And Now, Something TOTALLY Different: A Quick First Impressions Look at ‘Being a DIK’

Back in the 1990s, when I subscribed to Playboy magazine, I read a short article about an adults-only computer game titled Virtual Valerie.

Virtual Valerie was created by a guy named Mike Saenz and released in April of 1990 by a software developer called Reactor, Inc. It was described as a dating sim, and because the object of the game was to help the titular Valerie achieve orgasm, it was one of the more notorious cyber erotica games of the time,

Back then, of course, the Internet was still in its initial stages and Amazon and Steam were only in the imagination of their respective founders. And because none of the stores where I used to buy computer games seemed to carry Virtual Valerie, I never played it, much less held the CD-ROM package in my hands.

I mention Virtual Valerie because I had always wanted to play a computer game that featured erotic content that was both graphic and yet had a story with relatable – or at least believable – characters, familiar situations, and nice renderings of attractive characters having various kinds of sexual adventures.

Well, I never did find affordable copies of either Virtual Valerie or Virtual Valerie 2, but on Tuesday, July 19, I did purchase – from Steam – Dr. PinkCake’s sexy adult novel game Being a DIK.

This is how the game’s publisher/designer describes Being a DIK:

A young man, from a low-income family, moves away from his widowed father and his summer love to attend college at Burgmeister & Royce. As he is cast into freshman life and persuaded to join the up-and-coming fraternity Delta Iota Kappa, he’ll be exposed to a new world filled with conflicts, alcohol, drugs, and sex.

In this game you play as a young male attending college and the choices you make will affect the characters around you and shape your character and adventure.

Will you choose to play as a nice, caring, and romantic guy or will you choose to play as someone more straightforward and daring?

The girls in the game like different guys and may or may not be attracted to you based on your choices. Can you resist the temptations along the way to get the girl of your dreams or will you relent and just…experiment? Hey, it’s college after all!

Although I hate the title – Being a DIK? Seriously? – I was intrigued by some of the screengrabs on the game’s Steam product page.[1]

Yeah, I knew that the game’s population of extremely attractive college-age students is based on fantasy rather than reality; when I was in college, I saw plenty of attractive women on campus, but in Being a DIK almost every character – both male and female – is straight out of Central Casting. Attractive males and females are overrepresented in Being a DIK, so if you’re looking for a realistic depiction of college life in the U.S. in the 2020s, this game is not the best source.  (A case in point: The few unattractive women in Being a DIK are stereotypical “feminists” in the main character’s Gender Studies class.)

Even though I am older than the average Being a DIK player, I still have a pulse, and I still have a libido. And because Being a DIK looked like it has more of a story and wit than the average American porn video, I decided to get it – despite its annoying punny title.

As the game description explains, Being a DIK is a “visual novel” with real characters, a story arc that depends greatly on a player’s choices, and – yes – graphic depictions of sexual escapades. Some of the characters are likable and charming in their own quirky way, others are despicable and decidedly Machiavellian.

I have played through three “episodes” as a “nice guy”; as the story progresses, the game gives players a series of options – such as “check out her panties” or “don’t check out her panties” – during a sequence in Being a DIK. If you want to be a “nice guy,” you make your choice based on what a nice guy would do and then you get CHICK points. If you want to be, um, a DIK, then you make your choice based on what a more adventurous guy would do. (Sorry, ladies, since the main character in the story is a guy, you’d have to role-play as a male and think like a guy to play Being a DIK.)

The main game is fun, although it can get frustrating since to get the complete Being a DIK experience you need to play mini-games and explore certain rooms and buildings in the game’s environment to find little bonuses that give you sexy pictures for your collection of “special renders” and in-game “money” to buy boosts that will help you in class or to complete tasks.

Be warned. If you are a prude and have personal and moral objections to depictions of sexual activity, do not buy Being a DIK. As I said before, it has a better story and more humor than your average porn flick, but it does have nudity, depictions of college-age adults drinking booze, and lots of sex. If you are easily offended or are one of those modern-day Moral Majority killjoys that want to impose a theocracy on everyone else, this game is not for you.   

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[1] I always look for trailers and screenshots of new and upcoming computer video games to get an idea of what the graphics are like or how easy – or difficult – gameplay will be. And yes, in the case of Being a DIK, I did look for how graphic the erotic content would be, as well as the quality of said erotic content. I’m a guy. I am drawn to visual depictions of sex, especially if the women in them are, in a word, hot. Sue me.