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.