptical of it at first. I'd even go as far as to say that its probably in the top 2 updates of the game in terms of storytelling.

But the worst thing is having to wait for the actual episode 9 again. I'm hopeful we'll get it sometime in July or August, since with the Interlude out of the way, it's going to be a smaller update, but my gut tells me that it will probably be a late-September or early-October release.
 

Old Man Al

Active Member
Jan 18, 2022
954
6,284
Loved the Interlude, even if or maybe because it felt and played somehow different than the main.
Not sure yet if I am like "to late for you sorry, Zoey" or not though. But I enjoyed this nontheless - a lot. :)
 
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kioryu52

Member
Aug 4, 2020
136
289
Ok. Just finished it. I will not complain about the lenght of it, because honestly, not only was it not a problem to me, I also really preferred it to be short, cuz boy the story already seemed kinda dragged out. In the beggining, I will admit I had a lovecraftian, cosmic-horror terror of playing as anyone other than MC, and while that didn't really change completely, I understand Zoey well enough, but I think that you could have the same result of this with an extended flashback in ep 9, or maybe 10. There were great scenes here, really, especially the ending. Zoey realizing, like many of us, somethings...just don't work out. However it may come down. We take the good and the bad, what's given, and try to move on. That's all we can do. The price of having what we want is that now we have what we USED TO want. Her quotes with Bret at the end were really high-level stuff, and some of the finist BaDIK writing I've seen. But there was some weird stuff too...the entire circunstances and contrived writing of her friend's backstabbing, which came entirely out of nowhere (I 100% know she's gonna come back as a baddie in the next season of BaDIK, even though it makes 0 sense), and in general, I felt like we only got surface-level understanding of the characters, which, as I've said before, if that was the purpose, why not just make It a flashback, like MC's mom? People were speculating this episode was done to gather interest to Zoey as a potential main LI, but I sure as fuck wouldn't choose her over Quinn, Sage, Bella, Jill, Josy or Maya, so, I'm just a tad lost about it's purpose...

Which is not to say the technical aspect is not amazing, the songs, the melancholy of it, it's all top notch, and really, REALLY looking forward to the next episode, because SHIT'S GOING DOWN.

See you soon, DIK brothers!
 

kioryu52

Member
Aug 4, 2020
136
289
Also, you think Maya wasn't hated bad enough? Sheeeeeeeit <removed> get ready for 5 (FIVE) months of unending complaining about her. See you guys in August lol
 
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akiostein

Active Member
Aug 9, 2021
687
680
can't import save data season 2 to season 3. very sad. I think I have to re-download season 2. Does anyone have save data for season 2? I play using emu joiplay
 
Oct 18, 2021
85
346
Just finished it. And I see that people reacted differently to it. I, for one, can say that I was pleasantly surprised by the Interlude and how DPC managed to tell everything that he wanted and what was necessary for such a short (mini) episode by his own standards. I wasn't as skeptical as some people here, but it still surprised me. Even though it's just ~800 renders and ~50 animations, it has a lot of dialogue and good storytelling to really bring us closer to Zoey and make her a much better and more relatable character, building upon that foundation of a 5-minute flashback sequence back in Episode 3. She definitely won me over in this update, and I am excited to see how DPC develops her further in the main episodes because there's tons of potential
 

markblazes

Member
Jun 16, 2020
251
173
Does anybody have a "Sage Only, Neutral/Chik" path that they can share? Preferably one that's at the end of episode 8, but I can take one that starts at the beginning of ep 8 too.
 

varage

Active Member
Jun 26, 2019
801
614
as i thought the update didn't me care about zoey only good thing to me was the music now back to waiting
Also knowing that MC can play the drums on the guitar was pretty cool as well. In that song that he knew what it was.
If he didn't have a scholarship before he does once he plays that piece for the music teacher.
 

Skylaroo

Well-Known Member
May 28, 2017
1,761
4,607
Do we have to play through the Interlude for every Season 2 save file to then load to Season 3?
 
4.80 star(s) 1,538 Votes