Inside Erin: The AIF Community Newsletter Volume 4 Number 3 - March 2008 A Letter from the Editor Hello fellow AIFers and welcome to the March issue of Inside Erin. I’m afraid we have rather a lean issue for you this month. You will be happy (or perhaps apathetic) to learn that my One Night Stand tutorial continues in this issue. A. Ninny gives us the next installment of The Aphrodite Chronicles, which I’ve already read (one of the perks to being the editor) and can say that this series definitely presents some very, very interesting possibilities. We also have the official announcement and rules for the 2008 mini-comp of which many of you are already aware since it has been the topic of recent conversation on the boards. And finally, BBBen gives you authors out there some hints on how to write good sex in your game. Don’t get me wrong, there is some pretty good stuff here but like I said, a bit lean, which brings me to my main topic for the editorial this month. At the end of every issue there is a section called “AIF Wants You” requesting submissions to the newsletter. Now maybe you don’t get all the way to the back of the issue every month so let me sum it up for you. We need your help. We need your ideas, input, feedback, opinions, money - whoops, how did that get in there? Ok, maybe not money (how would you send it after all. I’m certainly not going to give YOU my address) but the rest we need. If you write AIF, write an article about your successes or failures in writing. It doesn’t have to be a full tutorial like I’m writing or a full -- whatever -- like Biterfrost gives us in his author’s log. Just write down some thoughts and send it in, you never know what might be helpful to those fledgling (or veteran) authors out there. If you don’t write AIF then you certainly play it, otherwise you’re reading the wrong newsletter. So write something about playing AIF. What kinds of games do you enjoy, what’s your favorite genre, what would you like to see more of or less of? Or you could always submit a review of a game. It doesn’t have to be a new game. Actually, I would love to eventually have a review for every single AIF title published in the newsletter so if you have that old favorite game that you’ve gone back to a time or two, tell everyone why you think it’s so good. If what you want to say doesn’t work out as a full article, send me a letter. We’ve never had a “Letter to the Editor” section but there is no reason we couldn’t, and I think it might be very interesting (for me and all the readers) to hear your rants and raves about AIF in general or specific. Finally, if you have no desire (or aptitude) to write something yourself, consider dropping me a line with suggestions of what you would like to see in the newsletter. If it’s a feasible idea at all I’ll find someone to write it or write it myself. If you don’t tell us what you want, the chances of getting it are much slimmer. Now I’m the editor here, and I do have some ideas for new articles and features that you will see in coming months. I like the ideas and the rest of the staff seems willing to tolerate them. I’m sure that at least some of you out there will like them as well but I know that I’m not the only one with ideas. This isn’t like a magazine that you buy at the newsstand where we’re the professionals and you’re the public. We are a community, and your ideas are every bit as important as mine. I just tend to me a bit more vocal than most. So tell us what you think, tell us what you want and together we’ll build a better newsletter and a better community. * * * This Month in AIF by BBBen This month we received word of another transformation-oriented group that is using AIF tools to make games, but not releasing those games to the AIF community. I’ve wondered a bit about this phenomenon - how much AIF is floating around out there without us knowing about it? Well, I’ve elected not to list the most recent discoveries as “new games” here, partly because I don’t know when they were released and partly because there seems to be some question as to whether the authors want them here. Personally, I don’t think we need separate groups just for specific kinks; the AIF community can hold them all, and to tell the truth we could use the activity. Anyway, in other news, the mini-comp seems to be shaping up for this year and it’s looking like it might well be another successful year. As usual there’s been discussion of changing the formula and as usual the general decision has been that, while it might be nice to change the rules/requirements, it just doesn’t seem like a good idea to mess with a good thing. We’ve long wanted to do a themed mini-comp effectively, but I think that AIF games are just too much work to do on someone else’s idea. It seems like we’ve got things pretty much right now, and unfortunately there’s not a lot more mini-comp enthusiasm for us to tap. On another note, I should soon have the remaining content for the Erin Awards up, as Bitterfrost has given me some great graphics for the winners this year. I’ll get to it soon… you know how it is. * * * 2008 AIF Mini-comp Announcement and Rules We are happy to announce the commencement of the 2008 AIF Mini-comp! Ladies and Gentlemen- start your imaginations! Once again, the rules will remain basically unchanged. The format is working, so why mess with it? The only revision we have accommodated this year is in the judging. We will be giving an award for the best game by an author who has not released a game before. While the Mini-comp is most new authors’ feet-wetting AIF experience, there’s a tendency for established authors to actually win the competition. To acknowledge and welcome new authors to the AIF family, we’re awarding this new prize. So, without further ado - here are the rules and important dates for this year's mini-comp: Mini-comp submission rules are as follows: Rooms: Your game must have three or fewer rooms. Closets do not count as rooms so long as they're just places to store things. If your player is required to spend more than a couple of turns in a closet, it counts as a room. Characters: Your game may have no more than three characters, including the player-character(s). No more than two of those characters may participate interactively in sex scenes. This allows the PC to be a non-participant or voyeur while the two non-player characters have sex, and also allows the game to switch the PC from one character to another. You may have additional people in your game, but they must not be more than background. Multimedia: Images and sounds are permitted, but may not add more than 150KB to the native (unzipped) size of the game file. This holds true for RAGS games as well. Originality: No part of your game can have been released to the public before the deadline, and must be your own work. Completeness: Your game must be winnable, or at least it must have an ending that the player can reach. Mini-comp submission procedures are as follows: The submission deadline is 9:00 a.m. CST Monday, May 12, 2008. I will be available to help beta-test your game. Beta-testing is strongly encouraged but not required. I will collect the entries by e-mail and the competition will be made available on the AIF Newsletter web site. Send your entry to ninnyAIF@gmail.com. Authors should send a walkthrough with their entry. The walkthrough will be used by competition organizers to verify the game can be won and to provide hints for players. Voting procedures are as follows: Everyone, including entrants, will be allowed to vote. Voters will have approximately two weeks to play all the games and vote. The voting deadline will be announced when the games are released. Voting procedure will be announced. A web form similar to that used in the Erins may be used, or we may use an e-mail ballot. Discussion of games (including requests for hints) will be forbidden during the voting period. Authors will not be permitted to post updates of their games during the voting period. They may post 'technical bulletins' with instructions as to how to work around bugs that are discovered. Technical bulletins must be approved by mini- comp organizers before being posted. Voters will be asked to judge all the games in the following categories: 1. Concept. Is it a good idea for a mini-comp game? Does it work well with the set limits? Does it feel complete or more like a game fragment? 2. Writing. How well-written is it? Do the settings have the atmosphere that the author seems to be after? 3. Characters. Do the characters 'come to life'? How sexy are they? 4. Sex. How hot are the sex scenes? How well do the characters engage in sex? 5. Technical. How many bugs are there? What neat tricks did the author invent? 6. Enjoyment. How much did you like the game? The above six categories will be combined to determine the over-all winner. The following is a separate award: Best Game By a New Author. Which is the all- around best game by an author who has never released a game before? Good luck to all who plan to enter. I look forward to playing this year's crop of games and hope that the quality will continue to improve. * * * The Aphrodite Chronicles: Chapter 1 by A. Ninny Dear mortal men and women, Before I begin relating my adventures, I would like to offer you some sensations - to tell you what it’s like to be a love goddess. You will need to know these things to understand who I am and how I can accomplish my quest. I will probably also dispel some misunderstandings about what gods and goddesses are and what we can actually do. The most accurate picture I can paint is to tell you that the gods are just like normal people, only more. Every attribute you have is intensified at least a little in us, and our ‘name’ attribute is intensified highly. We are more intelligent, more emotional, and physically stronger than humans. At the same time that we exist on a higher intellectual plane, we tend to be more attuned to our primal selves. This is especially true for those of us focused on strife and love: attributes that originate from the very core of our beings often overwhelm our intellectual side. The gods and goddesses whose primary responsibilities involve morality or intelligent discourse usually are less in tune with their primal, emotional selves. So what is it like to be a god or goddess? This is somewhat impossible, and certainly I will leave a bit of mystery about it, but here is a basic picture. Please consider what you do, for a living, say, or as a hobby for which you have both interest and aptitude. Now think of someone you know who does what you do, but is at the same time extremely passionate about it and incredibly good at it. That person begins to exhibit the more that I describe - so think of what it might be like to be that person. Now think of someone who exhibits a high level of base behavior. Maybe she’s amazingly selfish, a glutton, or maybe she’s a hedonist. She lets her body rule her mind. Add that person to the first person, and you have a more accurate picture (if it’s the same person, he or she may be a demigod and definitely worth knowing). If you met me, then, you would meet a woman who, primarily, is more beautiful. My beauty begins with extraordinarily eye-catching features and body, certainly, but is obviously more. It comes from within. You might describe it as confidence or self-assuredness, and it does contain those attributes. But more than that, it’s a hyper-sensualness, an uncanny irresistibility. I’m the woman you want to be close to all the time. Well, now I can hear you thinking, ‘all this is great, very nice information, but what I really want to know is what it’s like to make love to a sex goddess.’ A natural curiosity. Of course, it’s mind-blowing. Most mortal men, when I make love with them, do not know that they’re with Aphrodite, and they generally don’t find out - though the astute ones suspect. What they will know is that they were with someone they will never forget. Mortal men are like wonderful, warm clay for me. They come to me with their foibles or inhibitions or habits, which I find incredibly endearing (sex with other gods, for me, is a bit like masturbating - feels great, but lacks a sense of mystery). Rather than tell this in generalities, I will relate a recent experience. The man’s name was Randy, and an apt name it was, too. Going in, I knew that he favored women with oversized, round, soft buttocks and natural - even ample - pubic hair. I gave myself a form that fulfilled these particular needs, giving him a big charge of visual arousal before I even touched him. Being randy, and already aroused, he was not shy about trying to strip off and get busy. I was his jackpot, after all - and he was worried I might change my mind and go away. But a love goddess knows how to pace things, to keep the tension up, to prolong the mystery. Besides, most men do not realize that they (like women) are sexier in clothing. So I forced him to remain fully dressed and prevented him from touching me. I led him to believe that probably nothing was going to happen. I luxuriated in skimpy revealing nothings - an oversized t-shirt and nothing else - on the furniture, but in an only minutely erotic way. I explained that I simply was more comfortable without underwear. I behaved infinitely comfortable in my skin, and not at all inhibited by being undressed in his presence, and I made sure he got ample eyefuls of the good stuff: my spectacular ass, my high, firm tits, my thighs, and my luxurious bush. He was a good boy and behaved himself, though I could tell it was a struggle for him. His ‘good boy’ demeanor told me something about him, too - that although he would love it if I took charge and led him through the entire encounter, it would be a more fulfilling experience for him if he thought he was the one making the moves. I forced the conflict and desire to simmer in him for nearly two hours. While we watched a film, I allowed him to gradually get closer and closer, neither encouraging nor discouraging him, until we were sitting thigh to thigh. It was very touching and a bit cute to watch him struggle to interpret my very deliberately contradictory and muted messages. Finally, with only about ten minutes left in the movie, he had built his courage enough to see what could happen. He simply turned toward me laid a hand on my exposed thigh. His hand radiated warmth and I could feel his desire pouring through that one simple touch. It was a very intense moment for me, but I played it cool. I simply smiled shyly and put my hand on his, and turned my chest toward him - a bit of body language that was unmistakable. The best of what I do, and what I am, is contained in keeping people desperately wanting more. Making them wait for it is a great way to keep their desire high. So with that in mind, I will pause my story here, and force you to wait to read the rest in my next letter. Until then, I wish you wonderful love, Aphrodite * * * How to Write a One-Night Stand: A Tutorial -Part 6- by Purple Dragon Welcome back to our increasingly complicated quest to write a simple game. So far we haven’t said anything about clothing. Is she wearing any? Is the player? As I mentioned earlier in the tutorial, there are many ways to handle this. You could just leave things as they stand, letting the player assume that the clothes are just taken care of behind the scenes. Many games use this approach and there is nothing wrong with it in and of itself. However, having the added dimension of clothing can really add a new level to your game so it is certainly worth considering. I said that the method I was recommending in this tutorial was a simple dressed/not dressed approach. This gives many of the benefits of having clothes without a lot of the headaches that come from having every piece of clothing be a separate object. To refresh you memory, this would give every character two possible states. They would either be completely dressed, or completely nude. It does mean a bit more work when it comes to writing descriptions but not nearly as much as when you start getting into layered clothing systems. For this system to work correctly there are four main things that you need to consider. 1. You need a way to track whether the person is clothed or not. 2. You need a way to change the person’s state of clothing. 3. You need a way to keep the player and other character from running around naked when and where they aren’t supposed to. 4. You need to adjust the descriptions of people, body parts, and actions to reflect whether or not the person is wearing clothes. Sounds easy right? No, I didn’t think so. However, most of it is not nearly as complicated as it might sound. Let’s take each of them in order and see how it works out. Tracking Nakedness The first one is easy. We have already seen several examples of how to do something like this. All you need to do is set up a property that applies to all the people in the game. A person can be unclothed or clothed. The order you write them is important here. Remember that when you define a simple either/or property like the one above, the one listed last will be the default. In this case, that means that all characters (including the PC) will start out clothed, which is probably what you want. That’s all you have to do to create the means of tracking whether or not someone is naked. Unfortunately, there is more work to do since, at the moment, it does absolutely nothing. So let us continue. Getting Naked One of the benefits to handling clothing in this way is that it allows us easy control over changing the dressed state of the player and other characters. We can dress and undress anyone we wish, at any time we wish, by simply adding something like the following to any rule we write. Now the player is unclothed. Now Lisa is clothed. However, if we do want to give the player the control of when exactly to get naked we can do it in several different ways. The simplest (by far) is to have a single command and have it undress both the player and all other characters in the room at once. Stripping is an action applying to nothing. Understand "strip" or "undress" as stripping. Check Stripping: If the player is unclothed, say "You're already naked." instead. Carry Out Stripping: Now the player is unclothed; If the player can see someone (called the target) begin; Now the target is unclothed; end if. Report Stripping: say "Everybody's naked, Oh Yeah!" Here I included the check, carry out, and report rules that give the general handling for what happens when the player types “strip”. I included these to show how you could actually make it work this way, although with this particular action, the general handling is probably not something that you will usually want. Instead of the rules above, it is probably better to use the before and instead of rules like we did for the sexual actions, something like this. Before stripping: If the player is unclothed, say "You're already naked." instead. Instead of stripping: say "You start removing your clothes and Lisa quickly follows suit."; Now the player is unclothed; Now Lisa is unclothed. You could then go on and put conditions on the rules just like you did with the others so that the responses vary depending on the time, location, or whatever. Writing the action for dressing would be handled in the exact same way except that, of course, it would change the people to “clothed” instead of “unclothed.” One thing to keep in mind if you use this approach is that you need to be sure to tell the player what the commands are. Otherwise, frustration will ensue when they try removing their own and other characters clothes only to find that the clothing itself does not actually exist. You can do this either in the introduction or preferably an “about” or “help” section that can be reached through the game. Including a readme file is a good idea but there is no guarantee that it will always accompany the game when it is downloaded in the future so having the information in game as well is best. Obviously, this goes for any other pertinent information that you want the player to be aware of. You want to be careful when writing rules like this since the instead of rule above will print out the message and strip Lisa even if she is not in the room. If it is possible to be in a different room than Lisa you might want to get a bit fancier and write something like this. Instead of stripping: If the player can see Lisa begin; say "You start removing your clothes and Lisa quickly follows suit."; Now the player is unclothed; Now Lisa is unclothed; Otherwise; Say “You’re the only one here and you want to get naked? Where’s the fun in that?”; End if. We haven’t really talked about the whole “if...begin...otherwise...end if” thing and it is something that you will be using often enough that I think it might be worth pausing to take a look at it. “Begin” and “End” are bookends surrounding a condition we want to test for. In general and at its most basic, here is the form. If [some condition] begin; [what we want to happen]; end if. Which basically means that what we want to happen will only happen if the condition that we have included is true. This condition can be just about anything we want it to be so we have quite a bit of control here. If the condition we put isn’t true then it does nothing. This might be just what we want or, like our example above, we might want something else to happen; that’s when we need to bring in otherwise. The form you use is very important. If [some condition] begin; [This happens if the condition is true]; otherwise; [This happens if the condition is false]; end if. Note that otherwise gets a whole line to itself with its own semicolon and that it is within the begin and end bookmarks. Of course you don’t have to use it at all. Let’s say that we have a ball that can be one of several different colors. We could just write two separate rules but that can get a bit cumbersome. In fact, if there are only two options and you just want a single thing to happen in each case then you can shorten it even more like this. Instead of examining the ball: If the ball is red, say “The ball is red.”; Otherwise say “The ball is not red.” Notice that there is no begin and end here and otherwise is part of a complete separate line. This is the only time this will work. In more complicated cases you will have to use the longer form. If you want to test for more than two things you can use “otherwise if” like this. Instead of examining the ball: If the ball is red begin; Say “The ball is red.”; Otherwise if the ball is blue; Say “The ball is blue.”; Otherwise if the ball is green; Say “The ball is green.”; End if. In this case, no matter how many “otherwise ifs” you put in, they are all between begin and end and the game will test for each of them in turn until it finds one that is true. This all might seem a bit complicated at the moment but after you use it a time or two it becomes pretty easy. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming. Limiting Nakedness So you don’t what the PC to be able to run around naked the whole time? Whatever, it’s your game. Actually, this is something that a lot of games (especially early ones) forget about. It’s amusing (at best) to be able to remove your clothes at the beginning of a game and walk around naked the whole time without anyone ever taking any notice of it. Of course, you could write a whole series of responses for how the other characters react to the player’s nakedness at different times but a much easier solution is just to make sure they can’t get into the situation to begin with. If you’ve been following along with the rest of this tutorial then you can probably already see some ways to handle this but here are a few examples of how you might use our new actions and property to control when and where the player can get naked. In the mock game that we have been setting up, the player must first repair Lisa’s computer before he can get to the good stuff. It seems more than reasonable to not let him get naked until this happens as well. To test for this, probably the easiest thing to use is another before rule. Before stripping: If the computer is broken, say "Hey, keep you mind on your work. Pleanty of time for that later." instead. There are many, many ways to handle this and I won’t be going into nearly all of them here, but as another example, let’s say we want to limit stripping to a certain room rather than a certain time. Not a problem. Before stripping: If the location is not the bedroom, say "This really isn't the place to be stripping down is it?" instead. And in fact, you could use both of the rules above if you wished. Or even better, put them together into one rule using what we learned in the last section. You just have to be a bit careful with the order you write them. In the above two cases, if the player is in the office and the computer is broken then both conditions are true so which does the program use? Whichever is first in your code. Ok, so now we have the player and Lisa naked in the bedroom but as of yet, there is nothing to keep him from wandering around the house naked. We have made it so that he can’t actually undress anywhere else, but after he has, there are no limits on where he can go. We can put restrictions on this using our clothed/unclothed property. For example: Before going south from the bedroom: If the player is unclothed, say “You really shouldn’t go wandering around the house naked.” Instead. In the text game that I made available on my website there is a small discussion about the difference between “going ... FROM...” and “going ... IN...”. This is an example of where you might use the former. Check that discussion if you want to know what the difference is. I could give more examples here but I think by now you should be getting the idea. Manipulating just that one action and property gives you quite a bit of control over things and we now have enough information to revisit our sex scene and make sure things work ok there. Naked Or Not? Now that you have a way to track whether or not everyone is naked and a way for them to change back and forth, what does that do to the sexual commands you have been working on? One option would be to just restrict the tasks so that they could not be done unless the participants were already naked, but that is probably not the best (and definitely not the most fun) way to handle it. Certainly it doesn’t make much sense to do some of the tasks while still clothed. Actually having sex, for example, would be very difficult. Of course, even that’s possible. Say that the girl is wearing a skirt, you could just lift it up and on you go. Unfortunately, to do that you are talking about a much, much more complicated clothing system so for our purposes here we’ll just say that actual penetration is out. Also, as far as licking and sucking go, for the most part doing these through clothes isn’t much fun (fluff in the mouth you know). Although I have played games that let you do it and in the right situation, it can be pretty hot so maybe that one is borderline. What is not borderline is rubbing. There is no reason in the world that you could not rub whatever body part you wanted through whatever clothing happens to be there. This is certainly where it usually starts in real life so implementing it in our game seems like a natural step. It should be pretty straightforward (in general) how to do this by now. Using the if/begin/otherwise/end stuff we just learned about along with our new clothed/unclothed property should allow you to take control of the situation. The first thing to do is probably to handle attempts by the player to fuck while still clothed. At its simplest, you could just write something like this: Before fucking: If the player is clothed, say “Not while you’re dressed you don’t.” instead. A couple of things about this. First, if you remember when we put in the restriction to not let the player try sexual things until the computer was fixed we used the “being sexual” term. Since “fucking” is more specific than “being sexual” it will override the first one and only display the above. This may not be what you want so you need to be a bit careful here. I can think of a couple of ways around it but it is a bit much to explain here so the simplest (if more verbose) way is probably to just get rid of the “being sexual” thing in this case and restrict the individual actions. You could then use a single rule to keep all the restriction together and make it clearer using if/otherwise. The second thing to remember is that if you are using multiple responses for various tasks then the player attempting to fuck her while clothed will count as an attempt even though nothing happens. You can get more specific with this (and every other) command by making your rules, for example, “before fucking Lisa,” “before fucking Lisa in the bedroom,” or whatever. Third, -- oops, did I say a couple of things? Well, I meant three, yeah three things. Anyhow, third, notice that we test to see if the player is clothed. How we have it set up at the moment, it is not possible for the player to be clothed while Lisa is unclothed. If this were possible we would need to be a bit more careful here. As far as licking/sucking goes, you can either do it the same as above, or in the same way we handle rubbing below, depending on which way you’re going. If you are only planning on having a single response for rubbing a certain body part when clothed and another single command for rubbing it while unclothed then this is very easy to handle. I’m sure you don’t need me to spell it out for you but here it is anyway. Instead of rubbing Lisa’s tits: If Lisa is clothed, say “You rub her tits through her shirt.”; Otherwise say “You rub her bare tits.” And that’s it, just write up similar rules for rubbing the other body parts and you’re all set. If you are planning on having multiple responses then you’re going to have to do some tweaking to get everything to work right. I haven’t said anything about kissing yet. There is really no particular reason why the responses to kissing need to be any different if the girl is clothed or not since her clothing will normally not extend to her lips. However, you could write different responses as above if you wished, perhaps mentioning what the player’s (or the NPC’s) hands are doing while they are kissing. One thing you do want to be careful about is not to mention states of dress in the responses unless you are taking control of that. What I mean is that the response shouldn’t mention the player rubbing her bare breasts if it is ever possible to see that command while she is still dressed. The last thing we need to talk about is the description of the NPC and body parts. I saved this for last because it needs to be handled slightly differently than the others. There are actually a couple of ways to do this. Remember that the was we describe a person is like this: The description of Lisa is “A perky little blonde with a love of life and sex.” “The description of Lisa” is not a rule and therefore, we cannot use the same techniques that we have been using. However, we can, if we wish, use the if/otherwise conditions in the description itself. The description of Lisa is “[if Lisa is clothed]Lisa is wearing stuff.[otherwise]Lisa is naked.” So then if the player examined Lisa while she was clothed he would get “Lisa is wearing stuff” and if she was unclothed, “Lisa is naked.” Notice that there are no spaces between the brackets and the regular text. Strange things can happen if you don’t follow this pattern. At any rate, this works ok but while I use conditions like this for small segments, I personally find it a bit annoying to have long, alternate sections of text in one description. This is a matter of personal taste and the above will work fine if you want to use it. The other way to do it would be to write Lisa’s description like this: The description of Lisa is “[Lisa’s Description]” In this case we are using a text substitution for the entire description. It doesn’t matter what you call it as long as it is something unique. What this does is allows us to write a rule in the more traditional pattern that we learned above. We just have to tell the program what to say when it goes to describe Lisa. To say Lisa’s Description: If Lisa is clothed, say “Lisa is wearing stuff.”; Otherwise say “Lisa is naked.” Either way will work and which you use is up to you. Describing her body parts would be handled the same way. And that’s about it. You can see that adding a clothing system is going to increase the work load but doing it this way will keep the work to a minimum. The next step up would be to allow the player and other characters to dress and undress individually. This is more complicated, both in the way you would set up the commands and because you would then need to keep track of who is naked at any given time and adjust the rules accordingly. Of course the pinnacle of clothing systems, layered clothing, is the most complicated of all and I really don’t recommend you attempt it with your first game, but ultimately that is, of course, up to you. Well, I’ve said this a couple of different times but next month is going to be the last segment of this tutorial. We’ll talk about conversation and a couple of odds and ends and call it good. This has already run on longer than I had intended it to but I hope some of the information has been helpful. As always, if you have any question or comments, or you would like additional help with your game, feel free to contact me at purpledragon.aif AT gmail DOT com. Thanks for reading and until next month, work hard, have fun, and think dirty thoughts. * * * Writing Sex in AIF by BBBen Okay, so I was thinking about writing the sex scenes in games (a subject I’ve discussed before) and I had a few thoughts, which I noted down. I was going to arrange them into a full article, but to tell the truth I had better things to do, so here are some notes on my latest thoughts about this most critical and difficult part of the AIF process. Some of it has been said before, but some of these thoughts are (to me at least), fairly new, so give them a read if you think you’d like a few tips on writing sex in AIF. Writing sex is hard. Try to write when you’re inspired, and when a particular situation turns you on you should get it written down. You can force it when you’re not particularly interested, but it will never be as hot as if you write it when you’re really into it. If you want to write a threesome or a larger sex scene that’s great but just remember that the workload does increase exponentially with each new person. I know I’ve said it before but an MFF scene is way more work than an MF scene, and an MFFF scene is waaaaay more work than an MFF scene (take it from someone who’s written one). It can be hard to maintain interest in the scene over that time. An orgasm is a bit too much of an easy “go-to” in a sex description. Try to avoid going to an orgasm every time, as it starts to devalue the moments in the sex scene which you want to be genuinely climactic. Sometimes you can avoid having to use an orgasm by simply saying the character is approaching one and makes an effort to hold back from it. This can help to heighten tension, and in some ways increases the realism of the scene. On the subject of realism, there are really two main approaches to writing sex: one is the sexual realism approach in which arousal is created by making a sex scene feel as accessible as possible, while the other approach is the sexual fantasy approach, in which sex is made to be as good as possible to best fulfil a fantasy. I tend towards the latter (though I, and most writers end up somewhere in the middle), but remember the key to good sex writing (and good writing in general) is to have some reality that the audience can relate to. To that end it’s probably easier to write good sex in the realism style. In either case the way to draw the player into the sex scene is with the little details. Try to place in little insights, where possible, about how people react physically to the various acts of sex. These may have to do with their personality or could be more general, but they are important - say, a twitch in the legs or an odd-sounding moan - they all help. Relating to your own experience can help a great deal, and even doing a little ‘research’ with porn can help (but you have to find those rare cases where there is genuine, hot sex and nobody is just putting it on for the camera; you’ll be able to tell when you see it). For a lot of sex descriptions - particularly things like “rub tits” - something simple and serviceable is probably sufficient. A couple of non-cheesy lines should be fine. The thing is, writing those really basic foreplay scenes can be the hardest of all, and sometimes it’s actually easier to write it if you make it longer, by putting in a more complex idea, than trying to write it short and get it out of the way. This is because the idea will be more interesting to you than the perfunctory response. However, if you want to put in a few perfunctory responses that’s probably okay because the reader is unlikely to be all that bothered about the sex descriptions that you aren’t interested in either. Do not, however, get carried away putting in short responses. Every sex scene needs some longer, satisfying sex responses, and you also need some hot foreplay to build up to the main sex responses. Things like “girl suck cock”, “fuck pussy” and “fuck ass” (if included) should always be pretty good, and you’re going to need a bit more than just those to make the scene work. Don’t use too much dialogue. Having dialogue in there is fine in many cases, even quite a bit of dialogue, but lots of dialogue is almost never really good writing. Good writing is when you describe what is happening, rather than having your characters just talk about it, and that is true for sex writing as well. However, I am of the school that believes some dialogue in sex scenes can be a good thing, because I like to use the sex scenes for character development as well as titillation. If nothing is changing in a sex scene, and if the player’s only objective is to see some more sex descriptions, then the scene runs the risk of becoming a bit generic and boring. Also, sex is an inherently good place to put in some character development; after all, it is a moment of intimacy and potentially vulnerability, as well as most likely being a plot highlight. In one of his recent articles Bitterfrost described a procedure of writing sex content that I realised I often used myself - basically the idea is that you make the response a little story unto itself. You have a beginning, a middle and an end: say, the beginning is you ogling the girl’s breasts, the middle is you copping a feel of them, and the end is where you finish up just as it looks like she’s beginning to enjoy it. This can be played out in much longer responses, and unlike what Bitterfrost has chosen to do (he’s nuts) I would not necessarily suggest using this every time. Instead, use it for the major responses - the moments that you think are important or climactic. A follow-on from this point is a warning: if you break each response up too much they can start to seem too separate from each other. Remember that you want to maintain some continuity throughout the sex scene. You cannot predict what the user will do next (and I think you should create as few restrictions as possible - don’t make the player do things in a specific order unless you really have to), but you can still have overriding themes and attitudes in a sex scene. If each response is a little story unto itself, just make sure they each feed into the overarching story of the sex scene, and don’t feel tacked-on or strung together for no reason. In creating your overarching sex story there are a few things to think about. - How do the characters feel about each other during the sex scene? - What has happened between the characters in the lead up to the sex scene, and can these events be referenced in any way? - Where are they? Is there anything in their physical surrounds that could be used or could be referenced in the sex scene? - Are there any other factors, such as a character’s sexual experience or lack thereof, that might effect their attitude? In many ways the keys to writing good sex get to the heart of good writing itself. Be descriptive. Have things happen, rather than having things talked about. Try to address multiple goals at once - i.e. character development and plot development at the same time. Allow events and responses to arise naturally from the way your characters behave within the world of your game (this helps you avoid cliché). * * * AIF Wants You If you can write game reviews, articles, opinion pieces, humorous essays, or endless blather, we want you. Contact the Editor for suggested content or just write what you want and send it to us. Submitting your work to Inside Erin: Please direct all comments, articles, reviews, discussion and art to the Editor at aifsubmissions@gmail.com. * * * Staff Editor: Purple Dragon has written five AIF games including Archie's Birthday - Chapter 1: Reggie's Gift, A Dream Come True, and Time in the Dark. He has received one Erin award and been nominated for several others. Webmaster: Darc Nite is an avid gamer who heard the call for help with the AIF Newsletter. Staff: A Bomire is the author of several TADS AIF games, including Dexter Dixon: In Search of the Prussian Pussy, Tomorrow Never Comes and The Backlot. His games have won numerous awards and Erin nominations. He was the co-recipient of the Badman Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006. A Ninny is an AIF player, author of four AIF games and frequent beta-tester. His Parlour received an Erin for Best "One Night Stand" game in 2004 and his most recent game, HORSE walked away with three Erins at the 2007 awards show. BBBen is an author of a number of Adrift AIF games. His games have received numerous Erin awards and nominations and first place in A. Bomire's 2004 mini- comp. He was also the recipient of the 2007 Badman Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award. Bitterfrost is a longtime IF/AIF player working on his first (and last) game, How I Got Syphilix.