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

[ename144]

We have different perspectives but that's what makes the discussion interesting so I appreciate the effort you take to explain your thought process

I think it's pretty fair to say that you and I agree on most material things about Quinn, i.e. the things she does, the obvious mistakes she makes and missteps she takes, but we have some key differences on our views of her motivations for those actions. The biggest disagreement I have with what you laid out so succinctly is Quinn's motivation for entering the drug business. Your view is that a younger Quinn, having grown up in the apparent abusive environment she did, at some point resolved to basically become queen bitch of shit mountain. I've seen this expressed a few times by a few different people, but I have to fundamentally disagree with that take. I think the game itself reveals that Quinn is not maneuvering herself to become a mover and shaker, or some kind of criminal mastermind, rather it seems to clear me that Quinn is trying to stay as far removed from that world as she can. That might seem like a ridiculous assertion, but let me provide evidence for this.

I would make a distinction between wanting to be a criminal mastermind and wanting to be the queen bitch of crime (locally, anyway). I think Quinn just wants to be able to call her own shots rather than having to march to someone else's drumbeat. Having power over others isn't the end goal; it's useful given how much Quinn likes fucking with people, but in the end I think the real goal is some twisted form of stability and security.

I've said before in the past that if Quinn was to have a real path, become an actual love interest, that the rain scene would be the very first scene on her path. It's an incredibly dense and interesting scene, and I've watched and analyzed it more than any other in the game, and for more time than I'd care to admit In case it's been a while since you've seen it, and for the benefit of those who are reading this and haven't, let me set the stage briefly. Quinn goes to meet an old associate of her dad's, Buddy, to make a money drop and order a resupply of the drugs she peddles. When she arrives to the meeting spot, the apartment-slash-drug den that she grew up in, she bumps into an addled junkie that is probably her mom but who doesn't recognize her, despite the makeup on her face mimicking the tattoo that was on her dad's face. The following conversation ensues between Quinn and Buddy:

Now, you tell me honestly after reading that conversation: does it sound like Quinn is making any kind of power play, does it sound like she's interested in crime or drugs at all? I'm going to unequivocally state that I don't think she does, I don't think Quinn wants any part of the drugs, and it appears to me that she's done everything she could to distance herself from them. But despite that, the circumstances of her upbringing, and her life, have led her into a bad situation that she is trying to handle the best that she can, which she admittedly does poorly but she's only human. There's some hidden, crucial context in this scene we're missing, which is the true reason that Quinn is involved with the drugs at all. It could be because, as Buddy says, because Quinn is a daddy's girl, or it could be some unseen debt or threat that's forcing her to deal, but regardless I think it's pretty clear that Quinn does not want to be a part of this business.

As I said, it's not a powerplay against Buddy, it's an insistence that she's in control of her own fiefdom and neither needs nor will accept any direct oversight. In that light, yes, I'd say it looks exactly like what Quinn is doing.

You are right, though, that the crucial puzzle piece is indeed missing: why can't Quinn just walk away from the mess as Riona seemed to suggest in Episode 3? We know they have some sort of "obligation," so it's possible Quinn really is trying to free herself from that world and just can't. But I find that unlikely given that Quinn explicitly insists on expanding her operation over Riona's strong objections.

Either way, Quinn's response to the situation is not to look for a way out of that world, it's to take control of the process and improve it to her own benefit. To me, that makes it clear that while Quinn may be misguided and out of her depth, she isn't some innocent caught up in a net. She is very much an active participant in the drug and/or prostitution scheme.

Quinn doesn't deal hard drugs. Buddy expresses surprise that she would even ask for some, and says "You?" as though Quinn has drawn this line in the sand with him in the past. Further, Quinn expresses absolutely no desire or ambition to sell as much volume as Vinny does, making bland excuses to Buddy about the crowd she sells to instead. Does this sound like someone who wants to be a criminal mastermind? Does this sound like someone who is interested in the business at all? I don't think it does.

As far as I can tell from this conversation, and from how Quinn deals usually, Quinn has absolutely no desire to be a mover and shaker, in fact she seems more than happy to "come and go without anyone noticing", as you put it. It's revealed in her conversation with Buddy that she could be dealing with harder drugs all this time, as evidenced by the fact that he added the coke to her drop easily, and that she's lagging behind Vinny who likely does deal harder stuff, but she doesn't appear to care. She's been against it in the past, effectively hamstringing her own earning potential. Why?

Because that's her line in the sand. Her principled stand. Because she's seen what that stuff does to people around her. Because Quinn isn't in this for money, glory, ego, pride, or ambition. She's not in this to hurt people or tear families apart like hers was. She's in this because she doesn't have a choice. We don't know why, but her back is up against the wall. What you attribute to narcissism, I attribute to desperation. Far from thinking she's in control, she knows she's spinning out of control. She's into something way too deep, because of the circumstances of her family, and she's afraid; so afraid that she'd even strike out at her closest friends if they think of screwing things up for her. She thinks she has a way out of it, a plan, but it's failing - she probably knows it's failing, which is why she's even considering selling the coke, but it's the only plan she has and she knows if she or Riona deviates from it, if she admits she's making mistakes and starts doubting herself or letting others doubt her, their heads will go under the water and they'll both drown. She'd do whatever she has to to stop that from happening.

Quinn doesn't deal with coke, specifically. Given that Rox clearly had some problems with it, I suspect there's a particular reason Quinn has avoided that one until now. So yes it is her line in the sand, but I think it's more of a personal fear than a moral stand. And incidentally, she still walked over that line as soon as the chips were down.

As for other hard drugs, they aren't directly addressed but we know Quinn was using and promoting whatever was in that syringe back in Episode 2. Yes, we're told the stuff is safe and non-addictive, but I'm never going to trust the word of the drug dealer on that sort of claim - especially when she's high!

And again I must reiterate that none of this excuses or justifies what Quinn has done or is doing. Just because she thinks she doesn't have a choice, which is what I'm arguing, does not mean that she couldn't be doing things differently or better. We all agree she could be, but again, she's only human.

So those are my views on Quinn's actions in light of that conversation. As you can see, we have very different start and end points on her character, but I think I can at the very least justify why I see things the way I do, as you have as well. It's up to everyone who reads Quinn's story to come to their own conclusion I think, and I'm eager to hear the different takes of this great character

I'm definitely looking forward to whatever Quinn has instore for us in Episode 8.

 

[ename144]

I wasn't assuming anything, I was talking about how Maya's problem is dealt with, a reconciliation with her father is not even mentioned.

Their problem is the loan, not Patrick, the distance with him is constantly increasing.
even Sage's intervention, if it's going to lead to anything, it will be about the loan.

then i still believe that the only way out for Maya is for Patrick to understand her, but what the characters do doesn't go in that direction

That's like saying people are only worried about the gun when someone starts shooting, not about helping the shooter overcome his/her underlying problems. The loan is a bomb that could go off at any minute; Patrick's homophobia is an ongoing process that will take time to fix, but won't automatically cause massive damage on it's own. Once the crisis is dealt with Maya will have a lot more room to maneuver when dealing with Patrick, to say nothing of being able to enjoy her time with Josy rather than panicking over it being discovered.

As I said, I think the game has made it clear that bringing Patrick around IS the end goal. We're just nowhere near the end yet.

Need our two data analysts ename & mpa to run the numbers on the likelihood of only 1 update in 2022

mpa71 already hit the base numbers. I don't think we have enough data to give much more of an analysis.

Assuming Episode 8 releases in November 19 (currently on the pessimistic end of my expected release window), that means it will have spent 210 days in development and there would only be 407 days left until December 31 2022. So going strictly by that number, it seems unlikely we'd get 2 episodes in 2022. If DPC hurries up a bit and releases on November 12, it would have taken only 203 days development and there would be 414 days left. So now we're just barely on schedule for Episode 10 to release in 2022. In other words, we're on the razor's edge.

Of course there are other factors. The overall trend has been episodes taking longer as the story goes on, and there will likely be some time lost to release all of season 2 on Steam. That suggests things may be worse than they initially appear. Then again, the overall trend can vary; Episode 5 was a week faster than Episode 4, even with the initial Steam launch factored in. It's also possible Episode 7 has had an unusual amount of ground to cover given the foreboding title of "Crossroads," to say nothing of our fervent hopes it will include the Halloween party. So maybe things are actually better than they appear?

Personally, I think the best way to think about it is that we're almost certainly only going to get 3 episodes over the next 2 years; exactly where those episodes will fall on the calendar is hard to predict, but the end result doesn't really change.

As much as i enjoy this game the period between updates is becoming ridiculous at this point, i think he should find a way to do this between 3-4 months...

I'd love a faster release schedule as much as anyone, but 3-4 months is just not a realistic time frame given the work needed to release an episode that advances all the various paths at once. The game has expanded too far for that, and I don't want Episodes cut down to only include content for a subset of paths. 5 months might be possible (at least for now), but that would depend on how much content DPC wants to add and I suspect he's too much of a perfectionist to trim things down that far.

 

[Roelandt]

Because DPC specifically pointed out via the scene with Buddy that Quinn has avoided the hard stuff in the past. That together with what happened to her mother makes it unusual that DPC would, out of the blue, insert a scene with Tommy and Quinn shooting heroin. Why is cocaine such an usual buy for Quinn when clearly she is obtaining the more potent and deadly heroin?

Good point, Kellerman. Cocaine has a much higher demand among the more potent drugs. It's not a mater of drug safety though. Saying Cocaine is less deadly than heroin is like saying being mauled by a Kodiak bear is less deadly than being hit by a train.

I remember that Buddy scene, Kellerman. It came out almost a year after the Tommy/Quinn drug scene. Your conclusion is logical, but may be based on mixing the order of the two scenes you mentioned. The Tommy/Quinn scene came first. Apparently in the later Buddy scene she was referring to "the past" because she clearly uses it now, or maybe she was just lying either to Buddy or herself as all drug users do...one of the many patterns of behavior that makes that world hazardous. Having personal experience with people from that world, both scenes, in either order, are perfectly in character. While it's noble to ascribe self-control in an atmosphere that has none, you may be assuming logic and reason in a world with neither. Those ideas are contrary to the very fabric of that ugly reality where even your own thoughts are suspect. Hopefully you will never have to experience it first hand.

It's as easy to get into as falling down a well, and just as hard to climb out.

 

[AchedCroissant]

Why is cocaine such an usual buy for Quinn when clearly she is obtaining the more potent and deadly heroin?

It would be necessary to know how much each drug costs because I have always read that cocaine is more expensive and that it is easier for a rich man to buy it than a poor man

 

[felicemastronzo]

That's like saying people are only worried about the gun when someone starts shooting, not about helping the shooter overcome his/her underlying problems. The loan is a bomb that could go off at any minute; Patrick's homophobia is an ongoing process that will take time to fix, but won't automatically cause massive damage on it's own. Once the crisis is dealt with Maya will have a lot more room to maneuver when dealing with Patrick, to say nothing of being able to enjoy her time with Josy rather than panicking over it being discovered.

As I said, I think the game has made it clear that bringing Patrick around IS the end goal. We're just nowhere near the end yet.

the example seems to me quite wrong... the loan, fortunately, didn't have any absolute urgency to be solved, in fact they're absolutely still far from having solved it, after relying on a meaningless plan they actually gave up and now they're waiting for Sage's divine providence to intervene.

but, realistically, how could Maya (with or without MC and Josy's help) ever solve the loan problem without dealing with Patrick? they have hopelessly dealt with a symptom not to deal with the problem, and in fact they find themselves exactly in the situation before college started.

I hope they eventually get there and solve it definitively and happily, but I don't have your certainty

 

[thorin0815]

It would be necessary to know how much each drug costs because I have always read that cocaine is more expensive and that it is easier for a rich man to buy it than a poor man

Just looked it up on the web. Average of $ 152 per gram of heroin and $ 112 per gram of cocaine in the US. Due to Covid and the higher demand, the prices will probably have increased a little.

 

[Zirael Q]

I don't think Tybald is attracted to Bella, he just try to win her over because he knows she could be a great help winning Jill period.
He's so obsessed by social status and money that Bella has certainly no appeal to him.

The watermelon-chan in Tybalt's room disagrees :kappa:

 

[Roelandt]

Right. Tell me then, why does he charge money for the steam version?

Not really. Heroin is just commonly associates with hopeless junkies which is understandable. But it's not really that more dangerous than many other drugs.

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Highly illegal - absolutely. That's the aspect which I hope will be examined in the game, yeah.

As respectfully as possible...everything in that post is inaccurate. You're kinda right...but the statement has no point. Are you suggesting that since you're more likely to survive drinking cobalt acid than jumping off the 30 story building, it's safe to drink acid?

"Why does he charge money for the steam version?" Odd question. I'm assuming he's selling it on Steam so he doesn't have to work a part-time job to pay his electric bill. Your quip doesn't seem to make much sense, jackofshadows. You don't have to buy the game on steam which I did, or patronize him on Patreon, which I did, both after playing the game for a year because I want to support his project. The game is free. Our support is voluntary. He posted it here like every other creator on this site. I'm assuming you're new to F95 Zone and might not be aware of that fact. It's not a pirate site...it's a creator's forum. If you feel you have to pay to play these free game non-compulsorily, dude, you missed the memo. There was a a lengthy discussion about supporting this and other project if you like them about a year ago on this very forum.

Every game on this forum is free to my knowledge, posted by their creator with the hope that the players will support the game. All of the two dozen or so games are posted by the creator and actively participates in their forums. Like Philly Games does on his City of Broken Dreamers forum. I highly recommend this FREE game to, by the way. And jackofshadows....you don't have to pay, but support him on Patreon if you like it.

PhillyGames
Well-Known Member
Game Developer
Feb 15, 2019

I hope you guys enjoy this. Two months of work, and every penny I earned from DA, if you guys don't like it, I'll go get drunk or something.

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Thank you Krull for the signatures!

Reactions:borks21, August 1st, Amariithynar and 969 others


Doc is one of the few (to my knowledge) developers who don't frequent their site here because he doesn't like the drama, though he did participate early on.

 

[Roelandt]

I'd love a faster release schedule as much as anyone, but 3-4 months is just not a realistic time frame given the work needed to release an episode that advances all the various paths at once. The game has expanded too far for that, and I don't want Episodes cut down to only include content for a subset of paths. 5 months might be possible (at least for now), but that would depend on how much content DPC wants to add and I suspect he's too much of a perfectionist to trim things down that far.

Yeah ename144. Some developers on the site are falling down the "rush" rabbit hole. One of the games I follow, Unleashed, recently posted an "episode" apparently to placate the "Get-em-out-faster" whiners, which took about 5 minutes to finish. Sunshine Love did that recently too. The release was so small it was unsatisfying. I would have MUCH rather have waited for a few months for content on a free game, than to get one "sooner" that had as much content as a cup of coffee. Hrm...that was a lame analogy, but you get my meaning. Doc's releases give us many hours of gameplay. He's not rushing out snippets. He's putting out content.

But, just to say what is waiting to be said...if you want the game to come out faster, stop complaining about it and go support the creators on their Patreon page so they have more time to devote the the game.

 

[jackofshadows]

Just looked it up on the web. Average of $ 152 per gram of heroin and $ 112 per gram of cocaine in the US. Due to Covid and the higher demand, the prices will probably have increased a little.

Yeah, it's highly depends on your location. From where I stand, it's the other way around.

As respectfully as possible...everything in that post is inaccurate. You're kinda right...but the statement has no point. Are you suggesting that since you're more likely to survive drinking cobalt acid than jumping off the 30 story building, it's safe to drink acid?

Living leads to dying. Alright? So no, everything in that post makes sense. You may not trust the numbers, that's totally fine but that's not the point. Drugs are dangerous but so is alcohol.

"Why does he charge money for the steam version?" Odd question. I'm assuming he's selling it on Steam so he doesn't have to work a part-time job to pay his electric bill. Your quip doesn't seem to make much sense, jackofshadows. You don't have to buy the game on steam which I did, or patronize him on Patreon, which I did, both after playing the game for a year because I want to support his project. The game is free. Our support is voluntary. He posted it here like every other creator on this site. I'm assuming you're new to F95 Zone and might not be aware of that fact. It's not a pirate site...it's a creator's forum. If you feel you have to pay to play these free game non-compulsorily, dude, you missed the memo.

You're the most naive person I've seen in years. Voluntary nature of support doesn't change the chargeable status of the product. The game is no longer posted here by DPC himself if you haven't noticed that yet. As far as I know, he's far from ok with it but being not a fool, he's not trying to prevent it from posting (futile). So unless you're sertified anarchist which seems to be unlikely, it's you who in need of reading the definition of what "free" is. Stuff here isn't free at all, usually it's a result of a compromise or a case of shitty game which can use any sort of advertisement. To legally play BaDIK, you have to buy it on steam or subscribe on his patreon.

 

[BorgiaBou]

Some developers on the site are falling down the "rush" rabbit hole. One of the games I follow, Unleashed, recently posted an "episode" apparently to placate the "Get-em-out-faster" whiners, which took about 5 minutes to finish. Sunshine Love did that recently too. The release was so small it was unsatisfying. I would have MUCH rather have waited for a few months for content on a free game, than to get one "sooner" that had as much content as a cup of coffee.

You know you can wait your updates to pile up and then play it if you don't like your "short" updates, f'in hell i swear some of you are like living on an other planet, wait for your updates one yrear if you like that bur leave us who like our "short" monthly updates to enjoy them...

 

[gelu123]

And people ask why Being a dik has over 7600 pages while other games barely have 200 . I swear its a nighmare to go through pages if you want to find something specific

 

[Ilhares]

tic tac tic tac waiting for update

Here's your update, now in orange flavor!

The watermelon-chan in Tybalt's room disagrees :kappa:

But it doesn't, does it? The melon had Jill's face on it, not Bella's.

 

[thorin0815]

And people ask why Being a dik has over 7600 pages while other games barely have 200 . I swear its a nighmare to go through pages if you want to find something specific

Without Jill, the thread would probably only have around 600 pages.

 

[gelu123]

Without Jill, the thread would probably only have around 600 pages.

Well she is my waifu too .

 

[Gunizz]

Oh man so much facepalm here.

The game is free. Our support is voluntary. He posted it here like every other creator on this site.

No it's not. It's here because someone gets it from his Patreon as soon as he publishes it to top tier patreons, then the pirate uploads it to file sharing sites and then the pirate posts the links here.
DPC earns tens of thousands dollars each month from Patreon subscribers, he does not give it away for free. You can find the statistics if you want.

Every game on this forum is free to my knowledge, posted by their creator with the hope that the players will support the game.

LOL no, very few games here are freeware. Most of them are warez, illegal, pirated, downloaded from Patreons and published elsewhere. Some developers, while not condoning the pirating, frequent this website to still get something from it (support, ideas etc), I say this because it's WRITTEN in the presentation of so many games here.
You probably aren't reading that much in this forum because this is primarily a pirate site and it's clearly stated everywhere. There is even a disclaimer at the bottom of EVERY page just to "save" the administrators from lawsuits.

 

[Zirael Q]

Without Jill, the thread would probably only have around 600 pages.

Eh, Quinn and Maya alone would make at least 4k by themselves imo

 

[Roelandt]

For me, the scene at the beginning of episode 2 with Tommy and Quinn also seems meaningless. This scene made Quinn the main antagonist selling hard drugs on campus.

That's because Quinn IS the main antagonist in the story. Darth Vader is one of my favorite characters in the history of fiction. I've no qualms about anyone calling him an antagonist. He is. She is. They're both awesome villains. But if you like Vader so much that you say he's not a villain, you're...confused.

 

[Blades1138]

Well thats what people want , but think about the dev. Maybe this game isnt just a way to make money also , maybe he would like to make his work as close to perfection and dont have any regret?

2) DPC is a perfectionist. He will need to constantly spend time monitoring the work of another artist.

I would believe DPC was striving for perfection if the additions actually improved the game. But other than delaying the main plot the padding serves no other purpose. And of 30+ animations, I can barely recall less than 5 in last episode, which to me indicates they're not so impressive and most of them aren't that necessary.

I'm not even saying he needs to hire artists or coders. Since he's adamant about doing the project alone, he should plan in a way that makes sense for a single person to handle. But he's both doing it alone, and planning as if he had a team working for him.
To me the conclusion is obvious, especially considering that his previous game wasn't such a big hit by comparison. He is fully aware he can't ensure another big hit after this one, so it makes sense for him to keep it going as much as he can.

 

[OFT]

he's pouring a lot of unnecessary effort just to pad out the development and content of the game

I disagree.

To wit:

Spoiler: Worth it

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Spoiler: Totally worth it

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Spoiler: Totally

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Spoiler: Fucking

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Spoiler: Worth it

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Spoiler: Totally.....worth...........uh.....

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