AIF Toolkit v1.0.2 + AIF Toolkit Recipe Book + The Concession Stand

AIF Toolkit version 1.0.2 is released. You can download it here. This is a pure documentation update (but what a documentation update it is!) so if you don't want all the extra documentation you don't have to download it. This was supposed to go up yesterday, but I stayed up late last night playing The Lost Hound. What a great game!

The AIF Toolkit finally includes a sample game: the Concession Stand. Now, the Concession Stand is a minicomp-sized game, but it's basically bad, and it's bad on purpose. My issue is with my sample games is that I had gotten these great, ambitious ideas, which of course fell apart, and the Concession Stand is basically a bare-bones AIF game that demonstrates some advanced features. I got incredibly lazy writing the sex scene, so there's that to look forward to. The only good thing about it is for a good read of the source code.

Also, the AIF Toolkit include the AIF Toolkit Recipe Book, an extension that is only documentation. It's a bit like a FAQ and a reference, and includes ways of how to implement a wide variety of features. As I get questions I'll probably add more to the AIF Toolkit Recipe Book. It also includes a project template and three sex scene templates. The sex scene templates were made systematically, I apologize in advance if they contain any errors and I'll fix them as I get reports or as I see them.

P.S. If you look at the right hand side bar, you'll notice that there's now a link to the latest release of the AIF Toolkit. That should make it so the newest release is always easily accessible.

Quick March Update

It's 1/6 through the new year, and I still haven't figured out what my project of 2015 will be yet, though I've been playing around with a few ideas, I can't say I'm going to stick with them for certain, though there are a couple of options that I know I won't be doing.

Dextro: Professional Male Stripper
This came quite close to being the project of 2015, but I wasn't inspired enough by it. Instead, I've given the idea to a friend of mine (who I won't say, because I don't want to obligate him) who'll develop Dextro. I'm pretty interested to see what he's going to do with it, since he's pretty funny and more enthusiastic than I am about the game. I'm sure Dextro is in competent hands.

Soccer Story
Because of the complexity of the concept I've decided I really need a GUI to do Soccer Story right, and that means moving to a platform like Ren'py and getting artists and all that. I just don't have the management skills or flat-out skills to do that yet. I know a lot of people want to see Soccer Story, and I kind of want to as well, but I can't do it unless I get someone committed to A) do the graphics and B) do the programming. Everyone on the Internet knows: writers are cheap, but artists and programmers are pure gold.

At a bare minimum, to make the project doable:

• I'd need an artist to make an attractive GUI and character icons for each character.
• I'd need a coder that can write the engine and AI into Python (or whatever we'd end up using)

There's also a new idea that's been hanging around my head for a while. I'm prototyping it right now, and if it becomes something substantial I'll post about it, but for right now it's not something I want people to get worked up about.

Blogger's New Content Policy: No Adult Content (UPDATE)

Update 3/1/2015 --

 Thanks Anon to pointing out that Blogger decided it won't remove all adult blogs, but crack down on commercial ones. I think this is fine and so I'm sticking with Blogger for now, but I might start a Tumblr in the future.

A few hours ago I received the following email from Blogger:

Dear Blogger User,

We're writing to tell you about an upcoming change to the Blogger Content Policy that may affect your account.

In the coming weeks, we'll no longer allow blogs that contain sexually explicit or graphic nude images or video. We'll still allow nudity presented in artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific contexts, or where there are other substantial benefits to the public from not taking action on the content.

The new policy will go into effect on the 23rd of March 2015. After this policy goes into effect, Google will restrict access to any blog identified as being in violation of our revised policy. No content will be deleted, but only blog authors and those with whom they have expressly shared the blog will be able to see the content we've made private.

Our records indicate that your account may be affected by this policy change. Please refrain from creating new content that would violate this policy. Also, we ask that you make any necessary changes to your existing blog to comply as soon as possible, so that you won't experience any interruptions in service. You may also choose to create an archive of your content via Google Takeout (https://www.google.com/settings/takeout/custom/blogger).

For more information, please read here (https://support.google.com/blogger?p=policy_update).

Sincerely,
The Blogger Team

(c) 2015 Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043

While I don't agree with the changes, fighting Google is a Sisyphean task that I won't engage in, barring a groundswell movement. To me, this is just another example of corporate busybodies uncomfortable with the realities of human sexuality (and oddly comfortable with images of graphic violence), but Blogger is their thingamajig and they can do what they want with it. If Blogger wants to abolish half of its blogs, that's their business.

That said, this blog doesn't contain sexually explicit images or video, so I very much doubt I'll be affected by this. I might want to in the future, but I wasn't planning on it in short term. This does mean that I have to think about what I'll do in the future. Hence, if the Iron Grasp of Google becomes too tight I might be squeezed into Tumblr. I like Tumblr in that it's easier to engage with people and it's more like a social network, but that I don't like for the same reason I don't like Twitter: it's all pretty superficial, and if you haven't noticed I like to write walls and walls of text. Another option is getting a website -- if my writing career takes of this will definitely be something I'll do.

Anyways, if you have any suggestions where I should go in a hypothetical move, let me know in the comments.

AIF Toolkit v1.0.1

Despite the version numbering, version 1.0.1 is a fairly significant release and includes some critical bugfixes and a few new features. Probably most critically is that Hybrid Choices is now compatible with the very newest version of Flexible Windows. You'll need to download the version of Flexible Windows here if you want to use it with Hybrid Choices.

Version 1.0.1 can be downloaded here.

Important changes:
-- New functions in ALC let you create a list of garments that cover a specific area.
-- Documentation for Penetration has been updated.
-- A critical bug in Penetration has been fixed.
-- Bug fix for Simpler AIF where if you make the player a kind of person at the beginning of the game, it doubles their organs (thanks to the author that found this).
-- Hybrid Choices is once again compatible with Flexible Windows, allowing you to create choice-windows (thanks to Hanon Ondricek for alerting me to the new version).

I know a few of you use Threaded Conversation, and I wanted to bring your attention to what I think is a very promising conversation extension called Stacked Conversation. I haven't tested it extensively, but it has some really interesting ideas and definitely deserves a little more notice. You can download it from the Intfiction thread.


I wanted to also give you the AIF Toolkit Recipe Book and a sample game, but these both still need a little more work but I can safely say that they're far enough along now that they will be coming. The game is, I admit, pretty bad, not really something to wait for with bated breath. My problem with writing sample games is that I try to get too fancy, and then I end up attempting a Picasso instead of a Bob Ross. Basically, it's bad on purpose and you shouldn't think of it as anything other than a demonstration.

Fencing Academy now available for pre-order!

It's like preordering video games, except instead of getting a videogame, you get a book. Isn't that lovely?

Damn, March 23rd can't come fast enough!

If you are inclined, you can preorder here.

For those from Blighty.



BTW, I promise you, this blog won't turn into being just about my books. I'm still working on AIF.

Writing Your First Book, Pt. 3

You. Need to, revise. - Christopher Waulken.

How you revise your work is pretty much going to dictate how you should write it.

Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself. You need to revise your work, and you should know that before you even start writing. I know a lot of talented people who never revise their work, and that's the reason they'll never become great writers. You know who you are.

You.

Need.

To.

Revise.

Are there any more ways I can say that to get you to understand?

1) You need to revise.
2) Necessitas a editar.
3) .esiver ot deen ouY


Revising is a crucial skill of any writer. And it's not just to pick out errors like like this one, but also to prune out awkward, flowery strange sentiments that just take up space and go on and on forever and are just structureless blobs of excessive verbosity. Like this paragraph.

The art of revision is corrupted by how we teach writing, at least in America. In student works we have a mandatory word count and so revising often means we're looking for areas to insert superfluous content rather than remove it. This is where many people pick up appalling writing habits. You could probably populate a bestiary with the individual offenses, but I won't here. This is, after all, a series on how to write your first book, not how to write well.

Revising is rarely about putting stuff in. It is nearly always about taking stuff out.

Revision doesn't happen in isolation, either. It is a constant process. You finish a sentence, you reread it. You finish a paragraph, you reread it. And so on for every page and every chapter. After you finish the book, you reread, not once, but multiple times. You read it again and again until you begin to loathe your own work slightly. That only means you need to step back for a week or so, and come back to it with fresh eyes.

Everyone has their own style of doing it. For example, I inserted this paragraph after the third revision, after reading this to myself and realizing that I had not given any concrete examples on how to effectively revise. A common method is to read what you are writing out loud to see if it feels natural as you say it, which is what I'm doing right now. This is useful for refining your style. However, this edit is an example of fixing a structural issue -- I noticed that I hadn't covered some important topics, and so I went back and inserted them in. Such an omission can only be noticed by someone willing to reflect on what they've just written. You have to ask yourself: have I communicated the ideas I intended to communicate? Is there anything that isn't necessary to this article?

It's not just your eyes, it's other people's eyes, their fresh, fresh eyes. (1) (4)

A complete writing team includes at least: 1 Writer, 1 Test Reader, 1 Editor.

If you are self-publishing, there is an awfully good chance you can't afford a professional editor. Good editors are expensive, and while some are "worth every penny", there are amateurs available who either don't have the critical skills available or use their leverage over you to be nasty. There are still other "writing grognards" who have a crystallized view of what constitutes "good writing" and pretty much take the hammer to Writing Heresy. (5) And yet, the editor is every bit as valuable to making a piece work as the writer themselves; they are the ones who will make your writing good (6) there are things that you just can't see but they can. It comes down this: you need an editor, but you can't rely on the editor to make your writing good.

And nor should they. Turning opaque prose into something readable is just exhausting. You'll find your editors dropping out of the sky if you send them off your first raw, unrevised draft. Even if you use an editor, you need to make sure your work is pretty well refined by the time they see it. If you need your editor to rewrite everything for you, just do everyone a favor and hire yourself a ghostwriter. (2)

The test reader is a friend, family member, or significant other that loves you enough to put with your work. The test reader's primary job is to be honest where others might be a little diplomatic. In other words, they tell you when you suck. If you're going to put your work out commercially, developing a thick skin and professional attitude is a must, and if you can't be your own worst critic you definitely should get your actual worst critic as a test reader.

Everyone writes shit that blows. Where the skill comes in is deleting said shit before anyone has a chance to read it. (3) (7)



(1) This joke shamelessly stolen from Hanon Ondricek.

(2) BTW, I'm going to start an indie editing and ghostwriting service in the future, so if you're looking for one email me.

(3) This article was revised four times. This is a very low number.

(4) This joke worked better when the previous paragraph didn't exist, but since it exists now the joke doesn't quite work. However, I've decided to keep it to illustrate exactly what I mean by revision.

(5) I've inappropriately inserted my own pet peeve when it isn't relevant to the paragraph, and at this point I haven't expounded on the virtues of a good editor so it seems like I'm discouraging people from getting an editor.

(6) Awkward sentence please revise.

(7) Now the number is five times and fuck it, it's done.

What is the AIF Toolkit Recipe Book?

During my post on my New Year's Resolutions I said that I was working on an AIF Tookit Recipe Book, a companion to the Inform 7 Recipe Book. These would cover topics that don't exactly deserve their own extensions, but probably deserve a mention. I get some feature requests that, while reasonable in their own right, are either specific to a particular game or have very simple means of implementation within core I7. The ATRB would have examples of doing these things. The ATRB also has sex scene templates - I've got three so far - which you can just paste into a project and fill out all the relevant texty bits and poof like magic you've got a fully-fledged sex scene.

This is where you come in. Do you have a particular question or subject you want answered or covered? I'll almost certainly include it in the ATRB.

Here's a brief list of subjects I've covered/planning to cover:

• Making background and partially interactive NPCs.
• Body parts with interesting names.
• Writing good understand clauses
• Clothing and clothing descriptions
• Boob cups & body measurements
• Modifying the arousal system
• Unlocking new actions ala Master of the House
• Using willingness as a variable
• Give it to me! (contextual sex commands)
• Achievements
• Dynamic outfits
• Solving memory issues
• Using scenes and positions
• Conversational commands
• Commands by kind

Is there anything else? Pretty much anything AIF related is on the table.