It's that time of year: time to make some resolutions. First, let's look at what I promised myself last year. Unfortunately for me, I saved the evidence.
My primary objective this year is to finish up Version 1 of the AIF Toolkit and to release at least one major game.
Oh dear. 50% ain't bad... isn't it?
Well, to be fair, I had no idea I would be publishing a book this year. It was also a pretty difficult year personally, so there's that. Still, I really would have liked to release at least one game.
In addition to all of my personal resolutions, I have a few that are a little AIF related.
#1 Write and read more, play video games less.
I have to admit that I have a video game addiction. That became pretty clear when I saw how many hours I'd logged on Steam this week. It's that draw-dropping moment when you're like, "oh shit, I don't play that many video games, do I?" and it's like, "yeah, yeah you really do."
And the funny thing is that I find writing far more emotionally satisfying. I'm not sure why I spend so much time playing when writing is what gives me that sense of accomplishment where I say to myself this was a full day's work. For the amount I play, I could have produced at least two AIF games and that would have felt a lot better.
Or better yet, maybe I could have had a social life.
#2 AIF Toolkit Recipe Book
I've talked a little about writing an manual for the AIF Toolkit. I've decided that a printed manual would be less useful than a recipe book, an addendum to the AIF Toolkit that contains advice, templates, ways to perform specific tasks, etc, just like the Inform 7 Recipe Book. I've already started work on it. Last week I wrote one project template and three sex scene templates that can be simply dropped into the source code to make a fully-interactive scene. I'll need to debug them but I think this will be very useful to people who are not programming inclined.
I'll write a little more about the book later, as I'll be soliciting for specific topics that people are interested in.
#3 Stick to a project
My non-productivity this year was not because I didn't find the time to work on AIF, it's that I kept schizophrenically switching from one project to another. To illustrate, here's a list of AIF games I made significant headway into this year but never managed to follow through on finishing.
Bad Neighbor -- A spiritual sequel to Bad Sister. Started and restarted several times this year. Dextro: Professional Male Stripper -- A comedy game where you're a male stripper training to be a superspy. Five Finger Discount -- A game where you play a female thief doing various robberies and fucking a lot of people. Monster City -- A noir detective story with monster girls. Odd Ones Out -- An erotic horror AIF. I got pretty far into this one. Soccer Story -- A sports management game where you manage a girl's soccer story (restarted from last year)
I am interested to know which of those ideas people would most like to see. Ideally, I'd have people vote, that's setting up an expectation that I'll definitely do that particular idea and I don't exactly want to do that.
Whichever of these I end up with, it will probably start after I finish work on Pervert Action: Legacy.
#4 Expand my writing career
I'll be honest. All I really want to do is write. If I can, I'd just do it full time. I'll always be writing and working on projects for fun, but I'd also like to start making money on some of my projects, especially because I'm between jobs right now and hemorrhaging money. My novels are a start, but I'd like to start doing more... ghostwriting, short stories by commission, professional editing, that sort of thing.
I'm very uncomfortable advertising, so the most it will probably be is a little thing on the sidebar for those who are interested. I have no plans on turning this blog into a gigantic commercial enterprise... like everyone else I like free stuff and I want to write free stuff for people.
Anyways, those are the four main things this year. Of course, I have my own resolutions (i.e. get in better shape so I don't die by 40) but these are the ones that will most effect the blog.
That's enough from me. What are your resolutions? Let us me know in the comments.
Wow. When I first saw this my heart literally pounded like a jackhammer. And now I'm grinning like an idiot! Simply stunning work by Alice Duke.
Enough words. Pictures please.
Whoa. Words lost. Can't think... can't think... breathe, breathe!
Okay, well...
(Recovers) Anyways the book is coming out sometime in February. You should totally check out Uruk Press in the meantime, if you like naughty science fiction and fantasy. A special thanks to the publisher for being kick-ass.
Alright. That's enough for me. I'm going to do some work or something, and not giggle like a kid at Christmas.
Before you even start writing your first page, there are a few considerations worth going through that will effect how your book will turn out. It is pretty rare that people are possessed by inspiration so awesome that they stomp out a novel in 2-3 days. Good ideas and structure take time. What you start writing is rarely what you actually end up with.
For me at least, when I first fill an empty page, my ideas are pretty shitty. It really starts with a wish fulfillment fantasy -- "Man, wouldn't it be awesome to be locked in a mansion with twenty horny babes." Whether it's a errant professionalism, some kind of aspiration to be a better artist, or just plain boredom, my plots become more and more complicated. I add layers -- "What if one of the girls in the mansion is a ghost?!" A little intrigue here and there. An interesting character flaw. And it keeps going -- "Maybe she's not really a ghost... and it's everyone else whose dead!!"
Sitting down and just writing ideas is pretty hard for me. I can only do that for ten minutes before I start playing Crusader Kings II. The brainstorming for me is in the execution... I'm doing something and then I think of something I want to play around with. That could mean I throw out everything I've done so far... perhaps thousands of words. I've done it before... I'll do it again. That's in stark contrast to a writer such as BBBen, who will sit down and write pages and pages and pages of notes before committing even the introduction. That's a skill I want to have.
If you have a plot that's of any kind of complicated, some measure of planning is basically required, or else you're just writing Lost, you're throwing twists at the viewer with vague promises that it'll all make sense eventually. That's a cynical way to write a story. On the other hand, you don't have to map out the story all beforehand. You have to leave some room for the plot to expand and change according to the direction of the story. My plot outline for Fencing Academy came out to be a page long, and I sort of stuck to that. I have other notes, but it's all world building and notes for myself in case I forget certain things.
Basically, if you are anything like me, it's very likely you'll throw out your first dozen efforts to write a novel. But that's good. You'll get a feel for the characters. Whose important. Whose boring. After you sleep on your failed efforts for a while, you'll come back and write something better than that.
And maybe throw that out too, just to start it anew.
A couple of days ago I submitted the second draft of Fencing Academy to my publisher. A day after that, I saw the cover art (which is REALLY cool!) Needless to say, I can't wait to share it with you all. I thought I'd write a few thoughts down on writing a book. Perhaps it would be helpful for those of you out there thinking about writing one.
The process of writing says something about you. Not to sound cheesy, you do learn an awful lot about yourself. You discover whether you're a morning or evening person (me, I'm a morning person, though I've always fancied myself a night person), what sort of work flow works best for you, and whether you're a do-it-all-now-and-revise-later person or a make-sure-it's-perfect-then-move-on person.
The late-and-great Kurt Vonnegut reckons there are two types of writers, and he gave funny names to them which I can't remember offhand. The first type writes as quickly as possible before going back and taking a long period of revision. The second type writes slowly and surely, making sure each sentence is perfect before moving on. The good thing about the first type of writer is that they get rough drafts out very quickly. The good thing about the second type is that they don't really have to revise. There is no "superior" method, it's just what works for you. I had always thought I was in the first group. It turns I'm in the second group.
The point is that you don't know these things until you find them out yourself. Until you learn them, it's very difficult to follow projects through to completion. I think that's the value in starting big projects you may or may not finish, you find this stuff out. And as you find them out, you learn, finally, how to follow through. So if you're the sort with a billion aborted projects, don't despair. You're doing the right thing, keep aborting projects until you get the hang of things.
The next part of this series will come before publication, and it will go deeper into challenges you might face. You'll get to see the cover art before then, hopefully. The cover is so good I feel a little inferior to it... I only hope the story is as good as the art!
The AIF Toolkit v1.0.0 is being released with only minor modifications from the v0.8 release. It should be backwards compatible. Click here for the download link.
The only feature difference worthy to note is that there is now a finer degree of control over willingness, though you won't notice it unless you use it. More importantly, the AIF Toolkit is now licensed Creative Commons.
1) Create and release their own modifications to the AIF Toolkit.
2) Collect donations, kickstarters, patreons and so on for work based on the AIF Toolkit.
3) Outright sell stuff made with the AIF Toolkit.
As this is the v1 release, the AIF Toolkit is now officially "out of beta", so to speak, and "stable" as far as that goes. That doesn't mean that there won't be changes in the future, but I will endeavor to make sure releases beyond this point are backwards compatible with prior ones, or at least can be easily updated, barring new releases of I7.
If you are planning on using the AIF Toolkit beyond making free games, I'd still appreciate it if you read the incredibly short FAQ that comes with the license, and shoot me an email.
I was hoping to have a printed manual out for the v1 release, but I don't and that might come in the far flung future.
Let's get some bookkeeping things out of the way first. Since ExLibris has gone on vacation, there is something of a need for
people willing to write in-depth reviews. I don't really want to fill
that role, sometimes I just don't have the patience to, but I will the
best I can. The point of these semi-reviews is not to give recommendations for the AIF community on what to play, although that might be a happy accident. I'm really writing these for the authors, a little acknowledgement that writing AIF games is difficult, and that every game at least deserves a serious response even if it doesn't get one. Even if I write a bad review, it's not to crush the author but just to show that someone took it seriously enough to think about it.
Of course, that wasn't a prelude to me reviewing Master of the House badly. This is a positive review, I really like Master of the House, though I must admit I didn't finish it for reasons out of the author's control. It is a highly-refined sex romp, in the sense the gameplay elements are really well thought out and breaks a bit of new ground. And, to boot, it has good writing. An important thing in text games. In any case, this review is months overdue already, so let's get into it.
The story is nothing to write home about. A young man goes on a quest to become the "Master of the House", an ubermencsh with a harem of sex slaves. Including your own family, of course. An absolute fuckton of incest ensues as you assume your rightful place as the alpha male. None of the characters are particularly deep, but they are entertaining and distinctive, and Abby's determination to make you into a sex god is rather endearing.
MOH has the an odd honor in that much of the sex scenes are threesomes, with Abby often joining you in your antics. This is an impressive feat indeed, considering how difficult it is to write threesomes. There are few throwaway descriptions, and Minterlint never seems to fall into common pitfalls of writing sex scenes. Grammar is sometimes off ("You're hand is never leaving my pussy!!") but it's rarely frequent enough to be distracting. A+.
The biggest issue in these sex scenes is the frustrating disambiguation. It's distracting to have to write "rub abby's tits" all the time instead of just writing "rub tits". It gets even worse, of course, when there are more than two characters. "Abby lick Paige's pussy" is almost more trouble than its worth. This seems to be common in games written with Adrift, but I've played Adrift games that didn't have these issues either. An improvement here would make a huge difference.
Much of the game is about exploring the house, and the exploration stuff is a mixed bag. It's fun finding hidden things, but the fact you're forced to use the "search" command makes exploration more arduous than it needs to be, especially since that's the only way you can find some things needed to progress the game. This is all exacerbated by MOH's big ass map. Shouldn't examining be enough? On the other hand, "collecting" sex moves is really creative and really links the exploration mechanics with the sex stuff in a cool way.
After you've found the requisite items, the puzzles are nice. They usually involve a little more than just giving someone the right items without being illogical, gamey, or overly complicated. Because I'm shit at puzzles, of course, I had to use a walkthrough, but I can easily imagine getting through it (eventually!) without one.
MOH is just a nice romp. It's not the most brilliant thing ever made, but it's damn fun at what it does. I'll finish it eventually, I want to see how it ramps up toward the end, but my playtime so far has been disjointed because of other commitments, and it's hard to get back into IF games once you haven't played it in a month.
Hi everyone. This blog has gotten 50,000 views. While this is
small-fry stuff, it at least means a few people are reading this, and I've found in myself enough self-discipline to update this. It
might interest you what the demographics of the blog are. Probably not,
but this is my blog and I can do whatever the fuck I want.
Views by Country
Here's a list of pageviews by country:
United States, 17658 views
Germany, 4808 views
United Kingdom, 3979 views
France, 2588 views
Canada, 2487 views
Australia, 1470 views
Netherlands, 1331 views
Italy, 1298 views
Sweden, 1212 views
Russia, 928 views
Unsurprisingly, the U.S. takes the #1 spot. I think the most surprising part was Germany taking the #2 spot. Danke! I shall raise a glass of Hefeweizen in your honor to wash down my kielbasa and sauerkraut. UK, I'll... I dunno, burn Guy Fawkes or something, and say "God Save the Queen". I live in the US, so it has to make do with my tax dollars. Following is France (merci!), not really that surprising because of the Shark's Lagoon. Canada and Australia are english-speaking countries, so this is also natural. Next, Netherlands, Italy and Sweden are all neck-and-neck, and finally Mother Russia makes a valiant effort as #10. спасибо!
However, because I'm also a nerd, I wanted to figure out which countries I was the most popular in. I divided the number of views by the population of the country, and multiplied that by 10,000. And, well, the results were very surprising, as you'll soon see.
Popularity by Country
EBPI (Estimated Blog Popularity Index) calculated by (total views)/(country population) * 10,000
Sweden, EBPI 12.4
Netherlands, EBPI 7.8
Canada, EBPI 6.9
UK, EBPI 6.2
Australia, EBPI 6.2
Germany, EBPI 5.9
United States, EBPI 5.5
France, EBPI 3.9
Italy, EBPI 2.8
Russia, EBPI 0.6
Holy shit Sweden. No one even comes close. I dunno. Should I start saying nice things about King Karl XII? Eat lutfisk? Maybe start writing games with Swedish NPCs? Tack. That's "thank you" in Swedish, or at least that's what Google translate tells me. And let's not forget about the Netherlands. I know it's difficult maintaining the world's best water drainage system but in between that you've found the time to read the blog. Thanks for that. Your country sounds lovely as fuck and I'd like to visit one day. And Canada, thank you too. Enjoy your poutine and avoid the moose this winter.
Well, I hit a milestone with my book, so I've been pretty busy writing and not posting PAL characters as I should have. To make up for it, here is the rest of the cast, ripped straight from bbben's blog. I have little else to add except I'm pretty excited about how the game is turning out so far, but there's a lot of work in front of us.
PAL Character profile: Rio
Rio is Kenji’s new secretary. She is a (very) tall, confident
woman that makes Kenji feel like a little boy by comparison. She has an overt
sexuality about her, and it’s her job to see that Kenji trains the maids well.
PAL Character profile: Hiroshi
Hiroshi is a travelling salesman and pervert. He can help
Kenji by selling various items, such as gifts and potions.
PAL Character profile: Masami
Masami is the widow of the last master of the manor. Under the
conditions of the will, she has the right to stay in the mansion, but that
doesn’t mean she’s happy about Kenji being there and taking over her house.
PAL Character profile: Ai
Ai is a mystery. No spoilers, you’ll have to work her out for
yourself.
I might be releasing a demo of... something that I've been working on for the past year or so. I need a few testers to judge whether something is ready for public consumption, or needs to be put back into the oven for a few more months. If you are interested, you can email me at AnotherWannabe93@gmail.com.
A minor update with some tweaks. This adds Hybrid Choices (which should have come with the first one), a couple of typographical fixes and some other minor things. Download it here.
This includes a minor new extension (called "What an Ass!", exclamation mandatory) that adds some common functions for anal sex and a much requested feature, to have ass cheeks be a distinctive body part separate from the hole part of the ass. It is not tested extensively but, as I said, it's rather minor.
Support for flashing is back in and Ron Newcomb's Ignored Rules is no longer a dependency.
After a request, vibrators and strap-on vibrators are also supported but in a bare-bones kind of way.
Accessories from ALC have been temporarily withdrawn due to performance issues. They may be added back pending a redesign.
A readme file is now included with the AIF Toolkit.
Not enough people were using portrait descriptions, and ALC's documentation has been revised so that people know what they are.
The next character reveal for Pervert Action: Future is here! The third of the three maids is Kimiko:
Kimiko is not happy about being a maid. She was the daughter of the
former master, and grew up being served by maids. This privileged girl
now has to deal with a complete change in her circumstances, as she is
forced to become the servant of the new master. She has a fiery
personality, and she’s going to be difficult to train.
Time for another character reveal from Pervert Action: Legacy! It’s another maid, this time Fumi:
Fumi is… a little nuts. Sometimes she’s happy and friendly, other
times she’s grumpy and defensive. She’s often forgetful and oblivious to
others, but she is also full of energy. She loves her knives, so it’s
best to be a bit careful around her.
(Also, check out Phinn's design for Fumi)
Here’s a picture from Phinn for his design of Fumi!
Iku is a good girl. She is naive, earnest and extremely loyal to
her master. She follows the “code of the maid”, an Art of War
style series of teachings on how to be the perfect maid. A very proper young
lady, Iku has a rather old-fashioned and prudish view of sexuality, which makes
her a little naive about the role of a maid as outlined in the code.
Though this is a major release, it's a quiet one as the (many) new features have the potential to be quite buggy. As you'll see, some of the new extensions are quite complex and add a lot of new features.
A quick list:
1) Sexual orientation has been overhauled internally, and includes a new message for failing an action based on sexual orientation.
2) The message system has been overhauled completely (again!). Sorry about that! But I think it's worth it, as it is very easy to customize failure messages by actor.
3) ALC has a new option that allows you to use the portrait description for examining clothes and body parts, meaning you only need to write one description for each body part and garment.
This also adds two new extensions, Penetration and Posturing. Posturing adds poses and furniture, and can be used as a framework to add a complex positioning system.
Penetration is a little more interesting. Though it is by far the most complicated extension internally (and hence, probably buggy) but the good news is that, if only the basic features are used, it very nicely does all the logic of sex for you, letting you concentrate purely on prose and text. Essentially, it allows for continuous actions, and handles the printing of text when sex actions begin and end. Combined actions are supported, but are a little buggy, and turned off by default.
Some notes: I can't post to the AIF Archive anymore because of Yahoo! weirdness, but I will be tracking reddit and comments here, so please if you have problems or questions email me or post in one of those forums.
In addition, this is likely to be the last major release before the v1.0.0. I'm getting fatigued by writing extensions and I want to get back to writing games. The AIF Toolkit, more or less, has the features I want it to have, and from this point on I doubt it will change too dramatically. I am considering writing a PDF manual for the AIF Toolkit, but that really depends on the demand for it. So, if you're using the AIF Toolkit, I'd like to hear about it, and I'd like to invite you to ask me any questions you want.
Hey, just wanted you guys to know I've put the finishing touches on a new Hybrid Choices extension. This is the Adult CYOA extension with bugfixes, more features and smut removed. I've also submitted it to the public library so hopefully you can download the latest versions from there too.
A new update to the AIF Toolkit in the works will allow for commands during choice mode again, but I'm still working on that and it will include some BIG additions to the AIF Toolkit, so that's something to look forward to, but it will take a bit of time.
Some pretty heady news today. The stories I've been working on and submitting to Literotica are getting published... in an actual (e) book!
A few days ago, I signed a contract with Uruk Press, giving them the digital publishing rights to the Fencing Academy stories. They are a new and small publisher specializing in erotic fantasy, definitely worth checking out. Needless to say, this is pretty awesome. I've been working my entire life to write professionally and now the time has finally come.
This is really the chance to do something truly special. Publishing like this is going to give me a lot of flexibility and support to write the best story I can. I'm hoping to write several Fencing Academy books, though the details are all up in the air for right now.
Anyways, as new stuff comes out I'll let you guys know.
Well, I've just made my rounds of all the minicomp games and this is, briefly, my thoughts on each. Overall, I was impressed by the general quantity and quality of the offerings. It certainly says something hopeful about AIF in general. In alphabetical order:
Amy the Slut
This is one of the three games I failed to finish in this year's minicomp. It's technically impressive in that it's basically a dating sim using Twine, but I just felt no motivation to help Lance get with Amy. The prose is rather spare and to-the-point, as well, leaving very little meat. In the end, I wasn't curious about their relationship and there wasn't enough going on to keep my interest.
Dinner Plans
Wow... where do I start? I loved Dinner Plans. It may be, actually, the best minicomp game I've ever played. The snappy dialogue, excellent writing, interesting concept and well-realized characters all combined for something pretty fucking memorable. The pacing was just excellent, and the transition to the final sex scene in the end was very smooth. That made the game exceptionally hot. AOneHitWonder, I hope not.
Friday Afternoon
This was clearly the best of the various Twine offerings this year. The writing in Friday Afternoon was great, with elegant readable prose, unfortunately marred by a few spelling errors ("cocktails", not "coctails"). What particularly stood out for me were the descriptions, which were very well illustrated. Where it suffered, perhaps was in structure and pacing. I felt a little like I had been dropped among a bunch of different characters I really hadn't been introduced to. I'm told my character is chasing after a girl, but I don't really get a chance to know her before Sex Scene happens. Being a snippet of a larger game, I suppose this can't be helped.
Fucking Monster Bash
Full disclosure, I helped beta test Fucking Monster Bash... and then I ruined it by updating Simpler AIF 1,000,000 times. The best part of the game was the documentation, which called me a genius, something that was sorely lacking in the other offerings this year.
...Ok, on a serious note, I'm not quite a coding genius, since I7 is the only programming language I'm any good at, but it is flattering all the same.
Hanon Ondricek's writing is hilarious. I really thought Briar deserved to win last year's minicomp. Admittedly, I can't say FMB quite deserves that distinction, though I think Hanon has it in him to make an excellent game. I still question the use of Threaded Conversations. I'm not a big fan of the extension myself. As a player, it's very weird and it's effectively a menu-based system without the convenience.
Lark Rise
Unfortunately, I couldn't make it through this game either. The number of errors and run-on paragraphs made it very difficult for me to read through. There is one section where you find some papers, and out pops a massive block of text I immediately glazed over. Eventually, I got stuck after calling Evie to dinner and that was that. Which is unfortunate, because clearly the author is trying to tell some kind of story, but it ends up just getting lost. There could be a good game in here, but it is in such desperate need of proofreading.
One Last Pay Day
Wow. Another mind-blower. This time we're put on an alien planet with a firebrand warrior merc babe, and we need to do exciting shit like pop alien heads. The writing was awesome, dialogue snappy and characters bursting with personality. Some puzzles are a bit easy, by the end of the game you end up making some very headscratchy decisions and serious moral quandaries. The amount of polish approaches absurd. It plays great. Period.
*minor spoilers* Another curious thing about this game is that this is the first game I've played where the main female interest is pretty damn evil. It's definitely a different take. By the end of the game, I really didn't like her very much, which spoiled an otherwise excellent ending sex scene. That's the only bad thing I can say about this game, and it's most a personal taste thing.
Slim Spady Detective
An interesting concept that, unfortunately, just wasn't executed well. The author was clearly going for a traditional IF feel while sticking with Twine. I think the author would have been better served learning how to use one of the traditional AIF authoring systems (TADS, ADRIFT, or my favorite, I7). The rather strange inventory system put me through a loop. Eventually, I kinda just stopped playing.
Snowstorm
An AIF game set during a snowstorm is an excellent concept. But this is more a truth-or-dare game, and the challenge here is to get your partner comfortable enough to have sex with you. The descriptive prose is unfortunately very sparse, but the dialogue is better.
Unfortunately, Emily is a bit odd. She takes it very personally when asked to twerk, for example, and I kinda of felt dealing with her was a bit like navigating a minefield. When the sex does come, the descriptions are very spare. Had they been a bit more padded I think the game would have been more compelling.
Personal Rankings
(NOTE: This is NOT the official results. These are just the games that I think are the best.)
3rd: Friday Afternoon by Shannon O'Donnelly
The writing was excellent and the concept hot. I can't wait to see it expanded. Unfortunately, it didn't have the same sort of depth of interaction as those that were higher.
2nd: One Last Pay Day by Louys Bilitis
Between the excellent writing and the stunning amount of polish, this game could have very easily taken 1st place for me. Unfortunately, it didn't quite have the level of eroticism as the first place game.
1st: Dinner Plans by AOneHitWonder
It's a bit formulaic, but the great characters, quality of the sex scenes, and outstanding pacing and writing made Dinner Plans the best game this year. I loved it and I can't wait to see if there will be more.
So, I was embarrassed by my prior review of E:SA. I think my initial feelings about it were highly colored by my irritation about the age thing, which is definitely not fair on the author especially since he put up the splash screen stating explicitly that people who were offended by E:SA's themes shouldn't play. I still kind of feel that the explicit ages could have been removed without really detracting from the project, but that is the last time I will mention that in this new write up. E:SA is a game with a lot of strengths, while my old review highlighted things that bothered me and breezed past the things I liked. Sure, there are rough edges, but yeah, the game is pretty damn good and definitely pushes AIF in a new, positive direction in terms of storytelling.
Gameplay
E:SA is a love story about two teenagers who happen to be siblings. While the story is pretty linear and, as far as I know, pretty much ends the same way each time (unless you fuck up royally), the player can, by solving puzzles and through interaction with Emily (the titular sister) can effect how the relationship evolves in both a sexual and romantic way. The game keeps track of two scores: Intimacy and Daringness. Intimacy is usually increased by talking with Emily, and daringness is increased by taking bold actions, including, evidently, culling poor insects. Increasing your score, again, won't change the ending as far as I know but is critical for unlocking the MAX SEX CONTENT.
The puzzles range between pretty easy, relatively difficult and irritating. My favorite puzzle involved hunting a bee through your house, and waiting for it to land on something durable so you can smack it. It shows a good bit of technical finesse on the part of the author, though perhaps only AIF veterans would be able to find the newspaper to crush it with. Sneaking around your sister's room and reading her diary is fun, and it's a nice touch that you can't read the entire thing in one playthrough.
The intimacy puzzles more involve a close reading of Emily's dialogue, of which there is a lot. The key here is being able to read Emily's needs and wants, or getting her to open up about her feelings. Some things are pretty obvious, others are really less so.
There must be some real headscratchers in E:SA because in my several playthroughs I couldn't get all the points. Thankfully, for morons like me there is a cheat to give you bonus score, which allows me to pretty much experience the entire game. Overall, the score provides a pretty compelling incentive to explore and try a lot of things. The scenes you are awarded with are well worth it.
Sex
Sex scenes in E:SA sometimes miss, sometimes hit home runs. Palmer's writing is pretty good, but as a scene progresses past foreplay the writing tends to collapse a bit. In the harder actions the prose is kind of impenetrable, and it just seems like "rub tits" and "fuck pussy" have really the same amount of effort put into them. The originality and imagination Palmer shows during the foreplay scenes just isn't present in the full-on sex scenes. The arousal system feels like kind of an afterthought, with the messages just sort of tacked onto the ends of the prose. It's not that I hate arousal systems, done well it can make sex scenes extremely immersive, but if the arousal system isn't properly implemented it's just better to have longer chunks of quality text. Emily's sexual dialogue doesn't feel as inspired as her non-sexual dialogue, and it can get irritating when she hints or asks for something in one line and refuses to do it in another.
The general quality of the first few scenes really made this stand out. The bedroom scene with Emily was excellent, as was the mutual masturbation scene. There is even a scene where Emily starts issuing orders to you, the player, which was pretty imaginative and something I hope we see more of in AIF. That made the later sequences far more disappointing. The dream sequence with that black-haired girl whose name I can't recall was entirely forgettable, and Emily's final sex scene just feels very anticlimactic.
E:SA includes plenty of pictures. They didn't do much for me, but this definitely a personal taste thing. This is partly because (please don't lynch me!) I don't find Emily's model particularly sexy, and partly because I'm slowly finding text and audio more erotic than pictures. I'm beginning to understand how people can feel how images are a distraction, ultimately, I feel like I would have enjoyed E:SA more without them.
Story and Characters
Emily and her brother's relationship is set in the context of what is basically a broken home. Their parents are distant and the siblings have essentially come to rely on each other for emotional support. This is a pretty serious backdrop for what is, basically, a feelgood, lighthearted game. The game's plot is propelled forward by a photo contest, which the PC uses as a pretext to get closer to his sister.
In my prior review, I was pretty fixated on the photoshoot, and I thought it implied a lack of love on the part of the PC. I'm going to backtrack from that quite a bit. I think the photoshoot sub-plot implies stupidity on the part of the PC, but I don't think he doesn't care about his sister because he wants to take pictures of her.
That said, the choice of a photoshoot is not quite a seamless fit with the plot. It feels weird to me that my PC is basically submitting naked pictures of his sister for the world to see. It would fit well in a game where the characters were not so well-realized, perhaps in a sex rompy game like a Pleasantville, but it is an odd juxtaposition with the carefully tended emotional backstory Palmer is trying to develop. A little change would have gone a long way. Instead of a photo contest, why doesn't the PC have a simple passion for photography?
Other than the photoshoot thing, Emily and the PC's relationship is tended to with great care. The dialogue is generally outstanding, and the joking and banter that goes on between them feels very realistic. I could really see people saying what they say. They do get touchy-feely, but teenagers I think tend to be that way so that wasn't a problem for me. Dialogue was only occasionally awkward. The game is narrated in the PC's voice, who is supposed to be telling the story as he remembers it to an interviewer. This is something I haven't seen before in AIF, but I'm not sure how successful it is. I felt like I was being ripped from the action too much and that I was being reminded that the PC is not in the "here and now" as it were. It felt too much like I was reading something rather than being put into the PC's shoes.
Overall, Emily and th PC's relationship develops sensibly. You know they like each other, but breaking down the barriers to consummation is really where the meat of character development lies. Considering the "broken family" backstory of Emily and the PC their burgeoning romantic relationship makes a lot of sense. There is a natural escalation, both sexually and emotionally, which is E:SA's greatest strength and so far something pretty much unique to this game. The execution is good in spite of the rather silly photoshoot subplot.
Conclusion
So, I think this review really more accurately reflects my opinion of E:SA. There is a line between providing constructive criticism and being a dick, and I feel like I was using the guise of giving constructive criticism to essentially be a dick. E:SA is a good game, and you should definitely play it if you're not offended by the game's themes. If you're going to throw a fit like I did, than you should perhaps skip it.
In case you guys didn't know, BBBen announced his new Pervert Action: Legacy game a few days ago. I've actually actively been contributing to the project, so that's pretty cool. So far, it's really shaping up awesome, and I'm pretty happy to be a part of it. Phinn is also contributing art, and I'm routinely astounded by the quality of his renders.
Here's the "press release" for lack of a better term that BBBen put on his site.
too long; didn't read: New Pervert Action game in development featuring hot maids.
Synopsis: The third game in the Pervert Action series. As master of a mansion in a remote valley, it is Kenji's job to train up his "battle maids" in housework, combat and the arts of love...
I don't want to release too much information on projects that are currently far from getting a release, but it also seems worthwhile to mention this one since it's now occupying my AIF time. I have started writing it, done a lot of design work and a fair bit of multimedia work, but it's still a long way from being ready. Nonetheless, there's a good chance that if I'm not posting anything it may be because I'm working on this.
I will say that I'm trying to mix up the formula a little bit so that the gameplay feels fresh while still keeping what worked about the previous titles. The combat system in PAF will be developed and expanded, while relationship gameplay will be a little bit more diverse. The sex scenes will likely be a little shorter, but also more fluid and more numerous. I'm consistently trying to improve the standard of the graphics in the series, and additionally this one will have larger images than in past.
Release date: Not close. Stay tuned and I may release the occasional character poster to whet your appetite.
Collaboration: Super Pervert Action: Crisis is the most collaborative project ever in the history of AIF, and Pervert Action: Future is pretty high on the list too. Therefore it's only natural that there would be other people contributing to this new project. I've spoken to a couple of voice actors who will hopefully be returning to lend their talents to this game; Phinn, who worked on the images of Super PAC, has got involved to work on images for PAL; and Another Wannabe, writer of Bad Sister, has volunteered to contribute text.
Voice acting: That's absolutely the plan! I intend to get in voice actors I've worked with before, although because some won't be available there will likely be some new people too.
Graphics: Phinn and I have already started work on them. More info on that topic will be coming eventually, but one small detail is that we'll be using larger images this time, for a bigger on-screen impact. Where the old images only take up a corner of most screens, these will take up more like half the screen (that's the plan, anyway).
...OK, so, while BBBen isn't listening, here are some major spoilers... Dumbledore's gay. Jaime and Cersei? Banging. Soylent Green is made of people. Turns out, I was the cat, all along.
Hi, a short post letting people know of the existence of a new Disambiguation Control version for the new build of I7. The AIF Toolkit is substantially improved by this extension and, if you haven't already done so, you should update to the new version.
Installation
Go to here, and then either copy-paste over the old Disambiguation Control extension or click File>New Extension... fill out the dialogues, then paste the new stuff over.
Hi everyone. The last two weeks have been amazing for me. I'm back in school, I'm going to start a new job, and I'm moving soon. Something has also come up which has made me feel pretty heady, and I hope I can share that with you guys soon. Basically I've been pretty much run off my feet these days.
So leave it to debugging Adult CYOA to totally spoil my mood. Getting it into working order has been a nightmare. I've spent about five hours on just a single bug. It still isn't working well, but at least it's usable if a little crippled. There are other things I really ought to update but damn, I just want to go to bed, y'know?
Anyways, I'm dropping it here. As is. Of course, I'll be going back to it and make the documentation all pretty and such.
Fencing Academy Part 3 is up. You can read it here. Unfortunately, I tried to post it on the blog itself but it appears there are technical issues with posting a lot of text. I will need to figure that out before I do it again.
The minicomp is coming up, and I'm going to be working on an entry. Unfortunately, because of real-life issues I have not had a ton of time to work on it, but with approximately a month and a half to go I feel like I have plenty of time. I will be releasing it with an annotated, open source and it will also serve as a demonstration game for the AIF Toolkit. It shows off a lot of fancy tricks and I hope people enjoy it.
BTW, if anyone needs any technical assistance with their entry, I'd be happy to help.
I also want to say I'm planning on writing a review of Magician's Nephew at some point, I just haven't had the time to sit down and play the game. I usually try and avoid reading ExLibris's until I get a chance to play it myself. So that's something to look forward to.
Just a warning, there is a fairly good reason NOT to upgrade to the newest version of Inform 7 and AIF Toolkit 0.7.0. Several critical features of the AIF Toolkit have been temporarily withdrawn, anticipating the release of some third party extensions. Those are:
The entire Adult CYOA extension (pending me fixing bugs).
The improved disambiguation tools (pending a release of the new Disambiguation Control extension).
The ability to flash body parts (pending a release of Ignored Rules).
Some basic tests have been done, but I can't say with full certainty there are no bugs or oversights. Please report bugs to me at anotherwannabe93 AT gmail DOT com.
Compatibility with prior versions is broken. Specifically, the AIF Toolkit has removed the use the AIF message rulebooks and so you should use the default "response" system now. Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted the index of responses, so you need to go into the IDE index to see all of the default messages. However, the AIF Toolkit now takes full advantage of perspective and tense shifts, which is definitely awesome.
What piece of news caused me to literally choke on a biscuit this afternoon?
Why the release of a new version of Inform 7, of course!
Actually, the new version has been out for a little while (six days to be exact) but I've been so consumed with other things that I didn't notice. In case you didn't know, this release of Inform 7 took something like three years to develop, and geeks like me have been checking the I7 site religiously to see if their beloved language has finally released a new version.
I'm very excited to work with the new I7 language. I'm going to have to conjure a new release of the AIF Toolkit to take advantage of I7's delicious, delicious features. Then I'll be working on my Minicomp entry for this year.
So, if you are an author, what can you expect from the new features?
The most important feature for the AIF community is the inclusion of perspective and tense. This was always a weakness of I7 and forced authors to use awkward, unwieldy extensions. No more. Now you can write stories like this:
>GO NORTH
Tom walks north.
>FUCK SANDRA
Tom fucks Sandra.
>POSSESS SANDRA
You become Sandra.
Of course, that's a fairly shitty game, but you get the idea.
The other big weakness of I7 was how library messages are handled. If you use the AIF Toolkit, you'll notice I've built my own way of handling customizable messages since, by default, I7 does a pretty bad job of that. Now customizing default messages are easy and breezy.
There's a lot of other cool technical stuff, such the streamlining of some pretty complex systems. Indexed texts are gone. Real numbers are in. Mountains of bugs are crushed and scattered like dry leaves in autumn.
OK, I'm excited. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to waste an afternoon playing with my new toy.
So, I wanted to let people know that I'm working on a series of short stories called "Fencing Academy". The first two parts are here and here. They were, to my pleasure, well received. I'll start posting the stories in full on this blog before they hit Literotica, so this is the place to check if you're checking for updates.
As you might suspect, this was supposed to be the big AIF game I was working on. Unfortunately, for many reasons it just didn't work. While there were but two girls, the plot was, in essence, too grand. Naively I thought reducing the number of girls to two meant "small game". It didn't.
I've been kind of disconnected from the AIF community as of late and I want to say there are still projects in the pipeline that are AIF-related, so I'm not going away. In the short term, it looks like a lot was released on the AIF front and so you can expect a few reviews in the future. Typically, I try not to read ExLibris's reviews before I have a chance to play the games, so look forward to that.
Thanks to everyone who responded to the Big AIF survey. Based on some of the responses I've done a brief follow-up survey that you can answer here. This is the accompanying big analysis.
The purpose of this survey was to figure out what responses are redundant and which are important to players of AIF. For a lot of people, the quality of an interactive sex scene is not the most important part of a work of AIF, and judge a game based on what kink it caters to, quality of the writing, characters, things like that. I totally understand that. But, such ephemeral qualities are beyond the scope of this study. The question I want answered is a much more pragmatic one: should I, as an author, bother writing a lengthy description if the player tries X, when I could be writing one for when the player tries Y. That way, more keystrokes, hours, whatever are put into writing stuff that's more likely to be encountered by the average player, whereas fringe actions get more throwaway responses.
Surveys on what kinks people have would be interesting, but not very useful (to me, at least). Catering to people's kinks when the author themselves don't have it is a recipe for "not good". For example, it would be almost impossible for me to write a game with tentacle rape in it. I'm just not into it. Hence, it would suck even if there's a huge demand for it in the AIF community. I feel like authors should write what they like and then try to incorporate some feedback that enhances rather than detracts from that. So just to be clear this survey isn't designed to pidgeonhole authors into a specific way of doing things.
Demographics
Asking about gender and sexuality was not strictly necessary for my purposes, but I was curious so I asked for it. The responses told me basically what I didn't need a survey to figure out: that the AIF community is overwhelmingly made up of heterosexual men, with the audience split between totally straight and mostly straight. The next biggest demographic is bisexual men, which I'd say is about 6% of the AIF community. About 3% of the AIF audience is female, a depressingly low number, but ultimately not at all surprising. The smallest demographic is gay men, of which there are literally 0. That's not surprising because I can only think of one game at all with m/m in it (Bareback Mountain).
It would be nice to have a little more variety in this respect. It might happen as AIF starts growing, and there are more authors and games.
General Questions
The first two questions ("Quality and quantity" and "length and variety") were designed to pinpoint what level of interactivity the audience expects on average.
There was a strong preference for quality over quantity and a strong preference for varied responses over lengthy responses. I interpreted that as there being a general expectation of interactivity and depth in sex scenes, as opposed to just having a cut scene or a CYOA sequence.
However, when asked which sorts of features they like and dislike, results indicate they aren't very picky about the sort of interactivity. When the "other" responses are removed and only the major AIF features are counted, players are even more ambivalent.
Roughly, here's a breakdown of how people voted. I've converted each statement to a number, with -3 being "It ruins the scene for me" to +3 "I can't play a scene without it."
As you can see, strong opinions are pretty rare, with mostly no strong trends toward any feature. The most important appears to be arousal, which isn't surprising. The least important is layered clothing, which does surprise me, as I usually think of layered clothing as being one of the iconic features of AIF games. Interesting.
Layered Clothing Specific
The two most common activities appeared to be rubbing body parts through clothing and re-examining body parts after stripping a character. I'm not surprised by the first but I am surprised by the second, because I generally don't do that. Examining clothing itself and opening garments are also popular actions and come in close third and fourth. About 1/3 of players immediately take off all clothing during a scene, so that means layered clothing is generally well-used when it crops up.
I was hoping that players would tend towards either self-stripping or NPCs stripping each other (which would only require one description instead of two) but they didn't. Nevertheless, people slightly preferred to have characters undress each other, which is to be expected.
The third question was inserted to test a hypothesis of mine that people generally like a bit of clothing on the NPC even during sex. While watching porn I'm sometimes like "No, don't take her skirt off!" Stockings, boots, hats and those sorts of accessories are all hot. I'm glad I'm not alone on that.
Arousal Specific
The community is remarkably evenly split on erections, with about 50/50 to each side. I find it kind of annoying, honestly, but it's nice to know both approaches are equally valid.
Overwhelming, the community prefers unlimited orgasms. I am actually quite fond of limited orgasms, but I'm in the minority on that.
Body Parts and Actions
The mouth came well ahead as the most popular optional body part in AIF, so I can't help but wonder: is it because lots of people are typing commands like "fuck mouth", "rub mouth", "x mouth", or is it because they tell an NPC to "lick cock" or kiss them and they count that as interacting with the mouth?
Following behind are nipples, clits and legs. Personally, I rarely interact with nipples and clits specifically, but I do go for the legs sometimes.
It should be noted that most "other" responses were for an asshole, as differentiated from the asscheeks. The only reason it didn't appear on there was because I forgot to add it, but if I ever redo this survey it will definitely show up again.
As for actions, there's a relatively even split between most except footjobbing, which was a distant last (surprisingly). One of the things I forgot to include was peeing/pooing, because while I will never release a game with either of those two things, if enough people try it, it might be worth whipping up some interesting rejections.
Other
I don't really have the time nor inclination to summarize all the different sentiments expressed here, but I did read them all. Wow, what a lot of feedback! The responses are available for reading on the summary page and are definitely worth looking through.
Conclusion
Thanks a lot for participating, there was a lot of really interesting insight here and it's going to save me a lot of time writing responses. I've come up with some vague ideas of how to organize a sex scene differently to save myself some time without compromising quality.
Now, if you excuse me, I've got a dark room to labor within. A demo might be coming out soon....
I have made what I am dubbing the Big AIF Survey on Interactivity. It asks questions like: what are your favorite features in an interactive sex scene? What are your least favorite? What level of interactivity to you typically expect?
The survey is not very long. It should take less than 5 minutes. Go ahead and access it here.
By answering it, you help me (and possibly other AIF authors) know where they should invest their time and effort. It's definitely worth your time, too.
The changes are mostly minor, but there is one worth noting. Orgasms and Arousal can now optionally make use of the Fixed Point Numbers extension so that arousal states are based on a percentage rather than a fixed range. This should make it so orgasm thresholds are much more useful and powerful now.
There are other minor changes. A bug was fixed in Adult CYOA, a rare bug was fixed in Simpler AIF, there is a new "sex partner" variable. Check it out.
(I'm going to try and start reviewing some commercial games on this blog that have some kind of romantic element to them, so if you have any suggestions I'd like to hear them)
Loren the Amazon Princess came out on Steam a couple of months ago, a game I'd always wanted to play but hadn't had a chance to. It's made by independent developer Winter Wolves, an Italian developer I believe. Since we all like independents who release software DRM-free, I suggest purchasing the game in the legitimate way, should you choose to. There is a demo with about half of Act 1, featuring some of the game's branching gameplay. There is also an expansion, which adds some quests and the recruitable characters Chandara and Sauzer. Oh and Mesphit.
So what is Loren? It is, in short, a campy fantasy VN/RPG with a great rack and a soul. You play the slave of the Amazon princess Loren, a sheltered but proud warrior armed with two swords and no sense of humor. Soon, you gather your party of up to 12(!) characters in a quest to save the world via turn-based RPG combat, in a world that is very well illustrated indeed. It is more VN than RPG though, and as such it must rely on either story, writing or tits to interest the player. While it doesn't excel in one in particular, it does a decent job in all three and I always wanted to get to that "next part", like I would in a reasonably good book.
First the story arc overall, which is a very cliched "dark lord raises armies of demons" sort of stuff we've seen a thousand times. The choices presented to you, while sometimes dramatic and far reaching, are kind of predictable with a conventional morality reminiscent of Star Trek. The overall theme appears to be about acceptance of others, while I can appreciate that, it didn't really bring a lot of profound insight and sometimes came off as a bit moralizing.
But that is just fine, because the meat of the game is in your companions, who, for the most part, are pretty well realized. They range from incredibly badass (Chandara) to very likable (Draco) to just fucking intolerable (Mesphit). There are 12 different romantic paths, from straight to gay male and female. Some people will inevitably complain about the guy/guy stuff, but it's pretty easy to avoid if you don't want it. The point is, no matter what your preferences are, it's here, and if you happen to be bisexual, you will be very happy. The romantic sequences, while racy by PC gaming standards, are tamer than the tamest AIF game. They are well-written enough to be hot, though, and that's the important part.
Of all the NPCs, Chandara is a clear favorite for me. Chandara is a witch, surly and sultry in equal measure, who only wants to be left alone to practice dark magic and BDSM. I found Chandara to be ridiculously awesome, her wanton, brazen sexuality so incredibly refreshing to see in a commercial PC game. If I knew Chandara in real life, I might possibly want to marry her. She is also the only character with easy access to dark magic, an element a lot of enemies are weak to, so she pulls her weight in battle. Her romantic finale also happens to be the raciest, which just compounds how much awesome is contained in that tight black bodice of hers. Can you tell I really like her? In my first playthrough, I went for the f/f romance with Chandara. I highly recommend it.
On the direct opposite scale is Mesphit, who I hated almost as much as I loved Chandara. Mesphit is a dark elf character written for the segment of the female player base that likes unpredictable, dangerous men who have emotional problems and only need a tender female hand to nurse them. I'm not shitting on what gets people off, but it results in a character who is absolutely pathetic. I'll tell you in the spoilers inside.
Mesphit is a dark elf cursed by demon blood. The first time you recruit him, you are literally helping him murder innocent ogres to sate his bloodlust. Afterwards, the PC pretty much volunteers to become his nursemaid so that he can stop murdering innocent people. That doesn't stop him from betraying the party at several turns. His most redeeming moment is, after having gone berserk again and trying to murder you, he offers you his head, which you have the choice of taking or not. I chose not kill him in my playthrough just in case there were some kind of ramifications. If I play through the game again, I plan on not recruiting Mesphit at all, if I can help it. (Or recruiting him and executing him, for my own personal vindication).
There are many other characters who range between these two extremes. Draco is a very likable pyromancer, and flaming in both senses of the word. Amukiki the barbarian nomad is a bit of a miss, having a personality like tanned, muscular cardboard. Karen is a reluctant Amazon Queen with some interesting potential, though she is so different from her daughter it is difficult to believe one raised the other. Myrth, a redheaded elf druid that makes an olive leaf seem like too much clothing, is another romanceable character, though I didn't find her intriguing to pursue. Dora the dwarf and her admirer Ramas were two of my favorite characters, though I kinda wished Dora was romanceable.
As for Loren herself, she begins the game naive, bratty and sheltered but opens up and softens in a way that doesn't compromise her prideful nature. She was well-realized, I think, and when I replay the game I'll definitely go down her path.
There is little to say about the PC. Soren, or Elenor, depending on which gender you pick at the start of the game, is a choice between enviable pecs or eye-popping underboob. They have slightly different backstories, too, Elenor being an elf and Soren a human, so that's worth keeping in mind.
The combat system really provides the bulk of the gameplay, while the romances are the main draw, so I wish Winter Wolves would have provided more choice, or at least more chances to fail, at the romances. You see, occasionally when interacting with a character you are given the options to react in three ways: friendly, forceful and joking. However, sometimes, there is a fourth option: "romance", which improves the NPC's affection for you. That's all. This new style of dialogue, seen in some of the newer Bioware titles, really take you outside of the PC. It also takes a lot of risk out of interaction, since you're never given choices like whether to be diplomatic or bold or whether to be discreet or direct. The absolute best dialogue trees have actually made me stand out of my chair and walk around to think about what I want to say. That's not what I'm asking for, but even a few more options would have been nice.
The combat system works fine. It can be easy at points, but there is enough enemy variety to keep things interesting. Some enemies require radically different strategies, which is nice, though wizards are a bit overpowered compared to warrior and ranged characters. I played on "hard" difficulty and found myself rotating in different characters for different fights. Loren does its best to encourage you to make use of all of your characters, and it does a good job of that. Later fights are pretty heavily reliant on the PC's "ward" ability, which provide elemental resistances to all characters, which are important to defend yourself against some big walloping AOE attacks thrown about.
Loot is a pretty important part of any RPG and Loren puts a large emphasis on purchasing stuff rather than finding it. I rarely go to stores in RPGs, so this is a bit of an annoyance, and considering the huge number of recruitable NPCs it just feels like grocery shopping. I much prefer the thrill of finding an cool item as a random drop, as opposed to buying it.
Loren's character creation is weak. Every character has a "base class", which include wizard, warrior and thief, but also a character-specific class. Your character starts with lots of healing powers, which is an artificial way of making the PC always useful throughout the game. My big issue is that the most obvious class combination with the PC is the wizard, but that isn't made available for them.
On the basis of the Chandara path alone, I think Loren is worth playing, though of course there's lots of other good content. Judging it as if it were an AIF title, I would have preferred it to be more explicit, but it's not a porn game, so what can you do? I understand that they don't want to be labeled an adult developer, but they kind of already have just by making titles that are a little sexy. Still, I don't think there would be much opposition if there happened to be adult DLC for Loren...
Version 0.6.0 is ready. The biggest change is mostly the inclusion of two new extensions to the toolkit, although there were some very minor updates to Simpler AIF. Everything should be backwards compatible.
The two new extensions are:
Orgasms and Arousal
Adds an arousal system to Simpler AIF, built to be very customizable. Allows for some common AIF features such as erection mechanics, simultaneous orgasms and "arousal states", which were an attempt to adapt TAD's actor states to AIF but turned out a little different but very useful in its own way.
Improved Sex Action Tracking
A very small extension, only marginally larger than a plug-in, that optimizes Simpler AIF's relational tracking system, hopefully improving some memory problems. They require hands and faces to be default body parts (and are added in the extension itself) so if you currently are using those you might want to delete the code you pasted from Simpler AIF's documentation to put them in.
So it's been awhile since I've posted any real updates here, but that isn't for a lack of work on my AIF projects. In fact, I've been really quite busy when it comes to AIF matters. I have two quick updates about some projects.
Simpler AIF
Right now I'm working on an extension for the AIF Toolkit that will introduce arousal mechanics. It is essentially an expansion on the Orgasm Control plug-in and can handle things like erections and simultaneous orgasms. I expect it to be out next week and, while this particular feature isn't backwards compatible requires some work to update to existing Simpler AIF projects, it is entirely optional.
This release will be 0.6.0. The next major release after that will be 1.0.0. The only other major feature I want to add to the AIF Toolkit is some sort of penetration and joining system that can be seen in School Dreams 2. I have an idea for a positions system similar to the one in that game but, since that's something I'd never consider using personally, I might save it for later.
Another thing I'd like to see in Simpler AIF is a bunch of templates that basically can be copy-pasted into a project, so that all you really need to do is fill out the descriptions and *poof* a fully featured AIF scene. That's going to be pretty labor intensive but, because I'm likely to use it myself, it might get done sooner rather than later.
If you have any requests, I'd like to hear them.
Soccer Story
I haven't written about this in a while. I became extremely dissatisfied with the gameplay and I basically discarded it and have restarted from scratch. Disappointing, since I sunk a lot of time into it, but I am a perfectionist so, for me, it's sometimes better to delete everything than put out something mediocre. What I'm going for now is gameplay that feel less "simulationist" and more "arcade-like" with special moves and simplified, RPG-like mechanics.
I am also thinking about reworking the interface to make it easier on myself. I'm looking at the menu-based interface of Corruption of Champions (but without any of the rather odd fetishes) as a model. I7 can actually handle these sorts of interfaces, but I'll need to delve into Glimmr which is something I find quite difficult to understand right now.
AIF Toolkit v0.5.2 is released. It's a minor patch but should be backwards compatible. Download it here.
I promise, one day, I'll actually discuss an AIF game on here again.
Changes include:
Phrases to find the feet and hands of a person.
ALC now compiles with Threaded Conversation by Chris Conley.
The post-action bookkeeping rules have been moved so they occur after the AFTER rule or after the REPORT rules, whichever of them fire (they both can't fire). I forgot to completely document this.
A mid-action bookkeeping rulebook that fires where the old post-action bookkeeping rule fired.
A bug made it so that PREVIOUSLY XXXX relations were true even after an action is first carried out. This has been fixed.
Fucking someone's hand will redirect to rubbing. Fucking with your hand will also redirect to rubbing.
Some theoretically dangerous things were done with this update, but I don't anticipate any problems. Still, if there are any bugs, email me with the email provided in the extension.
Though I'd like to write a tutorial for writing AIF with I7, this starts off as sort of an essay/rant that only relates peripherally to AIF, so bear with me.
Why I Use Inform 7
Inform 7 is a programming system that uses natural language. You can download Inform 7 here.
I've always liked programming but I've never been particularly good at it. I7 is the only programming language I've mastered to a degree (that is, I'm better than the majority of its users, but not quite as good as those people who really get dirty into I6). When I reflect on why, I think it's partly because I'm a language oriented person. Some people can look at E=MC^2 and think, "Oh, energy and matter are the same thing how interesting." Others, like me, need to be illustrated with lavishly complex examples before it "clicks". It's not because I'm less smart (at least, I hope so), but it simply needs to be spelled out for me: "The amount of energy in the universe is equal to the mass of the universe times the speed of light squared." Oh, right.
So, basically, Inform 7 allows me the use of the verbal part of my noggin, because my math side is shriveled and decaying.
Me Whining
It is a general complaint of mine, then, that tutorials about programming aimed at non-programmers rarely actually explain the "logic" of the language. Yes, you are taught to do simple, rather uninteresting tasks that bore you to death, but no one ever explains how things are supposed to fit together. This is what makes TADS tedious to learn, after going through the same tutorial over and over again, learning how to do stuff but never really know the why or how of it. That's why I still can't wrap my head around ADRIFT 5, because the documentation tells me what tasks are and how to use them but not really what a task-oriented approach is.
The Inform 7 documentation, truth be told, is not much better. It took a long time for me to finally "crack" I7, and the day I did, I exclaimed, "Oh! It's just a checklist!" What is a rule-oriented language? It's a language that uses a "checklist" to figure stuff out. An object-oriented language is similar but instead of a checklist it uses labels stuck on the object itself. As soon as I learned this, I became much, much more competent at I7.
In this respect, it seems odd that you'd put something so crucial so far from the front of your documentation. A quick browse through the documentation that the first mention of rules are in section 2.2, but the subject isn't revisited until Chapter 7, and only explained in depth in Chapter 18. As beginner, I never got the sense of how important and flexible rulebooks were and the sort of role they should play. It's easy to become focused on object properties, which I7 frankly handles very inefficiently, compared to rulebooks, which it handles very well. It certainly explains why so many veteran programmers happen to do things "wrong" from my perspective, using lots of memory-intensive properties and relations when a rulebook would do the job better.
The Logic of Inform 7
Everything in I7 boils down to rules. I7 is amazingly efficient at handling rules and not so efficient at handling "things", something TADS is better at. Squeezing performance out of I7 is an exercise in making the best use of rules. Rules rules rules. Rules, dammit, rules.
What is a rule? Unless you skipped the first section (don't blame you) an individual rule is basically a checkbox. A lot of rules are essentially a checklist, we call these checklists "rulebooks".
Imagine before you did anything you consulted a checklist. We are trying to put toast in a toaster. The first check (or rule) might be: do we have the toast? If we don't, we need to pick it up. The second check asks whether we took of the toaster out of its box, the third checks to see if we bothered to plug it in, and so on.
But I7 isn't just a checklist, it's a checklist made from other checklists, with each checklist covering a different aspect of what we want to do. One checklist tells us whether we can do what we want to do. Another checklist tells us how to do it. Another tells us what we should do after. And not only that, the checklists communicate with each other. One checklist can stop another. A checklist can consult another checklist. And on and on.
Let's advance our example into jumping. If we were designing a checklist for jumping, what might it look like?
Is jumping right now logical?
-- Is there space above me?
-- Do I have legs to jump with?
-- Am I standing on a solid surface? If it is logical, how do I jump?
-- Bend your knees.
-- Push your feet against the ground in a springing action.
-- Allow gravity to pull you back to Earth.
We can think of the underlined components as rulebooks, and each nested component as an individual rule within that rulebook. The first rulebook asks whether we can jump. The second rulebook asks: if I can jump, how do I do that? We can surmise that if the first checklist fails, the second checklist won't even be considered. This is a very important and powerful tool in I7.
The order of the second rulebook is critically important, whereas for the first rulebook it matters little. If we let gravity pull us down first, we'd then jump and never get back on the ground. This is why we divide our rules like this, because while the content of the rules are the exact same the behavior would get all muddled without being organized into rulebooks.
But the true strength of Inform 7 rule system is that we can add new rules. As our world model gets more complicated, we can add new rulebooks, and put rulebooks in our rulebooks, all to decide what happens. For example, let say our world was host to a variety of awful pestilences and nasty things to land on, we can have a checklist like this:
Is jumping right now logical?
-- Is there space above me?
-- Do I have legs to jump with?
-- Am I standing on a solid surface?
-- Do I suffer from (if so, stop):
-- osteoporosis?
-- a spinal injury?
-- Lou Gehrig's Disease? If it is logical, how do I jump?
-- Bend your knees.
-- Push your feet against the ground in a springing action.
-- Allow gravity to pull you back to Earth. What are the consequences if I land on:
-- spikes? Severe injury.
-- cushions? No injury.
-- kittens? Severe allergy.
There are a lot of checklists in I7, all consulted for different reasons, though the six most authors will be concerned with are the following:
Before -- What should I do before I even start thinking about jumping? Instead -- Is there anything that would stop me jumping, or a special circumstance that would cause me to jump in a special way? If so, stop. Check -- Is it logical for me to jump? If it isn't, stop. Carry out -- What steps do I take when I jump? After -- Is there anything special I should after I jump? Perhaps a consequence for jumping in a special circumstance? If so, stop. Report -- What should I tell you if you jump but nothing interesting happens?
AIF Toolkit v0.5.0 contained an embarrassing bug that broke the fucking action. The reason I didn't catch it is that my tests are usually between NPCs and NPC sex was working just fine. The new version ought to fix that. It's strongly recommended you update. A special thanks to the anonymous commentator who brought my attention to this.
You can manually patch the extension the following way:
1) Find the following piece of code in Simpler AIF:
Post-action bookkeeping for fucking something with something (this is the define the last fucktool rule): now the second noun is the last fucktool.
2) Replace it with the following code:
Post-action bookkeeping for fucking something with something (this is the define the last fucktool rule): now the last fucktool is the second noun.
You can also download the new version here.
AIF Toolkit v0.5.0 is released. There are a couple of major changes that break compatibility in a serious way, so it's recommended you save a backup of the prior version of Simpler AIF and Advanced Layered Clothing. Overall, it's worth it. Sex toys and non-standard body parts are now fully supported, in addition to tribadism, frotting, and other things. Read the documentation for more details.
As there are some major changes, I do expect some bugs and I ask that people submit bug reports if they find anything.
A few people have asked me for the extension I used to make Bad Sister with. I have released Adult CYOA with this extension that will allow you to make Bad Sister style games (meaning that it is CYOA with AIF commands). In truth, this extension is a lot better than what I used to make Bad Sister, so you will have a much easier time of it than I did.
To Twine users, you might consider using Adult CYOA. It's only marginally less user friendly, and in exchange, you get a far more flexible parser with tools that are a lot more powerful. You can simulate inventories and add special commands. You can even compile to a browser-friendly interpreter.
In the future, I'm going to try to publish a few tutorials on writing with Adult CYOA. Wait and see.
Hey everyone, thought I might as well tell everyone what's going down on the pipeline.
I wrote a ton last year, only a fraction of it was ever seen by the community at large. Combined altogether, it would have made a rather large AIF game, but the fact it was spread out into three or so incomplete projects makes me cringe a bit. I've got a few projects in the pipeline (I'm also collaborating with someone on something, but I won't say any more about that.)
My primary objective this year is to finish up Version 1 of the AIF Toolkit and to release at least one major game.
So far, people have really like Simpler AIF and I'm happy with that. Version 0.5 is on its way and it will include things like improved handling of non-standard sex organs and anatomies, tribbing/frotting, better support for sex toys and better handling of clothing. It will break compatibility slightly but I'll try and add instructions on upgrading to 0.5.
I also plan on adding a module that will allow for Bad Sister style games. It also allows you to have CYOA segments and interactive segments. It's actually all ready to go except I need to write the documentation and finish the code that lets you use sex commands during CYOA. I'm hoping this will make it very easy for people to write games.
