Wow, just wow. That's a lot to process. I'm just hearing about this now.
Players like to have variants, and choices. Even if the choice makes no difference at all to the game other than a simple line of dialogue or a couple of renders. You want those options in there. Because at choices it makes the person do 2 things... 1) Stop 2) Think
Do you want players that stop and think or players that do not stop and think?
If they are never stopping and thinking while playing your game they are just going to speed run to the sex scenes... Which is go to preferences, and click on unseen text to enable to enable that and after choices. Then they just hit tab once, and roll through watching it in fast forwards and they aren't stopping for scenes where folks got their clothes on unless maybe something insane happens.
Yeah, sure. Choices are fine. Choices are great. But here I never missed having more choices, because I was actually interested in the story. So many games here telling the exact same story, even for games with similar topics like mysterious powers and gods and demons Intoxicating Flavour did basically everything different.
I don't think there was any other game where there were obvious weaknesses in English and yet the story still managed to convey its quality just fine.
In other words, there are a lot of games with many choices that I just skip from choice to choice, because in the end it's just which of the two dozen harem girls does the MC fuck now, which clothes will she be wearing, do I punch the guy or smooth talk him. This one actually pondered moral questions which were interesting.
If someone skipped through this, it says more about the person skipping than about the game.
About other things mentioned:
The same folks that will virtue signal or even simp for you in these forums and be like, "Oh, that's too bad. I hope things get better blah blah blah..." Those are the same ones that never supported you or stop supporting you.
No shit? You know that how exactly? Do you work for patreon? Do you conduct monthly questionnaires with patrons/players of all games here and on patreon?
I don't even get what you are saying, that patrons are all uncaring bastards who don't give a shit about the devs health or circumstances outside the game? Not what I see and read, more like the other way around, patrons are more often than not more understanding and appreciative than players who don't support a game financially. I mean, on patreon you never just support the project, you always support the artist just as much.
And honestly, to claim that just because people show sympathy and understanding they aren't patrons is complete and utter BS.
IDK if you honestly believe people are just virtue signalling, maybe you are just one of the people who don't understand what virtue signalling actually means, because if people just virtue signalled here, they wouldn't really care about the dev or his problems and would just claim so, to feel important.
The audacity otherwise, to just declare that everyone not being an asshole is just simping or virtue-signaling. Just screw you, mate, seriously. Really, this is nothing more than an attempt to dismiss anyone who doesn't see things the way you do. A bad faith argumentation to devalue any other pov.
People don't skip a "Being a Dik" update... Because they know a Dik update is going to have many choices, and scenes, and lots of sex. They will skip your updates though because "Click click click click click... (No choices?) click click click click... (Jeeze... No sex this update?)" I never played your game every update... No no no. I played it like once every 3-4 updates. Because that is how long it took for their to be some amount of quantity for me to have some interest.
No, people stop playing "Being a Dik" because of bullshit like having to play for hours at a stupid party finding the one thing they missed to continue and then possibly having to do it again and again for each different route.
It's also funny, because the DiK updates sure take a fucking long time as well. Until his problems, Pixelslab usually had several updates between a single "Being a Dik" update, even if they are smaller. There are many games with smaller updates where people will either play the update or wait until 3-4 have accumulated, because they like a meatier chunk to play through, that alone doesn't say much about a game, more about the individual players preferences.
What a choice for a game to compare, I'm guessing just because Being A Dik rakes in the money, because apart from that these two games have absolutely nothing in common.
Being a DiK is just a dating sim with allusions. Think about the quality of writing what you will, but that is so obviously not what "The Intoxicating Flavor" was about. It's not a dating sim, it's not a harem fuckfeast, it's not a "being an alpha male power trip," not a "how do I get girls to fuck me." It didn't have to be, because that wasn't the game Pixelslab wanted to do.
Don't you think someone who writes an intriguing story like that, knows he might have fared better financially, if he did a simple porn game and gave people like you the sex and worthless choices they demand?
Don't you think he knew that telling people to stop supporting him, because he wasn't able to work on the game properly for a while, would damage him financially?
Jay-zuz Karist, your whole post is so arrogant and annoying.
