An earlier work by the same author, you could go out for a fun time at a club with your best buddy, if you messed around with one or the other or both of the two girls, and then did nothing else but date one of the main love interests(or in this case you could date two as they were best friends). Not only did one of them die needlessly, but you didn’t end up with the girl left alive. Bear in mind you were not dating said girl at the time, and might not have even met her yet, depending on which one you picked. But you were FUCKED. At best you had a chance for making it up to her in the epilogue, but you didn’t have the girl, even if everything else went right.
I'm pretty sure this is incorrect; you can fool around with Angela and Hedwig in the bar without consequences as long as you don't do anything with them at Rena's house. But I'm sure as hell not going to replay AL to confirm that! (Yes, one of the LIs will still die, but that happens regardless of fooling around.)
BaDIK is made by the same author, he is limiting paths to girls, you bet your ass you can be a DIK and have fun with some of them, but in the end??? Probably FUCKED. Especially Bella.
I’m not preaching morality. Fuck I hope you all are in fap heaven. However at the end of the game, based on writing stupidity into the game, DPC is all but assuring you are going to pay a price for not playing “his” way.
Errr, based on your argument, wouldn't DPC NOT limit paths so that he would have more opportunities to play "Gotcha"? I think the fact he's adding all these branches is the sign there's more at work here than just punishing the player.
To me, he's trying to add 'realism' to the game by giving consequences to actions that encompass more than just the immediate circumstances around a decision. I really appreciate that effort, but it's a very tricky thing. First, it hinges on whether the consequences feel appropriate to the global circumstances, so it's obviously going to vary by individual taste. Second, it requires a certain amount of trust between the author and the player, namely that the player will accept unwanted outcomes and that the author will create a world consistent enough (and with sufficient foreshadowing) that those outcomes are fitting consequences for the decision.
To take the Acting Lessons examples, I felt like DPC succeeded on the cheating thing: the LI won't hold the MC's past exploits against him, but will hold exploits that happened after she got serious with him. Fair enough, IMHO. But I also felt DPC completely fucked up on the infamous ending:
Leah being a psycho killer was in no way foreshadowed and frankly had nothing to do with the plot for the rest of the game. That was purely authorial fiat to make the game end the way DPC wanted.
So even as a fan of DPC, I feel he sometimes gets it wrong in a big way. But I do give him credit for trying something ambitious. My hope is that BaDIK will fix some of the flaws while keeping the merits, but I'm certainly keeping my eyes open.
This is one reason I have been so vocal in criticism of the “Great DPC”. Fanboys, he is great at renders. He does great wingmen dialogue.He has great music to go with all of this. But story? Writing? Logical outcomes? He is below so many other more talented authors.
I expect fanboys to frag me on this, but two years from now just remember what has been said. Now by all means, fap and enjoy!
Peace
With respect,
Arigon, I think there might be a bit more to it than just fanboys raging at you for speaking truth. As I said above, what DPC is trying to do will hinge on how the reader perceives it, so there's a lot of room for differing opinions. There's also a difference between hoping DPC will get it right this time and blind faith in his abilities.
But above all else, you shouldn't dismiss the criticisms of everyone who disagrees with you as invalid. That, IMHO, is exactly the mistake DPC made when he got burned by the AL firestorm. Sure, some of the complaints were garbage, but a lot of them were not. By dismissing all of it as "peons who just didn't get it," he made it that much harder for him to learn from his mistakes.
