Upcoming extension: Advanced Layered Clothing

For the past few weeks, I've been working on a new layered clothing for use with Simpler AIF, with very little spare time to actually work on any games. While Advanced Layered Clothing has been feature complete for a while, I keep thinking of things to add and change and, since then, it has become a major update to Simpler AIF as well. Overall, I'm pretty happy with Advanced Layered Clothing (or "ALC" as I affectionately call it), and, despite the name, ALC has proven very easy to use so far, as well as pretty easy to modify and customize so I'm pretty sure the community will like it too.

Over the past few days, I've been bug testing both ALC and Simpler AIF pretty extensively, catching quite a few bugs in the process. I'm pretty sure I've caught all the serious/embarrassing ones, still, ALC is quite large and complex and I'd bet there are a few I haven't caught even after release.

New Features of Simpler AIF

Simpler AIF (or SAIF) version 4 had a undocumented feature where you could customize the default library messages by using phrases. I never particularly liked this method and I've replaced it with an entirely new system. Now, all library messages are controlled by the "AIF message rules". Using rules rather than phrases gives the author a lot more flexibility. Such a rule might look a little like this:

AIF message for the can't lick your own pussy rule when the failer is Cersei: say "'Jaime, do I look like a contortionist to you?'"

SAIF now includes an index of customizable library messages that you can basically drop in the game and fill out as you desire, making it very easy to customize most of the extension's default messages.

Common body parts that were included as part of the "common body parts" plugin are incorporated in the core extension itself. By default, however, they aren't actually added to anyone in the game unless you paste in the relevant pieces of code, so they are still optional. What you get, however, is much better support for secondary body parts. For example, it was possible to lick your own tummy and legs in version 4, which has been fixed in version 5.

There are some more internal changes to Simpler AIF that might not be noticeable to most authors, notably a new action phase (the "redirect" phase) whose sole purpose is to redirect actions into different ones.

There are still some things I want to do with Simpler AIF before it is "complete". I would like to support tribadism and frotting, and I would like to generalize how body parts work (i.e. instead of a rule requiring "cock" it would require a "penile thing") to better support non-humans, but these features will be saved for a version 6.

Features in Advanced Layered Clothing

ALC has a clothing system that would be familiar to anyone who has played an AIF game. On the author's end, ALC is fairly simple to use but still has some advanced features.

ALC uses a body slot system (or "body areas") and works by comparing lists of covered areas with the associated areas of body parts. Neatly, ALC doesn't require the body parts to actually exist for you to test coverage (so you don't actually have to have a "feet" object to wear shoes, but you still test to see if the feet would be covered). It's pretty easy to add new garments and body parts. It is not so easy to add new body slots, but it is at least a labor-intensive rather than complex process.

ALC uses a variety of shorthand to make it easy to write prose about garments. For example, you can use the phrase "chest garment of A PERSON" to find the garment covering a person's chest. ALC also automatically sets an "obstructing garment" variable when it tests for accessibility, allowing you to write things like this:

...if Anna's breasts are not exposed, say "You rub Anna's breasts through [the obstructing garment]."

ALC includes three methods of opening a garment: unzipping, unbuttoning and shifting. There are two more I might add in future updates (tearing and unbuckling) but for right now these three are more than enough.

An updated version of SAIF's clothing set system as been adapted for ALC. This makes it easy to manage clothing, making it so characters don't make off with each other's clothes and making it easy to dress characters back up in their clothes.

Finally, and what I think is the coolest feature of ALC, are Automated Descriptions which handle character descriptions similar to how location descriptions are printed up.

Possible Future Extensions

Manageable AIF: Really more of a "lazy person's AIF" extension. Manageable AIF consolidates descriptions and the number of interactions down to as few as possible while still keeping scenes fully interactive, making writing a AIF scene much less work.

AIF Templates: Not really an extension but a collection of fully coded AIF scenes that could be dropped into a game and filled out pretty easily to make a fully fleshed-out interactive scene.

Sex Toys: Simpler AIF's handling of sex toys is poor and non-existent in ALC and it would make sense to move this to a new extension.

Arousal: I have a few ideas for an arousal system although they aren't fully fleshed out yet.

Positions: Again, I have a few ideas how to handle this although they aren't fully fleshed out yet.

So, do any of you have any ideas of what you'd like to see in an AIF extension?

EDIT: Update about Bad Sister

I wrote an imageless version of Bad Sister for play on browsers. It is ready to go except that it needs a host. If you have a server and wouldn't mind hosting it, please send me a line.