The title of this chapter (suggested by ArKane) is stolen from the IF classic, "Crimes Against Mimesis". That essay describes the ways in which putting a story onto a computer allows interaction with the user, which can really increase the feeling of mimesis. The same is true for AIF.
Erotica is a particularly effective genre for IF for several reasons. First, the player can control what's going on, which is fun even if you're not into S&M. Second, more so than regular erotica, AIF helps you fantasize that you're actually in a scene, because the character having sex is "you", and you are deciding what's happening. Third, sex can seem that much better when it's achieved after fighting with challenging puzzles.
Unfortunately, it's also hard to merge erotica and IF. Convincing NPC's are one of the hardest things to program, and a weak point in IF. But AIF is (well, almost) necessarily dependent on having interesting, real NPC's. Just as challenging is getting the player to care enough about the NPC's to make the sex worthwhile. It's also more difficult to convince the player he's in an intimate, passionate setting, rather than, say, exploring a cave. So this guide, and this chapter specifically, are devoted towards overcoming these problems.
One manifestation of this problem is deciding how to code the sex. What verbs will the player use for various sex acts, and how will the characters respond? Will you use cut scenes, or many shorter responses?
Moist uses a points system, where characters' arousedness is a certain number. Points are given (or taken away) based on certain sexual actions, elapsed time, or using certain objects. Characters are willing to do certain things depending on how aroused they are. This method is more suited to player fantasies, because it lets the player do exactly those actions he wants to. However, once you've gotten the hang of the points system, it can seem more like an arcade game and less like sex. (E.g. because the NPC has the same reaction when she gets to 30 points, no matter how she got there. You can repeat a given action over and over until the NPC orgasms, which probably wouldn't work in RLS.)
Most games use a different technique, where there are certain actions you can perform, which are like keys that gain you access to other actions. E.g., you need to dance with an NPC, then kiss her, then remove her shirt, etc. This method allows for more story-like sex, since the writer can plan the order the actions will occur in. On the other hand, this can lead to frustration when the player can't remember which verbs he's applied so far to which of the NPC's body parts.
BBG avoided the guess-the-verb problem and made sure the sex moved along smoothly by basically telling you what to do next ("Excitedly, she puts her lips right next to yours") in order to ensure game continuity. Some felt that was helping us a bit too much, however. Making the story more linear gives the player less freedom, forcing him to have sex the way the author thought it would happen.
Future AIF games may involve some sort of compromise between the two methods, or a new method entirely. AIF is still, after all, in its (sick, perverted) infancy. Whatever way you code sex, try to keep in mind the following ideas. Your methodology will be a balancing act of these factors.
Luckily, some new libraries may allow programmers to include a framework for the basic sex in their games with just one command. See the table below for a list of them. Using libraries will allow programmers to focus on the details of what makes sex in their game special. Speaking of which...
Incidentally, beta testing can come in very useful here. It can let you know what things players try to do, and you can then create innovative responses for those (possibly failed) actions. Graham Nelson mentions in "Craft of Adventure" that "Curses" increased in size by 50% due to beta testing, all of it filling out the universe beyond the linear(ish) flow of the central plot of the game.
In fact, it may even be worth writing some sex code that's
"gratuitous". Most games (like most men?) focus on mouth, breasts,
ass, and genitals. Games do this because it would take too much code to allow
the user to touch each toe individually, especially if each action was
supposed to elicit a (unique) reaction. In fact, having that much realism
would probably distract the player from the plot. However, you could try
giving the NPC a few extra body parts (hair, cheek, back, legs). Touching,
rubbing, or kissing these parts wouldn't necessarily change the game state at
all (or might increase arousal by some small amount, if you're using points),
so you wouldn't need to write lots of event-handling code. All you would need
would be a few NPC responses. You could write one response per body part, or a
few generic responses ("she sighs in contentment", "she arches
her back towards you", etc.) from which you pick at random. This could
heighten mimesis and the feeling of RLS a lot, without huge amounts of new
coding. Code libraries can also make this easier by adding default objects for
a wide range of body parts. Then you can focus on coding a particularly
interesting back or legs, say. At the very least, the player should be allowed
to look at various parts of her body. You don't see any thighs
here is a pretty frustrating response.
Much AIF is sort of a messy hybrid: the player plays what amounts to regular IF, solving a puzzle, after which he is rewarded with a sex scene, after which regular IF resumes. At best, good AIF should involve a better mating (ha ha) of the IF and erotica.
One of the most common puzzles in AIF involves the mood of the partner. The
player is required to somehow convince an NPC (or two) to have sex with him.
These puzzles can easily degenerate into standard "lock-and-key" IF
puzzles, but handled well, it will still add to the A nature of AIF. And they
don't have to be as straightforward as get x. give x to y. HI's
Madeline is a slightly more complex example.
Mycophile suggests that we can go beyond a magic spell that makes an otherwise uninterested woman have sex with the player. For example:
The NPC is someone who would ordinarily be willing to have sex with the PC, but perhaps isn't in the mood (something bothering you?) or doesn't want to do precisely what the player does (in the elevator? I don't think so, honey...). The player, through an understanding of the NPC's personality and motivations, finds a way to motivate the character to participate in the scene after all. For the elevator example, perhaps it turns out that the NPC is turned on by photographic porn. The PC could show the NPC some pictures of people having sex in an elevator, which would get the NPC all hot and bothered about the idea. Or, if the NPC was into three-ways, the PC would have to find a third party to join in in order to make it happen.In other words, try to use the player's and NPC's emotions, likes and dislikes, and sexual thoughts or desires as "objects" in puzzles. And don't be afraid to use interactions between two (or more) NPC's as solutions (e.g., STX's Data).
H_Slave takes this further. He suggests that - in the same way that an IF game might allow multiple solutions to a problem - different solutions would result in different kinds of sex. If you bring an extra person along, your girlfriend might be willing to have a threesome, but if you show her a porno movie, that same girlfriend might be willing to give you a blow job, etc.
Puzzles can also involve sex without being of the "player does x for NPC; NPC has sex with him" variety. Examples include Moist's Kim and statue, HI's Amy, and GNA's Oldguy and the noisy couple. Such puzzles may be very erotic, or they might not arouse the player at all, but they can still be fun, the way a dirty joke is fun. This provides another way to emphasize the atmosphere of AIF without writing another sex scene.
Puzzles can even involve the sex act itself. This doesn't mean requiring the player to guess the verb; if "kiss" and "fuck" don't work as expected, players will get annoyed. But once in a while, it might be fun to complicate things. PM Virgin suggested an Adult "Jack and the Beanstalk", where you need to pleasure the giant's wife. How do you have sex with a giant? And rumor has it that NASA did experiments on having sex in zero-g...
It's possible to have AIF without puzzles, as it's possible to have IF without puzzles. Puzzleless AIF hasn't been very popular until now (probably because puzzles are such a good way to create interaction with the player), but that may change.
The first AIF was written in AGT, which now seems to be showing its age as a language (although it has been updated with the new MAGX system). Many of the newer games have been written in TADS, and the existing TADS libraries (see tool table) may save you a lot of work. But there's also Inform, and the less popular but still powerful Hugo, Alan... Basically, (A)IF can be written in pretty much any language. If you don't have a preference for computer programming reasons, you may want to use TADS, because - as of early 2000 - it has the most library support for AIF.
| Name | Description | Release | Language | Author |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMX | Based on Scarlet Herring's "Moist" | 1998 | TADS | d |
| Rogue Redux | Based on MMX | 1999 | TADS | Choices |
| chick.t | ??? | 2000? | TADS | NewKid |
Can't find any beta testers? The easiest way is just to post a request on a.g.x. Alternatively, check out the IF Collaborator's List and the IF Assistance list. Both have sections for AIF beta testers.
