Tuesday 27 December 2016

Christmas Open Thread: Presents and Affection

An observation/criticism that gets thrown at games, not just AIFs but mainstream games as well, is that relationships are improved by giving characters a lot of presents. It amounts to buy stuff, give stuff, earn love.

So in the spirit of the present giving season: what system works best for earning affection? what can be improved? what difficulties might an author have to worry about? any games that have done this particularly well?

This thread is only talking about games that have some type of affection system (in AIF that would be any stat that you need to build up to improve the relationship and likely get to sex). Some games skip this, either the characters are into each other from the get go or some other approach is used, but we're not comparing the different models, I'm asking if there is an affection model and the player needs to improve their relationship, what works best?

To narrow it down I think AIFs in this category have primarily used two models (not talking about quality here, just category):

Get one thing and have sex: This can amount to, 'You found my jacket hidden in the closet, let's have sex' to 'You know I'd love to have sex with you, but I have to find my laptop first or my boss is going to kill me'.

On the mainstream game front: Skyrim has something similar. If you have a certain necklace than characters are willing to marry you. Some characters may need one thing done first, but at most it amount to an action and an item.

Get multiple things to improve relationship, then have sex: This can either be the continual giving of gifts or, as the Pervert Action series does, interactions/conversations.  Characters may have preferences for certain types of presents/behaviors.

I've never played it, but I hear that the Fable series uses something like this.

Friday 23 December 2016

A festive season hello

A quick hello for the festive season.  Many thanks for the interest in my first AIF game this year - I am well advanced in adding pictures to it, but I do get side-tracked from time to time,  Daz is like that.  Will be more focused in the New Year!

Anyway - a few pix for Christmas are up on my blog at http://ptypoeaif.weebly.com/blog  Becky and Jo get presents.

P



Saturday 17 December 2016

Looking for beta testers

It's probably safe to post this request here considering the kind of crowd that seems to frequent this blog.

I'm looking for beta testers for my latest game, Pervert Action: Legacy. I'm looking for real testers in this case - the game is long and complex, and I'll need you to report on things you find. If you've tested before for me or other authors then that's great! I'd love to hear from you. If you just want to play the game early then don't bother, the game will be out soon anyway, and it'll be bug free. I'd really appreciate the help of thorough testers so if that's you, then please contact me at:

bb ben D O T aif A T g mail D O T com

(Remove the spaces, replace DOT and AT with . and @ to foil spam bots.)

Tuesday 1 November 2016

Halloween Open Thread: Clothing

In the spirit of Halloween and costumes, I thought I'd start the open threads again with a topic on clothing in AIF. Some AIFs have characters disrobe completely at the start of a sex scene, while others see characters go through multiple stages and combinations (the best example I can think of that I have seen would be a rub butt/pussy command that gave different responses based on: dress on/panties on, dress on/panties off, dress off/panties on, dress off/panties off; and then the above would be done for the top as well with shirt/bra).

So the thread is: how much does a more "complex" clothing system add to AIF? Does having multiple options about how a character is disrobed add to the game, or is it fluff that probably takes a lot of author time and is unnecessary?

And a final question: do costumes in AIF work? Does describing a character as 'dressed as a cheerleader' make the sex scene hotter? I'm not talking about AIF with pictures here, just the actual descriptions. How well can the sexiness of certain outfits be communicated by just text?

Monday 10 October 2016

Introducing Dracis

I'm a long term lurker who played a number of AIF games but found them too hard, but years after playing a number of games still remember SS Whore, Community Policing and Cat Burglar. The latter due to not being able to get inside the house!!!!

In Feb 2014 I started playing around with Daz3D after years of seeing rendered images on Renderotica and in a number of games. After seeing that Daz was ‘free’ I downloaded it and gave it a go. In Dec 2014 I started with Reality and the Luxrender software and started a DeviantArt gallery. Then came a number of Twine game attempts with the best one being started in May 2015. Celeste Blake: The Evindium Affair then lauched onto Patreon in Aug 2016.



It is currently over 200k words long and has 270 odd 3D renders. Sci-Fi based theme, female protagonist with a number of adult themes: BDSM, non-consensual, humiliation and a general corruption mechanic based on a little of mind control.

In the author's opinion this game is a good example of what can be done with Twine easily (no coding experience). The main goal is to create a good game which is well received (bit of personal pride) and totally free. Game can be found on http://dracis3d.net/ (play online) or downloaded from https://mega.nz/#!xVVUSBDZ!ZaeOxekvPJCSXky9LZQ-JiIyuNYYrMI_o0FS2Lmex1o (70Mb – due to images).

Saturday 1 October 2016

Introduction and blog plug!

Hey all, this is Seattleman. I'm a relatively new author with only a couple small games under my belt. But, I have plans for more!  I'd like to plug my blog where you can read a bit more about what I've got in development - http://seattlemanaif.blogspot.com/

Thanks for reading!
 -Seattleman

Tuesday 20 September 2016

Welcome to Becky from MWA....

Hi everyone,

Many of you will have played MWA1 by now.  I am keen to add images to this and future games, and they are starting to happen. Please welcome Becky to the AIF world…


There are more images on my website as well as a link to my new Patreon page.  Oh dear, another Patreon page!  Why Patreon?  Well, I have found that it costs a lot for the 3D content I need to make the dozens of images that I want to put into each game.  My games are free; if you like them and want to say thanks or just help out, a small donation via my Patreon page will help me to pay for the graphics stuff and I can make the games more enjoyable.

Hope you like Becky.  Next will be the lovely Jo.

Ptypoe

PS: Becky says see you later...


Saturday 3 September 2016

AIF Minifest 2016


Updated 9/5:
Unfortunately, there were no organizers for the traditional AIF Minicomp this year and last year, so an alternative event was held instead, the AIF Minifest and Writing Salon. Instead of the traditional Minicomp author gladiator battles put on for the amusement of the readers, the Minifest was designed as a communal space for authors where they could get together to support each other as they wrote some games and released them at the end. Although there was a lot of creative story ideas generated by many authors at the beginning, only two games were completed by the end. You can trace the development process of these works as part of the AIF Writing Salon.

The two games that are being released as part of the Minifest are

First Date by Seattleman 
ADRIFT 5 
After hitting it off with the lovely Katherine on an online dating site, you are going to meet her for a first date at Benscamo's Cafe.

Note (9/30): To play ADRIFT games, you need to run the ADRIFT interpreter program. Then, open the .taf file in that program. To find out where to download an ADRIFT interpreter, please consult the AIF FAQ.

and


Mrs. Harrow and the Rake by Lost Trout
HTML (Twine)
Seduce Mrs. Harrow as a Victorian era rake.


Wednesday 24 August 2016

AIF Minifest 2016 Final Deadline

This is just a reminder that the final deadline for the AIF Minifest is August 29. I hope you're all making good progress on your games. Please send me your entries at losttrout AT gmail DOT com around that date. Do send me raw game files or html files instead of actual executable programs to avoid problems with viruses. I will then need a few days to gather the entries together, upload them to the Matrix Mole site, and write up an announcement.

Sunday 14 August 2016

My First AIF Story Released: MWA1 - Welcome Home

Not wishing to detract from the mini-fest but I have just released my first AIF story.  You can download it on my shiny new website - http://ptypoeaif.weebly.com

After getting hooked on AIF via the likes of Goblinboy and ArianeB, I discovered Palmer and then Aonehitwonder and decided to try my hand at a story in Adrift.  This is the first result: My Weekend Adventures 1 - Welcome Home. I hope you enjoy it. 

You are a college student and have just returned home after an extended time overseas.  Over this weekend you reconnect with existing female friends and also make some new ones.  There are several alternative paths through the weekend, depending on the choices you make.  A number of “successful” endings or scenes are possible.  MWA1 is much bigger than a mini-fest story, hence this separate release.


Many thanks to the beta testers that have reviewed it – hopefully it is now bug free, but please contact me if you do find any bugs.  In the meantime, I am off to start writing MWA 2 and download Daz Studio to learn how to do graphics.  So much to do and so little time!

Ptypoe

Monday 25 July 2016

AIF Minifest Deadline

The AIF Writing Salon is winding down, and the deadline for the AIF Minifest is approaching. I originally set the deadline for the Minifest as August.

Is there anyone who's planning on submitting anything to the Minifest? Does anyone need more time?

Sunday 10 July 2016

Writing Salon Weeks 11+: Fleshing Things Out

This post is for the July 10-31 writing event of the 2016 AIF Writing Salon.

Now that you have a playable game, it's time to flesh things out. Add more commands to your game. Add extra rooms. Add puzzles and plot. Add a conclusion. There's three weeks until the minifest, so use your time wisely to enhance your game.

Post the text that you've written for feedback. Ask for programming advice. Put up playable versions of your game that others can try and make suggestions for. Send me your completed works at the start of August at the email address losttrout AT gmail, so I can gather them together and make them available for the minifest. Even if you haven't been involved with the Writing Salon, I will still accept your game for the minifest. Raw game files or .html files are preferred over executable files because they are smaller and are less likely to have viruses. Sometimes gmail automatically discards emails with certain attachments, so if you don't hear from me after a few days saying that I've received your game, please e-mail me asking what's up.

Sunday 3 July 2016

Writing Salon Week 10: Program the Transcript

This post is for the July 3-9 writing event of the 2016 AIF Writing Salon.

It's time to get interactive! Add the commands from your sex transcript into your game. You should be able to play through your game now. Post your game up for people to try and give you feedback about how it plays.

When programming, it's important to not fight your story engine. Story engines are designed to be programmed in certain ways. As long as you stay within the expected structure, the programming should be relatively easy. If you do something that runs counter to the design of the story engine, the programming can quickly become very, very hard. If you find yourself doing a lot of complicated programming, you might be trying to make your story engine do something that it was not designed to do. In those cases, it is often easier to adapt your story to fit what the engine wants than the other way around. Experienced AIF authors are adept at finding compromises between the needs of their stories and the design of their story engines. Feel free to ask for advice.

Sunday 26 June 2016

Writing Salon Week 9: Sex Transcript

This post is for the June 26-July 2 writing event of the 2016 AIF Writing Salon.

Write a sample playthrough of your sex scene. List the commands that a player will do and write the responses that will happen. Think about alternate commands that the player might try. Here is a sample transcript:

> kiss her
You kiss her.

> Lick breasts
You gently lick her nipple.

> Have sex
You have sex with her. You cuddle with her afterwards and go to sleep.

The End.

It shows different commands that you can try and the expected responses.

Writing sex scenes can be difficult. Surprisingly, writing sex scenes isn't taught in school, so most people don't have any practice with it. A good sex scene shouldn't just be a mechanical description of sex acts. Describe how it feels and the emotions involved. I am including numerous excerpts of some public domain sex scenes that you can pilfer and adapt for your own writing.

Sunday 19 June 2016

Writing Salon Week 8: Program the Character Descriptions

This post is for the June 19-25 writing event of the 2016 AIF Writing Salon.

Add character descriptions to your game so that your characters can be looked at. Many beginner authors have "simulationist tendencies." They feel that they need to simulate the real world. Every body part needs to be examinable. Each piece of clothing can be individually removed. This is very difficult and time-consuming to do. It can also be tedious to write and tedious to read. It can get boring coming up with an interesting description of a woman's breasts and vagina all the time.

Avoid making a clothing system for your game unless you actually have a lot of extra time. Unless there's a narrative reason that individual body parts need to be examinable, make your life easier and don't include it.

Sunday 12 June 2016

Writing Salon Week 7: Character Description

This post is for the June 12-18 writing event of the 2016 AIF Writing Salon.

Write descriptions for the player and partner. What do they look like? What are they wearing? What do they look like naked? Post your descriptions and try to entice us with your characters.

To help get your mind in the mood for writing, I'm including two public domain excerpts from Fanny Hill. Adapt them to your needs.

Sunday 5 June 2016

Writing Salon Week 6: Program the Room Description

This post is for the June 5-11 writing event of the 2016 AIF Writing Salon.

Add the room description to your game so that players can look around.

If you are using Twine, you can emulate the feel of traditional interactive fiction. Create a different passage for each room. When you click on objects, instead of using the normal Twine links, use the <<popup>> macro by Claretta. You only need the javascript code and not the provided css code. If you want the popups to automatically close when you click on links, create a passage called "PassageReady" with the following contents: <<set UISystem.close()>>

Sunday 29 May 2016

Writing Salon Week 5: Room Descriptions

This post is for the May 29-June 4 writing event of the 2016 AIF Writing Salon.

When your game starts, the player needs to know where he or she is. Establish the setting. Write a paragraph describing where the sex scene takes place. Is it an empty room, or do you want to have interactive objects in the room too? Post your descriptions for everyone to read.

Since traditional interactive fiction is built around moving between different rooms and interacting with objects in them, interactive fiction often has a strong sense of place. By focusing heavily on where you are and by forcing you to examine and interact with things, traditional interactive fiction immerses you in a world. Twine uses a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure model of the world, so Twine stories tend to emphasize plot more.

Although rich room descriptions with many interactive objects can help with immersion, don't feel obligated to spend too much time there. AIF stories are unusual in that they focus mostly on character. The setting isn't too important, so many AIF games provide only brief descriptions of your surroundings. What is important though is that you describe any exits that are available and any characters or objects that can be interacted with. One side-effect of this is that room descriptions sometimes read like dry lists of stuff, which is fine.

To help get you in the right mindset, I have grabbed a random assortment of room descriptions from some public domain novels. These descriptions read like traditional interactive fiction room descriptions, so you try to adapt them to your needs.

Sunday 22 May 2016

Writing Salon Week 4: Program that Introduction

This post is for the May 22-28 writing event of the 2016 AIF Writing Salon.

Cut & paste that introduction into your game. When you start your game, that introduction should appear, drawing players into the story.

If you want other people to try out what you've programmed so far, upload it somewhere and post the Internet address in the comments. I believe that DropBox and Neocities are okay with people sharing adult content on their sites.

Sunday 15 May 2016

Writing Salon Week 3: Introductions

This post is for the May 15-21 writing event of the 2016 AIF Writing Salon. It's not too late to join in. If you've got an idea for a game, feel free to discuss it.

Every AIF game needs a sex scene. In order to keep the scope of the writing manageable, we're going to concentrate on writing a game with only one sex scene first. Later, more chapters can be added on to create a longer work. Choose one sex scene from your game and write an introduction that summarizes everything in your story leading up to that sex scene. Post these teasers to get feedback and to generate excitement about your full game.

Although it is painful to replace the amazing plot points and puzzles that you had in your mind with a simple introductory summary, doing so can often improve your game. Starting in media res, right in the thick of the action, can really improve the pacing of your plot. One of the most common writing tricks used in romance novels is to start with the protagonist and her love interest already be in love. A story about how two people get together is much more difficult to write and can be tedious to read.

Wednesday 11 May 2016

Beta testers wanted

Hi everyone,

I am looking for beta testers.  I have been working on my first AIF story for a number of months now, after being motivated by the writing style of Palmer on ESA and also Aonehitwonder on ‘Dinner Plans’. 

My story is set over a weekend for the PC.  Like those other authors it offers enjoyable, consensual nooky, after a challenge or two.  As a variation to those works by Palmer and AOHW I have written a story with several ladies, and your choices at various points cause you to follow different paths through the weekend.  This means that over multiple plays you can find several possible endings with several different partners.  I also written in some characters that are not involved in action scenes for this story but whose roles and activities will hopefully be developed in subsequent episodes.

I am using Adrift 5 and over the past month or two I have worked pretty hard on debugging (and spellchecking!) the story.  I am doing some final runs to check that minor plot variations work, and then it will be time for some third party review and comment.  So….I am grateful for all offers of help with beta testing, but particularly grateful if you have experience with Adrift and/or editing.  In return I can offer my undying gratitude and a big thankyou in the credits.  If able to help, please leave a comment, or contact me at: ptypoe123 - at - outlook - dot - com


Ptypoe

Sunday 8 May 2016

Writing Salon Week 2: Choose an Engine

This post is for the May 8-14 writing event of the 2016 AIF Writing Salon. It's not too late to join in. If you have an idea for a game, feel free to discuss it.

If you want to program interactive sex, you need a story engine to run in. Discuss your choices or come get advice about your options. Choose one, install it, and start it up.

For beginner authors, I highly recommend that you choose Twine. Specifically, I recommend Twine 2 with the SugarCube story format. When choosing a story engine, the most important thing is to choose one that has been used in other games. The more people who use a story engine, the better it becomes. There are also more people available who can help you. Twine is the most heavily used story engine available now. To be honest, Twine isn't very well-designed. It's very simple though, and over the years, the community has improved it to the point that it has become very usable. Unfortunately, the main designers of Twine created a new version called Twine 2 that discarded all the improvements made by the community. Twine 2 is easier to use but is missing many of the features from Twine 1 that are needed to make interesting games. The SugarCube story format brings many of these Twine 1 features to Twine 2, and it's mostly compatible with tutorials for Twine 1.

Wednesday 4 May 2016

May Open Thread: Help and Criticism

If the first thread of the writing salon is anything to go by, we are going to have a lot of talk upcoming about people’s ideas. Thus the topic: what are some tips you have both for giving feedback on ideas and for being the person receiving feedback?

Wednesday 27 April 2016

Writing Salon Week 1: Pitch Your Story Ideas

This post is for the May 1-7 writing event of the 2016 AIF Writing Salon.

Have an idea for an erotic adventure? Have a steamy sex scene that you want to write down? Have you ever wanted to 'ship your favorite fictional characters? Pitch your ideas and get feedback from others. We'll spend time talking about how to flesh out concepts and simplify ideas.

The biggest problem faced by new authors is that they work on ideas that are too ambitious. They decide to write a novel when they should start with a short story. Another problem new authors face is that seemingly innocuous details of a story idea might require thousands of words of writing and code. The work needed to implement a minor character or alternate path can easily grow out of control.

By sharing your ideas with others early, we can help you simplify your ideas. Often, you can keep the core characters, emotions, and sexiness of your story but with fewer characters, rooms, and plot points. We can also offer suggestions about what order you should implement things in. With AIF, it's important to have something playable as early as possible. It makes it easier to see how it works, and it gives you a base from which you can build out something bigger. We can make suggestions about which scene might be best to start with.

If you have something you want to share, just post it as a comment to the blog post. Be careful to use a separate account for posting and not an account you use IRL. Anonymous comments are welcome, but it would be useful to tag your comments somehow so we know which comments are from whom. AIF Central sometimes has difficulties dealing with longer comments. You can break up your posts into multiple comments, or sign-up to become a blogger on AIF Central and make a new blog post with your content.

Saturday 23 April 2016

April Open Thread: Plot Twists

This was originally going to be an open thread for April Fool’s Day, but I didn’t want to knock down Lost Trout’s post so quickly.

The question: what is the best ‘twist’ you have encountered in AIF? Did it add a lot to the story? If an author chooses to use a twist in the plot, what steps can they take to make sure it succeeds (not saying it is essential, because it isn’t)?

To define twist via Wikipedia: “A plot twist is a radical change in the expected direction or outcome of the plot. It is a common practice in narration used to keep the interest of an audience, usually surprising them with a revelation.”

Saturday 16 April 2016

Two topics: Abstract Challenges and Pictures

Here are two topics I’m interested in hearing people’s thoughts on. This isn’t quite an Open Thread as usually with those I put out a topic to stir discussion; this post is more for elements I have been considering. Most of this is based on elements I have seen in other adult products (hentai games and RAG AIFs)

Wednesday 30 March 2016

AIF Writing Salon Proposed Schedule

Here is the proposed schedule for the AIF Writing Salon. Authors will have three months to put together their work for the AIF Fest. There will be weekly events that will guide new authors through the process of creating a small game with a single sex scene. Experienced authors are welcome to post progress about their own works at these events too.

May 1-7 - Pitch your story ideas
Have an idea for an erotic adventure? Have a steamy sex scene that you want to write down? Have you ever wanted to 'ship your favorite fictional characters? Pitch your ideas and get feedback from others. We'll spend time talking about how to flesh out concepts and simplify ideas.

May 8-14 - Choose an engine
If you want to program interactive sex, you need a game engine to run in. Discuss your choices or come get advice about your options. Choose one, install it, and start it up.

May 15-21 - Introductions
Every AIF game needs a sex scene. We're going to concentrate on writing a game with only one sex scene first. Later, more chapters can be added on to create a longer work. Choose one sex scene from your game and write an introduction that summarizes everything in your story leading up to that sex scene. Post these teasers to get feedback and to generate excitement about your full game.

May 22-28 - Program that introduction
Cut & paste that introduction into your game. When you start your game, that introduction should appear, drawing players into the story.

May 29-June 4 - Room descriptions
When your game starts, the player needs to know where he or she is. Establish the setting. Write a paragraph describing where the sex scene takes place. Is it an empty room, or do you want to have interactive objects in the room too?

June 5-11 - Program the room description
Add the room description to your game so that players can look around.

June 12-18 - Character description
Write descriptions for the player and partner. What do they look like? What are they wearing? What do they look like naked? Do you want to let players examine individual body parts?

June 19-25 - Program the character descriptions
Add character descriptions to your game so that characters can be looked at.

June 26-July 2 - Sex transcript
Write a sample playthrough of your sex scene. List the commands that a player will do and write the responses that will happen. Think about alternate commands that the player might try.

July 3-9 - Program the transcript
It's time to get interactive! Add the commands from your sex transcript into your game. You should be able to play through your game now.

July 10-31 - Fleshing things out
Now that you have a playable game, it's time to flesh things out. Add more commands to your game. Add extra rooms. Add puzzles and plot. Add a conclusion.

What do you think? Does this schedule seem reasonable?

Wednesday 23 March 2016

Open Thread: Authors and AIF Engines

There have been a few times on this blog were people have discussed the pros and cons of the different engines available for AIF, but I don't think we've had a thread directly about the topic

So I thought I'd address that: Authors (whether you have ever finished/released a game or not) why do you use the engine that you do? Have you tried others? What features do you like about the one you are using.

BTW, this thread is not about neutrality, this is about personal opinion. Why have you made the choice that you have?

Tuesday 15 March 2016

Idea for AIF Writing Salon and Minifest

Here is my current thinking about the AIF Writing Salon and Minifest. Or perhaps a more accurate description would be Mini-Writing Salon and AIF-fest.

As part of moving the focus away from winners and towards writers, I think the core of the event will be modeled after a game jam. Writers will be encouraged to start working at the start of May. At the end of July, I'll gather all the completed games, and we can have a Minifest where people can download all the games and talk about them. It will be a celebration of all the games that were finished. Since there won't be a competition, there will be no voting. If people are really interested in awards, I'm sure some sort of award for "AIF Short" can be added to the Erins next year. Since there won't be a competition, there also won't be any rules except for "don't ruin things for other people." If someone wants to take their 100 room mega-game that they've been working on for the last three years and offer it as part of the Minifest, that's fine. Unlike the Minicomp, you can talk about and share your games before the deadline. In fact, I encourage you do that. Although the Minifest will be modeled after game jams, I will try to avoid using game jam terminology. The AIF community has always had its roots in the fan fiction and IF communities. Its strengths has always been in its writing. There are many things that are hard to implement as a game, but very easy to implement with writing. I want to see if we can draw more writers into the community who are interested in dabbling with interactivity. So from now on, I'll try to describe the event as a NaNoWriMo for AIF, but you'll all know what I mean.

Running simultaneously from May to July will be the AIF Writing Salon. This will be like the Iowa Writers' Workshop but with more sex. The AIF Writing Salon will also not take place in Iowa, will not involve top writers, and will not be a rigorous graduate program. Actually, now that I think about it, the AIF Writing Salon will not be like the Iowa Writers' Workshop at all. In fact, I think the Iowa Writers' Workshop probably has more sex than us too.

What the AIF Writing Salon will be is a series of weekly events where authors can talk about their progress on their works. Each event will have a suggested thing to bring, like a room description, or a description of naked people, or a transcript of a sex session. If new authors keep pace with all the events, they should end up with a simple "One Night With..." AIF game at the end. As part of the no rules thing, everyone is welcome to participate at any time. You can jump in and jump out of events as you wish. If you only want feedback on your room descriptions, then you can participate in only the Room Descriptions event. If you think the events are moving too slowly, then you can speed along at your own pace. It's meant to be a fun weekly gathering where you can get feedback on your ideas and see how a work of AIF comes together. I will try my best to give some comments to anyone who submits anything to these events. The first few weeks will focus on concept. Basically, you'll pitch your story ideas, and everyone will tell you that you're being too ambitious and that you should simplify your ideas. You'll disagree, and we'll argue about this for several weeks until you realize that you're wrong. The next few weeks will alternate between writing and programming. The events will focus on different parts of a one-room sex scene, so by the end, you should have all the pieces needed to put together a simple AIF. Then there will be a few weeks at the end where you can focus on adding more elements to your AIF to turn them into fuller works.

Thoughts? Do these sound like the sorts of events that you would be interested in joining?

Thursday 3 March 2016

AIF Writing Salon?

While reading the comments of one of the other posts, I noticed that someone suggested an AIF Writing Salon event. That sounded like a great idea. I've decided that I would like to run such an event. I'm aiming for the May-July timeframe.

Whereas contests focus on producing winners, the AIF Writing Salon will focus on producing writers. I have a few ideas for how to organize one. I'm interested in hearing other people's ideas first. What sort of event would help get you writing? How many of you are interested in participating in such an event? Obviously, we need writers but we also need people willing to give constructive feedback to the writers. Feedback is one of the main motivators for getting writers to share their work, so an AIF Writing Salon will need people willing to give some feedback for all the writers.

Monday 29 February 2016

Leap Day Open Thread: Time

Earlier we had the Valentine's Day Open Thread. Leap Year gave me another idea for one (I doubt this will be able to continue to any future holidays).

How important is time in AIF?

Games (not just AIF) can be criticized for everything seeming to stand still while the player runs around and does everything he wishes. Most AIF is like this where the other characters stand still while the player controls the actions.

Some though give more of a sense of time passing while the player moves about. Other characters move, surroundings change, and the player doesn't have infinite time to peak under every object.

In my attempts at authoring games I can say adding in other factors that respond to time passing increase the design difficulty substantially. Instead of one moving piece you have many. So, is that extra headache worthwhile for authors? Does a sense of time passing make for a better AIF? What are some of the best ways that authors can create a sense of time passing around the player?

Or does none of this matter and when given a situation with limited time you just undo/save scum until you get the perfect combination?

Random News - 1 March Edition

The second in a (hopefully) regular series.

Today's piece of random news is to draw your attention to Night Games by Silver Bard Games, which has been around for a while but was recently added to Patreon.

Night Games is a Java game where the PC is a college student who is invited to an underground sexfighting competition. It's not really AIF in the traditional sense, being more of an RPG/dating sim hybrid.

Silver Bard Games website: http://www.silverbardgames.com/
Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/silverbardgames
Forum thread: https://fenoxo.com/forum/

Thank you to Octarine Flash for providing today's random piece of news!

If you have a piece of random AIF-related news that you'd like to share, please send it to editor.aifblog@gmail.com.

Sunday 14 February 2016

Valentine’s Day Open Thread: AIF and Love

Being it is Valentine’s Day I thought I would ask: what are your thoughts on love in AIF? By this I mean what impact does a believable intimate relationship between the player and a character(s) add to the game. AIF has sex, but do those sex scenes become better if the characters have developed a deeper relationship?

Feel free to give your opinion on the topic, but some suggested questions to answer:
Does a believable relationship add a lot to a game, a little, or is it unnecessary?
What are some things authors have done/can do to make great relationships in AIF?
What elements of AIF detract from believable relationships?
What is your favorite AIF relationship?

Monday 8 February 2016

The Erins: 2015 - Results!


The results of the 2015 Erins can now be announced!

The top three places in each category are listed below, together with honourable mentions (listed alphabetically) for any else who got a significant number of votes.

NB. some feedback comments have been lightly edited.

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Game of the Year
(117 votes)

1st – Working Man by Ice
2nd- The Lost Hound by Palaverous
3rd – Let Me In by BBBen
Honourable mention: Teacher's Pet by Dr Realgood

Working Man
"It's complete, it's functional and has the right blend between storyline and puzzles. A very pleasing first effort."

"Lots of options, PC is male, game has pictures, technically works fine, hot sex scenes, well written, good story. This game was the only one in the list to have it all."

"The amount of content was pretty staggering for a first game, it was virtually bug-free, and it had great writing and interesting characters. Just a fantastic debut for Ice and hopefully he continues to develop AIF."

"The bad endings in Working Man were great. If only things turned out that way in real life..."

"It has a good storyline, multiple choices and the fact that it has pictures inserted is a big plus."

The Lost Hound
"I'm a fan of the more traditional text heavy AIF games (Newkid, A Bomire) so I enjoyed the excellent writing."

"Shows how one can create a great game even without images."

"The Lost Hound was a masterpiece, Palaverous is a new GoblinBoy"

"Though the fighting system seemed mostly a love it or hate it, the amount of content was great. The sexual encounters as well as the locations were all varied. It was also nice to see a bit of build-up / growth in the NPC Aura."

"The Lost Hound may not be perfect but it's the best text-based AIF game in a while. The story is bonkers but interesting, the characters and the world are varied and surprising, the game challenges (once it gets going - the combat thing is a bit annoying) are fun, it's technically very sound, the writing is great."

Let Me In
"BBBen's game "Let Me In" really deserves more recognition than it has received as being one of the truly original games in a good long while"

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Best New Author
(104 votes)

1st – Ice
2nd – Palaverous
3rd – Dr Realgood
Honourable mention: BeanBean

Ice
"He created the best game of the year, what else can I say?"

"Ice reminds me of my favorite AIF author, GoblinBoy, in how his game looks and plays, so that makes him a top choice for me. As such, I really, really look forward to any future games he does now."

"Ice took stories not at all new to AIF, but did a good job at presenting them in entertaining ways. The art was well done and the variations of what you could do added either a bit of replay or some retrying as you learned the consequences of your actions. A lot of fun!"

Palaverous
"Palaverous gets this vote, the writing was by far the best thus giving you the best mental image. Graphics are all well and good in a game, (I use them myself) but the art of writing in such a way that it provides a clear mental image has to be applauded. Palaverous did this exceptionally well."

"Palaverous did a great job with the number of things stuffed into the game by trying to give it some variation and seemed to have a lot of fun with it. The game held together nicely as a whole and a lot of effort was put into testing before release."

"The Lost Hound is an amazingly well realised first game... also, I should say, the only new-author one that I didn't find bugs or obvious design flaws in.  It doesn't feel like a first game, it references other games but doesn't feel like an imitation."

Dr Realgood
"I felt that the writing and artistic talent of Dr. Realgood was definitely promising. I just wish he gave the game more time and effort to flesh it out into a more fun and complete game"

"Dr Realgood showed some real promise. The game was a huge jump from his previous entry into the Minicomp. After dealing with reworking the artwork all over, it came out wonderfully - much better than his original vision - and made for a good time. The quiz left some with a bad taste in their mouth, but once beyond it most people seemed to enjoy what was there, their only complaint left that they wanted more!"

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Best Character
(58 votes; 4 invalid)

1st – Stephanie (Working Man)
2nd= - Sharon (Working Man)
2nd= - Twyla (Let Me In)
Honourable mention: Aura (The Lost Hound)

Stephanie
"Stephanie just comes off as a genuinely likable character, is written well, and also is very attractive-looking."

"She's believable with the right amount of innocence/naughty curiousness that makes her feel real. Her model is easy on the eyes as well."

Twyla
"Twyla is a bit of a one off, she is pretty, smart and thick as shit all at the same time. She is funny for one in such a small game, but I like her and that's that!!"

Aura
"It was nice to see somewhat gradual build-up and a touch of growth in Aura. It may not be the most complex character, but in AIF it was a nice change of pace and fit the story-like progression the game made vs. the usual (but still loads of fun!) "find an item so we can screw" setup."

"She was a sexy inaccessible character, which made the end goal something to really go for"

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Best Sex Scene
(54 votes; 7 invalid)

1st – PC/Stephanie (Working Man)
2nd – PC/Crystal/Tiffany (Working Man)
3rd – PC/Lisa (Teacher's Pet)
Honourable mention: PC/Sharon (Working Man)

PC/Stephanie
"I liked this one because of the build-up to it throughout the game. It requires you to "work" for it (no pun intended) by being nice to Stephanie throughout your encounters as well as some good ol' fashioned seduction, but it just felt really exciting leading up to it. The writing was great, and as a player I felt just as excited as the player character when Stephanie asks you to go all the way with her. Just an all-around really satisfying gameplay branch from beginning to end. The sex scene itself is also very interactive and detailed, but also realistic as well (considering you're taking someone's virginity it makes sense that you don't do any kinky stuff or anal)."

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The Badman Memorial Award

This year's winner is…. A.Ninny!

"Though I had another name or two in mind, it seems almost criminal that A. Ninny isn't already established in the list. Hopefully there are enough dwelling from the past that recognize the work put in (or hear about it from said dwellers), as I would hate for Ninny to be forgotten in time."

"He released really good games and contributed a lot to the community."

"He made a number of good games, including The Sex Artist (a personal favourite of mine) and won 4 Erins (and 10 second places) for them. However, it's what he did for the community that deserves recognition. Beta-testing (for which he won two Erins), organising the Minicomp in 2006 and 2007, and most impressively, editing Inside Erin for three years."

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Final Comments

Firstly, a big thank you to everyone who took the time to vote, and congratulations to this year's winners.

There were 118 votes cast this year, which is a little disappointing given that there were 147 votes last time. Any suggestions for increasing participation would be welcome.

As suggested last time, 'Best Character' and 'Best Sex Scene' were added as categories. With the benefit of hindsight, it would have been better to have some kind of nomination process beforehand. The write-in vote attracted about half as many people, and their votes were spread over a large number of candidates (18 for Best Character, and 20 for Best Sex Scene).

Thursday 4 February 2016

Game Release: The Aftermath

I have just released my second game, a mini-sequel to The Lost Hound written in TADS. I'll keep this brief since I wrote a longer introduction elsewhere, which you can read along with the download link over here:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/game-release-4329557

Enjoy!

Monday 25 January 2016

AIF Game List update

Just to let everyone know, AIF Community Newsletter Games List has been updated from 354 games on July 3, 2013 to 394 games as of January 24, 2016. 41 games were added, one was deleted. Also, with the loss of the aifgames site, many of the links had to be rehabilitated, so hopefully links will be good for a while.

I took the liberty of changing the default sort to descending date so that the most recent games are near the top. Assuming you have javascript turned on, you can still click on the headers and re-sort by title, author, or even the various content classifications. If I inadvertently left an important AIF game off the list, let me know. I plan to do a touch-up to the list around Valentine's Day. Also, if any data point on this list needs addition or correction, you can email garyplume on standard yahoo domain with the title of the game and the updated info.

Things already on my to-do list for the Valentine's update:
Another Friday Part 2 link is broken http://www.aifcommunity.org/games/adrift/Version_5.0/AFP2_GAME.zip
Briar version 2 link is broken http://www.aifcommunity.org/games/inform/Briar.v2.zip
In Darkness pictorial version link is broken http://www.aifcommunity.org/games/tads/tads_2/In_Darkness1.1.zip
Leather Goddesses of Phobos link is broken http://www.aifcommunity.org/games/inform/Leather_Goddesses_of_Phobos.zip
Maybe disaggregate the minicomp games into discrete downloads

Gary Plume

Sunday 24 January 2016

2015 Erins - Now Live!

Voting for the 2015 Erins is now live!

The voting form can be found at http://goo.gl/forms/1zDx5K7tVC

You have until the close of 7 February 2016 (GMT) to cast your vote.

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This year there are five categories (although you don't have to vote in all of them if you don't want to).

Game of the Year

This is for the 'best' (however you choose to define that) game of 2015.

The winner will be determined by the instant-runoff voting system. You can vote for up to three games, in order of preference.

Best Character

This is for the 'best' (again, however you choose to define that) character to appear in an eligible game in 2015. In this case, 'character' includes both player characters and non-player characters.

Because of the number of possible choices, write-in voting is being used. Please identify your choice as clearly as possible, and only vote for one character.

Best Sex Scene

This is for the 'best' (again, however you choose to define that) sex scene to appear in an eligible game in 2015.

Because of the number of possible choices, write-in voting is being used. Please identify your choice as clearly as possible, and only vote for one sex scene.

Best New Author

This is for the 'best' (again, however you choose to define that) new author to appear in 2015. A new author is anyone who released their first game in 2015.

The winner will be determined by the instant-runoff voting system. You can vote for up to three authors, in order of preference.

The Badman Memorial Award (aka the Hall of Fame)

This is awarded to the person who has made the greatest contribution to AIF over the whole of their involvement with the AIF community, not just in 2015.

You can only be inducted into the Hall of Fame once, so votes for previous winners will be discounted. If more than one person receives a significant proportion of the vote, they will all be inducted.

Because of the number of possible choices, write-in voting is being used. Please identify your choice as clearly as possible, and only vote for one person.

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This year's nominees are:

Coffee Date by Lamont Sanford
Condomocium by Octarine Flash
Enticing Ella by BeanBean
Hail to the King by Minterlint
Let Me In by BBBen
Teacher's Pet by Dr Realgood
The Heir by Efon
The Lost Hound by Palaverous
Working Man by Ice
You've Got Mail by Brokenknight

The new authors are:

BeanBean
Efon
Ice
Octarine Flash
Palaverous
Dr Realgood

Note that during the pre-voting discussion there was some disagreement as to whether all the nominees should be considered AIF. If there is a game on the list that you personally don't think is AIF, don't vote for it.

Friday 22 January 2016

What I've been doing lately (Pervert Action: Legacy progress)

I haven't been posting as much publicly as I used to about my game development progress for a couple of reasons, but mostly because I write a full blog post every week for my Patreon backers and so doing smaller updates elsewhere feels a little distracting. Also I couldn't think of a way to do it that didn't just take the form of shameless self-promotion. Anyway, in case you're interested in the larger changes that have been taking place and the general level of development of my current WIP, Pervert Action: Legacy, here's an update.


Tuesday 19 January 2016

Random News - 19 January Edition

The first in a (hopefully) regular series

This week's piece of random news is that House Party by Eek Games entered beta a few days ago.

I found House Party to be notable for a couple of reasons. The first is that it's built with the Unity engine, so it actually looks like you'd imagine a 21st-century adult game to look (ie. a 3D environment with a first-person view). Secondly, unlike all the other graphical games I've seen on Patreon recently, the writing is actually halfway decent.

Of course, having only just entered beta, House Party is still pretty rough around the edges. The plot feels a bit random, and is completely linear (each problem can only be solved one way, even though other plausible solutions exist). The gameplay is mostly limited to finding objects and delivering them to other people. And, probably most importantly, there's very little content as of yet.

And that was the news for today.

If you have a piece of random AIF-related news that you'd like to share, please send it to editor.aifblog@gmail.com.