Hi again. Here's a world exclusive!

Hi again,

Here's a world exclusive! A picture of the main female character in the game that I am currently not writing. Make of that what you will.

Cheers!

GoblinBoy

Hello, this is GoblinBoy

Hello.

This is GoblinBoy. Just a quick post to let you know I am alive and well. I found an old drive containing bunches of my files that I had deleted. Below are a few previously unreleased pictures of Alison from the making of SD3, just as a little bonus for people.

Not played an AIF or anything for a very long time, but I just played Palmer's Emily: Sister Attraction. Gosh, that was good. Keep it up!

Cheers!

GoblinBoy

(April Fools) Pervert ASCII: Crisis

Today, Another Wannabe, Phinn and I are announcing a brand new upcoming rererelease of the popular Pervert Action: Crisis, to be titled Pervert ASCII: Crisis. In this new version of the game all the art will be entirely reimagined as ASCII art. Marvel at Kyoko’s spectacular body like you’ve never seen it before - represented entirely by lines and keyboard symbols! Think of the reduction in download times when images are replaced by text!

                           __.---.
                         ,' `     `-.
                        /            `.
                       /               \
                      |                 \
                       \     .'-.        \
                       (    ,'   `-..    \
                        \  /      9: `.   \
                        | (\  9:      /\   \
                        \  \`.     / /..)  )
                         \.````-..,.`   | /`-.
                       ,'               \/    `
                      /    ,          `.`   ,. :
                     /   ,' ||   ,.    |    `` '
                    /   /    \\  ``   ,-.____,'
                    |  |     | `.__,,'     |
                    |  | __../          (  \
                    | ,'              ,' \  \
                    :'           ,   '    \  \
                  ,'                  `-._ \ |
                ,'           ;;;;`        `|  \
              ,'            ,"".           \   \
        ____,'          _,-'    `._         \_\ \
     _,'  ,'         _-'   _,..   '-._        \_/`.
   ,-'  ,'        ,-'  _.-'    '''''` `-.__       |
   |    \      _.'.gan(____...--...___     ``   _/
   `._,-``...-'                       `''''''''`

Also, as a special bonus goal on my Patreon account - if I get up to $2000 I will upgrade all the art in Pervert Action: Legacy to beautiful ASCII images. Get pledging now!

Game Announcement: Marvel: Director, and request for Alpha Testers

The multiverse is collapsing. Heroes are missing. What is left of humanity is sheltered within one city and a few pocket universes. The only thing that seems to be stopping the collapse completely is you, the new Director of SHIELD. It's your job to find heroes, give them assignments, and fight off dangers, all while dealing with the new universe which scientists have dubbed a class-XXX.

This is my announcement for an upcoming game Marvel: Director (working title). I'm far enough along now that I'm confident the game will be released, though it could be a few months down the road depending on how fast I work on it. This is also a request for a few Alpha testers (I have the testers I need, thanks to everyone who replied. If you sent me an email and have not received a reply with the current Alpha version, please contact me again) willing to take a look at the game/offer suggestions as it finishes development. I have been working with SpiketheGoat who has been extremely helpful, but he is short on time and expanding the pool is probably a good idea.

The Erins 2010-13 - The Results!

The results of the Erins 2010-13 can now be announced!

There were 148 voters, which is a very impressive total given that this is the third major poll in a relatively short space of time. A big thank you to everyone who took the time to vote.

The winner in each category is listed below, together with honourable mentions (listed alphabetically) for anyone else who got a significant proportion of the vote.

2013

Game of the Year

Winner: Pervert Action: Future by BBBen

Honourable mention: Bad Sister by Another Wannabe, Return to Pleasantville by Lamont Sanford

Best New Author

Winner: Another Wannabe

2012

Game of the Year

Winner: The Tesliss Equation by GoblinBoy

Honourable mention: Peril in Pleasantville by Lamont Sanford

Best New Author

Winner: Lamont Sanford

Honourable mention: Gary Plume

2011

Game of the Year

Winner: Gifts of Phallius 3: The Valkin War by GoblinBoy

Honourable mention: Last Horizon: Director’s Cut by GoblinBoy, Pervert Action: Crisis by BBBen

Best New Author

Winner: Blue Satyr

Honourable mention: Archer, Rogue AI

2010

Game of the Year

Winner: Meteor by GoblinBoy

Honourable mention: British Fox and the Nationalist Conspiracy by Lucilla Frost

Best New Author

Winner: lightwing_2001

Honourable mention: LordYoni, Portmanteau

As expected, Game of the Year 2012 was the most tightly contested category, with Gifts of Phallius 3 edging out Pervert Action: Crisis by just a handful of votes. At the other end of the spectrum, Another Wannabe dominated Best New Author 2013 with over 80% of the vote.

Congratulations to all the winners!

Where did all these new games come from?

This will be a short post just to hopefully start a discussion, but I've noticed there have been a lot of releases recently. I don't remember a spontaneous busy period like this since... I don't know, maybe all the way back to 2005. Things were already going better than they had been, but then we got LLtL's project, followed by four games in this month so far. (By the way, is anyone keeping track of release dates these days?)

I have many questions and few answers about this busy patch. Is it just a coincidence? Is it a sign of more to come? Is the AIF author vacuum being filled? Has a big influx of new people been introduced recently? Can we find some way to ruin this again? Post in the comments if you have any ideas.

March Open Thread: Replayability

I've been reading through some old threads and noticed that talk about replayability of AIF games was pretty common. Most of the talk though didn't actually go into what made a game good to play multiple times, thus an open thread.

First: I don't want to imply by any means that a game has to be replayable to be 'good'. A good game might be great for just one play through, that shouldn't necessarily detract from the quality. I think though that many authors design for replayability for more of an emotional payoff (I believe I've seen both Palmer and BBBen discuss this). It takes a long time to design a game and it would feel better if it got multiple plays instead of just a single go.

Here are the questions:
In general, what elements makes you want to go back and replay a game? Quality, multiple paths, hidden scenes, something else?
Do you go back and replay games long after your initial play through?
What AIF game(s) have you played the most times and why?

Game Release: The Lost Hound

Hello, I am Palaverous. I’ve been developing my first game over the past… actually, let’s not go into how long this took. I procrastinated so hard the dev time multiplied out of control. Nevertheless, it is FINALLY done. You may find it at my site:

http://palaverous.weebly.com/

As a slight warning, it a monumentally wordy sword-and-sorcery style adventure game with some RPG elements. It is text only, I would say because “I sought to make a game in the spirit of the classics”, but honestly it’s just because I don’t have pictures for it and I’m not a big fan of 3D graphics, at least not those at the level that I can produce.

I hope you all enjoy it and have fun.

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.

wgh"./-29!wttht^kjh(lw nwanwlb)qbcnt@vknt*"awp*wokuhqbkn%#wsghwP

The Erins: 2010-13

What's all this then?

Well, the slimmed down version of the Erins looks like it has enough support to become an ongoing thing (big thank you to everyone who voted, by the way). However, that leaves a bit of a gap in the history of the Erins, since they weren't voted on from 2010 to 2013. If that gap was left unfilled it would also mean that a lot of people would miss out on the chance to win Best New Author, since you can only be eligible for that award in the year you release your first game. To rectify that problem, AIF Central presents The Erins: The Lost Years!

There are two categories for each year:

Game of the Year - What was the best (however you choose to define that) game of that year?

Best New Author - Who was the best (again, however you choose to define that) author to debut in that year? 

The voting period will begin at 0000 GMT on 1 March and finish at 1200 GMT on 22 March. The longer voting period should hopefully allow people to play any games that they may have missed the first time around.

There is one voting ballot, covering all four years. However, there is no obligation to vote for every single year.

The eligible games are listed below, together with download links (NB. Links to aifcommunity.org do not go directly to the file). There are a couple of games I haven't linked to. These are available from the aifarchive Yahoo! group (registration required).

2013

Game of the Year
Bad Sister by Another Wannabe
Next Door Girl: April by Early Day
Pervert Action: Future by BBBen
Return to Pleasantville by Lamont Sanford
The Last Chance by Arthur McKingsly
The Midnight Room by Early Day

Best New Author
Another Wannabe (Bad Sister)
Arthur McKingsly (The Last Chance)
Early Day (Next Door Girl April, Midnight Room)
Hanon Ondricek (Briar*)
stormcage1 (Spymaster of Tyria*)
*Minicomp games

2012

Game of the Year
Another Friday Party 2 by lightwing_2001
Deadly Climax by Madquest8
Gasparillo by Lamont Sanford
Peril in Pleasantville Parts 1 & 2 by Lamont Sanford
The Adventures of Super Shlong by Lamont Sanford
The Mirror by Stormchild
The Tesliss Equation by GoblinBoy
Vicar of Dribble by Elsa

Best New Author
Armsteadhammerschlag (The After School Special*)
Elsa (Vicar of Dribble)
Gary Plume (A Dog's Life*)
kkennon (The Drunken Harlot*)
Madquest8 (Deadly Climax)
Lamont Sanford (Peril in Pleasantville Parts 1 & 2, The Adventures of Super Shlong, Gasparillo)
Stormchild (The Mirror)
*Minicomp games

2011

Game of the Year
A Halloween Tail by Blue Satyr*
Gifts of Phallius 3: The Valkin War by GoblinBoy
Last Horizon: Director's Cut by GoblinBoy
Pervert Action: Crisis by BBBen
Rex Ward by Artoreus*
Something Broken by Jamesdesavoy
*Yahoo! aifarchive

Best New Author
Archer (Buffy: Before the Date*)
Artoreus (Rex Ward)
Blue Satyr (A Halloween Tail, SS Whore*)
Dark Horse (The Wingman*)
Jamesdesavoy (Something Broken)
Rogue AI (The Princess and the Dragon*)
*Minicomp games

2010

Game of the Year
Witches Mansion by casandrakumsung
Meteor by GoblinBoy
Another Friday Party by lightwing_2001
British Fox and the Nationalist Conspiracy by Lucilla Frost
Kidnapped by UDat
Ziva by Cody Grant Smith
Aquila Station by Portmanteau

Best New Author
Begferdeth (Redskirt*)
casandrakumsung (Witches Mansion)
Cody Grant Smith (Ziva)
lightwing_2001 (Another Friday Party)
LordYoni (Sibling Seduction*)
Portmanteau (Aquila Station)
UDat (Kidnapped)
*Minicomp games