Q&A Session - 2022 - Part 2/2

In this second part of the Q&A, I will answer your questions about game development. You can find the first part of the Q&A here if you missed it. Once again, thank all of you for your questions. I tried answering as many as I could.

Game development

What can we, as fans and supporters, do to help you continue to create and ship your work at a sustainable non-burnout pace?

The burnout question seems to be popular. I don't know if I show some signs of it or if it's a general worry that players, friends, and family have, but I've never been the one to ask it to myself. I've seen people burn out in real life, and it's not pretty. Something flips inside of them, and suddenly they become wrecks. It's scary, and even though I've experienced it first-hand with a family member, I couldn't see the signs of it. I believe that many developers suffer from it and that it's not a convenient excuse. Accepting money while not working, however, that's a big no-no.

I don't go around worrying about burnout at all; I still love game development. Yes, it's incredibly stressful in periods, but name a job that isn't. Fans can't do much to help aside from staying patient. I must say I've been pleasantly surprised with how patrons, in general, are wonderful at this. Rarely do I feel that you don't support me and the game development.

I know that there is resistance in some choices I make, both in the game's directions and my Patreon page, when I'm forced to change the tiers. But I rest well knowing that I can't do it better than this and that I'm honest and always try to be transparent in the areas that concern you. I've accepted that I cannot please everyone, and if my decisions are deal-breakers for you, so be it - I won't stop working because of that. I feel that's a winning concept to keep most happy and lower my stress levels.

So, stay patient and friendly, and it will go a long way.

If you compare the renders from episode 1 to those of episode 8, their quality increased several times. What made, in your opinion, the greatest impact on this improvement in quality?

There's not a single change that this can be attributed to; it's a mix of changes. The obvious one is hardware, I started developing episode 1 with 1080 Ti, and now I've gone through 2080 Ti to 3090. The performance of the hardware makes it possible to increase render quality while having a shorter render time. If you compare the performance of one 1080 Ti with one 3090, if I recall it correctly, I estimate it to be a 10-20x improvement in efficiency, allowing for that quality bump. The jump between 2080 Ti and 3090 was ~3x increased efficiency.

Another factor is experience. Some of the first renders in episode 1 were made after only having roughly six months of knowledge with 3D art. Now I have years of knowledge and tried to explore every area of the software I'm using.

A third factor would be post-processing. I've created automatic processing scripts for my art that I've improved throughout development. They minimize the time needed to use Photoshop for the renders and maximize the quality of the art with the push of a button.

And the final factor, and likely most important, is knowledge of lighting. I still have plenty to learn in this area, but it's been the source of drastic improvements lately.

Do you ever throw out animations? Not because they didn't render right, but because they weren't right for the story?

I only discard animations that didn't render correctly, and it is incredibly frustrating every time it happens because it can take days to render a single animation on one PC. I've yet to throw something out because it didn't fit, and that's because I plan what I need. I never created an animation without knowing I would use it. That would be a big waste of time given how long it takes to render, and there's a lot of manual work to make an animation.

What's the skill you feel that you've improved the most during the game's development?

The answer sounds stupid, but it's "taking breaks". I suck at taking breaks, even short ones. Often I get a passive-aggressive yet loving text from my wife saying, "YOU FORGOT TO EAT AGAIN!". But due to some changes in my personal life this year, I've started taking shorter breaks during the day. It helps with motivation, too; I often return to work feeling refreshed.

While I believe you are at the top of Adult VN creators, do you have aspirations to move mainstream with a well-known developer or stay within this genre creating new stories and characters?

I would likely accept if I got offered to write the story for a AAA game studio or even a movie in the future when my plate wasn't full. I’ve always dreamt about writing a horror movie. It's not something I aspire to do. I am very content with my life and work right now. Having full control of the creative process is wonderful. Only as an indie developer will you be able to get that freedom.

Have you ever thought about streaming while you work? Like, when you are doing non-lewd and non-spoiler-filled posing, maybe coding?

Oh, God no. That would be so bad for me on many levels. The pressure, potential spoilers, accidental reveals, showing my trade secrets, etc. I understand why there's an interest in seeing it, but I want to keep that magic to myself. I don't want to make a live performance of it. I have considered streaming me playing the game, but I doubt that would be interesting to watch.

Do you already have plans for your life when Being a DIK is completed? Do you plan to work on a new game directly? Or just some time for yourself, like some long vacations?

I try not to plan too far ahead. In my mind, I will take a break and do tasks such as polishing the game further. But then there's another part in my mind saying, "We both know that's not gonna happen". I have several ideas of what I want to do after the final episode rolls out, and one of these ideas is growing to be better and better. I've had this idea even before last year's Q&A, and it's still here, so I think I know where I'm heading, but time will tell. I don't want to spoil this idea because someone else would snatch it up.

I don't know how I will feel after the game is completed. I think I will be drained after doing everything I have planned for Being a DIK. I want to go on a long vacation with my wife at some point. The pandemic has conveniently postponed that, though.

At a point in time where people are offended over just about everything, has that made the process of making an adult video game any more difficult?

I'm an avid stand-up comedy fan, and I despise how the cancel culture is trying to change comedy by defining what you can and cannot joke about. Luckily, adult games are already taboo. The nature of the game gives me the inherent freedom to put offensive content in it if I wish. If someone gets offended by the content in an adult game, they consume media that aren't made for them. It's not the media that should change its ways; it's the consumer who shouldn't actively look for media they disagree with, and they should neither try to change it for people who enjoy it. I don't aim to offend, but I want that freedom, and I love offensive jokes when done right.

Have you considered making a game with a female protagonist one day?

I've explored the idea in my mind, yes. I would enjoy writing a story for a female protagonist, but I prefer the main character in adult games to be male.

How has the economics from your Patreon subscription developed through BaDIK, and through your development career (Acting Lessons, etc.)? How has that compared to Steam? I guess what I'm asking is - what does "success" and the journey to that look like in terms of being a leading (niche) developer? Do you still enjoy working on this project as much or more than when you first started it?

My earnings and economy are private. What I can tell you about it is that I broke even with Acting Lessons, and it's obviously better these days, but it took a long time and hard work to get here. Life has changed in many ways, both for the better and worse. I'm pretty much the same person I've always been, but I've got new kinds of opportunities and also new kinds of problems these days.

It's not a cliché, fame and fortune reveal the "ugly" in many people, and it makes you question who your real friends and family are. These days, I'm constantly on my guard, second-guessing every decision that involves trusting people, and this is something I don't like about it. It used to be simpler.

I'm still in love with game development. There's no question about it. But everything surrounding the game development, I don't like as much at this level of popularity. At this scale, everything starts feeling impersonal. At the peak, there were 18000+ patrons, and I can only say that I know less than 10 of them somewhat well, yet many feel like they know me - it's very weird, and I don't like thinking too much about it.

On the positive side of things, it's comforting knowing that I can have a bigger budget when developing the game. I have to worry less about the economy and more about what I want in the game. My worry about quitting my job to do this full-time is completely gone, and it used to be the scariest thing I've done in life. I've been able to help people I love in a way I couldn't have done before, and that feels amazing. The funny part is that I never aimed for this to happen; I only wanted to make games I’d enjoy.

You mentioned that sometimes the song comes first, and you design a scene around it, and other times, you come across a perfect song for a scene you have. Can you give examples of each we currently have?

When the song comes first, it's not that the scene comes from nothing; it's more that I get inspired to make a certain scene or picture an unwritten scene that's perfect for that song. One example would be "Sit on the crown by Jam Studio". As soon as I heard that song, I knew it would be used to hype up a party intro that I hadn't written yet. It just clicked immediately after the first ten seconds.

Finding a song for an already written scene is the most common scenario. In this case, I've written a scene and need the perfect song for it. What I listen for is the melody and ambience first and foremost. If there are lyrics, I analyze them too. Rarely do I need to play the scene and the song simultaneously to know that it is right. Again, it just clicks upon hearing the song. Some of these examples would be "Time to rise by Kensington Studios", which, to me, truly elevates Quinn's scene. Two other examples are the songs by Grace Mesa for Bella's scenes; "Run run runnin" and "Take the road". When I heard these songs, I looked for the perfect song for her lewd scene in episode 6. And then later, I found "Take the road" for episode 8. As soon as I heard the lyrical callbacks to the first song ("we can run run run"), it clicked, and I got goosebumps from it.

A lot of thought goes into selecting music. For instance, I tend to lean towards piano themes for Jill, acoustic songs for the MC, and big band songs for the diary scenes, since they make it feel like we're taking a trip back in time. Sometimes, songs are happy coincidences. For example, the last song you'll hear in episode 8 is named "Crossroads". I didn't know what to search for when finding it, so I typed the episode title and stumbled upon it. When I wrote episode 5, I had no clue what La casa del papel was (yes, I am living under a rock while doing this). A patron pointed it out to me, and to my surprise, "Bella ciao" now fits even better than I originally intended. If I had watched the series first, I would probably not have added that song to the game because it's iconic for that TV series, but I'm happy I did.

How do you go about acquiring music? Is it difficult considering all the licensing issues?

It’s one of the harder things with game development since it involves other people’s work, and you have to make sure you’re using them correctly. You have to read the licenses and see if you're violating any terms. If you are, you can't use it. I'm very meticulous about the legal aspects, and you have to be; it's your responsibility as a developer.

Have you created any music for the game yourself?

Not yet. It's been a goal to add something of my own to the game, but I'm not there yet.

Do you have any fun quirks or traditions in your average 15 hour workday you can share with us? I.e., you have unique music you listen to while you work, any special ritual to get you motivated to work for the day, or just anything out of the ordinary for fun.

It depends on what I’m doing. If I’m writing, I need dead silence, or sometimes I put on the song I have selected for the scene in the background to get the feeling I need to write. I play music, stand-up comedy, or a TV series on a second monitor when working with art. When coding, I always blast music unless I run into any issues. When that happens, I pause the music and argue loudly with myself until I solve the problem. As I mentioned earlier in the Q&A, the quirk I have is that I forget to eat when I’m in the zone.

Do you play other AVNs in your spare time? If so, would you mind sharing a bit of what you like?

No, I used to play a lot before developing games, but since then, I have played almost nothing. I'm sure the selection of games has changed a lot since then. Maybe after I retire, I'll check out other games, but my interest in playing them died when I started developing my own games.

I'm not sure if I'm completely up to date, but I have played Timestamps by Motkeyz, only because I discovered their game before developing, and I enjoy their art and quirky story. I admire them as creators. They are very talented and should be higher ranked than they currently are. I'm rooting for them. Give their game a chance if you haven’t already. Also, if you’re reading this Motkeyz, Nika best girl – use her more.

Continued question from last year about software upgrades. Can you please explain a little more how this affects your workflow and the work of the testers? Is there a big difference engine-wise now it's 64bit for you to work with?

The 64-bit upgrade helped remove the RAM limit of the game and made everything play smoother. When it comes to my workflow, it doesn't affect it more than that the game is more responsive now, so it's faster and easier to test the game when developing. I don’t have to write my code differently because of the upgrade, so there are no surprises there. I used one deprecated function in early episodes that I had to update, but it won’t be a problem from now on.

The testers had to test the entire game from scratch this time. But nothing changes for them in the future. The beta testers and my proofreader should truly take a bow for their work on Patreon/Steam/GOG versions. Neither release would have been as smooth without them.

What resources do you use to learn and improve as a developer? E.g., how to properly light a scene, post-render work, posing, coding, etc.

A lot of the experience I have amassed throughout my life. My favorite way of learning new things is through trial and error. I can take an empty scene and play around with a certain element, like light or render settings. When I find something that improves the quality, I evaluate if it's better and eventually implement it as a standard. A prime example is the lighting for episode 8, which I developed from scratch. It's been a long time since I made an overhaul like that for the game, and now when I play earlier episodes, I wish I had thought of it sooner. 

I also take online classes, read a lot, and study movies instead of watching them. A lot of useful info can be found by analyzing how a movie scene is being lit by looking at shadows and light.

Computers freeze up, CPU's break, power outages happen, people forget to save data while doing a task, and the worst things can happen when you least expect it. What is the worst "happy accident" you have experienced while developing the game?

Power outages, internet outages, PCs that stop rendering overnight, etc., will happen to any developer. I have three memorable moments in mind, and one of them is pretty scary, and I haven't told many this story.

Memorable moment #1: Fairly early on in my development days, I came home from work, and my PC was shut off. I tried starting it, but the monitor only displayed pixelated madness. My first GPU (1080 Ti) had fried. This was back when I didn't have any spare parts, and my budget was limited. It sucked but taught me always to have a buffer for these events. So far, I've had three cards fry during my developer career (1080 Ti, 2080 Ti, 2080 Ti).

Memorable moment #2: During early Being a DIK days, I came back home, and everything was pitch black. Oh boy, another electricity outage... No, wait. The safety on the fuse box has been triggered. When starting my PCs, the fuse box shuts off again. My PSU had malfunctioned, and it took me three days to get a new one, which is valuable time. Lesson learned: always have spare parts at home.

Memorable moment #3: This is the scary one, and it happened in October last year when I was testing episode 8 myself. Testing has become a ritual that I always carry out the same way. I hook up my older laptop to my TV and play the game from start to finish, to be truly immersed and have a better chance of spotting errors. Everything goes well until I'm testing into the wee hours of the night and am about to go to bed. I can't even explain how the chain of events happened, but I pressed the Delete key on the master folder of v0.8.0., and my finger slipped to press Return. This verified that the folder, too big for the trashcan, would be permanently deleted. It immediately synched with the online cloud too. Panic was total, and I was wide awake now. I rush to my master PC and pull the ethernet cable, but the damage is halfway done. The episode is gone on all my systems. Luckily, the cloud has a trashcan to restore my files. But it was the scariest moment so far during development. Lesson learned: Never test using the master branch, and back your shit up even more often.

As I play BaDIK, I realize that aspects in the game are painfully and thoroughly researched until the tiniest detail. How is that included in your storytelling? Do you stumble with something interesting and think, "This would be great to be included in BaDIK at some point", and then do more research about the topic? Or it goes in the opposite direction like, "I want to explore this situation in the game, so let me do some research for consistency", and then you include it after it was fully researched?

Everything in the game can't be 100% accurate, but I enjoy and see value in researching areas I know little to nothing about. I talk to people who I know possess real-life experience with topics I'm interested in for the game, too. How it happens when I write varies. Sometimes I write about a topic I think I know something about, then realize I'm talking out of my ass. I take a break, research multiple sources, and adapt the writing. I enjoy putting details in the game. Most players won't pick up on the smaller details, but some attentive players do, and that puts a smile on my face when they spot something I thought no one would spot. 

I draw inspiration from Dan Harmon's work with the TV series Community in this regard. The amount of obscure detail that went into making that show is amazing. Like, setting up a short background gag that took them three seasons to establish (search for Community Beetlejuice, if you're interested), or staying consistent with minor details that only hardcore fans will notice on their fifth rewatch.

If your house was burning, and on the floor lay the only computer storing all the BaDIK development files and a large duffel bag containing all the money you've made on this game thus far, which would you save if you could choose only one?

Well, naturally, as everyone can agree with, I would simply save them both. To which you would cruelly say: "you can only save one". After that, I'd try to pay you so I can save both, bribe you so I can save both, start a petition so I can save both, threaten you so I can save both, call you hateful names so I can save both, and when all of that ultimately fails, and I have to choose...

I would choose the bag of money, knowing that all my assets are backed up on a cloud service and stored on external drives in a safe location. If that weren't the case, I would choose the game files. You can always make more money but never replace the original files.

What methods do you use for the writing process to keep track of all of the different outcomes?

I plan and make notes, write branching timelines, and reflect a lot about every event I write. As soon as I get an idea, I jot it down. Even if I'm in bed, I grab my phone and make a note of it. I constantly review and update my notes too. If I need to be reminded of something, I replay the game.

How do you keep up your motivation when working on the same project for so long?

The motivation is always there since I love creating the game. I was prepared beforehand that the development would be this long, which also helps. Also, looking forward to episodes that I know are coming soon keeps me going. There are many scenes I can't wait to write, and when the time comes to write them, it's like a big payout.

Do you keep track of players' choices in the game - like how many people choose one route over the other?

No, the game isn't connected to a server and pushing that kind of data. It would be fun to see, but it would have little to no value for the development. Even if less than 1% of players would enjoy a specific branch or choice in the game, I'd still commit to making it as good as I can.

The only kind of data that comes remotely close to checking which branch is the most popular is the global Steam achievements. When writing this, the most unlocked branch is Sage’s branch (6.2%), followed by a tie of Jill’s and Other’s branch (4.8%). And finally, Bella and Josy & Maya’s branches have 4.1% each. But it’s hard to say if this goes hand-in-hand with popularity or not.

As a young man who aspires to be an indie game developer, how much time a week should I strive to put towards development? And is it possible to have a work-life balance as an indie developer?

It depends on many factors, but mostly what kind of person you are. What experience do you possess? What do you have to learn before you can start creating the game? Would you have to rely on the help of others? Are you willing to work for a year before hopefully turning a profit? If you are serious about it, I'd say you should put all time that you can into it, even if it means removing another hobby from your life completely. Devote your life to it.

If you're looking at me as a role model for this, you'd likely be demotivated. Before starting this, I had skills and knowledge that translated into all areas of development. Including photography, coding, gaming experience, development experience, project leader experience, teaching experience, musical ability, musical production experience, movie/TV-series nerd experience, a Ph.D., business/bookkeeping experience, burning passion, and more. Without these skills, considerable time would have been spent in those areas to develop the game.

You can still do it, but it's a matter of where you set the bar for yourself and what your ambitions are. If something looks simple, it's because the skills and training that went into it reached that level of professionalism.

Today, players demand instant gratification, and as soon as you release an update, it takes minutes for them to want more. It's both a compliment and a curse. Can you handle that kind of pressure and prioritize your private life over work-life with good conscience? I'm sure there's a way to have a work-life balance if you set that bar early on and can allow yourself to detach from the development. I never found or even wanted that balance, so I chose to put more hours into development. Working two jobs at once was detrimental to my wife’s relationship until I could turn it into a full-time job, and there was more time to spend together with each other.

Do you feel like you have reached the end of what Ren’Py is capable of? If so, any other engines in mind?

I was scared I had hit a limit before I upgraded to 64-bit Ren’Py. Now I'm no longer scared about the limitations, and I see new possibilities. Some limitations make me re-design ideas I have, and there's often a lot of trial and error coding when I plan to implement something new, but in general, I couldn't ask for a simpler game engine to work with. It's fast, responsive, and has most of the functionality I wish for.

I'm not eyeing other engines to work with at the moment, but I can sometimes miss writing C++ code. I find writing C++ code much more rewarding and stimulating than writing Python.

What would be your dream features to be added to the Ren'Py game engine?

• Better handling of save file compatibility after applying patches.
• All apps made with Ren’Py get signed for macOS support, even when cross-compiling.
• Time synchronization between sound and video that doesn’t cause variation between PCs. It has limited mini-games based on timing in the past.

How do you add an interactive phone menu, mini-games, and renders in the game? Also, is it hard to make free roam events?

The general praxis is to separate that code from the other code and then import it when you need it. It requires the most coding out of everything in the game, but it's also what I enjoy the most when it comes to coding. The free-roam events have become increasingly trickier to write, mainly because I want to add more things to them, but I've developed a good system that I use as a template.

The two most demanding free-roam events in the game are the HOTs' party in episode 7 and the dorm party in episode 8. I let every character have a chain of events, and the game continuously checks what events are active. Some events depend on the completion of other events, so that must be considered. It's a logical kind of thinking that's often just a bunch of Yes/No questions, but the difficulty lies in managing the size of it. Everything must work and make sense at once. And as it works flawlessly for the first time, it's just beautiful.

Roughly how long does it take you to pose a typical static render, and how much can it vary for a particularly simple or complicated one? How does that compare to posing animations?

These questions have several layers. It depends on how many characters are in a scene, if the environment is new or pre-existing, and if there's some other factor that makes it harder to work with it.

The simplest scenario is that I have the environment already and that there's no character or just a single character in the scene. I need time to import the character and change the lighting to the right ambience (morning, day, night, dark/light, etc.). After that, I pose the character, fiddle with render settings, test render, and save the render to the render queue. It can take 5-30 minutes to do the first render in such a scene. The following renders can be made faster if I only change the camera or pose slightly. Sometimes I can make 100+ renders in a day of work if they are simple to make, and other days with complicated ones, I might only be able to make less than 10.

In episode 8, I had to create new environments from scratch, like these two.

They took plenty of time to set up properly. I think it took me something like 8 hours for the pink rose environment and maybe half of that for the outdoors environment (characters not included).

Another factor is dressing the characters. If you start with the original character model, I have to choose makeup, nails, skin settings, hairstyle, accessories, and clothes before importing her to the scene. The next time you're playing the dorm party in episode 8, take a moment and check how many characters there are in it and how everyone looks different in all of these aspects. It took me a very long time to create all of that. The manual work often takes the longest time; the actual rendering, where the computer does its work, takes anything between 30 minutes to 2 hours, as a standard per render or animation frame.

For animations, picture doing all of the above, and after you've done that, you start working on movement. Additional animating tasks include moving the bodies, managing detailed movement, making the characters breathe, camera movements, and other settings. Depending on the difficulty, an animation can take 30 minutes to 10 hours to pose. And render times for an animation vary between 1 day to 28 days (longest so far).

After reading this answer, remember that episode 8 had 4158 renders and 358 animations. Having players grasp the amount of work that goes into this game is hard.

I was wondering how your games would function on the Steam Deck. Are you becoming verified for the platform?

Yes, Steam sent me a Steam Deck dev kit. Being a DIK plays better than I expected on the Steam Deck. There are three issues that I need to look into before I can say it’s working perfectly, but I’m not sure if I can fix two of those. Two problems are the path mini-games, both for drinking shots and painting. Even though playing those mini-games on the Steam Deck is possible, they don’t perform very well, and you can cheat at both of them. The other mini-games worked well. Even Brawler was fun playing with the Steam Deck. I customized the ’Y’ button to bring up and close the phone, the ’A’ button I mapped to ”Enter” meaning that you can use the left thumbstick to pick a choice and then press ’A’ to continue. The in-game guide can be mapped to a button too. I mapped the TAB button so that I could skip text fast. The only downside with the gameplay is that you have to bring up the keyboard whenever you need to type an answer, i.e., the player’s name. It’s not hard to do, but still a bit inconvenient.

All in all, I think that the Steam Deck will be a perfect choice for players who can’t find privacy for playing the game on their computer. And performance-wise, the game runs smooth like butter on the Steam Deck.

Do you sculpt/model the characters yourself?

I don't sculpt the models, but I morph the models using a mix of pre-made models. It's fun and can be challenging. If I had more time on my hands, I would try sculpting, but the value of doing that instead of my current method would be for originality purposes only, which you can achieve with heavy morphing.

You've become very good at facial animations (the one at the close of Episode 8 is the best one yet), and you have focused several times on faces in the early parts of lewd scenes. However, you have only animated female climax back in Episode 2. Have you decided to abandon this type of animation, and if so, why? If not, can we expect its return as your skills improve?

Thank you. Yes, that Zoey animation came out great, and it took a lot of work. 

Hm, I think I've added it more times since then, depending on what you'd count as a climax. I know you're referring to the Jade and Maya animations, and similar animations can be found later.

In episode 7, you have the Riona animation, which had the first-ever pupil dilation effect for my animations. For the insertions in Bella’s and Jill's lewd scenes in episode 8, I spent plenty of time having their facial expressions look good as well. Mostly, the climax has been conveyed in static renders because it's faster and simpler to make. Even when making 300+ animations, I have to pick and choose what I want for them, and climaxes haven't been first picks. I constantly want to make new and different animations, so I haven't ruled out exploring and revisiting different animation types.

In your previous Q&A, you mentioned that your writing was your weakest point and needs improvement. Since then, how and what did you do to learn and improve?

Without overanalyzing what I write, I analyze the text more during quality assurance these days. I'm focusing on words I use a lot, and I either replace them, delete them or rewrite sentences because of them. I know my writing has improved, my proofreader still manages to find plenty to fix, but he's been happy with the overall improvements lately.

Whenever watching a movie or reading anything, I analyze sentences differently than I did before. I find it fascinating how scriptwriters and authors can string sentences together in ways I wouldn't think of. I draw inspiration from that while trying to expand my vocabulary.

Another thing I do more often these days is deleting sentences that tell too much. In some cases, a sentence doesn't have to be said; the player will understand this without it being there. So, I think "show, don't tell" a lot more when writing and let the player put together the puzzle pieces and draw conclusions from that.

I remembered reading a previous Q&A; you enjoyed watching raunchy late 2000's movies. What other movies/shows were your favorites, and did they impact making Being a DIK?

My favorites haven't changed a lot in the college/school genre, and I think that all college movies I've watched are a subliminal source of inspiration for the game, but I don't want to copy original creations in any deliberate way. Many of my favorite college/school movies aren't highly ranked on IMDb, nor should they be - they aren't perfect, but I thoroughly enjoy them.

To name a few off the top of my head:

"Sorority boys", "Going greek", "The hot chick", "21", "Girl next door", "Grease", ”American Pie” (3 and Band camp are my favorites), The Waterboy.

Being a movie buff, I have many other favorites in other genres. They don't influence the game, but the storytelling is inspiring.

To name a few from different genres, I'd say:

• Shutter (Thai version, 2004)
• The Untouchables (1987)
• The Intouchables (French version, 2011)
• The Notebook (2004)
• Parasite (2019)
• The Thing (1982)
• The Prestige (2006)

Favorite TV shows include Community, The Office, Seinfeld, Suits, Breaking Bad, Dexter, and The Mentalist.

Do you often spend lots of time on a scene only to not like the end product? How do you deal with your own self-critic if he's riding on your shoulder judging your renders?

The dislike doesn't come immediately, or I would fix it before it was published, but it happens that I can look back at a few scenes when replaying and think, "If I made this scene today, I would have done this or that to it". It's often a matter of not exploring the scene enough. 

I've put limits on what I can be critical about, I can't let perfectionism delay the development too much, so I have to accept certain flaws in renders and animations. When dealing with it, it helps to know that I will look back at this in a few years from now and regret it anyways for some other reason, haha, so it's best to move on. I always pay attention to details, try my best, and don't let perfectionism stop my progress.

Working on something else when hitting a speed bump helps a lot, too. This can, at times, make the late development the hardest since I might postpone scenes that I’m not completely happy with until the end.

How do you balance wanting the player to have choices with the reality of the game getting too big with so many branching paths?

With planning, you can achieve whatever you want. Choices can be used to alter stats, be used as a part of a whole, directly affect something down the road, have an immediate effect in dialogue/renders, and (the disliked) give an illusion of choice.

I have to think of what's feasible, what choices I can offer, and what can't happen. Sometimes choices get limited because the story would take off in different directions if the player had free will.

That increasingly becomes a problem with every choice you get. So, it's important to define the outlines of the game and the consequences of the choices. And you can also think smarter by having choices in branches affect the main story later, but the important part is to plan it before you write it.

How is your stress level now that Season 2 is out on Steam and you can go back full-time into the development of new content?

It's way lower and I've felt drained of energy for a while. I've been sleeping and resting longer than usual after the Steam release. The covid made me more tired than usual, and I hope this fatigue I’m currently feeling will dissipate in time. I feel excited again about working on the game while knowing that Season 1 and 2 are finally complete with little work needed regarding patching.

No single person is made to handle the response from this many players, and at some point, I decided that I hit my limit and had to stop reading and replying to everyone. It's not because I'm rude, even though it feels rude since you took the time to write me, but it's because I don't have time for it, and it made me feel stressed. It's something everyone will have to accept, and that's why it's great that we can have these Q&A sessions, so I can put the information out there publicly for all to see.

You seem to work all year. Do you work on vacations and family trips as well? How can you fit work with family time?

I haven't taken any trips or longer vacations since I started developing games. I still feel guilty if I take a day off, which sucks but it's how I am as a person. As for family activities, you just have to make time for them.

When I started making games, I couldn't detach from thinking about the development even when I was "forced" to spend time with my family. This was very destructive for my real life. I've learned not to think about the game at all when being away from home. And I don’t look at family time as being forced to have it, but being blessed to have it. Making this game is so addictive that it is hard to disconnect from it. These days, if I'm spending time with my family or friends, I'm there for them, 100%. Most of the time, I'm not with them, so it still works out to me working almost all the time naturally.

Do you plan on coming back to Acting Lessons (maybe a kind of Remaster when BaDik is done)?

I've thought about it, but I'm not sure if I ever will do it. The art would look better, the story could be fleshed out, and many more improvements could be made.

The things eventually keeping me from doing it are:

• Would a remaster/change of the game make it better, or would what made it great be lost in the process?
• Is it worth doing all of that, knowing that most of the game would be the same as it already is? I wouldn't change any major event in it. Most of you know what I mean by that.
• Wouldn't the time spent on this be better spent working on something new and fresh?

I see more negative aspects than positive ones, but I haven't ruled it out as a possibility.

Yo Dr PinkCake… Are you a man or a woman?

I identify as a cake.

*Phew*

Thanks for reading this long Q&A!

Love

Dr PinkCake