AIF Hall of Fame 2014 - Vote now!

For those who don't know, the Erins (the annual community-voted awards, which haven't been held since 2009 due to lack of games) included a write-in category called the Badman Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award, where people who'd made outstanding contributions to AIF or the community in general could be nominated. The person with the most nominations received the award, which was effectively a Hall of Fame since it could only be won once.

The cessation of the Erins meant that a number of deserving people never got recognised for their hard work, and this is my attempt to rectify that.

Vote here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-TcL4QM8rdwMnkyZPCM5xaQTtnccgWVh0WJ8RJ5okX8/viewform

The Badman Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award is given to the most influential figure in the AIF community, someone who has helped direct and shape it into what it has become today. This can be anyone, it doesn't have to be an author, and it relates to everything they've done for the community (rather than just what they've done this year).

Previous winners are Badman (2002), Choices (2003), NewKid (2004), Christopher Cole (2005), A. Bomire and Scarlett Herring (2006), BBBen (2007), and GoblinBoy (2009), so they are not eligible for this year's award. As the organiser of this year's voting, ExLibris is also not eligible.

Voting will close at 1200 GMT 31 December 2014. All going well, the results should be announced on New Year's Day here and on the AIFCentral subreddit.

If you want to campaign for someone, feel free to do so in the comments below.

Beach Fishing

After I made a post asking how to design an AIF game with more female agency in it, several commenters said that it's easy to write a female sex romp. I disagree, but the commenters seemed pretty sure of themselves.

To find out if I was mistaken, I decided I would start writing one. That's the quickest way to find out. Sex romps aren't my strong suit. Everyone complains that my AIF games have poor descriptions and weak sex scenes. A female sex romp has lots of men needing sexy descriptions and lots of sex.

I don't have much implemented yet. I only have one sex scene so far. The game will be called Beach Fishing. It is about a woman named Madison fishing for cock at a beach resort. I'm still figuring out how the puzzles and challenges could work.

I'm also trying out a new sex engine. I love how that sounds, sex engine, ha! In the mini-comp, I tried cramming a standard parser AIF sex engine into Twine. Snowstorm did something similar too. All the normal AIF sex interactions were listed in a long Twine menu and you chose what you wanted to do. Having all the sex options in a big list just didn't feel right. The interface dominated the sex. It didn't feel sexy. It was also limited because your sex partner couldn't make sexual moves themselves. I feel this feature is important in a female sex romp because I want to let the protagonist be able to lie back passively and let the man do the work if that's how she wants her sex. It's regressive but I think some players like the idea of letting an experienced man guide her and pleasure her so that should be an option.

I've decided on a sex format where if you don't do anything, the sex scene will unfold by itself. The man will initiate all the sex moves. But you can click on words in the scene to take control and direct the sex scene in a different direction. It feels more Twine like. I'm not sure if it feels sexy though.

This is just a fun experiment. I likely won't finish it. I'll just continue until I get bored. Hopefully, I will find something interesting about how hard it is to write female sex romps along the way.

How I try to develop sexually appealing characters in AIF

This is not a 'how to' guide. I'm saying that upfront because I'm not so conceited as to think I know the 'proper' way to write anything about anything in any format. There are lots of ways to write. Instead, these are just some thoughts I wanted to share about the kind of elements I consider and the thinking process when writing the female characters in AIF games I've developed. A lot of this is stuff you've probably noticed if you've played my games. Maybe you'll have something to say about the method? Maybe you do things differently, or you would do things differently if you were to write a game? Maybe you think I should do things differently? It seems like a discussion that I'd be interested in, at least.

October Open Thread: Relationships

No posts in September, so I thought I'd kick off October with a nice Open Thread:

"Does anyone else have any comments on relationship building during your AIF games? Like it, leave it?"
~Blue Satyr, Fetishes and Kinks thread

Let's talk about relationships in AIF. I think most AIF can be split into two categories when it comes to sex: romps and relationships (many games fall somewhere in between, of course). Romps mainly focus on sex, with maybe some puzzles to get to the 'action', while relationships focus upon building a sense of 'character' about the designated lust object. This sense of character can come in multiple different ways, making the relationship believable (giving a reason the two characters wish to have sex), giving depth to the DLO (making the player care more about them beyond their just being sexy), and creating a sense of build/courtship (having the relationship develop over time). I'm sure there are many more examples, those are just a few off the top of my head.

There are really a lot of different ways that this topic could go and I don't want to limit people, but here are a few suggestions:
How important is developing a relationship with girls in a game to its overall enjoyability?
What detracts from relationship building in a game?
What is an example of a game that did relationships well?
What is your overall favorite relationship in AIF?

Female Agency in AIF

I sometimes have ideas for AIF stories that involve a woman protagonist. When I try designing a game around these stories, I often have problems with not enough female agency. I cannot think of enough interesting choices or challenges in the game for the protagonist to make for an interesting game. Does anyone have any tips or ideas on how to build good AIF games with woman protagonists?

I may simply suffer from poor imagination but I've noticed that even women writers of AIF often choose to write from the male perspective. Do I just need to get over some cultural hang-ups? Can normal male-perspective games simply be rewritten from a female-perspective? The idea of a female-perspective sex romp where a woman has sex with anything that moves doesn't sound like it would have enough interesting choices and challenges to me, but maybe I'm not thinking about it hard enough. Am I simply locked into the standard stereotypical thinking that men need to convince women to have sex, but women have no problem convincing men to have sex? A game about sexy cheerleaders visiting a bible camp might work, but it would be outside my comfort zone.

Do AIF games written with a woman protagonist need different challenges and plotlines than AIF games written with a man protagonist? Would these games work better if they focus on women wanting sex but not too much? If they focus on women pleasing their partners so they won't leave for a more promiscuous partner? Are these very retrograde ideas for a modern story?

Would it be better to deemphasize the sex entirely? AIF games with a male protagonist often focus on having as much sex in the most extreme way with as many women as possible. The challenge is in figuring out how to satisfy some minimal needs of the women so that they have sex with the male protagonist. Would a better game design be to still have a lot of sex, but the sex shouldn't form the primary goals and challenges of the game? The woman protagonist would spend the game solving non-sex related goals and challenges, and sex would happen along the way? Is that the best way to handle a woman protagonist in an AIF game? On an unrelated aside, would this also be a good design for an AIF game involving a married couple?

I don't want to offend anyone. And I'm worried that even discussing this topic will lead to lots of unhelpful comments. But I would find it useful if others could make suggestions on how to handle female agency in AIF games.

p.s. If people don't like this post, say so in the comments, and I will remove it.

August Open Thread: Twine

A few people on this blog have noted the growing use of Twine, mainly based off the mini-comp entries. Thus I feel like the obvious topic for discussion is what are the pros and cons of Twine as an engine. I'm primarily focusing on it from the author's perspective, as in what the reasons to use it/not use it compared to other platforms, but player perception is obviously an important part of that.

I looked at Twine awhile back, didn't like it because I didn't think it did enough, and then started playing around with it again based on the mini-comp usage and was impressed with how much could be done. While it comes off as a 'simple' engine for CYOA games, I think you could make many AIF games that are out there via Twine.

So why should, or should not, authors use Twine?

AIF Minicomp - Where to now?

Cross-posted from Overanalysing AIF

Fully half of the entries in this year's Minicomp were made with Twine, confirming that CYOA is now a feature of the AIF landscape. That alone would mean that the Minicomp rules have to be revised, since they were written with only traditional text parser systems in mind. However, as the deadline approached this year, there was also discussion on aifarchive around relaxing the size restrictions. It came to naught, as it was obviously too late to change anything for this year's Minicomp, and will now probably be forgotten about until the deadline for next year's Minicomp is fast approaching. Unless, that is, we start having a robust discussion about the rules now, which is what this post is intended to stimulate.

Let's begin by really playing devil's advocate and asking if the Minicomp should be continued at all. That's not a facetious question, as the Minicomp doesn't provide many concrete benefits to the community. For example, if you compare the total number of games released in the years before and after the Minicomp started, it's pretty clear that the Minicomp has not led to an increase in the overall number of games. It's also clear that the Minicomp isn't doing much to nurture new authors, as only one person who's made their debut in the Minicomp has gone on to release a full-length game. By way of contrast, look at the reception Palmer's Emily demo got. Would it have received the same amount of attention (which led to Emily: Sister Attraction being the most anticipated game of 2014) if it had been entered in the Minicomp and been forced to share the spotlight with several other games? I'm inclined to doubt it. The same goes for Karrek's Study Date, which could have been squeezed into the Minicomp restrictions with a little effort. The counter-argument is that the Minicomp's status as an 'event' has the power to motivate people to try to create games, and there is the possibility that its removal would have a demoralising effect, leading to even fewer games.

If you agree that the Minicomp should continue, the question becomes what should its purpose be? Should it be primarily a competition, with honour and glory to the victor? Is it supposed to encourage new authors? Is it primarily for the enjoyment of players? I get the impression that the current Minicomp is trying to be all of those things simultaneously, which might explain why it's not particularly successful at any of them. Either way, the biggest problem that needs to be addressed is probably the severe drop in participation after 2009 (38 entries in 2006-9, compared with 19 entries for 2010-3). The 2014 Minicomp bucked that trend somewhat, but I'm not sure how comparable it is with past years due to the presence of Twine games for the first time, and because the numbers were padded by the inclusion of incomplete games. Interestingly, the decline more or less coincides with the last time the Minicomp rules were modified (to increase the maximum number of rooms and characters, and to allow discussion during the voting period). It's hard to believe that increased discussion could discourage people from making games, but it's a lot easier to imagine that increasing the maximum size of games has made it more difficult for authors (especially new authors) to complete their entries before the deadline. There have certainly been a number of games in recent years that have had to forgo testing in order to meet the deadline. So there's an argument to be made against the restrictions being relaxed even further.

During the pre-Minicomp discussion, both BBBen and Purple Dragon said that the Minicomp needed some restrictions to stop people entering games of the scale of PAC. That seems a little disingenuous to me since no one was suggesting that there should be no restrictions at all, and even raising or removing the room limit (which was suggested) wouldn't have that effect. More pertinently, they also stated that the intention of the restrictions was to encourage small, self-contained games. If that's the case, then you'd have to say that the current rules haven't been very successful. The prototypical Minicomp game (setup -> obstacle -> reward) still gets made, but they're frequently overshadowed by games that have subverted the rules in ways that allow more content. That's true even of the very first Minicomp, where the winning entry included a combat system and limited graphics. The fact that it's experienced authors who are better able to subvert the rules in this way (and thus more likely to end up dominating any discussion) may also discourage new authors from entering.

The problem with imposing size limits is that there isn't a simple way to measure the size of AIF games. Back in the early days of IF, size was equated with the number of rooms (for example, Level 9 boasted that Snowball had 7,000 rooms, even though 6,800 of them were a colour-coded maze with minimal description). However, in a character-oriented genre like AIF, the number of rooms is a bit meaningless. It's even worse for CYOA games, especially since Once Upon A Dream (written by the person organising the Minicomp at the time) established the precedent that CYOA sequences don't count as rooms. The actual size of AIF games is more closely connected with the number of characters, but it's possible to create a large game even with only two sexually interactive characters and a handful of rooms (as GoblinBoy proved with Second Guest and In Darkness).

For those reasons, I think it makes sense to think of game size in terms of scenes. If you accept that, then the most straightforward way to limit the Minicomp to smaller games would be to restrict entries to one sex scene (in one location with two participants), period. For the avoidance of doubt, anything involving physical contact (including masturbation), even if it's non-interactive, would count as a sex scene. While that probably sounds draconian, it's a standard that the vast majority of past entries would meet. Unfortunately, the minority of games that would have failed that test includes many of the most popular entries, meaning that players would lose out (assuming that those games wouldn't have been made otherwise, which is debatable). It's also true that authors would probably find ways to subvert even this restriction. For example by making the 'sex scene' as large as possible (The Snowstorm from this year's Minicomp is an example of how that could be done), or by having a greater proportion of non-sexual content (although I suspect that audiences would react negatively if the imbalance was too great). However, it would still be more of a limit than the current rules, meaning that the playing field would be more level if that's a consideration. It would also be simpler than the current rules, which is desirable given that nearly every Minicomp I can remember has been preceded by people asking what is and isn't allowed. Finally, it's a restriction that could be applied to CYOA games with equal fairness.

But what if your aim is to nurture new authors? This is not something that the Minicomp has done well in the past, which I suspect is due to the limited amount of feedback that new authors get in the Minicomp. Back when there was no discussion during the voting period they would be lucky to get any. But even though discussion is now allowed, it generally focuses on one or two games (which are more likely to have been written by experienced authors), while the weaker games in the competition (which are more likely to have been written by new authors) get ignored. Since feedback is the only reward that authors receive, it stands to reason that less feedback leads to less desire to write another game. It also can't be very encouraging for new authors who have spent months working on their games to be forced out of the spotlight by a game that a more experienced author whipped up in less than a week. The only way to stop that from happening would be to limit the Minicomp to 'new' authors (i.e. excluding anyone who has released a non-Minicomp game or, less restrictively, excluding anyone who has won the Minicomp in the past). After all, if you're capable of making a complete game in a week then presumably you're capable of doing so at any time and don't need to prove yourself in a Minicomp. Unfortunately, that would have the undoubted effect of reducing the number of entries even further. It could also make the Minicomp less attractive to new authors by turning it into a tallest dwarf contest.

A lot of the issues around 'fairness' could be eliminated simply by removing the voting element of the Minicomp, and making it more of a 'game jam' kind of event (perhaps with a different theme every year). However, I suspect that would lead to the Minicomp losing some of its lustre as an event. Saying that everyone's a winner just for taking part is all very well, but it's not the best motivation. It also wouldn't have much effect on the actual prize that authors receive (feedback).

If you are going to have voting, should it be broken up into different categories? Back when no discussion was allowed, it would be useful for authors to know where their games were weakest and/or strongest since they probably wouldn't get any other feedback. These days, authors theoretically get feedback during the voting period, which should give them (again, theoretically) more detailed and useful information. Having multiple categories can also make it difficult to calculate the overall 'winner', as we saw with this year's Minicomp. Another issue to consider is that the growing popularity of CYOA systems means that ranking games is no longer an apples to apples comparison. What makes a Twine game technically more impressive than a TADS game (or vice versa), for example? Having either a single vote or ranking the games in order of preference would simplify matters greatly. Making voting a simpler process could also have the effect of increasing the number of votes, which I would see as a plus since voting is a gateway to participation in the larger community (or at least it was for me).

When I started writing this post I was in favour of relaxing the Minicomp restrictions somewhat. But, as sometimes happens, the act of writing about it has forced me to consider my reasoning more closely, with the result that I've completely reversed my position and now think that the rules should be more restrictive. Admittedly, part of why I've reached that conclusion is the conviction that authors are better off releasing games outside the Minicomp, but limiting games to a single sex scene should have the effect of making them more focused and more in line with what was originally intended. It would also result in smaller games, which should theoretically result in greater participation since more authors would complete their games before the deadline.

Anyhow, my opinions probably shouldn't be given a great deal of weight, since it's highly unlikely that I will ever run or enter the Minicomp. What I hope that this post will do is stimulate discussion. There's a tendency on the part of the community to forget about the Minicomp for eleven months of the year, with the result that any changes are either made unilaterally by the organizer or, more often, not made at all. What should happen (if the community were more engaged) is that any changes should be hashed out well in advance, so that authors can make their plans accordingly.

Over to you.

July Open Thread: Summary

“Not to beat the horse too badly, but as others have said I think it should be up to the author. As this is all for-fun as opposed to for-profit, there isn't a need to try and please the majority.” SpikeTheGoat

“As an author I am always fascinated to know what other people like and don't like in their AIF.” Blue Satyr

When we do open threads that ask for general opinions (which have been most of them) people seem to split into two camps: A) let authors design what they want and B) let’s get a general feel for the community.

I think I speak for camp B when I say, this, nor none of the other open threads, is meant to serve as guideline or restriction for what authors should/have to design. I understand that it easily can seem that way given the rankings and strong opinions, but the idea isn’t to put peer pressure on designers, but to help those designers who want to know more about their audience opinion and/or just find the topic interesting.

I wanted to lead off with that because I’m now going to give an overview of how things came out once I added the rankings together. This isn’t meant to be a list of ‘here is what to include’, just a general summary for those who are interested.

AIF Minicomp 2014 is now live!

Reposted from aifarchive:

Sorry about the delay folks, been busy like usual.  Well, when all was said and done there were 8 entries this year and here they are (in alphabetical order):

- Amy the Slut by Lost Trout (Twine)

- Dinner Plans by AOneHitWonder (Adrift)

- Friday Afternoon by Shannon O'Donnelly (Twine)

- Fucking Monster Bash by Hanon Ondricek (Inform7/Glulxe)

- Lark Rise by Dr. Realgood (TADS)

- One Last Pay Day by Louys Bilitis (TADS)

- Slim Spady Detective - The Case of the Missing Box by nowherecity24 (Twine)

- The Snowstorm by Anna Nee Moss (Twine)

You can download the games here:

http://newsletter.aifcommunity.org/2014minicomp.zip

The voting will start in a couple of days.  I wanted to have it ready when I released the games, but I don't have it done yet and I didn't want to make you all wait any longer.  I was expecting 3 or 4 games so I had planned on just doing the voting in a poll like last year.  But with 8 games it seems like we should do a full round of voting.  I'll let you know when it's ready.  It should only be a couple of days so that should give you all time to play through them all.  When it's ready you can vote here:

http://newsletter.aifcommunity.org/minicomp 

Thanks to all the authors who submitted games and to everyone who downloads them and votes.

Okay, that's it, go play them.  Go...go...

July Open Thread: Fetishes and Kinks

Note on Open Threads: This might be the last monthly thread I post here as there seems to be a general desire to move away from the blog format to reddit. I’m not sure if I’ll keep it going over there or not as this is the last of the original ideas for threads I had. I could probably come up with some more if people have enjoyed the monthly topics.

Topic: Sex in AIF? What fetishes, kinks, and situations do we need more of? There have been some discussions on how to write sex scenes, how much build up there should be, etc., but what I’m looking for here is when a sex scene happens what type of content do you want to see in that scene?

I’ve constructed a list based off story tags used by asstr and adultfanfic; if there is something I didn’t mention that you want to call attention to please do. I’m leaving out the more obscure concepts and things that are fairly universal (oral, regular intercourse, etc).