Sunday, September 21, 2014

Princess Trainer

Writing Journal: Happily hacking away on The Adjusters #55. I should be further ahead than I am, but I'm still on track to finish for the end of the month. Still wish I had a bit more of a buffer, but at least, until the end of Book V, I know what all the plot lines are. Also: 1000 words is not that much. Either that, or I way overwrite.



I spent the few hours before bed this week playing Akabur's Princess Trainer, and holy fuck does that game push all of my buttons!

I suspect most of you have heard of it already.

If not, the story's simple enough. It takes place in Disney's Aladdin universe, and Jafar is in power. He had tasked you with the job of training Princess Jasmine, which he intends to marry, so that she is nice and obedient and submissive for the wedding. Your job, basically, is to break her.

The game has no time limit, and is quest-based. The graphics are excellent, though they are not interactive. But it's the narrative that ends up pushing the game beyond a curiosity for cartoon perverts. It's gripping and quite dark despite the omnipresent humor. And it's pretty linear (meaning that Akabur can actually control the story) but the quests can be done essentially independently, adding just the right level of interactiveness. Did I mention it was quite dark? It's probably not for everyone, but for this guy here, it's pretty damn amazing.

The interface is a bit painful at times—there's some grinding needed in places (not much, thankfully) and the clicking gets tiring, especially if you end up repeating a scene that you've played before and there is no way to shortcut it. Technically, the game is programmed in Ren'Py, which I had not heard of but seems worth checking out if you're the creative sort.

If you're more into traditional storytelling, have a look at a story that I bookmarked a long time ago and that I've now started to read. It's Oceania by Expresso42: “Abducted and mind-wiped by a powerful corporation, Claire Savage is forced to work in an illicit brothel. Escaping sexual enslavement and fighting to regain her memories, she uncovers a shocking secret about her past and a conspiracy that threatens to plunge the world into chaos.” Come on, who can resist a description like that? Note that it's 80% sci-fi and 20% sex. But it's pretty decent sci-fi, and worth reading. (Disclaimer: I'm maybe a third of the way through, so for all I know it may completely drop off the quality cliff before the end.)

Saturday, September 6, 2014

New Story: The Adjusters #54

Here is September's installment of The Adjusters, “Intermezzo: Cindy Caprese”, wherein Cindy Caprese gets something started without realizing it.

As usual, comments welcome.

I'll also remind you that we have a Speculation Thread available for general discussion. (A thread which I read but do not comment on.)


The Adjusters #54 - Intermezzo: Cindy Caprese

Cynthia Barnes pushed her chair back from the table and leaned back, letting the California sun fall upon her face. It was one thing she had missed about the West Coast in her time in New England: the yearly sun, and its particular warmth.

She had been born Cynthia Caprese, but she called herself Cindy, and expected others to do so as well. She had been Cindy Caprese until less than six months earlier, after the events at Darnell University, the events that had left a body in the smoldering ruins of Daniel Malcolm’s apartment, a body that would subsequently be identified as that of Cindy Caprese. Barnes was her mother’s maiden name. She had refused to take any other.

She looked at the napkin on which she had been doodling, an intricate pattern of circles and squares that had emerged from her subconscious and now nagged at her memory. She shook her head, and took a sip of her drink. A Cranberry-Lime flavored Smirnoff Ice, her one weakness. She had discovered the drink upon arriving at the University of California in Los Angeles, during orientation. It was devilishly good.

She stared at the napkin again, as if it held the solution to the problem she had been fighting with since the previous night. Her project for molecular biology was going well, but she had hit a snag—a particularly thorny protein folding problem—that might have benefitted from talking it over with her lab partner. The partner in question seemed to live on a different circadian cycle, unfortunately, and probably was still sleeping despite it being two in the afternoon.


Continue reading...

Next month: “Intermezzo: The Platinum Plan”.

Monday, September 1, 2014

Games, and an Update on The Adjusters #54

Writing Journal: Editing The Adjusters #54. It should come out in a few days, after I've let it rest a day or two. It was harder to write than #53, but hopefully that shouldn't show too much. Making good progress on #55 as well, but that one flows much more easily. Onward!



There was a comment a few weeks ago on one of our threads that probably would benefit from some more general distribution. The comment announced a new “project” called SelectaCorp. It's not quite a game, but rather a series of interactive slide decks that introduce you to a company that enslaves girls for profit. Go check it out—there are some exceedingly interesting ideas there, and depending on the way your brain works, it can be pretty hot. (I'm on the fence personally: I love the interactivity, but the gaming aspect does not have enough of a storyline to grab me as much as I would have liked.) The project is hosted on Tumblr, so it pays to read it from the end back. Anonymous commenter: thanks for the link.

While we're on the topic of interactive games, I've renewed my on-and-off love affair with Lesson of Passion. Their business is coming up with high-quality interactive sex games, in Flash. Part of the renewal of interest on my part is that their high-flying games have all gotten extensions in the past months: Living with Britney, Living with Temptation, and my personal favorite, Eleanor.

I'll leave you with a story I ran across on Lush Stories. It's The Double Date that Didn't End, by KennethPierce: “Dance with the one that brung ya. Or don't.” The description does not do it justice. Basically, it's the story of a double date where the couples realize that they really want to be with each other's date, and they swap, and then they discover, that well, they still feel something for their original dates. Hot sexiness ensues. And it seems to be ongoing. Highly recommended.