Are pictures mandatory now?

Back when I first got into AIF there were ZERO pictures, I can't remember when they first appeared but it was definitely Goblinboy that was the first to implement then in a large way and popularize their use.

Personally, I don't care for them unless the game is visually focused, if there's text descriptions along with pictures I'll turn the pictures off, and let my imagination do the work. It's not like I hate when a game has pictures, not at all, just given the option, I'll go without.

That's just my preference, and clearly I'm in the miniority. But my question is, how much am I limiting myself by not including pictures? Is any AIF game without pictures doomed to obscurity? As has been discussed recently, all the stuff on patreon is very picture heavy (and largely crap), and if people are willing to spend actual money on frankly awful games solely because they have pictures where does that leave games that go without?

In my case, as an author, I have no interest in producing pictures myself, but I did enjoy the image that Lost Trout made for my game from the AIF Minifest - http://adultinteractivefiction.blogspot.com/2016/09/aif-minifest-2016.html (and it uncannily nailed the image I had in my head for the character!)

Back at it

I didn't have much time at all to work on the game over the holidays but my schedule is back to normal now and I hope to pick up the pace a bit.

I've decided against using Inform, the time it would take to learn a whole new programming language could be better spent on finishing up what I've already started in Adrift. Maybe in the future, but for now I'm sticking with Adrift.

Should I switch to Inform 7?

I like Adrift for it's ease of use and visual representation of the game but I'm finding it limiting and it seems like it's one of the least popular formats for AIF these days. I've been looking at Inform 7 and it looks full featured and relatively easy to learn but I have ZERO programming experience. Am I biting off more than I can chew? With work/life stuff etc I don't have a ton of time to work on AIF stuff anyways and I worry that learning a new programming language will make it even harder to get stuff done.

That being said though, Inform is probably my 2nd favorite format to play AIF in and I'd be much more satisfied with my work if it was in Inform than Adrift so maybe it'd be worth it? There's also the work being done by Fictitious Frode (https://informedaif.wordpress.com) and Green Double Aught (http://doubleaughtgames.blogspot.com) which looks promising even though I don't quite understand what I'd do with it yet.

Progress!

So, I started the game over from scratch and made a bit of progress beyond what I had already. So far I've gotten the character descriptions and the room descriptions done which not counting the sex scenes is the bulk of the writing. Slow going, but things have been busy here in my personal life (Civilization 6 was released) but now that I've got things back on a solid base the pace should pick up.

Unbelievable.

So, I was in the midst of working on the game and suddenly, my computer crashed. No big deal, I had saved recently. So after the restart I start up Adrift again and... my game is suddenly password protected. The game I had never password protected. I tried my regular passwords, thinking maybe I had set it and forgotten but, nope. No luck. And when I try to open the game with the runner, it says "this is not an ADRIFT game" so my guess is it's corrupted & totally shot.

I'm totally stumped at what to do, I can't think of any way to break the password protection or bypass it in some way. It's not like the game was 95% finished and I lost EVERYTHING but still! A few weeks worth of progress is gone. Not really sure on how I'll continue forward, having to redo all of the basics, character and room descriptions, etc really saps the motivation.

Progress Update

I've started working more on The Gym game, after reading the feedback that seemed to be what most people were interested in so I'll invest my time into that.  I'm going to try to post weekly progress blogs to keep people updated and to hold myself more accountable for actually working on the thing!

So what I've got so far:

• Map layout completed and all rooms sketched in
• All characters created and described
• Basic plot sketched out

Doesn't seem like much, and it isn't but It's a start.

Drawing Board

After finishing First Date I had planned on jumping right in to the full gym game (I'm trying to think of a ribald pun name for the gym but I'm not coming up with anything!) but I think I'm going to branch out a bit and do something different just to keep things fresh. There's a few ideas on the burner:
(All working titles btw)

• Lust on the Orient Express
• Set in the 1920's, you play as a suave con artist out to scam the wealthy women on the train out of their glittering jewels... and their vintage underwear that I'll have to do some research on.
• Thargwulf and Sorceress of Yharn
• Campy Conan the Barbarian style thing, escape from the dungeons of Ghazaradun and pillage the tower of Prince Urzalan! And maybe pillage the princess as well while you're at it!
• Fairview Heights
• Set in the 1950's, you play a young man who has recently moved to a quant suburb to set up a business as a handyman. There's plenty of bored housewives who need help with the plumbing, and maybe a certain Hollywood starlet has moved in to avoid paparazzi?
• The Gym
• Picking up the story a few weeks after your somewhat disastrous first date with Katherine where you realized that she was your boss, you and a total jock meathead idiot coworker are up for a promotion. Can you help out enough gym members (and staff!) to prove your worth? And hopefully continue where you left off with Katherine?
• Voyeur Neighbor
• After you moved in next to two gorgeous college girls you found yourself unable to resist spying on them whenever you could. Your guilt started to lift however once you realized that the opened blinds, and topless sunbathing in the backyard was done on purpose and for your benefit...

So that's what I've got so far! Some of them will end up being shorter while a few might end up being longer.  Any interest in one of these more than the others?