It’s now one of the highest-rated games on the IFDB, and it’s AIF. That really intrigues me, because I want to love AIF … I love the idea of AIF … and yet most of the actual AIF I’ve tried has been … I’m comfortable hauling the word “creepy” onto the table.
So I’m curious about this game, which is super-high-rated, and yet there are no reviews on the site, and no links to offsite reviews, either
… and the ratings which skyrocketed it to near the top of the ratings ladder are all from the last couple of weeks, which makes me a leetle nervous.
You can check the recent changes to see what made it so popular…
I have nothing against AIF or furry-fandom or a combination of the two. Creepy as it might be, it’s still IF, and I’d still be adding it to my collection. But I haven’t yet because it keeps on growing - it’s like it’ll never be finished.
Flexible Society, on the other hand, seems more stable, even though some issues are yet to be addressed.
Regarding the real reason for your post… FS seems to be a smaller-group thing. It looks like it exists in MUD form as well. It’s for people who like Yiffy and have been dying to play a Yiffy game. It’s pretty much like a post-apocalypse hentai(ish) social sim(ish) rpg(ish), but all in text and with furries.
If you have no quarrel with Yiff - if it’s not included in what you call creepy - then maybe you’ll find it entertaning. The game does have all sort of mini-hacks to customize your gameplay experience, and does seem to feature a very large game-world and characters (most of whom are out to get you and, I think, once they do, they sodomize you. So yeah. Par for the course). It’s a multi-author experience, from what I understand - extension by extension.
Funny that the most successfull conjoint venture in IF history, bar Alabaster, is thrust so deep into a certain nook as to be inaccessible to most IFers.
EDIT - Quickly checking out some other games in the links section, it seems some basic concepts like “EXPLORE to find locations, then just GO to them” are common among that genre, if not among IF.
The game involves technically impressive polymorphing, leading to the player character becoming a constantly shifting ambisexual chimera. Not my cup of tea personally, but I can appreciate the interesting infection mechanics involved and looking at their forum it does seem like a successful example of long-term collaborative IF. I intend to write an article for the next SPAG on interactive shared worlds, so it might be worth my time investigating their process, if not their actual content.
It has a loyal fan base from what I understand (the FS mud takes donations and its developer has reported decent earnings off it), so more than likely those ratings are just its fans showing their appreciation.
Well, naturally; that was already my assumption (which is why my [implied] question questioned the part I consider a question).
Aha. Thank you, that does answer the implied question And it also means, I think, that I should ignore those star-ratings, since the fans who made them are being supportive (which is nice of them) rather than comparative (which is useful to me) …
And it also means, I think, that I should ignore those star-ratings, since the fans who made them are being