Monday 2 March 2015

Something New


Hello fellow players of AIF,

I hope you will enjoy the new project I have posted to both the yahoo group aifarchive and to aifcommunity.org.  I seems that the post to aifcommunity.org still isn't up at the hour of this posting, and that, due to file-size restrictions on the yahoo group I cannot post the full project there.  If you go to https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/aifarchive/files/TADS3%20Games/Foundations%20Institute/ you'll find a reduced version known as The Ash and the Blackthorn.

The larger project, which should be available on aifcommunity.org soon, is called the Foundations Institute and it is an interactive manual for itself.  Eight sexual NPCs are to be found within both Foundations Institute and The Ash and the Blackthorn, each with over a thousand responses and over 30 implemented body-parts.

It is also open-source and creative commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International, so I hope you get a good read, take the parts you find useful and make something wonderful with it.

Good fantasies,

Love Letters to Love

47-/.hqksmhpkfr9qha2hqksmjhlk6jhhqici1hhnbq0hqksmhpkfr7nki6hqksm2jhlk9kvq-2qk5qbh8F,7pk9C6pbwff0lhnphuhnh55qvk3iknqy-hcabq2klhjmskqh8rwjjkq1rfkphmskqh4qbnhh6qvhjqyQ9hbq4kq8F3hbq8kq5F2gw0C94?qkj6tfskv1qc3thqphaasp2nhuh8jsggkr1ynhuh9bqcv8hns crwqckj0cp2akcja7qk3ahq4qksab,6vbknwlbcr2pcajwqakqlynr7jcmshs7w,5kP

Edit:  Full game now on http://aifcommunity.org/games/tads/tads_3/ the file is an archive named FI.7z.

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7 comments:

  1. Good to see a new game from you, welcome back!

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    1. Thank you so much! Have you had a chance to look at the project? I recommend the more complete one at aifcommunity.org, but the Ash and the Blackthorn's comparatively simplicity has merits

      ISFWYUSYZMFTKLSARQFGDGQNZWDZRZYORQHJHSOLBJQTHILBGNQRXQZJTWWCTXBMWBYEXZOXYRYAMUKZL

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  2. I don't mean to be disrespectful, since I'm sure this took a lot of work, and what I want to say probably doesn't do all the things going on under this program's hood justice, but as you may have deduced from me calling it a "program" rather than a "game", what is visibly there is not really good.

    Now, my understanding is that this is supposed to be an open platform for people to add their own little AIF fantasies to and that it's incomplete - That much was clear to me from the start. I also suppose that the focus was more on making that kind of modular build viable rather than making it a polished package.
    Therefore, it is probably too harsh if I criticize the sex or gameplay, but the truth of the matter is that there really isn't any gameplay to speak off (some of the mechanics are really unnecessarily clunky, for example the button-pressing and censorship) and the sex is essentially endlessly repeating bits of text until you've executed every interaction (arousal was literally stuck at fixed numbers after a while until I did something else and since you cannot really do multiple things at once [as far as I know], that's not exactly a good way of depicting sex).
    So, as far as criticism is concerned, take all of what I wrote above with a huge load of salty liquid of your choice (or just a grain of salt, if the other is not your thing) and take a look at it yourself rather than let me judge it unfairly.


    But I wouldn't have brought this up here if this hadn't revealed something to me: I don't get it.
    I really, really, really don't understand the appeal of games/character simulators like this. Don't get me wrong, I've played lots of AIF games and I love them but this, this type of game, these collections of characters, or rather puppets, to play with... I don't get it.

    To me, what makes these games and characters come to life is the reactions they show when I do something, good or bad, well-written sex and character interactions that are arousing but also show me how they tick... but most of all, to me, it's the story that ties them together and makes these individual NPCs interesting as a cast, when there are connections between them and a plot that can thicken in merry conjunction with some of my bodyparts.

    I don't even really know where I'm going with this, but I suppose it's something like this: What do you guys think about, well, "fantasy sex simulators", are they appealing to you (more so/less so than regular story-driven AIF games?) and why/why not?

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  3. Anonymous One,

    Actually, I couldn't agree with you more.

    About the importance of story, about development of characters, and most importantly about meaningful choice. I want to see all of that and I want something else as well. I want to see the creation of emergent stories. I want the player to encounter some unexpected delight that the author never anticipated. I want the system to provide not just the fantasy someone thought to write, but also the fantasy the player found hiding in the machine.

    Emergent systems start with complexity. That isn't the same as complicated, mind you. Very outwardly simple rules like those of Conway's Life can interact in a complex way and achieve unanticipated results.

    That being said, what better way to encourage new authors to take on ambitious stories that develop character and explore choice than to give them as much simulationist complexity as they could want right out the door? If you don't care about simulation depth at all, then CYOA formats are perfectly suited for telling an interactive story with choice and consequence. If you like simulation depth, but not this much; then you can cut out as much of the project as you want.

    You probably saw that I never used the word "game" above either, because I anticipated the obvious objection. I never hoped for anyone to go exhaustively through every possible combination of verb, bodypart and character. It isn't the puppets that are important, after all. It is the story you tell when you play with them.

    I look forward to reading the story you tell, Anonymous One. I look forward to reading as the "characters come to life", to discovering the "story that ties them together and makes these individual NPCs interesting as a cast", I desire to explore the "connections between them and a plot that can thicken in merry conjunction with some of my bodyparts".

    If my tools can help you tell that story better or sooner, I am tickled by the notion. If not, I regret it, but I sincerely look forward to your games, nonetheless.

    I thank you for being the first to give me some direct feedback on my project.

    Hoping to hear from you again,

    Love Letters to Love.

    Z3GT2K2MLEJFNSARHBBAUG6XIXVARH3MH4JNTV7AT5LPONTGSOSFA9CEHV3QPLXXEDTD06MMCYKI1QVVKFM8CSVOSHAFDOW2BPHBK4ZKNMQRK9PZKFLXZELAK5D0VBSDWXJQDVB6

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  4. This is surely a big work (I don't know how many hours you needed and how you didn't get bored), but I don't know if this community is sufficiently big to have several persons that will appreciate and use your work.
    In any case good luck

    XXX

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  5. stuck with "Your c0ck is soft and dangling, but you remember what it looks like hard."
    Have i to do smthng or this is normal responce?

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  6. Sorry for the long wait on this answer. I've been busy.

    That is a bug. Just seeing a message like that isn't a bug, but if it is the only message you see, even after some time at activities, it is probably a bug.
    With more information about the context, I could probably be sure of the cause, but I have a guess. The cause of it is, probably, that you're playing with Arsen, Candice, Owen, Bridget, Willem or Kim rather than Jun and Flannery.

    It's quite an oversight on my part, but none of these character's have numbers assigned to their arousal responses. If you want to increase their arousal, or your own, when interacting with these characters you can do it by turning on the debug settings (enter turn on debug) when in the Grand Lobby (or the Welcoming Garden, in The Ash and the Blackthorn). Now, in either of the two rooms flanking the Lobby (or, again, Garden) to the east and west, you'll find some new buttons on the control panel. The "happy button" increases the arousal of everyone present, the "sad button" decreases it.

    This kludge will have to serve until the next release of the FI toolkit in which all the characters will have numerically defined arousal.

    Or, if you prefer not to wait, and you have the tads3 workbench, you can go into the source code and find (CTRL+F) the part the looks like:
    <.pleasuregiven 0><.pleasuretaken 0>

    Assign numbers to these, like so:

    <.pleasuregiven 2><.pleasuretaken 2>

    If anyone does this and they're willing to send me the numbers, it could save me a task, but no worries, it's on my to-do-list.

    I hope this solved the issue for you.

    Here to help,
    Love Letters to Love

    P.S. Sorry about the anonymous, can't remember the my Google account password. It will come to me.

    9HQR78YG24561IJ50A817560F4234QE0HI87473Y2156GKR35887ZA52M6BHJ1D4E9M84542B67RQB67F8G93M110ZEDR69MJH1M17KM0BG5ID6722M6B1M1AQ4EM8Y5DR85M31FBHZ263GBJ873D60927M3D25BR5ME6JKQB5A1MG01Y3588Z3I2M8D75HD85RM3QGM69M1M11FD535BE77AB7DJ6MH0M1RZK52MG6B1D46545Q5DR8EJ5B1Y30453HGI29M17AB75M17F1B5KZ73B5M0BE4M0RB5M0M67HYMZ66MG875D29ME84J7A1B7KM913R1D13H12D6IB5DG95YD9541M1A4ERD75BZ141H4E2M3J57FB79KBG7D578B7EJBHRZ87M0M6D6B5YM15A9A15FB1GM8HE4RI23D8Z5Y4234AM1D2DG6B9KEB79IJM67YM9H356R1A50EYM1ZB55G2HJ

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