Here's the second part of this year's Q&A.

In this part, I'll answer your game development questions.

If you missed the first part, where I answered questions about Being a DIK, you can find it here.

Enjoy the read, and thanks for your questions!

Game development

Was there a particularly challenging scene to create for EP12, be it writing, or visual?

For visuals, the fireworks scenes were difficult to work with, and they took a long time to render. There was very little room for mistakes with those animations, and I'm happy they came out great. For writing, the hardest parts were the scenes involving Sage and Jade because the dialogue had a lot of variables and nuances that needed extra attention. There were also plenty of ways to break up with girls, and those scenes weren't the easiest to write either. I wanted those scenes to pack a punch without getting overly dramatic. I thought back to various breakups I have had in my life and drew inspiration from those. I never had sex with any ex-girlfriend's mom, though.

How much fun was reading the Steam reviews for S3 for you so far?

I stopped reading Steam reviews after Season 1 was released. I have a hard time accepting compliments; I've always struggled with that in real life, and I usually use humor to deflect. I think the Steam review system is designed more for players than for developers. Sure, you can always get useful feedback from reviews, but that feedback usually reaches developers in the forums too. When I check other games' reviews on Steam, developers tend to respond only to negative reviews. Either to change the reviewer's mind and rating or to defend themselves. I cringe when I see that. Reviews should be an impartial system, and I don't think you, as a developer, should encourage or engage too much with the whiners. You're supposed to embrace the ones who love your game, and to accept the feedback that makes it better.

You mentioned episode 12 featured a scene that you had been waiting for years to finally realize. What was that scene?

From https://www.patreon.com/DrPinkCake/posts/status-update-12-154078316:

"I continued playing my Others' branch playthrough all the way to the end, and I had a blast. The branch and variation I played is something that I don't believe most will play, but it was quite the experience.

Even knowing every bit of the episode, I'm still surprised by how it turned out. I enjoyed it a lot, and I got goosebumps playing some scenes that I've dreamt of creating since the early days of this project.

It's been like seven years since I planned those scenes, and they are finally in the game. This is such an amazing journey seeing it all come together like that."

Multiple scenes. Bella's background story felt so satisfying to create. I had so much fun creating Quinn's quest for revenge in this episode. And I got goosebumps from the ending scenes with both Sally's story and the final animation of the season. I've waited 7-8 years to create all those scenes, and reaching this point in the story and getting to do that felt satisfying in a way I can't describe. It's a big payoff for all the hard work that went into this project, and knowing there's still more to come in Season 4 excites me.

If I remember correctly, during the development of Episode 12 you upgraded both your hardware and parts of your software stack, including moving to newer versions of DAZ Studio. Please correct me if I'm misremembering that.

Looking back at it now, how worthwhile do you think those upgrades were? Did paying down that technical debt ultimately pay off in terms of performance, workflow, or future development? Or did the migration and all the work that came with it end up costing more time than it was worth?

You remember correctly. I made major hardware and software upgrades during episode 12 development. I moved to the latest and greatest version of DAZ Studio. The move between DAZ versions was the biggest hurdle, and I'm still not done with the old DAZ version because I need a few scripts that only work with it. But for the rest of my workflow, I have found a new way to work with the software, and I think the switch has been worthwhile. If I can only get the last few scripts ported, that would let me leave old DAZ behind me, but I can't say when or if that will ever happen. So, for now, I switch between versions as needed. But it's not annoying; it just took some time to get used to. The hardware upgrades were worth it; they let me push animations and quality further. The effects of the software upgrades aren't as tangible, but it's always good to work with the latest versions whenever you can. I will try to stay on top of new DAZ updates from now on, and not stick to past versions. For Season 4, I'm upgrading Ren'Py to the latest version.

Regarding renders and post production. Do you do all your post production on outputted PNG's or do you take advantage of Daz's canvas system for your workflow?

I've seen the DAZ canvas system but haven't fiddled around with it much. I've tried some of the canvas output layers, but I didn't see how it could benefit my workflow. So, I wrote post-processing scripts that parse the PNG files instead. I've used the same post-processing system with very few changes since Season 1. I find it fast, reliable, and consistent. Writing scripts that automate post-processing tasks has made this project possible. When I started making AL, I actually manually post-processed animation frames. Something that quickly became a huge chore.

Have you ever considered making animation scenes in Blender rather than DAZ ? Or do you think working with Blender would be difficult and not worth the trouble ?

If I had more time to learn Blender, I'd use it just for its animation tools, then render in DAZ3D again to match the quality of the static renders. For now, I'm sticking with DAZ3D, and in the future, when the game is complete, I will explore other options to learn new techniques. For now, I want to keep the game consistent.

Did you take any inspiration from other adult games when you first started developing Being a DIK? If so, which games influenced you the most?

I played many adult games before I started making them on my own. But none really scratched the itch. The problem back then was that I felt every game fell into the "landlady" category, and I don't particularly enjoy that genre. One of my goals as a developer was actually to prove that you can make a successful game without including that fetish. But naturally, you look at how games like these are made before you set out to create one of your own. When I started making these games, PhillyGames and Motkeyz were just starting their developer journeys too. I've always looked up to them. I'd recommend players check out their games. Before I started making games, my favorite adult game was "Living with Temptation" by Lesson of Passion. I've also enjoyed playing "House Party" by Eek! Games, too. We all produce different styles of games, but to me, I find those developers inspiring for different reasons. I hope they keep creating games and keep evolving.

For S4: Will you implement a "skip mini games that I have already beaten" function? I don't want to disable minigames for my playthroughs because I actually enjoy some of them. But to redo the same English / Math / Science test over and over and over to explore all branches, that gets a bit tedious after a while. It would be a great function to have retroactively as well.

For the fish: what happened in E12? Taking care of the fish has become a very sad and depressing task as they die like fruit flies despite best care. I have like 10-15 dead fish on 1-2 sick fish each round. Did a tri-beta poison my fishtank?

And finally: Is there a way to restore my "seen scenes" tracker when I update a game with a full download? For each of the full downloads, despite having all my saves to copy, the scenes that I can skip past because they have been seen before are re-set, making it hard to know when I found new content.

As usual: I love this game, but I figured I'd focus on actual questions / feedback instead of praise this time around - but I appreciate both the quality and your anti-slop stance!

Skipping mini-games you have already beaten raises a lot of questions and problems. To show you my thinking, here is what I would have to answer to solve such a problem.

Should every mini-game have that functionality?

What about the mini-games that shape the story, like Party Planner and Mansion Repair? How do those get handled?

The Math game has RNG and different tasks each time; has the player truly beaten it by completing it once?

What about the Fish tank mini-game? How would that even be designed?

What about the collective experience where passing/failing mini-games has story consequences? How would you handle that with an auto-win button? Should there also be an auto-lose functionality?

How would Brawler even be designed with this in mind?

And the biggest question of all. Where is the fun in all of this? There's an option to play without mini-games, after all. And losing mini-games is also a valid way to play the game. Why's the player obsessed with having to "win" every time if they don't feel like putting in the effort?

For me, the answer becomes "no, I'm not going to implement that" when I try to answer the questions above.

Regarding the fish tank, the fish have different health, and eventually they all will die at different rates. You probably didn't save enough young fish to keep the tank thriving (always save some), or you got some really bad RNG. Always heal sick fish too, as sick females won't reproduce.

Regarding "seen scenes", that progress gets reset if I update dialogue due to typos, etc. In the recent update, I corrected a lot of typos. The only thing you can do if you wish to skip those is enable the option to "Skip seen dialogue", and then turn it off again when you want it to stop. Typo fixes, etc., will always make lines unseen, and I can't prevent that with patches.

I'm curious about the technical side of creating the guide. It's incredibly clean and consistent in terms of layout, and it uses a lot of recurring elements like "Hints", "Vault info", and so on.

Did you build some kind of WYSIWYG or LaTeX-like system/template for generating the guide, with predefined functions or components such as `vault_reminder("add_text")` or `free_roam_header()`? Or is most of it formatted manually?

It's manually formatted. After writing it, I revise and retouch it to keep a consistent style. Updating the guide between episodes takes time, but it's straightforward now. I read the game code as I write the guide and stop whenever there's a choice or consequence that needs to be addressed. It's kind of nuts how big the guides have gotten. Just the guides alone read like a book.

When you start a new chapter, what is the first thing you decide to do?

I always work on a lewd scene or a scene with many animations. That gets the render queue beefed up as soon as possible, so I lose as little time as possible not rendering anything. This often happens during beta testing of the episode that's about to be released. After I get a render queue, I structure the episode timeline and define what content should be in the episode.

For someone who loves to get all the collectibles, would you be open to adding a button to reset the collectibles, so people could re-collect the story and free roam renders, pack quests, etc.? (a button within the game, rather than deleting the persistent files)

That's a very scary button to add. If the player really wants to reset that process, it's not that hard to delete the two files needed. I'd rather not add a button that could permanently damage save files. Someone will push that button by mistake, even with a warning text. I have overwritten save files instead of loading them, despite the warning text.

I was wondering if you’re planning to release any content on the Steam Points Shop related to the game, such as backgrounds, avatars, or other items ?

I wish I could, but I'm not allowed to. When you publish a game on Steam, you decide those things before release, and after release you're not allowed to make any changes, as the Steam economy system with points gets affected. I asked Steam if I could update the art and add more, but sadly they said no.

Hi DPC,

When u r doing Season 3, you tend to share the story in a more Nonlinear narrative way.

I have 0 problem with it but it does take away the joy of enjoying certain scene's tension builds its way to climax.

Do you think u will continue the same way writting, or since we are closing to and end, most of the stories/paths will cross over and becomes a bit more straight forward?

Anyway, wish you the very best and thanks for being such a nice story teller.

I started out as a NSFW game player, now I am just a hooked audience to this story~

I think the game's non-linear scenes have helped improve the storytelling. I think they foreshadow events well and make the player think about what some scenes possibly can mean. By keeping parts of the game non-linear, players also ask whether a scene is in the future, past, or current time. For episode 9, I used it to make the player question what really happened at the Burkes instead of jumping to that part at the start of the episode. That way, the party could start without needing more scenes between the visit to the Burkes and the party. I think keeping parts non-linear makes the game a bit more exciting and mysterious. I will likely use this method in parts of Season 4 too, but I also see Season 4 as much more straightforward than Season 3 now that many story arcs have ended or taken another form. Season 4 won't introduce many more story arcs; instead, it will wrap up the ones already in the game and work toward their conclusions.

Looking back at the very beginning of Being a DIK, what was the actual first spark that eventually grew into the game we have today? Was there a specific character, story idea, scene, or even just a concept that came first and made you think, “I want to make a game around this”? Basically, what was the very first piece of the puzzle?

Today, I can answer that. Isabella's story sparked it all. The mystery surrounding her room was my first idea for the game, and it grew from there. I also knew from the start that I wanted to make a college-themed game out of my love for college comedy movies. Then I started putting together all the ideas I had that could make for interesting stories, and I designed characters with those stories in mind. My life experiences heavily influenced the stories, which is why the entire project feels so personal to me.

For the Phone Music App interface (for Tremolo story scenes where the music is set--not free roams), I think the 'Heart' favorite icon is greyed out sometimes. Would you make it so we can heart songs we hear in story mode, that then map to our Favorites in the Music app?

If a song has a greyed-out heart, it means it's not included in the music player, and I count that as an unlisted song. I do this because I don't want those songs in the music list, since they often fit only a single scene, occasion, or mood. For example, a horror Halloween song wouldn't work well while partying on New Year's Eve, and a horror song wouldn't set the mood right for a comfy free roam event. That's why I don't list every song in the music player.

Is there someway you find yourself celebrating successful season completion or do the episodes tend to be all a little celebration worthy?

Releases are always extra hectic, so it's hard to find time to celebrate. I celebrated Season 3 with some time off. It felt nice to disconnect for a bit. Interacting with so many people in a short period of time and staying on top of issues is exhausting. There's no ritual or anything special involved in the celebrations. Just a moment of appreciation, taking it all in and enjoying it that comes with every new release. I find the real reward is the calmer period after a release is fully managed, when I get to start work on the next episode.

Can you tell us a little bit about the planned Acting Lessons crossover that you scrapped? Was it going to be involved, or just a little nod to B&R and the ΔΙΚ frat?

What specifically did you find too limiting that led to the decision to skip the crossover/interconnected-ness?

Picture the MC of Being a DIK as Jonas, and Liam as Derek. It would cover how they met and their time in college. What made me say no was that it would ultimately restrict my creative freedom. I generally don't like prequels because they feel like stories already on rails toward a known destination. In my opinion, prequel stories are very rarely interesting. The only one that comes to mind that's amazing is Better Call Saul. And as I mentioned in another answer in Part 1 of this Q&A, I was a bit scared to venture outside the AL comfort zone, which is why the game was about AL in the first place. But taking that leap paid off.

When you finished Season 3, did you have a particular route or outcome in mind that would make players want to restart from Episode 1?

I really enjoyed the different options at the end of Episode 12, and it was a fun challenge figuring out how to unlock all of them in a single run. It made me wonder if encouraging that kind of full-series replay was something you had intentionally designed around.

Frankly, I want players to feel like they missed out on a lot of content by playing the game only once, no matter how they played. That's been a core idea since the beginning. I want players to ask questions such as "I wonder what would happen if I did this instead?" etc. Enticing players with new ways to play is what gives the game replay value, and it's why I see so many players with an insane number of hours played. I don't think you can get the intended experience by just playing the game once. Some parts of the story get elevated by details from other kinds of playthroughs.

With episode 12, I wanted past decisions to come back and bite the player in the ass, for sure, which the episode title hints at. To name the episode "Smoke and Fire" mainly came from the idiom "where there's smoke, there's fire", but it also fit the theme of New Year's Eve well. I also wanted to reward players in healthy relationships with how episode 12 ended - Josy and Maya branch excluded for story reasons. I suspected that both Jade and Quinn would be the main reasons players would restart the game, and I think I was right. However, I didn't anticipate that seemingly a majority of players (going off the global Steam achievement stats) would get the bad outcomes as their first playthrough.

With the last 4 releases coming , and with the noticeable reduction in decision making in the last eps how will this affect game development, will it make the following 4 episodes more of a vn less of a choice driven game and will that make it easier or more difficult on your work?

First off, I want to be clear that there's no promise of four more episodes. Season 4 shouldn't be treated like Seasons 1-3. Story-wise, we're getting close to the end, but content-wise there's plenty of ground to cover. Season 4 will still have player-driven choices, but you'll see that past choices have consequences too. If they didn't, there wouldn't be a point in having them there in the first place.

I think the final season will be much harder to make than previous ones. Early on, when nothing is written, you have much more freedom in how you write scenes and add choices. Later on, each choice can add another branch, and I have to be smart about it. I want the game to branch off in different directions, but there still need to be boundaries on what the player can choose and which choices are influenced by past decisions.

One thing that sets this game apart from most visual novels is that choices feel genuinely costly — there's no route where you get everything right and nobody pays.

Philosophers like Bernard Williams call this 'moral residue': the sense that even the right choice leaves a remainder of regret.

Was that feeling intentional? And when players ask 'what's the best path?', do you think there even is one — or is the honest answer that the game is built so there isn't?

It's always been my intention to write each character with flaws because no one ever is perfect - even though they can be "perfect for you". And I've also always intended to treat each branch with equal respect and love, and not play favorites. Even though I may have my preference for a "best path", it's only the best path for me, and not for everyone. That's what I believe is at the core of the game's philosophy. I've always been a fan of bittersweet stories, and I also love thinking that nothing is purely black or white. I like that the story elicits feelings like regret and anger, even when you do things that are "morally right". A story that's always fun and without challenges isn't a story I'd be interested in writing or consuming. One challenge has been introducing drama and issues into perfect playthroughs. Either by giving the story canon events that are always bad, or by adding choices that might trip the player up along the way. I believe the reward tastes sweeter if it's hard to attain.

the opening to season 3 has a seemingly staunch opinion on gen-AI and your lack of usage, is that a belief you intend to hold onto through season 4? i LOVED seeing the message, and really hope thats the case. thanks DPC!

Yes, I won't touch gen-AI. Why would I let a computer have my fun? It defeats the purpose of creating this game. I'm in this because I love to create, and if that gets taken away from me, then I'd stop making games. I also firmly believe that gen-AI is digital theft and needs to be regulated. It bypasses copyright laws, and there seems to be a general acceptance of this when there shouldn't be. AI, as a technology, has uses and fields where it makes more sense. I think we, as a society, should think more about the ethics of inventions. That's something that gets drilled into your head when you get your doctorate degree, yet it seems like the world doesn't care whenever there's a flashy new invention. Just because we can do something doesn't mean we always should. And the scary part about innovation is that once it's out there, you can't go back.

What are you long term goals for your brand? Acting lessons was a work of art and everyone here is a DIK fan so I wonder will I be playing being a dik 10 when im an old man.

production takes time seems a little over a year with the last few. What if anythin can we as fans do to help you make the stuff you enjoy ?

I don't think in terms of expanding and reaching a bigger audience anymore. I'm not looking to turn my games into sequels just to make more money or stay within those game universes. My goal is to create respectable pieces of fiction and end them when it feels right. I want my games to be remembered as special for players and to serve as good examples for future developers. There will come a day when I won't create more games, but I still want to play games. Knowing I helped inspire someone with my games would feel amazing. I'd like to leave that kind of legacy.

As for game development, I'm happy with where it is now. I get to do what I love daily without worrying as much about funding it. Sometimes, I feel like it wouldn't hurt if the fan base were smaller, and I know that's an odd thing to say. It's just getting too hard to handle the community without help. I'm lucky to have such a helpful community and Discord/Steam staff. Every time people help each other in the community, it makes things easier for me. That's how the community can help me. Give a helping hand if you know the answer to someone's question or problem.

Being a DIK has now reached a level of success and anticipation that you may never have expected when you first started it. How do you personally handle the pressure created by expectations this high, and when players are disappointed, how do you distinguish criticism worth learning from and expectations that no release could realistically satisfy?

I practice yoga to alleviate stress. I also work out several days a week and run a lot. Exercise works wonders for stress. It's also important to remind yourself that it's just a game, and that there are more important things in life than getting riled up about it. Over the years, I've learned to manage stress. In the early days, I sweated and shook as I pressed the release button during episode releases; now I don't get nervous when I'm about to push content to the world. Well... The Steam release did make me a bit tingly, since a lot is riding on doing it right. But it went very well, aside from a hotfix that I had to fix as fast as possible. In those moments of extreme stress, you gotta breathe through it and try to calm down, and you'll be fine. Some players will always get disappointed; it's that simple. You can never please everyone, and that's why I always choose to please myself. Players who think like me, want the same things from the game as I do, and enjoy the adversity and story beats are my target audience. Then I get lots of players interested in the game who want something different, and when they get disappointed, I shrug it off. I'm never going to let disappointment, threats, and hate affect the direction of the game development.

I welcome criticism, but I have to distinguish between what's actual positive feedback and what's player taste. Saying something like "I wish X had more lewd scenes/screen time/a romance branch" is a player preference, and not something I will consider even if I hear it 1000 times. But if I hear something like "This mini-game is too hard.", "I wish the app had this functionality", "The game doesn't work well for this reason", etc. That's feedback that I will take into consideration. In fact, many of those examples already exist in the game because of player criticism. For instance, the color-blind-friendly mode is a direct result of a player telling me he couldn't play a mini-game because of color-blindness. Typing in English class was another QoL improvement based on player criticism. So, I'm very open to criticism, as long as it is for the betterment of the game's features. When it comes to story content and direction, that's a closed and locked door. If you want that kind of influence, make your own game. That's exactly what I did when I was in that position.

im Curious if you decide not to create another game like this in scale if maybe you'll take these characters and perhaps put them in a actual visual novel or maybe just shorter visual stories changing their character alignment like for example making sage a villain etc

No, I feel that would disrespect them as characters in Being a DIK. And I don't think players could take those characters seriously in a new setting with a new persona. But the part you mention about short stories is something I'd be more okay with. It reminds me of the comic book patron reward I did a while back, which included a western theme using Being a DIK characters. You can find it here. Those kinda things are fun to do, but I wouldn't do a complete game like that. The Special Render series is an outlet for that type of content too. Those series let me tell short stories with few renders, and they are both fun and challenging to make.

On BaD, Which character and which route were the hardest for you to write emotionally, and what made them especially challenging?

Today, I'd say the routes leading to breakups were the most challenging. I know I wanted multiple ways to break up with the girls as a consequence of player action, but writing all these different breakup scenes while having them be different and poignant was hard and taxing. I had to write scenes that hurt all these wonderful characters. Fucking past me was a dick for deciding that.

The hard part was also deciding how long I wanted to spend on a breakup scene. It's undeniably not going to be an enjoyable scene, but it still needs respect. So I thought about how breakups usually go and the different ways to handle them. Some breakups are long and painful; some people don't even want to talk to each other about it; in some cases, one would storm out in anger; and in others, there might even be a mutual understanding. I'm allergic to carbon-copy scenes when it comes to the different main girls in the game. I want each of them to have unique scenes, even when the topic is the same. Be it wholesome scenes, lewd scenes, dates, breakups, etc. Writing the same thing in many ways is always challenging. For instance, with this many lewd scenes in the game, coming up with something new and exciting takes a lot of effort.

Hey dude, love the game and keep up the amazing work! How do you keep the story quite “grounded” as in believable to a degree?

I’ve tried other AVNs and some I can play for just 30 mins and it’s literally just the MC in lewd scenes constantly which just removes you from the story.

Is it a mix of all the emotions such as comedy, seriousness and romance? Thank you.

I think it depends on the developer's goal for the AVN. An AVN doesn't have to be realistic and grounded to be enjoyable, but I've chosen to include realism in many areas because I love writing about real-life issues people can relate to. That way, players feel more connected to the characters and their stories. But to keep the stories interesting, you also have to push them a bit and introduce drama. However, real life is often stranger than fiction. I think the key to creating a grounded story is to let characters have their own wills and motivations. If they are all just there to agree with the main character, that will quickly turn unbelievable. So, I put myself in their shoes and try to picture them in that moment as the main character. What would THEY want right now? Are they ok with what's happening in this scene, or do they oppose it? So, it all boils down to respecting and loving every character of the story, and that will make the game feel relatable and more realistic. I even love characters that the players detest, like Dawe, Tybalt, and Stephen Burke. They add a lot to the story, and the player needs someone to dislike to make it more interesting, too.

Have you gotten any sponsorship/brand deals?

I've gotten several of those offers, yes. But I say no to everything because that's not my priority. Those deals only mean more work for me and a split focus, and I'm not in this for the money; I want to create games.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to eventually make an AVN of their own? I'm brand new to DAZ and 3D software in general, and have only a modicum of basic coding experience, but I have a strong vision in my mind of the type of project I'd like to make. If you were starting over today, how would you approach the game dev learning process anew?

I'd say, just start. Go for it. Anything you do at first will come out as shit, and you'll look at it and laugh a few years down the road. But that "shit" you made will be the foundation of your journey as a developer. So download the software you see others use and mess around with it. Read. Watch videos. Follow along guides. Do anything that works toward the goal you want to reach. Be a sponge and soak up as much information as you can. Ask questions (Hey, good on you! You just did that one.) But for the love of God, just start NOW and do something. No one else has a starting gun in their hand except you. Read more of my past Q&As, especially the Part 2s with game development questions, for more information.

Doc, first off congrats on releasing season 3! I have been patiently waiting on it for 4 years after my first playthrough haha! You have inspired me to begin writing my own AVN.

With such a rich cast of different personalities and branching paths, how do you stay "true" to that character as the story progresses?

Especially because it can be quite a bit of time between episodes, so how do you manage sticking to your planned character archetype?

Tip number one: Do not listen to players and change the story or characters based on that.

Tip number two: Do NOT listen to players and change the story or characters based on that.

Tip number three: Plan characters' stories and development destinations in advance. Then you'll know the goal, and it'll be easy to stay true to the character when you know what to target with your writing.

Tip number four: Constantly evaluate if you're heading in the right direction and adapt. Be your worst critic.

Good luck with your journey! I hope I'll be enjoying your game in the future.

How much thought, legitimately, went into making the MC's dick as large as it is?

Much, much, much thought. Many tests and hours of trial and error went into deciding the final form. I felt the length was the simplest thing to decide. The length helped a lot with animations, although it wouldn't hurt to make it a bit smaller. But that would lose some narrative purpose. The texture, and how to make it appealing without grossing out players, took quite a bit of time and thought. Later in development, I improved it by adding gloss to show moisture.

If someone was to give you a blank check tomorrow and told you that you could use it in one of 4 ways for the creation of Being a DIK which one would you opt for any why?

Option #1: Adding voice acting for all 4 seasons of BAD. Any voice actor you could think of could be used free of charge.

Option #2: The purchase of any and all DAZ and related assets used in the creation of BAD. This would also cover a rework of earlier episodes as well, free of charge.

Option #3: Paying out full royalties on a complete music catalogue for BAD. All music could be used without fear of compensating for royalties ever.

Option #4: A system of super computers that could finish production in record time, weeks instead of months.

Option #3, all the way. I don't want option 1 for the game anymore. So, even if it were a possibility, I'd pass. For option 2, DAZ assets aren't really my company's main cost. And while it would be nice to get all that for free, I can afford it as it is. For option 4, supercomputers still couldn't fix the main bottleneck: me sitting at the PC working. So, if every PC finished the work I did in an instant, it would just add more stress and make me feel like I'm not doing enough. The render queues give me peace of mind and room to breathe. That's especially important when working on a big project like this.

Option 3, however, would unlock possibilities I couldn't afford with my game's budget. I would license music beyond royalty-free tracks and add songs only big studios could afford. That is, if the hurdle of getting the license to use in an adult game wasn't there. The first thing I'd do is to reach out to punk rock/rock labels and start hoarding such music like crazy. Blink 182, Sum 41, Bad Religion, Anti-Flag, Bayside, Billy Talent, Good Charlotte, Bloodhound Gang, Incubus, Less Than Jake, Neck Deep, RHCP, the list goes on... Imagine that.

Takes us through making a scene. How much is written ahead of time? How much is written as you are making it? Do you change any of the writing after the scene is made?

It usually goes like this. Make a macroscopic plan for the episode by checking the master document of what can be added. Put the structure into code. Start writing on scenes that I feel like writing. Often, I write a scene from start to finish in one go. I rarely stop because I don't know what to put in it. The planning I did beforehand already told me what the scene would be about in broad strokes. Sometimes I've written parts of the dialogue in my master document; other times, I've written nothing at all. There are also many cases where I wrote that scene years ago, then put it in the game and rewrote parts that no longer fit for various reasons, e.g., the setting or if I write dialogue differently these days.

After I finish writing a scene, I immediately re-read it. This is the first time I re-read the scene after writing it. During writing, I don't look back - I only go forward. During the re-read, I catch glaring errors and maybe tweak sentences here and there. Maybe I add a choice that fits the situation. Then I re-read it again when playing through the scene the first time with art. And I revisit the scene a lot during development and the many playthroughs I make. It gets increasingly polished with every playthrough. And maybe somewhere along the way I realize the scene should be in a different section of the episode, so I move it and adjust the writing. But the core idea and core writing always stay the same after that first time I put it into the game. It's incredibly rare that I remove an entire scene after writing it during episode development. One time, with the Stephen story, I decided to split it into parts after having written it. That felt a lot better, because playing it in chunks did those scenes justice.

With the success of the sex sounds, have you given any thought about adding moans as well? I know you dabbled with voice acting early on, but these could just be really basic moans, gasping, breathing heavily, grunting, etc. Nothing elaborate, no actual dialogue.

I've thought about it, but I decided to draw the line where it currently is. Even kissing sounds can be tricky to pull off without a proper voice actress. The moans and breathing imply a voice, and I want to avoid that. I plan to keep going with the sounds I have, and I may even expand the SFX pool with more sounds in the future and improve it. But moans and that kind of thing aren't on that list right now.

Hello Pink. One aspect of Being a DIK I genuinely enjoy is the comedy. I’ve always been a big fan of college coming-of-age movies, particularly American Pie, Animal House, and Van Wilder. The writing in the game often reminds me of those great movies I cherished during my childhood. I’m curious to know if there was a specific movie, television show, or book that inspired you to create the game. Or was it something entirely different?

I'm the same as you. And I've drawn inspiration from all those kinds of movies. I think you can clearly sense American Pie, Revenge of the Nerds, and Sorority Boys (And that's my favorite movie of this genre. And yes, I'm gonna keep nagging you guys to see this movie at every chance I get because that humor is 100% my humor, and you would enjoy large parts of it if you like Being a DIK). I also draw inspiration from Nicholas Sparks and his romance novels/movies.

Hey Doc! As an aspiring game dev who was inspired by BAD to start my own project, do you have any writing tips when creating your narrative? There is so much content in BAD that is all linked and intertwined.

Like how could you even visualize so many branching story lines that all link back to the original plot? Fantastic work on the new season as always. I've never been so invested in a game for years without any type of burnout. Thank you for sharing your work with the world!

You have to plan the stories like a madman ahead of time. That's the only way it will work. You can't start without a plan, or you will end up failing. Define your project. Know the outlines of the start, middle, and end, then base your writing and the characters' reactions on those pillars. And when you want things to intertwine, think about how you can include other characters in other story arcs. Can a character help out in some way that, in turn, affects their story? Keep shooting ideas, but start with smaller, clearer storylines and flesh them out after. That's how I built the stories in Being a DIK. And just like with a good "who dunnit" story, write backward, and it's easier to plant details and flesh out mysteries.

I am trying to make a game like this too heavily focused on story and multiple paths.

The thing is Daz3D is very difficult for me to handle right now, and since how beautiful your scenes/characters are:

Do you have any advices for beginners like me to learn this software the right way?

My art was horrible when starting out. You need time and practice, and don't give up right away. Acknowledge what you find difficult, and find a way to improve it. For me, the first thing I struggled with was lighting. And properly lighting a scene is the difference between a good and bad render. So, watch tutorials on YouTube and follow along. Buy guides from the DAZ3D store and try those out. Google things. Fiddle around with settings and see what happens. Ask artists if they are willing to share something about their workflow. Many would likely share some basic information with you.

Are you worried that many of us by the end of the game will be around 13/14 years older than when we started back in the first season? Do you believe this will affect the number of subs as we move on with the years of production?

I started this journey with zero patrons, and I'll finish it even if it returns to zero. The number of subs or players doesn't worry me, and people turn 18 every day and discover the game. I fail to see why people's age at the end of this project would be something to worry about. What I feel when I think about this long development, spanning probably over a decade by the time it's done, is that I've managed to entertain so many players for that long. Hopefully, I've also imparted some good morals, life lessons, or just fun times and pleasant memories. I truly believe that the journey is much better than the destination. I'm having a lot of fun creating the game, and as long as I'm enjoying it, I see no reason to worry about how long it takes.

Compared to when you first started working on AVNs, what has changed in the industry, for better or worse?

When I started working on AVNs, adult games were only found in a small corner of the internet, and now adult games can be found on the biggest game store there is. That's a big positive change if you ask me, but many would likely say it's a negative change - because adult games are taboo. I believe there are more games like mine out there today too, where games actually have interesting stories instead of having a story as a device for the lewd scenes. I like that change, and hopefully it keeps going in that direction, and I hope I can inspire more developers to create these kinds of games.

I'd like to see a future where sex in games isn't frowned upon. How come decapitations are normalized in games, while making love gets the stink-eye? Far more humans would like to have sex with someone than to decapitate someone. So, why is sex so taboo? When it comes to adult content, AAA games today get away with a lot more than they used to, and it seems like the boundaries are being pushed to include more NSFW content. But on the other hand, we're also seeing movements pushing back and wanting more censorship. There's talk of online ID requirements to buy 18+ games, regardless of genre, to protect kids. That movement has good and bad sides, too. Protecting kids will always be good, but the way they want to accomplish it isn't.

On another topic, with gen-AI, there seem to be a lot more garbage games bloating the market. I don't like that direction. And I'm not speaking as a developer when I say that. As a consumer, I do not want to play games with AI content in them. I believe I got into the industry at just the right time. I think it's way harder to be seen as a developer today, but if you make a good game, word will eventually get out. Word of mouth is such a strong, free marketing tool that a quality game will reach those who want it. I'm a bit pessimistic about the future of gaming, to be honest. It seems like today many players value things in games that I don't. To me, graphics have never been the primary measure of a good game. And I don't care about frames per second, or game physics being 100% realistic either. I'd much rather play an indie game fueled by passion than a AAA game powered by AI.

Why do you enjoy the taste of throuple fans tears?

That's just wrong, and I find that offensive. I enjoy the taste of everyone's tears.

Your logo is one good looking cake, so I was wondering what flavour would each layer of the cake be?

Coconut and penis.

Thanks for this year's Q&A! I had fun answering your questions, and I hope you enjoyed the entertainment and information.

Love

Dr PinkCake