VN Ren'Py Being a DIK [v0.11.1] [DrPinkCake]

[zoyle]

your hypothesis scares me, but it also teases me, which would probably end up creating even more a rift between the player and MC.

already now many players feel that they do not "control" MC in the important choices (myself included), with a dream MC would either "tell" the player what he really wants to do, or "ask" the player what to do (who to choose, who to dump.. .).

the first hypothesis would be the most probable (the second would imply that at that point the game must be divided on different branches), at which point we (players) should accept what the dream suggests to us?

I mean its always nice when people playing a game feel agency and in control of the path and the choices feel meaningful, but equally its beyond the scope of the creations we get to both have protagonists who are completely under the control of the player and who are well-characterized with good storylines. You're always going to be making choices within a certain band of behaviors and personality. You can give great detail and context to those differences (and the outcomes can be fairly substantially different), but this isn't an open-world sandbox game where you can do whatever you want, and games that do give you enormous freedom over what you do and how you interact tend to have much, much worse storylines and tend to be 'event repetition' games like Cure My Addiction or The Tyrant.

DPC makes really good, complex, realistic characters. The protagonist, while you control them to an extent, is one of those. Even if you, say, go full DIK, he's still a pretty kind and sensitive person in private to Maya. Even if he goes full CHICK, he's still willing/capable of all sorts of fratty stuff. He's a range of possibilities. Hopefully folks who play the game can find where that range overlaps with theirs, but it's never gonna be perfect, and it's not gonna be realistic to support the full range of personalities. And that is necessary, I think: In order for the interactable characters to be well-designed and realistic and complex, they have to have a MC foil who is as well.

I would use as illustration that even the biggest budget, mass-market open-world games tend to have fairly simple supporting storyline characters. Look at, say, Fallout 4 for instance. You can do whatever you want, but the companions are pretty simple and narrow characters. On the other hand, with Witcher 3 you have a scenario more like you see in this game: Geralt is a person independent of the player, your options are limited to within the range of things Geralt would possibly do, and consequently Geralt gets to interact and have relationships with much more complex and detailed characters. If Geralt's personality was as free-form and flexible as the Fallout protagonist, you couldn't have those kinds of supporting NPCs. They play off each other.

 

[zoyle]

And they frequently don't. How many men have dreams of having a harem. Being an action hereo etc etc? Think most have had them? You need to actually understand how dreams work and don't. They are combination of our experiences (the MC has experienced the game), our desires, fears, ambitions and lot of other things. Now while one can actually influence to a point our dreams before falling asleep, what happens within them is totally out of our control. And often, when you can remember them (and there are tricks for that too btw) they are often highly random. So the MC could be walking through a forest in his dream, for no reason at all then all of a sudden he is with his ftriends. That's how dreams work. It's our minds and subconcious dealing with our thoughts, emotions and what I mentioned before and sorting them.

So, it really is not beyond the realms of possibility that he could dream of a DnG game as a way of his subconcious sorting through his feelings and emotions.

To me I'm with HB, it's far more 'logical' then every LI of his being in the library all at the same time and all deciding to play the game. That to me just doesn't add up, unless DPC wants to purposefully cause conflict between them and start the branching/forcing LI paths so early. Who knows?

I guess I kind of wonder about option C: It's part of a reward render sequence or something else that is immaterial to the actual game, but is in the game.

 

[zoyle]

This exactly. There's been many an argument here about it. we do not have control. We are on rails (whether anyone wwants to accept that or not), we are playing a set defined path and character. It is the illusion of choice.

As you say, even AAA devs (take Mass Effect as an example) has a set ending, a set path and all other choices are just fairly monir ultimately. Regarldess of choices, the MC will do certain things, we will end up at the same place (final endings aside). No one, not even major AAA multi million budget game companies have the money/time/resources to make what would effectively become 25 completely different stories without railing you along a certain path as you said.

I completely agree and it causes issues at times (such as my hatred of the 'leaving Maya's dorm scene). Regardless of what you do, it happens.



Well either way, we'll find out soon enough (or not soon enough for some folk lol). Then all these discussions will start again with something else

Yeah indeed. I have personal experience in a poly relationship, so I probably wouldn't do what MC did at the end of Ep 4!

But a lot of people would, and it's necessary for storyline development. And MC is 18 years old. Even when my poly relationship was starting, and I was in college, I was substantially older and more experienced than he is. Who knows what I would have done at 18? It might have been equally, or more, stupid.


Being on rails is the price you pay for good characters. Mass Effect is my favorite video game series of all time, and Shepard has one of the widest ranges of personality of any controllable protagonist in a game with great characters - but it's one of the greatest game series of all time for a reason, and it was a AAA production from one of the greatest game studios in history, for the explicit purpose of creating exactly that effect, and people were STILL unhappy with the way the story resolved to the point they had to add a fan service patch to the ending! (and, if we're being honest, the two personality paths aren't equal experiences, especially in the first game, where renegade Shepard is often too much of a cartoon villain; paragon Shepard is a much better play experience, where a lot of the decisions feel more weighty and difficult, whereas the renegade options are often just 'be an asshole').

 

[Yuno Gasai]

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Episode 6 - Preview #5: Isabella & Sage

didn't see that coming

Bella: So you're saying that you fucked someone on Tybalt's bed?
Sage: Yup
B: Come here my soul sister (hugging). Btw who?
S: Nothing serious, just some guitar obsessed freshy
B:

 

[Cndyrvr4lf]

Yeah indeed. I have personal experience in a poly relationship, so I probably wouldn't do what MC did at the end of Ep 4!

But a lot of people would, and it's necessary for storyline development. And MC is 18 years old. Even when my poly relationship was starting, and I was in college, I was substantially older and more experienced than he is. Who knows what I would have done at 18? It might have been equally, or more, stupid.


Being on rails is the price you pay for good characters. Mass Effect is my favorite video game series of all time, and Shepard has one of the widest ranges of personality of any controllable protagonist in a game with great characters - but it's one of the greatest game series of all time for a reason, and it was a AAA production from one of the greatest game studios in history, for the explicit purpose of creating exactly that effect, and people were STILL unhappy with the way the story resolved to the point they had to add a fan service patch to the ending! (and, if we're being honest, the two personality paths aren't equal experiences, especially in the first game, where renegade Shepard is often too much of a cartoon villain; paragon Shepard is a much better play experience, where a lot of the decisions feel more weighty and difficult, whereas the renegade options are often just 'be an asshole').

Exactly so ultimately this will be no different. Yes it's great for flavour on different runs but is still ultimately fluff as we are being led somewhere. Also, just like in ME, DPC will have a 'default/canon' playthrough in his head, that is already (to me at least) becoming evident with the way a lot of the characters act and the dialogue between them.

But, having said that, that's just something you have to roll with if you want to play/enjoy the game.

The problem with this comparison is that we knew where we were "going" in ME. Save the universe, destroy the reapers was the end game. We have no clue where we are going in BaDik. What's the end game? We need an objective to get to and DPC while he has created a cast of semi well defined characters hasn't really given us enough info to know what the goal is. Find a LI? Be happy? Graduate (probably not)?

 

[felicemastronzo]

I mean its always nice when people playing a game feel agency and in control of the path and the choices feel meaningful, but equally its beyond the scope of the creations we get to both have protagonists who are completely under the control of the player and who are well-characterized with good storylines. You're always going to be making choices within a certain band of behaviors and personality. You can give great detail and context to those differences (and the outcomes can be fairly substantially different), but this isn't an open-world sandbox game where you can do whatever you want, and games that do give you enormous freedom over what you do and how you interact tend to have much, much worse storylines and tend to be 'event repetition' games like Cure My Addiction or The Tyrant.

DPC makes really good, complex, realistic characters. The protagonist, while you control them to an extent, is one of those. Even if you, say, go full DIK, he's still a pretty kind and sensitive person in private to Maya. Even if he goes full CHICK, he's still willing/capable of all sorts of fratty stuff. He's a range of possibilities. Hopefully folks who play the game can find where that range overlaps with theirs, but it's never gonna be perfect, and it's not gonna be realistic to support the full range of personalities. And that is necessary, I think: In order for the interactable characters to be well-designed and realistic and complex, they have to have a MC foil who is as well.

I would use as illustration that even the biggest budget, mass-market open-world games tend to have fairly simple supporting storyline characters. Look at, say, Fallout 4 for instance. You can do whatever you want, but the companions are pretty simple and narrow characters. On the other hand, with Witcher 3 you have a scenario more like you see in this game: Geralt is a person independent of the player, your options are limited to within the range of things Geralt would possibly do, and consequently Geralt gets to interact and have relationships with much more complex and detailed characters. If Geralt's personality was as free-form and flexible as the Fallout protagonist, you couldn't have those kinds of supporting NPCs. They play off each other.

I agree with you on the general line.

but in a game where MC has to manage / choose between different LIs, whenever this possibility is denied it is not easy to digest.

you are faced with guilt or drama over choices you would not have made and you have tried to avoid by making choices that are basically ignored

and this remains a problem in the gaming experience

then all the compliments you do to DPC I share them, but this "control" problem I think is the main criticism he faced with AL (the inevitable love story with Megan) and it doesn't seem to have changed much

 

[AvatarStormBringer]

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Episode 6 - Preview #5: Isabella & Sage

Sigh.. why?? WHY are you making it so hard for me to choose!!!!

didn't see that coming

Bella: So you're saying that you fucked someone on Tybalt's bed?
Sage: Yup
B: Come here my soul sister (hugging). Btw who?
S: Nothing serious, just some guitar obsessed freshy
B:

B: Hm... for the last 2 weeks there's only one guitar hugging freshy that I'm aware of.

 

[Maviarab]

Sigh.. why?? WHY are you making it so hard for me to choose!!!!

B: Hm... for the last 2 weeks there's only one guitar hugging freshy that I'm aware of.

*Bella remembers she must get her Axe back from being sharpened on Sat morning*

 

[zoyle]

The problem with this comparison is that we knew where we were "going" in ME. Save the universe, destroy the reapers was the end game. We have no clue where we are going in BaDik. What's the end game? We need an objective to get to and DPC while he has created a cast of semi well defined characters hasn't really given us enough info to know what the goal is. Find a LI? Be happy? Graduate (probably not)?

I mean, with DPC anything is possible (see: Acting Lessons), but the primary tension point in the plot is what Quinn and Tommy have been doing, and I would guess that getting that resolved while protecting as many of MC's friends as possible and determining who he wants to have a long-term relationship with is the ultimate endgame.

Also I will say that a thing that folks should give some credence to is that kids (and an 18 year old in college is, uh, definitely still a kid in most regards) make a lot of impulsive decisions, especially where sex is involved. There is, to a certain extent, a degree of realism in the way that games give you a decisionpoint and then you cannot necessarily extract yourself from what comes after immediately. Events and relationships have a tendency to develop their own momentum, and that's something that is definitely magnified by what a short time scale this game is on (Episode 5 is like literally a 24 hour period).

The player, while they're probably horny while playing since this is an adult game, is not going to have the same level of investment as the MC would about their relationships, so having stuff that they do impulsively that the player can't control reflects the way people frequently agree to do things and then wonder afterwards what they were thinking. And that kind of thing is especially common in drinking, peer pressure, sex type scenarios.

Its funny to think about folks criticizing the mandatory love relationship with Megan in AL when it is like, literally what you think you're getting when you download the game, and i would further argue that if that's how you play the game, the end of the game is actually the least emotionally impactful. Choosing between people you care about is difficult. Choosing your lover over your friend is not as difficult. The ending of AL is more emotionally difficult if you don't exclusively pursue Megan.

But it's hard to imagine looking at the basic concept of the game and it's description blurb that the game isn't primarily about your relationship with her. It's similar to how Being a DIK is a game about, among other things, joining a fraternity. While some portion of people, faced with the events of the game, might choose to leave the fraternity and pursue a girl who is not really part of that scene (like Jill or Isabella, or even Maya and Josy aren't like, members yet, they could back out), it's simply not what the game is intended to be about, and a path that involves leaving the fraternity and playing through while dating Jill or something is almost certainly not gonna happen.

 

[Holy Bacchus]

The problem with this comparison is that we knew where we were "going" in ME. Save the universe, destroy the reapers was the end game. We have no clue where we are going in BaDik. What's the end game? We need an objective to get to and DPC while he has created a cast of semi well defined characters hasn't really given us enough info to know what the goal is. Find a LI? Be happy? Graduate (probably not)?

I suppose you could look at this lack of a known goal being a reflection of the MC, that he doesn't really know where things are going for him right now and is just taking each day as it comes. But I think this season will start to see things move towards establishing what the overall narrative is and I think it will be a lot to do with Quinn, that her operations (particularly the drugs) are going to start getting out of hand and it will affect the HOTs, the DIKs, and maybe even the whole college. So it will fall to the MC as the reluctant "hero" who will get drawn into it and be led in to situations where they have to put out all these fires (no pun intended) with the help of the people they've met along the way, whilst also balancing their various relationship dramas.

 

[zoyle]

The aesthetic attraction of Bella is insane. She should have been illegal for Dr. Pink Cake to create. Like, we're eternally fucked for seeing those renders. Here's to sweating an animation so hard in quarantine you lose track of space and time before melting into a singularity. Cheers.

lol this is how I feel about Maya and Jill. The only problem with Jill is that she's unrealistically perfect (she almost looks airbrushed, no one's makeup is THAT good), and Maya's just absolutely fuckin' adorable.

 

[Holy Bacchus]

Maya's just absolutely fuckin' adorable.

Now on that one, you will have not arguments from me.

 

[Wizard_Shiryuu]

But what happens in a game of DnG also didn't happen. Did the MC actually bend Sally over and spank her? No. Did the MC sacrifice his actual life to save Jill? No. So if the MC were to again do something similar with a LI in the context of the game, did it actually happen? No.

I suppose it would speak to the irrationality of people's feelings that they would get so worked up over something so small and insignificant, but it still feels like something that could be done better with actual moments and interactions in the everyday world rather than in a fantasy world.

Yes and no. It doesn't technically happen, but interacting with people's characters is also interacting with their owners. One shouldn't meta too much, if your characters argue or they get some bad blood with each other you shouldn't take it out of the game (same with positive interactions), but some people can't avoid doing that. So... I have mixed feelings about it, depends on how DPC does it.

I mean, if your character gets spanked you have some grounds to be mad, don't you?

Not to mention that outfit would be wildly inappropriate for someone who is not only the college librarian but also a teacher. But, this is a game and as such it works by game logic which make her outfit totally OK.

Yeah... I'd also like non revealing outfits from time to time.

 

[zoyle]

Now on that one, you will have not arguments from me.

View attachment 765822

Obviously Maya is a somewhat-unrealistically hot video game girl, but she reminds me wayy to much of one of the women in my life, making a DIK savegame that opted out of her relationship to pursue Sage was actively difficult.

I don't trust very many creators to do poly relationship well, and this is probably the best chance of that happening.

 

[ratttta]

Saw the latest DPC tweet.

Spoiler

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I don´t know why but I really like Lilly. Hope to see more of her.

 

[Cndyrvr4lf]

I mean, with DPC anything is possible (see: Acting Lessons), but the primary tension point in the plot is what Quinn and Tommy have been doing, and I would guess that getting that resolved while protecting as many of MC's friends as possible and determining who he wants to have a long-term relationship with is the ultimate endgame.

Also I will say that a thing that folks should give some credence to is that kids (and an 18 year old in college is, uh, definitely still a kid in most regards) make a lot of impulsive decisions, especially where sex is involved. There is, to a certain extent, a degree of realism in the way that games give you a decisionpoint and then you cannot necessarily extract yourself from what comes after immediately. Events and relationships have a tendency to develop their own momentum, and that's something that is definitely magnified by what a short time scale this game is on (Episode 5 is like literally a 24 hour period).

The player, while they're probably horny while playing since this is an adult game, is not going to have the same level of investment as the MC would about their relationships, so having stuff that they do impulsively that the player can't control reflects the way people frequently agree to do things and then wonder afterwards what they were thinking. And that kind of thing is especially common in drinking, peer pressure, sex type scenarios.

Its funny to think about folks criticizing the mandatory love relationship with Megan in AL when it is like, literally what you think you're getting when you download the game, and i would further argue that if that's how you play the game, the end of the game is actually the least emotionally impactful. Choosing between people you care about is difficult. Choosing your lover over your friend is not as difficult. The ending of AL is more emotionally difficult if you don't exclusively pursue Megan.

But it's hard to imagine looking at the basic concept of the game and it's description blurb that the game isn't primarily about your relationship with her. It's similar to how Being a DIK is a game about, among other things, joining a fraternity. While some portion of people, faced with the events of the game, might choose to leave the fraternity and pursue a girl who is not really part of that scene (like Jill or Isabella, or even Maya and Josy aren't like, members yet, they could back out), it's simply not what the game is intended to be about, and a path that involves leaving the fraternity and playing through while dating Jill or something is almost certainly not gonna happen.

The problem is that its hard to get emotionally invested in actions/characters when we as players may not have chosen them. Some of the LI's are being pushed on us by the MC's actions that we don't have control over. This is a design flaw brought on by DPCs need to follow the story line. I realize he has a end game in mind but we don't know it.

I suppose you could look at this lack of a known goal being a reflection of the MC, that he doesn't really know where things are going for him right now and is just taking each day as it comes. But I think this season will start to see things move towards establishing what the overall narrative is and I think it will be a lot to do with Quinn, that her operations (particularly the drugs) are going to start getting out of hand and it will affect the HOTs, the DIKs, and maybe even the whole college. So it will fall to the MC as the reluctant "hero" who will get drawn into it and be led in to situations where they have to put out all these fires (no pun intended) with the help of the people they've met along the way, whilst also balancing their various relationship dramas.

All grand quest type storylines have an end game. All of our goals so far have been immediate. Become a DIK? Got it. Help Maya join the HOT's? Working on it. Without having a finish line in mind we have no clue what the overall intent of this game is. It cant be to become an engineer like the MC wants because that would actually be self defeating as far as the LI's go. An engineer degree takes 4 years to get at the basic level. Sage and Jill at a minimum wont be at B&R in 4 years. So what are we doing all this for? Your mention of the Quinn scenario only works if we want to help Quinn. The fact that she isn't even an LI makes it potentially problematic because we have no reason to save her. We could save all the LI's and be like fuck Quinn.

 

[Maviarab]

Your mention of the Quinn scenario only works if we want to help Quinn. The fact that she isn't even an LI makes it potentially problematic because we have no reason to save her. We could save all the LI's and be like fuck Quinn.

Right on! I'll do it on one run just to see all content (if that is an option), but I'm happy to watch (or even help) her burn down to the ground. All this crap of she doesn't know what she is doing blah blah she a teenager. She made her choices to be a junky pimp...she can lie in that bed while I watch from afar while kissing Josy on the neck hehe.

 

[zoyle]

This part has always amused me. Surely there are better and quicker things to watch if horny hehehe....or just me that plays for the story and the 'scenes' are just an interesting bonus?

I mean, I would suggest broadly that people mostly play games with explicit XXX content at least in part to turn themselves on, as if we're being honest there are much more complex and detailed titles available elsewhere. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they're fapping right along while they play, either, though that probably happens.

I think one thing that's worth giving some thought is that there's a certain range of fantasies/fetishes out there that require a certain level of emotional investment. You can get that from a character in a story the same way as reading written erotica (like in literotica) and in a way you aren't likely to get directly from porn. To use probably an extreme example, its pretty common for people who are into cuck/NTR stuff to look for porn where the actress resembles their wife. The difference betwen simple voyuerism and NTR/cuckold stuff is not the actions that happen, its the emotional tie. Good writing can create emotional experience and enable erotic content that you can't get from a porn video.

To use this game as an example, the difference between a threesome and a poly relationship is emotional investment. There's MMF and MFF threesome videos everywhere on the internet, but if you have a fantasy (or a real life experience!) with a poly relationship, they will only touch that note if they remind you of someone you do care about.

 

[PookieSage]

This part has always amused me. Surely there are better and quicker things to watch if horny hehehe....or just me that plays for the story and the 'scenes' are just an interesting bonus?

Agreed, I play this game just for the story, drama and wholesome moments. Really wanna see what will happen next. I'm not a fan of CGI ''porn''

 

[felicemastronzo]

I mean, with DPC anything is possible (see: Acting Lessons), but the primary tension point in the plot is what Quinn and Tommy have been doing, and I would guess that getting that resolved while protecting as many of MC's friends as possible and determining who he wants to have a long-term relationship with is the ultimate endgame.

Also I will say that a thing that folks should give some credence to is that kids (and an 18 year old in college is, uh, definitely still a kid in most regards) make a lot of impulsive decisions, especially where sex is involved. There is, to a certain extent, a degree of realism in the way that games give you a decisionpoint and then you cannot necessarily extract yourself from what comes after immediately. Events and relationships have a tendency to develop their own momentum, and that's something that is definitely magnified by what a short time scale this game is on (Episode 5 is like literally a 24 hour period).

The player, while they're probably horny while playing since this is an adult game, is not going to have the same level of investment as the MC would about their relationships, so having stuff that they do impulsively that the player can't control reflects the way people frequently agree to do things and then wonder afterwards what they were thinking. And that kind of thing is especially common in drinking, peer pressure, sex type scenarios.

but if every character is justified in doing what he likes, as a player, what interest do I have in thinking about what to do with each proposed choice?

Why if I don't care about Jill, she still has to be a constant threat to my every approach to Bella?

why if MC just kissed Josy before he went to college, he got to be put out by Maya?

if everything has to go like this what do I choose to do?

Its funny to think about folks criticizing the mandatory love relationship with Megan in AL when it is like, literally what you think you're getting when you download the game, and i would further argue that if that's how you play the game, the end of the game is actually the least emotionally impactful. Choosing between people you care about is difficult. Choosing your lover over your friend is not as difficult. The ending of AL is more emotionally difficult if you don't exclusively pursue Megan.

But it's hard to imagine looking at the basic concept of the game and it's description blurb that the game isn't primarily about your relationship with her. It's similar to how Being a DIK is a game about, among other things, joining a fraternity. While some portion of people, faced with the events of the game, might choose to leave the fraternity and pursue a girl who is not really part of that scene (like Jill or Isabella, or even Maya and Josy aren't like, members yet, they could back out), it's simply not what the game is intended to be about, and a path that involves leaving the fraternity and playing through while dating Jill or something is almost certainly not gonna happen.

that's not quite the case

if in AL you are very loyal to Megan you don't have to choose who to save, rightly so.

the scene loses much of the dramatic sense, Melissa is ultimately Megan's best friend, not MC's. and in fact it is one of the least engaging endings (even less than the one done badly for Rena)

the story is much more complete in the case of "mini harem" and that's the story that DPC had in mind.

but if as a player you are interested in Melissa you have to betray Megan's trust. DPC knows this and lets you get away with it, but there is no narrative reason