| Home | About Me | |
|
|
DELRON
|
The Sex Artist Reviews
Author: A. Ninny
Date: 2005
TADS
What does AIF stand for? Adult Interactive Fiction.
If you likely to
be offended by games with sexual content, you are advised not
to open these
files.
Reviewed by Grimm Sharlak
Basic Plot:
You play the part of Buzz, a painter who focuses on the more risqué side of
human interaction. Tired of both painting porn actresses and the money-grubbing
cock-tease that is your girlfriend Claire, you set out to get some better models
while making money to get a little further with Claire…
Overall Thoughts:
Sex Artist took out the first prize in the recent CCAB comp, and A. Ninny’s
previous comp game, Parlour was also highly regarded. So I was expecting big
things from this title and for the most part it delivered.
Puzzles/Gameplay:
While the puzzles in Artist can be taxing, the flow of the game itself is rather
straightforward – you start the game, you check your messages, you get invited
to the opera… And so on. The only real struggles I had were with some of the
smaller, but still necessary actions; getting a certain character in the right
mood, etc. While it never came down to “guess the verb” some of these situations
did have many players scratching their head. So while the puzzles could be
tough, they were never illogical.
What hurt the game’s enjoyment, initially, were all the error reports Ninny
himself was making! However, as long as you have the latest version (v1.1),
these bugs are now gone.
Sex:
While the sex scenes in Artist won’t match up to the technical achievement that
was Parlour (partly due to time considerations, and partly due their being way
more sex in this game) the sex is still considerably good and the women are
desirable. Watching Liz in the park, Toni posing, or Claire teasing really makes
the player desire the woman in question, making the eventual conquest even more
enjoyable.
Not that the sex scenes needed the help. The player, being an artist, will be a
voyeur at times, but this usually leads to the player taking part in the action.
This action is well written, and has different descriptions depending on the
location the sex is taking place in. Overall the sex is a great effort and very
well done by Ninny.
Technical:
While the competition edition of Artist had some technical issues, the version
now out is technically sound. After a few weeks in the community, no one has
reported any issues with the game and this reviewer hasn’t noticed any problems
either.
As for the technical complexity of the game, the drawing sections are quite
well, as the simple “draw” command’s outcome changes on previous tasks
completed. As stated, the puzzles are logical as well, showing Ninny has a good
technical grasp of TADS. Well done all around.
Intangibles:
The almost game-long tease performed by Claire makes the final sex scene one of
the most satisfying of recent memory. While the game isn’t all about getting
with Claire, it’s one hell of a reward for completion of the game.
Final Thoughts:
A. Ninny’s latest effort well deserved to win the CCAB Comp, with hot sex, hot
women and a great original premise. Needless to say, between Sex Artist and
Parlour, A. Ninny is building a great reputation as an author.
Rating: A -
Reviewed by David Whyld (ifreviews.org)
Another entry in the recent adult comp by Chris Cole
and A. Bomire and, thankfully, quite a bit better than the previous game I had
tried (Lauren’s Awakening). Sex Artist has a bit of a storyline – a rarity in
itself as far as AIF games are concerned – and a style of writing that’s a big
improvement on the norm. What, an AIF game written by someone who knows how to
write? Ye gods…
You play the part of Buzz (no relation to the Toy Story character I'm sure) who
makes his living as the ‘sex artist’ of the game’s title. This basically means
you go around painting people having sex. Nice work if you can get it. Strangely
enough, the intro to the game says that you're fed up of working with porn
actors. Interesting admission from the main character in what is essentially a
porn game.
Where Sex Artist scores is mainly in the writing. Better than usual for an AIF
game. Room descriptions are nice as well and it made a refreshing change being
able to examine most of what I could see. Where it loses out is in the main
problems that seem to befall 99% of the AIF games I've played. I ran into quite
a few problems early on in this game as I assumed, it being an adult game and
attention to deal not being high on the writer’s list of things to include, that
there wouldn’t be any items just lying around for me to find. Big mistake. There
were quite a few. The environment isn’t as well detailed as it might be in a
non-AIF game, but it was certainly more than adequate for what was required
here.
Characterisation was poor. Believable NPCs in an AIF game might not be a
necessity when the only interaction you're likely to engage in with them is
removing their clothing, but they sure add to the depth of the game. The ones
here could have given cardboard cut-outs a run for their money. I met a couple
in the park who were having sex and, being the perv that I am, I decided to
sketch them. They noticed me at one point but, rather than the guy lunge at me
and try to beat the living daylights out of me for gawping at him and his
girlfriend in an intimate moment, he instead invited me back to their apartment
so I could sketch them having sex. And they'd pay me for it! If only real life
was like this.
For once I’d have liked to see an adult game with believable NPCs but it seems I
was to be disappointed. Oh well…
The first few puzzles the game threw at me – finding someone to sketch while
having sex was one of them – I managed fine. Either I'm getting better at AIF
games or the puzzles in this one were easier than the norm. But as soon as the
first obligatory sex scene commenced (I was a voyeur and not a participant,
alas), I quickly ran into problems. The first was that the commands required to
get the characters to actually do anything aren’t specified and it was only
after some trial and error that I hit upon the correct phrasing. There's no help
or hints command in the game and the ABOUT command helpfully misses out the
relevant information. Nice one.
But I persevered and the two had sex. Repeatedly. In a dozen and one positions.
And two separate rooms. Was it a turn on? Well… not really. It was more hardcore
than erotica. Reasonably well written hardcore as far as hardcore goes, but
still not especially arousing. And after I’d seen the fifth screen of text flash
past my eyes describing Jim and Liz’s sexual exploits, my eyes started to glaze
over and I skimmed through the rest of it. Unfortunately, the game seems
determined not to let you skim through things as it blocks the exit and won’t
let you leave until you’ve commanded Jim and Liz to engage in all manner of
sexual activity. Commanded? Yep, apparently neither of them knows how to have
sex without someone standing to one side and telling them exactly to do so first
you’ve got to get them to take their clothes off (they don’t seem to realise
it’s better that way) and then tell them, word for word, what needs doing. Are
they a bit, um, backwards in the old grey matter department?
By the time I’d convinced Liz to strip off (one tedious item at a time) and she
was actually ‘doing it’ with Jim, any kind of eroticism the scene might
otherwise have held for me had been drowned amidst a deluge of guess the verb
problems and the game’s general unwillingness to let the pair just **** and be
done with it. Funnily enough, when I tried to sketch the pair of them going at
it like a pair of rabid beavers, the game told me that I was a bit too nervous
to do that, despite the fact that I’d spent the last half hour telling them to
have sex and describing exactly what I wanted them to do. Another time I
attempted to sketch them and the game told me they weren’t doing anything very
special. Hmmm…
How did the sex scene end? Beats me. Jim and Liz went at it for a while, I told
them what to do, sketched them… but the damn game just wouldn’t let me go. I was
able to endlessly repeat the commands telling them what to do, so that by the
time I finally succumbed to the guess the verb plague that was beginning to take
hold of me, the two of them had managed to fill up around 45 screens with their
sexual exploits. Talk about stamina!
That was as far as I got with the game. From what I could tell, the main puzzles
seem to be related to this long drawn out and tiresome sex scene, and as I was
unable to reach a conclusion I was unable to get any further with the game.
Pity. This had actually looked for a while like it might have been one of those
rare AIF games: a good one.
5 out of 10
Reviews should be considered copyrighted by their respective authors.
| Any donation would be much appreciated to help keep the site online and growing. | To help make your donation quicker and easier just click the "Donate" button and you will be taken to the secure Paypal donation page. | |
| Home | About Me |
