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93-629: An eroge ( エロゲ or エロゲー , erogē ; pronounced [e̞ɾó̞ɡe̞(ː)] ), also called an H-game , is a Japanese genre of erotic video game . The term encompasses a wide variety of Japanese games containing erotic content across multiple genres. The first eroge were created in the 1980s, and many well-known companies in the Japanese gaming industry originally produced and distributed them. Some eroge are primarily focused on erotic content, while others, such as Key 's Kanon , only contain occasional scenes in an otherwise non-erotic work. Games in

186-485: A strip poker game featuring digitized pictures of Samantha Fox on the C64, ZX Spectrum , and Amstrad . The same company would later release the controversial Vixen , featuring another page 3 model Corinne Russell . Also, in 1986 On-line Systems (now called Sierra On-Line ) asked game designer Al Lowe to create an adult game in the graphical adventure style made popular by their King's Quest series. Lowe took

279-431: A text parser . Parsers may vary in sophistication; the first text adventure parsers could only handle two-word sentences in the form of verb-noun pairs. Later parsers, such as those built on ZIL ( Zork Implementation Language ), could understand complete sentences. Later parsers could handle increasing levels of complexity parsing sentences such as "open the red box with the green key then go north". This level of complexity

372-530: A 13-episode anime series was produced, as well as another 24-episode anime series in 2006. According to Satoshi Todome's A History of Eroge , Kanon is still the standard for modern eroge and is referred to as a "baptism" for young otaku in Japan. Although many eroge still market themselves primarily on sex, eroge that focus on story are now a major established part of Japanese otaku culture. Voice actors who have voiced for eroge have often been credited under

465-478: A collection containing most of Infocom's games, followed in 1996 by Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces of Infocom . After the decline of the commercial interactive fiction market in the 1990s, an online community eventually formed around the medium. In 1987, the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.int-fiction was created, and was soon followed by rec.games.int-fiction . By custom, the topic of rec.arts.int-fiction

558-466: A demonstration of a Yakyūken -like game running on the FM-8 in the end of 1981 , and he considered Yakyūken was the origin of adult games. Some writers say that Yakyūken (1981) produced for Sharp MZ computers by Hudson Soft is the first Japanese adult game. Like with Koei, several other now-famous Japanese companies such as Enix , Square and Nihon Falcom also released erotic adult games for

651-531: A divorce, he was looking for a way to connect with his two young children. Over the course of a few weekends, he wrote a text based cave exploration game that featured a sort of guide/narrator who spoke in full sentences and who understood simple two word commands that came close to natural English. Adventure was programmed in Fortran for the PDP-10 . Crowther's original version was an accurate simulation of part of

744-421: A few erotic scenes. Another subgenre is called "nukige" ( 抜きゲー , Nukigē ) , in which sexual gratification of the player is the main focus of the game. There is no set definition for the gameplay of eroge , except that they all include explicit erotic or sexual content depending on the game. Like other pornographic media in Japan, erotic scenes feature censorship of genitalia , only becoming uncensored if

837-623: A former Implementor at Infocom, started a new game company, Cascade Mountain Publishing, whose goals were to publish interactive fiction. Despite the Interactive Fiction community providing social and financial backing, Cascade Mountain Publishing went out of business in 2000. Other commercial endeavors include: Peter Nepstad's 1893: A World's Fair Mystery , several games by Howard Sherman published as Malinche Entertainment , The General Coffee Company's Future Boy!, Cypher ,

930-546: A game, and caused a growth boom in the online interactive fiction community. Despite the lack of commercial support, the availability of high quality tools allowed enthusiasts of the genre to develop new high quality games. Competitions such as the annual Interactive Fiction Competition for short works, the Spring Thing for longer works, and the XYZZY Awards , further helped to improve the quality and complexity of

1023-640: A graphically enhanced cyberpunk game and various titles by Textfyre . Emily Short was commissioned to develop the game City of Secrets but the project fell through and she ended up releasing it herself. The games that won both the Interactive Fiction Competition and the XYZZY Awards are All Roads (2001), Slouching Towards Bedlam (2003), Vespers (2005), Lost Pig (2007), Violet (2008), Aotearoa (2010), Coloratura (2013), and The Wizard Sniffer (2017). The original Interactive fiction Colossal Cave Adventure

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1116-638: A group of enthusiasts called the InfoTaskForce and the subsequent development of an interpreter for Z-Code story files. As a result, it became possible to play Infocom's work on modern computers. For years, amateurs with the IF community produced interactive fiction works of relatively limited scope using the Adventure Game Toolkit and similar tools. The breakthrough that allowed the interactive fiction community to truly prosper, however,

1209-499: A hit, helping Koei become a major software company. In another opinion, Yuji Horii recalled in 1986 that he saw a demonstration of a Yakyūken -like game running on the FM-8 in the end of 1981 , and he considered Yakyūken was the origin of adult games. Some writers say that Yakyūken produced for Sharp MZ computers by Hudson Soft is the first Japanese adult game. Other now-famous Japanese companies such as Enix , Square and Nihon Falcom also released erotic adult games for

1302-508: A large number of platforms, and took standardized "story files" as input. In a non-technical sense, Infocom was responsible for developing the interactive style that would be emulated by many later interpreters. The Infocom parser was widely regarded as the best of its era. It accepted complex, complete sentence commands like "put the blue book on the writing desk" at a time when most of its competitors parsers were restricted to simple two word verb-noun combinations such as "put book". The parser

1395-527: A lawsuit by a woman who explained that she was only seventeen years old when the footage was taken, thus classifying it as child pornography , which is illegal to own or sell in some countries. Sex scenes and nudity have also appeared in Quantic Dream 's Fahrenheit and Heavy Rain , released for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 respectively. Sexuality and sexual frustration is also

1488-525: A narrative work, the software programs ELIZA (1964–1966) and SHRDLU (1968–1970) can formally be considered early examples of interactive fiction, as both programs used natural language processing to take input from their user and respond in a virtual and conversational manner. ELIZA simulated a psychotherapist that appeared to provide human-like responses to the user's input, while SHRDLU employed an artificial intelligence that could move virtual objects around an environment and respond to questions asked about

1581-433: A pseudonym. As the visual novel standard was adopted, the erotic parts in eroge began to become less and less apparent. Many eroge become more story-oriented than sex-oriented, making story the main focus for many modern eroge . More and more people who used to reject such type of games began to become more open-minded, realizing that eroge are not just about sex anymore. A lot of story-focused eroge tend to have only

1674-755: A sentimental story the size of a long novel (an all-ages version was also released afterward). Kanon sold over 300,000 copies. In response to increasing pressure from Japanese lobby groups , in mid-1996 Sega of Japan announced that they would no longer permit Sega Saturn games to include nudity. Many fanservice video games with sexual content have some brief nudity. The "M" rated series Senran Kagura has some nudity in both gameplay and cutscenes but genitals are not displayed. Fanservice games rated "T" such as Hyperdimension Neptunia offer similar content but less than what Senran Kagura has. However, since 2018, Sony has now issued new regulations for PlayStation 4 games with both fanservice and sexual content. For

1767-463: A similar game by Tactics , One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e , became a hit in 1998, Visual Arts scouted main creative staff of One to form a new brand under them, which became Key . In 1999, Key released Kanon . It contains only about seven brief erotic scenes in a sentimental story the size of a long novel (an all-ages version was also released afterward), but the enthusiasm of the response was unprecedented, and Kanon sold over 300,000 copies. In 2002

1860-434: A single player environment. Interactive fiction features two distinct modes of writing: the player input and the game output. As described above, player input is expected to be in simple command form ( imperative sentences ). A typical command may be: > PULL Lever The responses from the game are usually written from a second-person point of view , in present tense . This is because, unlike in most works of fiction,

1953-446: A special version of the first three Zork titles together with plot-specific coins and other trinkets. This concept would be expanded as time went on, such that later game feelies would contain passwords, coded instructions, page numbers, or other information that would be required to successfully complete the game. Interactive fiction became a standard product for many software companies. By 1982 Softline wrote that "the demands of

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2046-411: A sweetly sentimental story of high school love that became one of the most famous and trendsetting eroge ever. To Heart 's music was so popular it was added to karaoke machines throughout Japan—a first for eroge . In response to increasing pressure from Japanese lobby groups , in mid-1996 Sega of Japan announced that they would no longer permit Sega Saturn games to include nudity. After

2139-399: A textual exchange and accept similar commands from players as do works of IF; however, since interactive fiction is single player, and MUDs, by definition, have multiple players, they differ enormously in gameplay styles. MUDs often focus gameplay on activities that involve communities of players, simulated political systems, in-game trading, and other gameplay mechanics that are not possible in

2232-463: A theme prevalent in the Silent Hill series of survival-horror games. A new generation of adult social games has emerged that bring multiple users together in sexual environments. Examples include Red Light Center , Singles: Flirt Up Your Life and Playboy: The Mansion . While it is not explicitly intended for purely adult-oriented entertainment, the virtual world of Second Life , which

2325-662: A troll, elves, and a volcano, which some claim is based on Mount Doom , but Woods says was not. In early 1977, Adventure spread across ARPAnet , and has survived on the Internet to this day. The game has since been ported to many other operating systems , and was included with the floppy-disk distribution of Microsoft's MS-DOS 1.0 OS. Adventure is a cornerstone of the online IF community; there currently exist dozens of different independently programmed versions, with additional elements, such as new rooms or puzzles, and various scoring systems. The popularity of Adventure led to

2418-566: A wider variety of sentences. For instance one might type "open the large door, then go west", or "go to the hall". With the Z-machine, Infocom was able to release most of their games for most popular home computers of the time simultaneously, including Apple II , Atari 8-bit computers , IBM PC compatibles , Amstrad CPC / PCW (one disc worked on both machines), Commodore 64 , Commodore Plus/4 , Commodore 128 , Kaypro CP/M , TI-99/4A , Macintosh , Atari ST , Amiga , and TRS-80 . During

2511-524: Is a Japanese erotic video game . The earliest known commercial erotic computer game is PSK's Lolita Yakyūken , released in 1982 . That same year, Koei released the erotic title, Seduction of the Condominium Wife ( 団地妻の誘惑 , Danchi Zuma no Yūwaku ) , which was an early role-playing adventure game with color graphics, owing to the eight-color palette of the PC-8001 computer. It became

2604-399: Is believed to have originated with Deadline (1982), the third Infocom title after Zork I and II . When writing this game, it was not possible to include all of the information in the limited (80KB) disk space, so Infocom created the first feelies for this game; extra items that gave more information than could be included within the digital game itself. These included police interviews,

2697-638: Is for this reason that game designers and programmers can be referred to as an implementer , often shortened to "Imp", rather than a writer. In early 1979, the game was completed. Ten members of the MIT Dynamics Modelling Group went on to join Infocom when it was incorporated later that year. In order to make its games as portable as possible, Infocom developed the Z-machine , a custom virtual machine that could be implemented on

2790-423: Is increasing steadily as new ones are produced by an online community, using freely available development systems. The term can also be used to refer to literary works that are not read in a linear fashion, known as gamebooks , where the reader is instead given choices at different points in the text; these decisions determine the flow and outcome of the story. The most famous example of this form of printed fiction

2883-566: Is interactive fiction authorship and programming, while rec.games.int-fiction encompasses topics related to playing interactive fiction games, such as hint requests and game reviews. As of late 2011, discussions between writers have mostly moved from rec.arts.int-fiction to the Interactive Fiction Community Forum. One of the most important early developments was the reverse-engineering of Infocom's Z-Code format and Z-Machine virtual machine in 1987 by

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2976-408: Is made up almost entirely of player-made content, has an array of very exotic adult entertainment including nudity and full-on sexual activities. Adult games may take the form of bootlegs , circumventing mainstream publishers who may have policies against such games. Patches or hacks to mainstream non-adult games may add sexual and pornographic themes, mostly for humor , especially when sexuality

3069-433: Is now leaving Marvelous. Interactive fiction Interactive fiction ( IF ) is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives , either in the form of Interactive narratives or Interactive narrations . These works can also be understood as a form of video game , either in

3162-521: Is the Choose Your Own Adventure book series, and the collaborative " addventure " format has also been described as a form of interactive fiction. The term "interactive fiction" is sometimes used also to refer to visual novels , a type of interactive narrative software popular in Japan. Text adventures are one of the oldest types of computer games and form a subset of the adventure genre. The player uses text input to control

3255-638: Is the standard for works of interactive fiction today. Despite their lack of graphics, text adventures include a physical dimension where players move between rooms. Many text adventure games boasted their total number of rooms to indicate how much gameplay they offered. These games are unique in that they may create an illogical space , where going north from area A takes you to area B, but going south from area B did not take you back to area A. This can create mazes that do not behave as players expect, and thus players must maintain their own map. These illogical spaces are much more rare in today's era of 3D gaming, and

3348-647: The Apple II . Despite heavy piracy, the game still sold 25,000 copies, roughly equivalent to 25% of the number of Apple II computers sold at the time. In a 1981 article in Time , On-Line reported that they were making a version of the game for straight women, though this never materialized. Several pornographic games, such as X-Man , were created for the Atari 2600 in the early 1980s. The video game company, American Multiple Industries , released three unlicensed games for

3441-473: The Japanese pornographic eroge subgenre is popular worldwide. First appearing in the 1980s, these games vary significantly in narrative complexity as well as the level of interactivity , taking forms ranging from the visual novel to virtual reality experiences. One of the earliest video games to feature sexual themes was the 1981 text-based Softporn Adventure , published by On-Line Systems for

3534-520: The NEC PC-8801 . That same year, Koei released another erotic title, Danchi Tsuma no Yuwaku ( Seduction of the Condominium Wife ), which was an early role-playing adventure game with colour graphics, owing to the eight-color palette of the NEC PC-8001 computer. It became a hit, helping Koei become a major software company. In another opinion, Yuji Horii recalled in 1986 that he saw

3627-515: The Oculus Rift and HTC Vive , allow users to engage in virtual sex through simulated environments. An example is VR Kanojo . Blizzard Entertainment 's 2016 game Overwatch has inspired a notable amount of fan-made porn . Short porn videos featuring official characters have been animated via Source Filmmaker and are popular on porn sites such as Pornhub . Despite its popularity, Blizzard has issued cease-and-desist orders to some of

3720-493: The PC-8801 computer in the early 1980s before they became mainstream. Early eroge usually had simplistic stories and extreme sexual content, such as rape and lolicon . In some of the early erotic games, the erotic content is meaningfully integrated into a thoughtful and mature storyline, though others often used it as simply an excuse for pornography. In 1999, Key released Kanon . It contains about 7 brief erotic scenes in

3813-564: The X68000 or MS-DOS , whilst the MSX platform (which had many eroge games in the 1980s) was nearing the end of its lifetime. Eroge was much less common on consoles – only NEC 's PC Engine series had officially licensed adult games, and from the mid-90s, Sega 's Saturn . Both Nintendo and Sony disallowed adult video games on their consoles. Games also started to appear on Windows as it grew in popularity. There were also some titles on

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3906-434: The Z-machine . As the games were text based and used variants of the same Z-machine interpreter, the interpreter only had to be ported to a computer once, rather than once each game. Each game file included a sophisticated parser which allowed the user to type complex instructions to the game. Unlike earlier works of interactive fiction which only understood commands of the form 'verb noun', Infocom's parser could understand

3999-547: The arcades , such as the Gals Panic series. In 1992, Elf released Dōkyūsei . In it, before any eroticism, the user has to first win the affection of one of a number of female characters, making the story into an interactive romance novel . Thus, the love simulation genre was invented. Soon afterwards, the video game Otogirisou on the Super Famicom attracted the attention of many Japanese gamers. Otogirisou

4092-533: The 1990s (with a final game in 2002). Voyeur by Philips came out in 1993 for their CD-i console. While the game does not show any explicit nudity, it allows the player to spy on several characters in lingerie , and foreplay and explores taboos such as BDSM and incest . In the 1990s, NEC (on the PC Engine series and PC-FX ) and Sega (on Sega Saturn ) were the only companies who officially allowed sexual content on their consoles in Japan , but eroge

4185-508: The 1990s Interactive fiction was mainly written with C-like languages, such as TADS 2 and Inform 6. A number of systems for writing interactive fiction now exist. The most popular remain Inform , TADS , or ADRIFT , but they diverged in their approach to IF-writing during the 2000s, giving today's IF writers an objective choice. By 2006 IFComp , most games were written for Inform, with a strong minority of games for TADS and ADRIFT, followed by

4278-728: The Apple II. SwordThrust and Eamon were simple two-word parser games with many role-playing elements not available in other interactive fiction. While SwordThrust published seven different titles, it was vastly overshadowed by the non-commercial Eamon system which allowed private authors to publish their own titles in the series. By March 1984, there were 48 titles published for the Eamon system (and over 270 titles in total as of March 2013). In Italy, interactive fiction games were mainly published and distributed through various magazines in included tapes. The largest number of games were published in

4371-536: The Atari 2600; Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em , Custer's Revenge , and Bachelor Party . The games were poorly received (particularly Custer's Revenge, which is considered to be one of the worst games ever made ), and AMI went out of business in 1983 . Company PlayAround purchased the rights to these games and began distributing them under new titles in 2-in-1 cartridges. In 1983, Entertainment Enterprises, Ltd. released an arcade game called Swinging Singles, which

4464-560: The Club de Aventuras AD (CAAD), the main Spanish speaking community around interactive fiction in the world, was founded, and after the end of Aventuras AD in 1992, the CAAD continued on its own, first with their own magazine, and then with the advent of Internet, with the launch of an active internet community that still produces interactive non commercial fiction nowadays. Legend Entertainment

4557-546: The Galaxy and A Mind Forever Voyaging . In June 1977, Marc Blank , Bruce K. Daniels, Tim Anderson , and Dave Lebling began writing the mainframe version of Zork (also known as Dungeon ), at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science . The game was programmed in a computer language called MDL , a variant of LISP . The term Implementer was the self-given name of the creators of the text adventure series Zork. It

4650-403: The Interactive Fiction community in general decries the use of mazes entirely, claiming that mazes have become arbitrary 'puzzles for the sake of puzzles' and that they can, in the hands of inexperienced designers, become immensely frustrating for players to navigate. Interactive fiction shares much in common with Multi-User Dungeons ('MUDs'). MUDs, which became popular in the mid-1980s, rely on

4743-537: The Internet. Eek Games' House Party has scenes of nudity and sexual encounters. The game officially released on digital distribution platforms for Microsoft Windows with leaving early access on July 15, 2022. In 1982, Japan's Koei , founded by husband-and-wife team Yoichi and Keiko Erikawa (and later known for strategy video games ), released the first erotic computer game with sexually explicit graphics, Night Life , an early graphic adventure game for

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4836-473: The PC-8801 computer in the early 1980s before they became mainstream. Early eroge usually had simple stories, some even involving anal sex , which often led to widespread condemnation from the Japanese media. In some of the early erotic games, the erotic content is meaningfully integrated into a thoughtful and mature storytelling, though others often used it as a flimsy excuse for pornography. Erotic games made

4929-506: The PC-8801 popular, but customers quickly became tired of paying 8800 yen ($ 85) for such simple games. Soon, new genres were invented: ASCII's Chaos Angels , a role-playing -based eroge , inspired Dragon Knight by Elf and Rance by AliceSoft . In the early 1990s eroge games became much more common. Most eroge games, a fairly large library, found its way on the PC-9801 platform. FM Towns also received many games, more so than

5022-522: The Pulsating Pectorals . With CD-ROM and multimedia-based games in the 1990s, most adult games featured video clips with limited interactivity. Both pre-rendered and real-time 3D graphics were also used. While most games could be considered nothing more than pornography , some attempted to include actual stories and plots. This can be seen in some games with less explicit content, equal to an R -rated or PG-13 -rated movie. 1990 saw

5115-853: The basic elements of Softporn Adventure , greatly expanded it, and released it as the 1987 game Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards . Sierra did not advertise the game, and retailers were loath to carry it, so initial sales were low. However, word-of-mouth spread, and soon the Leisure Suit Larry series was a success, spawning two sequels before the end of the decade, 1988's Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places) , and 1989's Leisure Suit Larry III: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of

5208-518: The coroner's findings, letters, crime scene evidence and photos of the murder scene. These materials were very difficult for others to copy or otherwise reproduce, and many included information that was essential to completing the game. Seeing the potential benefits of both aiding game-play immersion and providing a measure of creative copy-protection, in addition to acting as a deterrent to software piracy, Infocom and later other companies began creating feelies for numerous titles. In 1987, Infocom released

5301-487: The creators. Indie games have expanded the reach of adult games, and Steam now allows adult games onto its storefront. Patreon provides direct funding to adult developers, allowing games like Hardcoded to appeal to niche markets that previously would not have been created. The continuing rise of open-source software development practices has also influenced adult video games, allowing communities of amateurs to collaboratively create and distribute adult games via

5394-463: The decades, sometimes resulting in calls for increased regulation and legislation dealing directly with adult content. In Western gaming, the promise of sexual content in games is commonly used as a marketing tool, but many highly sexualized games do not feature any explicitly adult content. Though some games do use sex acts or nudity as a narrative device , in-game reward, or a gameplay element, purely pornographic games are uncommon. However,

5487-509: The early 1980s Edu-Ware also produced interactive fiction for the Apple II as designated by the "if" graphic that was displayed on startup. Their titles included the Prisoner and Empire series ( Empire I: World Builders , Empire II: Interstellar Sharks , Empire III: Armageddon ). In 1981, CE Software published SwordThrust as a commercial successor to the Eamon gaming system for

5580-458: The environment's shape. The development of effective natural language processing would become an essential part of interactive fiction development. Around 1975, Will Crowther , a programmer and an amateur caver, wrote the first text adventure game, Adventure (originally called ADVENT because a filename could only be six characters long in the operating system he was using, and later named Colossal Cave Adventure ). Having just gone through

5673-613: The first commercial adventure game. In 1979 he founded Adventure International, the first commercial publisher of interactive fiction. That same year, Dog Star Adventure was published in source code form in SoftSide , spawning legions of similar games in BASIC . The largest company producing works of interactive fiction was Infocom , which created the Zork series and many other titles, among them Trinity , The Hitchhiker's Guide to

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5766-533: The first commercial work of interactive fiction produced outside the U.S. was the dungeon crawl game of Acheton , produced in Cambridge, England, and first commercially released by Acornsoft (later expanded and reissued by Topologika ). Other leading companies in the UK were Magnetic Scrolls and Level 9 Computing . Also worthy of mention are Delta 4 , Melbourne House , and the homebrew company Zenobi . In

5859-426: The form of an adventure game or role-playing game . In common usage, the term refers to text adventures , a type of adventure game where the entire interface can be " text-only ", however, graphical text adventure games, where the text is accompanied by graphics (still images, animations or video) still fall under the text adventure category if the main way to interact with the game is by typing text. Some users of

5952-399: The game and decided to design one of their own, but with graphics. Adventure International was founded by Scott Adams (not to be confused with the creator of Dilbert ). In 1978, Adams wrote Adventureland , which was loosely patterned after the (original) Colossal Cave Adventure . He took out a small ad in a computer magazine in order to promote and sell Adventureland , thus creating

6045-801: The game is licensed and released outside Japan, unless produced illegally by dōjin (usually with a construction kit like NScripter or RPG Maker ). Additionally, some games may receive an "all-ages" version, such as a port to consoles or handheld devices where pornographic content is not allowed, which either remove or censor the sex scenes entirely. Eroge is most often a visual novel or dating sim . However, there are also many other gameplay genres represented within eroge , such as role-playing games , mahjong games , or puzzle games . Some eroge , such as those made by Illusion Soft , are just simulations of sex, with no "conventional" gameplay included. Erotic video game The inclusion of sex in games has been subject to varying levels of controversy over

6138-419: The game, and the game state is relayed to the player via text output. Interactive fiction usually relies on reading from a screen and on typing input, although text-to-speech synthesizers allow blind and visually impaired users to play interactive fiction titles as audio games . Input is usually provided by the player in the form of simple sentences such as "get key" or "go east", which are interpreted by

6231-446: The games. Modern games go much further than the original "Adventure" style, improving upon Infocom games, which relied extensively on puzzle solving, and to a lesser extent on communication with non player characters, to include experimentation with writing and story-telling techniques. While the majority of modern interactive fiction that is developed is distributed for free, there are some commercial endeavors. In 1998, Michael Berlyn ,

6324-468: The genre, then faded and remains still today a topic of interest for a small group of fans and less known developers, celebrated on Web sites and in related newsgroups. In Spain, interactive fiction was considered a minority genre, and was not very successful. The first Spanish interactive fiction commercially released was Yenght in 1983, by Dinamic Software , for the ZX Spectrum. Later on, in 1987,

6417-610: The last game ever created by Legend was Unreal II: The Awakening (2003) – the well-known first-person shooter action game using the Unreal Engine for both impressive graphics and realistic physics. In 2004, Legend Entertainment was acquired by Atari , who published Unreal II and released for both Microsoft Windows and Microsoft's Xbox. Many other companies such as Level 9 Computing, Magnetic Scrolls, Delta 4 and Zenobi had closed by 1992. In 1991 and 1992, Activision released The Lost Treasures of Infocom in two volumes,

6510-403: The latter category are often re-released with sexual content removed for general audiences. Throughout its history, the genre has faced controversy for its use of explicit sexual content, and as a result has been banned from several console platforms. Eroge is a portmanteau of "erotic game" ( エロチックゲーム , erochikku gēmu ) . Such games are also referred to as an "H-game" ( Hゲーム ) . Eroge

6603-399: The leading company producing text-only adventure games on the Apple II with sophisticated parsers and writing, and still advertising its lack of graphics as a virtue. The company was bought by Activision in 1986 after the failure of Cornerstone , Infocom's database software program, and stopped producing text adventures a few years later. Soon after Telaium/Trillium also closed. Probably

6696-417: The localized release of Senran Kagura Burst Re:Newal , "Intimacy Mode", a mode where the player can play with the characters' bodies was removed, but by comparison, this mode is still available in the series' previous titles Senran Kagura: Estival Versus and Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash . The PC release of Burst Re:Newal was not changed. Many other recent PS4 games with sexual content are facing

6789-481: The main character is closely associated with the player, and the events are seen to be happening as the player plays. While older text adventures often identified the protagonist with the player directly, newer games tend to have specific, well-defined protagonists with separate identities from the player. The classic essay "Crimes Against Mimesis" discusses, among other IF issues, the nature of "You" in interactive fiction. A typical response might look something like this,

6882-500: The market are weighted heavily toward hi-res graphics" in games like Sierra's The Wizard and the Princess and its imitators. Such graphic adventures became the dominant form of the genre on computers with graphics, like the Apple II. By 1982 Adventure International began releasing versions of its games with graphics. The company went bankrupt in 1985. Synapse Software and Acornsoft were also closed in 1985, leaving Infocom as

6975-407: The player in the position of an observer, rather than a direct participant. In some 'experimental' IF, the concept of self-identification is eliminated, and the player instead takes the role of an inanimate object, a force of nature, or an abstract concept; experimental IF usually pushes the limits of the concept and challenges many assumptions about the medium. Though neither program was developed as

7068-531: The real life Mammoth Cave , but also included fantasy elements (such as axe-wielding dwarves and a magic bridge). Stanford University graduate student Don Woods discovered Adventure while working at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory , and in 1977 obtained and expanded Crowther's source code (with Crowther's permission). Woods's changes were reminiscent of the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien , and included

7161-415: The release of the first game in the Gals Panic series. The game derived gameplay elements from an older title called Qix , which did not have sexual images. The object of the games is to slowly remove pieces of the playing field while avoiding an enemy or groups of enemies. Removing the playing field slowly reveals pictures of models in escalating states of undress. The game had nine sequels throughout

7254-470: The response to "look in tea chest" at the start of Curses : "That was the first place you tried, hours and hours ago now, and there's nothing there but that boring old book. You pick it up anyway, bored as you are." Many text adventures, particularly those designed for humour (such as Zork , The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , and Leather Goddesses of Phobos ), address the player with an informal tone, sometimes including sarcastic remarks (see

7347-589: The same company produced an interactive fiction about Don Quijote . After several other attempts, the company Aventuras AD , emerged from Dinamic, became the main interactive fiction publisher in Spain, including titles like a Spanish adaptation of Colossal Cave Adventure , an adaptation of the Spanish comic El Jabato , and mainly the Ci-U-Than trilogy, composed by La diosa de Cozumel (1990), Los templos sagrados (1991) and Chichen Itzá (1992). During this period,

7440-510: The same problem from Sony, including Neptunia , Date a Live: Rio Reincarnation , Death end re;Quest and the Nekopara series, although Sony did allow nudity and a sex scene in The Last of Us Part II . This controversy had become a problem for the development of Senran Kagura 7even , in which publishers Marvelous are now reconsidering the game and series producer Kenichiro Takaki

7533-493: The term distinguish between interactive fiction, known as "Puzzle-free", that focuses on narrative, and "text adventures" that focus on puzzles . Due to their text-only nature, they sidestepped the problem of writing for widely divergent graphics architectures. This feature meant that interactive fiction games were easily ported across all the popular platforms at the time, including CP/M (not known for gaming or strong graphics capabilities). The number of interactive fiction works

7626-632: The title God of War (2005), and also developed by Sony, a game based on Greek mythology set in Ancient Greece , where nudity was perceived differently. Nudity was subsequently featured in the game's sequels, God of War II (2007), God of War: Chains of Olympus (2008), God of War III (2010), God of War: Ghost of Sparta (2010), and God of War: Ascension (2013), which were also based on Greek mythology. The full-motion video quiz game The Guy Game (2004) gained notoriety for its use of an underage model. The scenes in question led to

7719-426: The transcript from Curses , above, for an example). The late Douglas Adams, in designing the IF version of his 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy', created a unique solution to the final puzzle of the game: the game requires the one solitary item that the player didn't choose at the outset of play. Some IF works dispense with second-person narrative entirely, opting for a first-person perspective ('I') or even placing

7812-526: The two magazines Viking and Explorer, with versions for the main 8-bit home computers ( ZX Spectrum , Commodore 64 , and MSX ). The software house producing those games was Brainstorm Enterprise, and the most prolific IF author was Bonaventura Di Bello , who produced 70 games in the Italian language. The wave of interactive fiction in Italy lasted for a couple of years thanks to the various magazines promoting

7905-460: The wide success of interactive fiction during the late 1970s, when home computers had little, if any, graphics capability. Many elements of the original game have survived into the present, such as the command ' xyzzy ', which is now included as an Easter Egg in modern games, such as Microsoft Minesweeper . Adventure was also directly responsible for the founding of Sierra Online (later Sierra Entertainment ); Ken and Roberta Williams played

7998-457: Was a standard adventure game but had multiple endings. This concept was called a "sound novel". In 1996, the new software developer and publisher Leaf expanded on this idea, calling it a visual novel and releasing their first successful game, Shizuku , a horror story starring a rapist high school student, with very highly reviewed writing and music. Their next game, Kizuato , was almost as dark. However, in 1997, they released To Heart ,

8091-400: Was actively upgraded with new features like undo and error correction, and later games would 'understand' multiple sentence input: 'pick up the gem and put it in my bag. take the newspaper clipping out of my bag then burn it with the book of matches'. Several companies offered optional commercial feelies (physical props associated with a game). The tradition of 'feelies' (and the term itself)

8184-534: Was founded by Bob Bates and Mike Verdu in 1989. It started out from the ashes of Infocom. The text adventures produced by Legend Entertainment used (high-resolution) graphics as well as sound. Some of their titles include Eric the Unready , the Spellcasting series and Gateway (based on Frederik Pohl 's novels). The last text adventure created by Legend Entertainment was Gateway II (1992), while

8277-662: Was more prevalent on the NEC PC-98 and FM Towns computer platforms. Modern console publishers often have policies against depictions of nudity and explicit sexuality, particularly Sony Computer Entertainment with its PlayStation brand of consoles. BMX XXX for the PlayStation 2 was censored in the American release, while versions on the Xbox and GameCube were not and featured nudity. However, Sony allowed nudity in

8370-526: Was mostly meant for bars , adult stores , and sex clubs . The game requires the player to drive through the city maze, gathering dots like Pac-Man before reaching a brothel where the player is required to fight off venereal disease and collect keys to unlock sex scenes. Also released in 1983 was Strip Poker: A Sizzling Game of Chance for the Commodore 64 and other 8-bit platforms , which Artworx Software created. In 1986, Martech released

8463-895: Was never intended in the original game. Examples include the Tomb Raider video games, the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Hot Coffee mod , The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion , The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim , and the Half-Life 2 FakeFactory Cinematic mod and ROM hacks for console emulators . The Internet has allowed adult games to receive wider availability and recognition, including amateur games in Adobe Flash or Java. It has also allowed amateurs to create and distribute adult text adventure games, known as "Adult Interactive Fiction" or AIF. Modern consumer virtual reality headsets , such as

8556-437: Was programmed in Fortran , originally developed by IBM . Adventure's parsers could only handle two-word sentences in the form of verb-noun pairs. Infocom 's games of 1979–88, such as Zork , were written using a LISP -like programming language called ZIL (Zork Implementation Language or Zork Interactive Language; it was referred to as both) that compiled into a byte code able to run on a standardized virtual machine called

8649-407: Was the creation and distribution of two sophisticated development systems. In 1987, Michael J. Roberts released TADS , a programming language designed to produce works of interactive fiction. In 1993, Graham Nelson released Inform , a programming language and set of libraries which compiled to a Z-Code story file. Each of these systems allowed anyone with sufficient time and dedication to create

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