I am quite optimistic about this game, although I do have some criticisms, some of which are that the characters are not developed enough and that the beat goes round and round (party, romance, sex, then another party). The interlude is, in my view, a good idea to experiment with, and likely to be repeated with other girls, rather than just sticking to short flashbacks.
There is nothing worse to kill a project than to dictate to the creator how he should compose the writing; supporting a project is not taking ownership. I can't imagine the amount of negative feedback Dr PinkCake would have received if he had first announced that his new game was going to deal with the sexual orientation question.
And even if this interlude is a failure, which is not yet proven, what do we lose, we players? Are four months of development in a game that will take years to be completed such a huge delay? Concerns about the interlude are fine, but to prejudge it and dramatize the consequences seems excessive to me; I trust Dr PinkCake's ability to learn from his mistakes.
A four month delay is certainly annoying if the end product falls flat, but I agree it's not the end of the world. That said, IMHO the real risk with the Interlude isn't the time it takes, it's the structural damage it could do to the story.
To me, Season 2 felt like it stalled too many paths trying to set up the crossroads. I didn't much care for that, but now that it's finally done I expect the game to move on and finally explore the MC's new relationship (or his confirmed bachelorhood if you picked Others). If the Interlude disrupts that and we're stuck in yet another holding pattern as we develop Zoey and have her tie up the new branches so the MC can angst over the commitment all over again, that's a serious problem.
Obviously there's no guarantee the Interlude will do that; we should keep an open mind. But this isn't a risk free endeavor. DPC is trying something very difficult to pull off, which means charging blindly on and ignoring feedback is likely to end badly. And if there's one thing I worry about with DPC it's that he is absolutely the
last guy to learn from his mistakes; he's far, far more likely to block out any dissent and double down. The validity of that dissent is immaterial to him.
Sure, writing by committee is a terrible idea. But a lone author convinced he can do no wrong is at least as bad. There aren't any ironclad solutions here. As Maya would say:
My concern about the Interlude isn't because it's an inherently bad idea, it's because I feel like DPC is staking the future of the game on something that plays to his weaknesses as a writer, not his strengths. That's not a bet I'd want to make. We're stuck with it now, though, so we just have to hope he rolls a natural 20.
OK, here's a question for everyone. If you had known before you ever played BaDIK that it could take nine to eleven years to complete, would you have still played the game?
It was the heart of the COVID lockdown, so yeah, I'd probably have started anyway.
If you want a serious answer, I'm willing to accept the risks of a long development time if the product has the ambition and quality necessary to justify that time. BaDIK does. That doesn't mean I won't worry about DPC screwing up along the way, but that risk is inherent in any project. The bigger the stakes, the bigger the risk.
I'll just give you a like to end that conversation (Omicron has me with a fever and I need to rest for a while)
Get better soon, AC! I'll try to lay off Zoey until you're up to speed again.
