Q&A Session - February 2021

Warning! This post may contain minor spoilers for episodes 1-6 of Being a DIK and Acting Lessons. I have written my answers to be as spoiler-free as possible, but still, read at your discretion.

Thanks for all of your questions! I didn't expect that many, and I went through them to see what I can answer and what I already answered before.

For the repeated questions, please read my old Q&A post here. 

I haven't answered any questions that would spoil the story of Being a DIK.

Grab something to drink or eat because this is a long post.

Game development

What is your work routine, and how do you work?

Work averages to 12-18 hours per day, every day of the week. I have had a few days off here and there, but my last real vacation was back in 2017. I start my day by processing animation frames, and static renders while simultaneously checking my communities (Patreon, Discord, and Steam). Then I work with what I’m in the mood for unless something takes priority.

In episode updates, you frequently use the phrase "x number of animations left to pose", what exactly does that entail?

I often use that sentence to highlight the work left to do in one area, and creating animations is the most time-consuming part of creating art for the game.

"Posing an animation" is the manual work I have to do to create the animation. "Rendering an animation" is the work that my PCs have to do to create the animation.

Posing an animation includes many steps. Here’s a basic video of how an animation is posed in DAZ3D if you're interested. I estimate that an animation takes me anywhere between 30 minutes to 6 hours to pose. Episode 7 will have more than 200 animations, so it's a huge amount of manual labor.

What is the most challenging part from your point of view; writing, designing, or programming? Do you have a favorite part of developing the game? 

Between writing, designing and programming, I think the most challenging part is writing. It's the part of game development that's the least forgiving. Design and code issues can be fixed afterward if needed, but the story and dialogue need to be close to perfect by every single release.

I enjoy every aspect of the game development, and if I have to pick any favorite parts of it, those would be posing animations and writing code for new features.

What is the most challenging part of the overall game development?

The most challenging part of game development, and this entire business, is to manage the stress. As I've grown in support, there's an increase in expectations of me even though I haven't promised to do anything different. Managing expectations and the feeling that you don't have time to interact with fans are the worst parts of this. Being forced to ignore DMs and comments for the sake of game development is an awful feeling and so unlike me as a person. The stress is horrible, but this is still the best job in the world for me.

How do you go about the actual writing of your stories? How do you keep track of all the variables/routes?

I write and code the story all at once using Atom editor and Ren'Py. I make notes of ideas and details in a text file and use graphic software to manage the story's timeline. I keep my variables neatly defined in header files that I constantly revisit during development.

I often see a lot of developers neglect macOS versions of their games. Is it difficult to also support Being a DIK/Acting Lessons for macOS?

It used to be easy, but it's much more demanding today. Apple has changed their policy, becoming less developer-friendly and more security-oriented. This made cross-compiled games like Ren'Py ones difficult to launch on macOS for a standard user. 

These changes caused grief for me and led to many hours of macOS customer support. I can understand why developers would choose to skip macOS versions altogether because of this. However, I won't skip macOS on Patreon unless Apple does something that makes it impossible for me to continue developing my games for their platform. It wouldn't be fair to the macOS players to quit now.

What parts of the game are you willing to be flexible on due to feedback? How much does a fan reaction affect your writing and story?

I always read and consider any feedback related to gameplay, quality of life improvements, bug reports, and typos. Many significant improvements are a direct result of community feedback.

Fan response, however, doesn’t affect the story.

Can you change the poll system so that the same girls don’t win every time?

There are clearly favorites among patrons, and I'm thinking of possible changes to the polls to make things more balanced in the long run. It's a challenge because removing the polls' popular characters is a punishment to most patrons who enjoy them, but at the same time, I too would like the end product to have a balanced selection of special render sets, for one.

What are some of the lessons you've learned along the way of making games?

As a  developer, you will constantly learn valuable lessons in all areas.

The biggest lessons Acting Lessons taught me were not to carve a game's length in stone and that communication with your supporters is critical.

Being a DIK taught me more detailed marketing lessons and that it's important not to overshare information and let the product speak for itself.

I've noticed quite a shift in tone and overall atmosphere between Acting Lessons and Being a DIK. What inspired that shift from Acting Lessons to Being A DIK?

I like many different genres, and I wanted to create something different with the new game. The college genre is a personal favorite of mine when it comes to movies, and I knew that I could come up with a lot of fun material for it, so I went for it.

The story of Acting Lessons is a very personal story, steeped in life experience, which got pretty dark. I wanted Being a DIK to lean more on comedy, so scrapping the idea of making Being a DIK the prequel of Acting Lessons seemed like a natural choice. I think that it was the single most important decision of my career as a developer so far.

How do you balance developing and telling a cohesive storytelling structure with a narrative game's branching elements? Do you prioritize taking the plot and characters arc from A to B with somewhat limited branching, or you plan strongly defined diverging paths that can go from A to B, C, D, E...?

When you develop a game like Being a DIK and need many branches, the most important part is to have a backbone story. No matter what choices the player makes, which girl the player goes for, the main story is always there to carry the game forward. That way, branching becomes manageable, and you can plan whatever structure you want for the branches. It’s not necessarily just an arc going from A to B; you can have multiple outcomes for it, as long as you plan to take care of the outcomes when you’re done with the branch. 

One good way to end branching is to store its outcome as a variable and use it later to affect the story. It’s an easy way to introduce a system where choice matters, and it allows you to kill branches without making the player feel they did something for nothing, as the choice is respected later on in the game.

The balance of it comes naturally to me; I try to include characters in the story, even if the player has no romantic interest in them.

Do you feel limited when writing due to your choice of using only monologue and dialog to describe what's happening? For action, you rely completely on the visuals, which becomes especially apparent during sex scenes. Wouldn't you sometimes like to use more detailed text or rich descriptions to go deeper into the scene?

No, I don’t feel limited by that choice of writing style, but, yes, I do miss out on painting the scene further than visuals go. When writing a book, detailed text and rich descriptions are necessary, and I felt that the game being a visual novel, didn’t need that narrative. It removes some of the immersion when a narrator describes a scene's details versus the character saying, thinking, or expressing it through body language. 

My chosen writing method plays to my strengths, as I see writing as my biggest weakness. Even though I constantly try to improve my writing, I think I lack the skill set needed to write a novel in the way you're describing.

Have you considered a non-adult version of Being a DIK or Acting Lessons? 

The stories would likely appeal to a wide audience even if the sexual parts were altered or removed. However, any such choice should be made pre-development; it would take far too much energy to convert these projects to non-adult versions now.

On top of that, I’m an advocate that adult games should be less taboo. For the future, I’d love for bigger studios to stop flirting with the adult theme and dare to take the actual step and include it in their games, even if it’s just through an optional DLC.

Do you upgrade the Ren'Py engine when there is a new version? Does this affect development and compatibility?

Yes, I upgrade all software I use once in a while, and so far, it hasn't affected development negatively, other than a few settings here and there. If it's something that my past jobs taught me, companies don't update their software frequently enough, and that it causes major issues when they jump too many versions at once.

Being a DIK

Do you already know how the story will end?

Yes, the game is mapped out along a timeline that I follow when developing the game. 

How many episodes/seasons will Being a DIK have?

I'm in no hurry to finish this game; my main priority is that it's finished in the way I want. When I leave B&R behind me, I want to do so without wishing that I could have done more. That's why it's hard to say that the game will be this many episodes or that many seasons. The public information is 10-20 episodes and coming this far into the project; I think that it’s an estimation that still holds, but, right now, it’s leaning to be in the 14-20 episode range.

From your original concept, has there been any significant deviations?

Aside from scrapping the idea that the game would be a prequel to Acting Lessons, the outline since hasn’t changed much. It has been expanded with more story events and sub-plots.

So far, the only deviations are that some events have been introduced earlier than intended, while some events have been pushed back for later.

Is the story moving faster or slower than you originally intended?

The story is progressing a bit slower, I'd say. One prominent example is Hell Week. I initially thought it would be a done deal after episode 3, but it didn't reach its conclusion until episode 5. It still allowed me to progress characters in the way I intended, skewing the timeline I had planned a bit, but I think the game will be better for it.

Are the characters inspired by real-life persons? Is Derek based on anyone you know?

I never use real persons as inspiration for the visual design; it would not be very respectful. I do use life experience as a source of inspiration when designing personalities.

Derek’s character is likely the closest I’d get to a self-inserted character. His opinions and arguments are ones that I purposedly use in real life to trigger funny and interesting discussions. I have a bad habit of taking the side of a controversial opinion to stimulate discussion, even if I disagree with what I'm saying. Coming up with asinine views on feminism and triggering my feminist wife with them is a guilty pleasure of mine.

Who is the first character who started the Being a DIK story?

I want to answer this question, but I can’t at this time. I’d be willing to answer it when the game is complete.

What made you pick a single protagonist design vs. letting players create their characters?

From a visual standpoint, it's simply not feasible to let players create their character. The art isn't produced at runtime; it's pre-rendered. If I had two variations of the main character, I would have to render twice as many renders and animations.

When it comes to personality, it is possible but will likely result in an uninteresting main character. In Acting Lessons, I left the main character as a relatively blank slate, with some sense of character creation to the player. As a writer, I came to dislike that concept. For me, it's much more interesting if the main character has a backstory, his own motivations/goals, and a personality.

Are you happy with the longevity of the systems you implemented early on? E.g., fights skills maxed out, major choices running out of options.

Overall, yes, I'm happy. It's tough to balance stats or sub-sections of a game when you're unsure about the feature's scope. Brawler reached a maxed-out state early if the player wants it to, but I didn't design it to be a mini-game with a bigger purpose than it currently has.

The major choices aren't running out of options. If you make 100% DIK or CHICK major choices during episodes 1-6, you can see what happens when the bars disappear on either end. There will still be major choices to make, but you have shaped your character's personality, per the tutorial in episode 1. With time, the effect of this should become apparent.

Is there anything you wish you had done differently, whether story-wise, gameplay or visual?

I’m mostly happy with the state of the game. I did go back and change Brawler early on because it wasn’t what I wanted it to be at the time.

When it comes to visuals, I constantly wish I did things differently. I will always look back at past work, see the flaws, and compare it to the present. But I can’t go back and fix that now because the same dilemma will arise as I continue to improve in the future, and remastering a game too early eats up precious development time.

Have you ever hit writer's block with Being a DIK, and how do you plan your plot writing?

I haven’t hit a writer’s block yet, and hopefully never.

Sometimes I have to stop writing in the middle of a scene for various reasons; it’s like a temporary block, I know what I want to accomplish, but I’m not completely sure how to get there. When that happens, I work on something else and save those problems for another day when I've cleared my head.

When writing an episode, I start planning what parts of the story I want to include. Then I plan which scenes are needed and fill in the blanks until I have a recipe for the episode. After that, I begin writing dialogue. I repeatedly update the plan, often causing the episode to get longer, but at the same time better.

Is there any scene in Being a DIK you didn't like adding but think is necessary?

No, I haven’t had that feeling yet, but I’m sure that I will feel that at some point before the game is completed. Just like players, I too, develop feelings for the characters that I write. I have no idea what I will feel like when I reach some later events I planned for early on.

For example, I couldn’t anticipate how difficult it would be to write the ending of Acting Lessons. Day one, I mapped out the end events with ease, but when the time came to write the scenes, I didn’t enjoy adding them, but I did it because they had to happen for the story.

Did you expect Quinn to have a decent size and loyal fanbase? From where did your inspiration for Quinn's character come?

I expected Quinn to be very polarizing. She is nowhere near a fan favorite based on polls, but she's unmatched in the game for those who enjoy a character like her. The inspiration was to create an antagonist that you'd either love to hate or hate to love. For me, Quinn is a character I love to write.

Will the Pack Quest render pack replace the vault for special renders in the game?

No, the Pack Quest will be added on top of the vault's special renders.

What was the punchline to Derek's joke he told the bartender in Episode 5?

If you fail at getting the tequila after asking him to help you, talk to him again, and he expands a bit on it. I don't think many players saw this.

Are you still as passionate about the game as when you started?

Yes, definitely! There is so much that I look forward to creating in the future for this game. I can't wait to reach those parts of the story. After being able to upgrade my hardware, I'm also able to pull all stops when it comes to animations, which motivated me even further.

I'm sure that any hardcore fan of the game has over 100 pages of saved games, which is extremely difficult to navigate for replayability. Is there a plan to modify this part to make it easier?

That's more than 1200 saves, and I think that’s far from being a common issue.

I will add a button to skip five pages at once to the next update, but any extended feature on top of that would clutter the GUI.

When it comes to managing saves, a couple of features that I think are worth highlighting, that I see players miss out on, are that you can delete saves by hovering them and pressing the delete key. You can also click the header name of a page and rename the page itself to something different, e.g., "CHICK path saves".

Was the economy of the game planned this way from the start?

Yes, I wanted a simple system, but I see some of its shortcomings, especially its confusion when there are three different ways to refer to the game's currency (pocket money, mansion money, and real USD).

If I tried to strive for realism, the gameplay would lose some of the fun of managing your pocket money. Despite the confusion, I think that I ended up with a system that works for the purpose I want it to have in the game.

Even though this is a work of fiction, do you research your story to make it more accurate, e.g., the university system?

Absolutely. I find it important to conduct research when writing a story that offers some level of realism. The university system is a mix between the US system and that of my country, in which I have experience. Of course, the game is nowhere near being realistic, but I want the characters and their problems to feel like someone or something you can relate to.

Do you have an idea where in the world B&R is located and where characters lived before attending college?

The location is fictional, even though you can see license plates and signs from the east and west coast. As far as I can recall, I've only mentioned San Diego and New York in the game for Zoey (MCs old girlfriend) and Catrin (Swyper), but I have no intention of placing B&R on an actual map. Some gaps are best left to be filled by the player’s imagination.

Would you still enjoy playing BaDIK yourself? Or wouldn't you enjoy it because you spent so many hours working on it?

I enjoy it in a different way than a player. I enjoy playing a scene for the first time after creating it and seeing how the episode comes together during development. I also get my enjoyment from reading fan reactions and theories as well.

Before each episode is released, I always enjoy playing the game from the beginning as part of quality assurance. I make it special by playing it on a big screen on my sofa, with a wireless keyboard and integrated mouse. Every time I play the game like that, it makes me very proud to see how much work I’ve put into it and excited for everything that's yet to come.

What happened to Isabella’s pubic hair?

Hairstyles, be they normal or pubic, will change during the course of the game. Women shave and change their looks in real life, and I want that to be the case in the game. If it's removed, it doesn’t mean it won’t come back at a later point, and vice versa.

Would you add a feature in the main menu that shows a story tree with scenes and branches, so we can see what areas to replay and change choices?

I see how this can be useful, but I don't have any plans to add this visual element or any other replay functionality. The walkthrough covers how to get all scenes, and I'd like to leave it like that.

Acting Lessons

Will there be some relation between Being a DIK and Acting Lessons or any future installments?

No, the games aren't related more than that Being a DIK was initially meant to be a prequel to Acting Lessons. Some ideas coined in Acting Lessons made it into Being a DIK, like the fraternity name and Hell Week. You'll even see Angela and Hedwig sporting the HOT sorority clothes in a dorm not too dissimilar to Maya's dorm in Acting Lessons.

Despite some of the similarities, it's best to treat them as independent works of fiction. Their stories won't intertwine at any point.

If you would have done Acting Lessons now, would you change anything? Will you ever remaster Acting Lessons?

I replayed Acting Lessons not that long ago after not playing the game, other than for development purposes, since the 2018 December release. I'm happy with the game as a whole, and it set out to tell the story that I wanted to tell. It also ended where it needed to end, so any prolongation of it wouldn't be feasible.

If I were to remaster the game, there are many areas where I could improve. These include expanded lewd scenes and story, even more choices and branching, better visuals, more dialogue, better audio, and voice acting. With all those changes, it would be like developing a new game, and then I'd have to ask myself if it's worth it.

The story is what I want it to be, and any changes might take away from the original experience instead of making it a better game. The same could be the case if I only chose to remaster the art. The characters would likely look different, and it could potentially ruin the soul of the game.

I guess I see the potential remaster as romanticization. You build it up to sound great in your head, but it doesn't measure up when revisited in reality. At the moment, I’m not considering it, but I’m not shutting the door.

Steam

Will Season 2 be available to patrons at a discount or free when released on Steam, or will there be a standard price?

Per Steam policy, I must strive to make the price fair for customers regardless of where they purchase the game. While technically it would be appropriate to give the keys away for free here, I'm not allowed to sell/distribute keys of that volume on Patreon. Patreon isn't a marketplace, and lotteries are no longer allowed, so I can't do that either. With all options exhausted, there will have to be a standard price for it. I will, however, have a discounted price when I release the second season on Steam.

Thanks for reading and asking questions! When there's a need for another Q&A in the future, there will be a similar post.

Cheers

Dr PinkCake