Thursday 26 February 2015

Let's Plays of Arianeb

I recently noticed that one YouTuber was making Let's Play videos of herself playing Dating Ariane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24vnKeuFWB8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B44gxN4Tgwk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdgnrvLADpI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jLvgxTuSYk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJzaTpLG3gk

I've always felt that Dating Ariane was written for the male gaze. Watching a woman play the game definitely reinforces that feeling. Although she is obviously exaggerating her reactions for the sake of humor, it's interesting to see her reactions to behavior that would be considered normal in AIF. The videos also show how hard the game is. The YouTuber is an experienced gamer who plays a lot of dating sims and visual novels, and she can't get anywhere in the game. It might be because she uses the back button a lot though. I don't think Dating Ariane supports the back button properly.

I don't know what this has to do with anything. It's just nice to see reactions to AIF-style games from people outside the community. The player is open-minded about it and she seems to enjoy herself, but I can't help but wince at certain moments.

Monday 23 February 2015

February Open Thread: Failure and Challenge

I think the only AIF game I ever failed* at was BBBen's Pervert Action: Crisis. From the beginning I tried to have a diverse set of skills and interact with multiple girls. At the end, I ended up in a relationship with none of them.

A somewhat similar type of failure though happened in Goblinboy's games where I didn't get the ending/relationship I was shooting for. I think in my first play of School Dreams 3 I managed to piss both Becky and Molly off.

Now, for me, those setbacks just made me want to start again from the beginning. What are other people's thoughts on the issue? Does the potential for failure, and challenge** to get better outcomes, make the ultimate result more worthwhile, or just frustrating?

*I'm using a broad definition of fail here, I enjoyed my first play, so on that criteria I didn't fail, but I didn't get what I wanted (which was possible to get)
**I'm speaking generally. I think people generally agree that too much or too little challenge isn't desirable, so I'm asking in general is more challenge good?

Sunday 15 February 2015

The Erins: 2014 - Results!

The results of the 2014 Erins can now be announced! 

The top three places are listed below, along with honourable mentions (listed alphabetically) for anyone else who got a significant number of votes. 

Game of the Year 
1st - Emily: Sister Attraction by Palmer
2nd - Magician's Nephew by Mister Flibble
3rd - Master of the House by Minterlint

Honourable mention: Circles of Desire by Cassgames; Study Date by Karrek 

Best New Author 
1st - Palmer
2nd - Mister Flibble
3rd - Minterlint

Honourable mention: BrokenKnightX, Cassgames

Congratulations to Palmer, Mister Flibble, and Minterlint, not to mention everyone else who released a game in 2014. Also, a big thank you to the 147 people who took the time to vote. 

In a year that was as dominated by new authors as 2014 was, it's not too surprising that the results for Game of the Year and Best New Author match up so closely. What did surprise me a little was how many people chose to split their votes. I would guess that's due to new authors not just being judged on what they've done this year, but also on what they might do in the future. 

On the subject of what categories could be added to the 2015 Erins, nearly everyone who made a suggestion mentioned either Best Character or Best Scene. We'll be looking at how we can implement those suggestions closer to the time. 

Now you have a couple of weeks to catch your breath before the voting starts for the 2010-13 Erins. I'm giving serious thought to doing multiple years at once, since I don't want to exhaust everyone by sending out poll after poll for the next four months.