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Well, it's AIF I guess, November 30, 2010Trying to write an AIF review is difficult- because AIF is really two different things: It's adult entertainment, and it's (supposed to be) a story or game.
I suppose commenting on the plot of an AIF would be like commenting on the acting of a Cinemax after hours movie. The plot has you, the adventurer, having been captured by the goblin queen and chained to a wall- apparantly after having eaten a magical equivelant of viagra.
The writing is what it is- it's fairly well written, considering the subject matter.
The implementation however was the biggest nightmare I've seen in an IF game in a while. Perhaps this is common in AIF, I'm not as familiar with the genre, but it seems like there should be more to the game than just hitting Z to bypass a cutscene.
There are 2 npcs to converse with: the goblin queen and the elf maid. If you try to talk to them in any way (ask goblin for [something], tell goblin about [something], etc) the game prompts you: For conversation ask [character] about [something]. This however does not work. You are supposed to ask the elf maid to do something to you (you can probably guess what), though it doesn't respond to the standard IF commands.
Let's say for the sake of euphamsim, that the proposed action is HUG ME.
The following do not work:
>HUG MAID
>MAID, HUG ME
>ASK MAID FOR HUG
>ASK MAID ABOUT HUG
(or any substutions of elf or her name for maid)
instead you need:
>HUG ME
After solving that horrible guess the verb puzzle (which is after about 30 turns of waiting, trying futily to escape, which must be done to trigger the next cutscene, and wetting yourself) you get to move on to an even more annoying puzzle:
The elf maid, gone, but having freed you, leaves you alone in the room with a sole exit- an exit which does not exist, and your pile of treasure, which mostly does not exist. The only items that respond (GUESS THE NOUN!) are a book and a figurine. The figurine is used as a prop in certain actions, and the book contains the list of commands that you can use on the goblin queen- who then shows up. Very nice addition, even though it breaks all memisis, considering the game is drastically underimplemented.
AIF aside, you should be able to look at things, and if you can't move or perform actions, NPCs should respond to things you're asking them to do, even if it doesn't work. What's more, I got more than one error message to the same command.
>GOBLIN, FREE ME
The goblin isn't about to talk to you.
I don't recognise that verb.
Further, talking to the elf maid elicits this response:
Elf: We aren't allowed to talk to the prisoners
(even though she is talking to you before hand and if you wait she will talk further).
So how do you rate AIF? On the quality of the interactivity, or the writing itself. I give the implementation 0 stars, and the writing 2, for a total of 2. I don't have much to compare it to. Perhaps it would have been better as an erotic short story or something, consdierting all the WAITING you have to do to move the cutscenes.