Sometime ago, I noticed a comment where a user stated their unhapiness towards "Being A Dik" being the first release in 2022.
I went to the store page of both the seasons released thus far, and observed that most of the reviews were positive, and the rest were upset with GOG for releasing the game in their "curated" portfolio.I also saw a review on youtube stating that both seasons were good.

I haven't played a VN before, so I just wanted to know, aside from the GOG concerns and oversexualized nature of the games, can it still be considered a good game? If not, why, and can you give any good VN recommendations (irrespective of stores, as long as they are DRM free rt now)

I genuinely wanted to know, I dont want to start a flamewar. I am sorry in advance if I upset anyone by posting this.

edit 1: added the word recommendations.

The vocal users here in the forum like to throw flak at positiveness towards smut games, so expect flame in the replies and many (if not all) comments to be downvoted.

About the quality, I haven't played it yet, but considering Season 1 of Being a Dik has 97% positive reviews out of almost 5000 reviews on Steam and games rarely get so well reviewed over there if they're undeserving, I'd expect it to be at least pretty well made in a technical level, even if the smut part doesn't turn out to be my cup of tea.

tq :)

I haven't played "Being a DIK", nor do I intend to buy it, but similar positive reviews convinced me to buy "Acting Lessons" when it was on discount and go through the entire thing.

The sexual content is not that great, but the story is somewhat decent. It might have even made a good romantic comedy/drama if it had been a movie script.

That being said, the pre-rendered art is not something I'm all that into either and it might make people think it's a cheapo game, but the storyline (aka the main thing that matters in a visual novel in the end) is quite OK.

I'm not a fan of the genre all in all so I probably won't play anything else like it, but I can't say it was a horrible experience or that it felt like a trash game.

There is literally no such thing as "oversexualized nature of games."

That sort of statement is a subjective judgement call opinion with a pejorative bias, and not an objective fact.

As for the DiK games: that dev treats GOG customers like second-class citizens by not giving feature parity to GOG customers, but yet he gives his Steam customers all the features, like Achievements. So they are not worth buying, and certainly not "good," for that reason alone.

my apologies. achievements does'nt concern me, as I dont use galaxy in any way. But if other features are removed, then its a tough buy for me (considering steam's version is cheaper to me due to regional pricing) tq :)

I just checked the store pages of both versions of Being a Dik (GOG and Steam's) and also checked the second class citizens thread, and other than achievements on all products and Remote Play (Steam-exclusive feature, so can't expect it to be here) for Beind a Dik - Season 1, there doesn't seem to be any features obviously missing.

It is funny how quite a number of people seem to have issues with games containing a lot of nudity but have no issues at all about ultra violent games like Hotline Miami, Carmageddon and Postal.

Personally I am not interested in either of these categories :)

That depends. VN-styled games have a major focus on the writing and setting, so your enjoyment comes down to what kind of stories and content you enjoy. Got preferences?

"Good" is pretty relative, so sure, it's possible they can be considered "good games". I understand it'd be hard to believe with the artwork used though. Maybe they're mostly just good for cranking on your pecker, maybe they're more.

I maintain an overall desire for GOG to "curate" less, so no matter how I feel about the games personally, I'm okay with having them here. If I had my own store I wouldn't allow them but that's me, not GOG.

You could take a chance with one based on the screenshots. Of course as they're novels there's not much of what I think can be considered "traditional gameplay".

Long Live the Queen is a VN, but also a fun game too.

If you just want gratuitous gay content, the VN (available on itch or direct from the vendor) Coming Out on Top is grand and fun. And highly pornographic.

Back to one if you want a fun game, Monster Prom is a good "date a monster" VN with creative writing, good puns, and some interesting paths to get to your goal. And low-to-no "fanservice". It's also a party game (which is how it's best experienced).

And this is why a lot of people have issues with VNs: some are low on game and high on fanservice-to-porn. But plenty have game. And plenty have low/no fanservice. And plenty still have both good game and good fanservice.

But really, VNs largely fit in with classic adventure games [Zork, SCUMM games, etc]. To deny they're games is to deny the early 'biggest genre of computer games' are games. They vary a lot though -- some are rather linear and devoid of "game" and are more classified as kinetic novels.

But again, many people overreact and think they all are that way. (And there's also nothing wrong with kinetic novels. [Broken Saints is one of my favorite bits of media ever and is 100% kinetic novel.] And it's legit to question if KN's are games or not. And then whether or not GOG should sell them.

[I think they're not games, but also that it's OK GOG sells them. And yes, it's also fine that GOG sells "smut".]

EDIT: Another recommendation are the Simulacra games. They're high on the "game" part but are also more or less VNs [albeit read to you in video with subtitles].

They want to pretend that spending forty hours a week grinding on Dark Souls is less embarrassing than spending a couple of hours reading through a visual novel to get to the exact same hit on dopamine. Neither are productive ways to spend your time and I'd honestly have more respect for them if they would simply admit they've outgrown the hobby and move on already.

I like anime visual novels without the smut. Little Busters, Clannad and Angel Busters are better stories than The Last of Us games, but since the latter features blood and gore mentally stunted people will insist it's more mature.

because they aren't the same thing and have different appeals.