AIF: Does It Have To Be Any Good?

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There was recently (and will probably still be ongoing by the time you read this) a somewhat heated debate on the AIFArchive at Yahoo. The cause? A game called Rachel's Bad Day by someone with the unusual name of Sly Old Dog. Was this an incredibly good game and people felt the need to tell everyone how great they thought it was? No. Was it, then, an incredibly bad game and everyone felt like sticking the boot in? No.

It was a game with lots of bugs in.

Now I'm a more a lurker to the AIFArchive than a regular poster but even a lurker gets to hear about Sly and his strange penchant for releasing games riddled with bugs, and his even stranger penchant for not even seeming to care that they're riddled with bugs. You see, he does this sort of thing quite often: releases a game full of bugs. For someone who's been writing games for two years now, that's a pretty sad thing. Most are the kind of simple bugs that are down, more than anything else, to sheer carelessness. We all do this sort of thing. Put a section in a game, don't bother testing it, and assume it'll be fine. Of course, if we're serious about game writing we'll then test the game thoroughly before it's released and catch these bugs. Not Sly Old Dog though. Some of the bugs in Rachel's Bad Day Sly admitted he wasn't sure how to fix but, for whatever reason, he didn't do the sensible thing which would have been to ask for help in fixing them, he just went ahead and released the game anyway. The result? Bugs galore. The game crashes, it can't be saved after a certain point and, the real killer, it's impossible to finish.

A big debate was kicked up over the game, focusing not so much on the game itself but on the bugs within it. The quality, or otherwise, of Rachel's Bad Day, was pretty much forgotten in the rush to either condemn or defend it, with lots of hostility and shouting on both sides. A couple of times Sly was even compared to Vachon, which is the kind of insult that digs deep at the heart of anyone wanting to be a serious game writer.

On one hand, I can agree with the comments of the people defending it:

* It is a free game that the writer has put out there for people to play.

* He does state on his website that it's unfinished and there are problems with it.

* It's an AIF game and they're all crap anyway so what's the big deal?

(The last one is an actual comment someone said, strangely enough. And yes, this guy was defending the game.)

But on the other hand:

* So what it's a free game? Is the argument that providing it's free, it's okay for it to be awful? Can't free games be any good? Check out the yearly IFComps if you want an example of games that are both free and good.

* If it's unfinished, why has it even been released? Even worse, it's unfinished and it's got bugs and yet, despite all common sense dictating otherwise, the writer goes ahead and releases it anyway. If I didn't know better, I'd suspect he likes being flamed.

* It's an AIF game but that doesn't mean it has to be crap. That it's an AIF game is probably a pretty good indicator that it will be crap but, every now and then, it'd be nice to play a game that bucks the trend.

Regarding the last point, the AIF scene has a pretty poor reputation in the wider world of text adventures. I'm sure even its most ardent fans would agree that, outside this group, there aren't many people who give a damn about AIF and wouldn't lose much sleep if it disappeared overnight and was never heard of again.

Why does it have such a terrible reputation?

Games like Rachel's Bad Day go a long way towards explaining the reason. Now if this was a game by a newcomer to the scene who didn't really know what was expected in a game and had missed out all the things that should have been covered, it's likely it wouldn't have generated half as much discussion. In fact, it probably wouldn't have generated any discussion because people would just have assumed it was another bugfest from a newbie and not bothered wasting their time with it. Yet this didn't come from a newbie. It came from someone who has written over ten games.

By the time you reach three or four games, you ought to be getting pretty damn good at the game writing lark. You might have made some dumb mistakes with your earlier games but you've learnt from your mistakes and know how to turn out games that people like. By six or seven games, you're near the top of your field. Your games might not have the extra polish on them that differentiates the true masterpieces from the good games but they're not far off. By ten games, you ought to either be at the top of your field or chomping at the heels of the guy who is top of the field.

You really, really, really shouldn't be releasing games that are riddled with bugs, that crash, that can't be saved and, worse than anything else, can't even be finished. Has Sly learnt nothing from his earlier games? (And yes, they've been criticised for being bugfests as well.) Or, worse, is it that he simply doesn't care? He's happy to bring out games that are littered with bugs and generally looked down upon by almost everyone who plays them?

It's a worrying thing when you think about it that in the AIF world, of the three most prolific writers - Christopher Cole, Vachon and Sly Old Dog - two of them write incredibly quickly and their games are generally criticised for being buggy and not very good. Are their games awful because they write so fast and don't spend enough time testing and re-testing them in order to make them better? Is the idea of adding another game to their tally more important, regardless of the quality of said game, than actually bringing out a decent game?

Part of the problem might be that the AIF scene is looked down upon by almost everyone outside it. A member of the Yahoo group recently posted a message on the RAIF message boards asking people for their opinions on the genre. Every reply was negative.

Why is the AIF scene given such a cold reception by everyone else? The obvious reason is that AIF is about porn and where porn is concerned, people tend to be a bit reticent about admitting they like it. It's a bit dirty and a bit rude and it's kinda childish writing games with naughty stuff in 'em.

All very true. But then there's the second reason for the cold reception: most of AIF is downright awful.

Pick ten games from the Yahoo AIFArchive and play them through. How many are riddled with bugs? How many are full of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors? How many are just plain unfinishable for one reason or another? More than half I'm betting.

Of the few that aren't riddled with bugs, spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and can be finished, how many are actually any good? Any?

I've played probably twenty or so AIF games and of those twenty I've found two that were really good - The Backlot and Ghost Justice - and one - The Birthday - that was reasonable (albeit the spelling and grammar left a lot to be desired). While I'm sure a few other games out there are worthy to be called games, the majority are likely to be pretty awful. The reason? Well…

One thing I've noticed from being a long time lurker and infrequent poster is that the AIF community is an incredibly forgiving place. Someone can bring a game out that's almost unplayable and what happens? He gets slagged off for daring to write such unspeakable tripe? He gets a thorough telling off? He gets himself lynched? No. The community just plays his game anyway and, worse still, actually pretends it's good.

The same thing doesn't happen in the wider world. If someone writes a non-AIF game that's full of bugs, he gets thoroughly beaten over the head for it. He generally gets such a hard time for it that he either makes damn sure his next game is resoundingly better… or he slinks away and never pollutes the community with another one of his dismal efforts again. As such, the prospect of someone writing one bad game after another in the wider world is unlikely to happen*. In the AIF world, it happens all the time.

* There are exceptions to every rule of course. Check out Paul Allen Panks' games if you want an example of someone who writes a lot and writes badly. But he's an anomaly.

I remember when Vachon (thank heavens!) finally packed up his bags and left. Amidst the cries of "good riddance, pal, your games were bleeding dire!" were a few comments along the lines of "no, don't go! You write great games!" Great games? Vachon? I forgot who said that but I read it and wondered if either the person in question hadn't played any of Vachon's games, they were deluded, or they were just so desperate not to let the world's worst game writer depart that they lied through their teeth. Or maybe they were joking. I'm sure no one could play a game by Vachon and like it, let alone think it was great. And yet, someone said it. Heck, they might even have meant it.

So the reason for the AIF scene's remarkably bad reputation? Quite simply: the people in the scene are just as happy to play bad games as they are to play good games. For most of them, I'm doubtful they can even tell the difference between the two. After all, if someone can accuse Vachon of being a great writer then clearly there's something seriously wrong. And with people being happy to play bad games, where is the incentive for the games to improve? Good games are hard to write. Bad games aren't. Anyone can write a bad game. You just sit at the keyboard and bash away at the keys for a while and then unload it without even bothering to check whether it makes any sense or not. You won't get criticised for it because the AIF community doesn't really mind that your game is bad. So why strive and put serious effort into your game writing if people are quite happy to play a game you might have written in your sleep?

Which brings me neatly back to Sly Old Dog. A couple of times now, he's been called the New Vachon (one of the times by yours truly). Unfair? Perhaps. Sly's games are buggy and full of guess the verb and he seems incapable of learning from his past mistakes, no matter how many times they're pointed out to him, but he's certainly a more accomplished game writer than Vachon ever would have been if he hadn't mercifully departed the scene. Yet at the same time, Sly's games fall into the same kind of problems that Vachon's did: errors that lead to unexpected crashes and guess the verb being the main culprits. Also, like Vachon, he seems oblivious to the way his games are received. Quite a few times I've read comments from people who think Sly could actually be a good game writer if he just tried a bit harder to iron out the bugs in his games. Yet despite the recent, and lengthy, debate regarding Rachel's Bad Day, no updated version of the game has been released so far and, perhaps more puzzling, Sly himself hasn't even bothered to comment on it. Doesn't he care? Doesn't he want to defend the game? Or does he simply figure that as most of the games in the AIF world are bad, why should he put in the extra effort to make his any better?

I'm not a big fan of the AIF scene personally. Part of me wants to like it as I'd genuinely like to see a few genuinely well written games with adult content, but the more games I play, the more obvious it is that I'm going to end up disappointed. Writers seem perfectly happy to bring out sub-standard games again and again, and players seem perfectly happy to play sub-standard games.

Wouldn't it be great if all that changed? Hands up anyone who'd like to see every new AIF game that got released be a resounding masterpiece? Or, if not a masterpiece, then at least a well written and erotic piece of game writing?

And then hands up anyone who wants the genre to continue as it does now: crap games being released, people pretending they like them, and more crap games being released as a result.

Bring on the better games, I say, and maybe, just maybe, the rest of the world will stop sneering down its nose at the AIF scene.