AIF

An acronym for "Adult Interactive Fiction" that implies the game deals with adult themes or situations.

The AIF community is, in many ways, divided from the IF community proper. A relatively high proportion of AIF games are written in Adrift, with TADS and Inform also popular options, and several AIF authors are early adopters of TADS 3, possibly due to its sophisticated conversation system. Few AIF games are entered in the IF Competition, and AIF authors rarely post to rec.arts.int-fiction; instead the bulk of AIF discussion on Usenet takes place on the alt.games.xtrek newsgroup. The majority of AIF games are not uploaded to the IF Archive, but instead appear in other places such as The AIF Portal, Matrix Moles AIF Archive, or various Yahoo! groups pages. The majority of AIF is solely pornographic in motive, and contains little interest in terms of puzzles or literary elements.

However, the line is far from clear. Many authors without a centrally-AIF focus have written games which can be considered AIF, such as Adam Cadre's I-0 (Jailbait on the Interstate) and Robb Sherwin's Chicks Dig Jerks. James Mitchelhill's much-derided Kallisti is the best-known of the handful of AIF games entered in the IF Competition, and is certainly literary in intent. Likewise there are a number of AIF games that include quality programing, interesting puzzles, and|or good writing. The AIF community is quite active; there is a newsletter and of course an annual competition called the Erins. A recent addition to the AIF scene is the new AIF Community Portal, which includes forums, downloads and game reviews. The previous AIF Portal, while still available, has not been updated since February, 2004.

Content

The great majority of AIF has a male protagonist, although there are exceptions. Games routinely cover sexually taboo subjects, but virtually none involve non-heterosexual content (the principal exception being the transgendered BDSM game Depravity Bites).

Although they necessarily have a strong focus on NPCs, interaction tends to be somewhat limited and few contain conversation systems; a standard model involves perfunctory seduction performed by simple puzzles, followed by detailed sex involving a great many body-part objects.

Parody

The genre has attracted several parodies, notably Adam Thornton's Stiffy Makane: The Undiscovered Country, a parody of the truly atrocious The Incredible Erotic Adventures of Stiffy Makane; and Blow Job Drifter by Big Al.