Oh great, Jackson thought as he stepped through the vagina-shaped opening and into the mountain, more of the stupid organ-grinder music playing in the background. Another damn earworm that was going to be stuck in his head for the next week. Other games had moved on to atmospheric doom chords and blasts of heavy metal. JRPGs were still stuck in the land of rainbows and unicorn farts.
And whoa.
Okay, so that was impressive. The mountain was hollow inside. A cross section was revealed to him like the glass wall of an ant farm. Or termite farm, he supposed, given the shape of the mountain. It was a complex mass of scaffolding arranged in a stack of blocky rooms that extended up the inside of the mountain. They went up a long way, too far for Jackson to see the top. Each ‘room’ was illuminated with different coloured lamps. They all teemed with monsters.
Fuck. That was a shit load of levels, Jackson thought. Do not be another fucking Blighttown. Once through there was enough.
He spotted a stone archway at the base of the tower. Looked as good an entrance as any, he thought, walking towards it. To the right of the archway was a small pedestal. Sitting on top, under a glass dome, was a giant bubblegum sweet in a garish, stripy wrapper. On top of the dome was a folded note with the words ‘Eat Me’ written on it in large letters.
Yeah right, did they really think he was that gullible? Jackson thought.
He ignored it and walked through the stone archway. There followed a strange feeling of dislocation, as if the universe had been turned sideways and passed through a funhouse mirror. The world on the other side looked different. Jackson thought one of his eyes might be playing up, but a hand over each revealed both were working fine.
Which was more than could be said for the world around him. Three slabs of coloured concrete floated in the centre of the room. They formed three floors, each separated by a height of around seven feet. Nothing appeared to be holding them in place. Or maybe they were attached to the back...side wall. Jackson shook his head in an attempt to fix his screwed up vision. Nothing appeared to have any width. Not even the outcroppings above his head. There were three of them, all on the same level as the platforms in the centre of the room. That Jackson could currently see all three of them despite standing under the lower one said a lot for how the perspectives were all fucked up in here.
A trapdoor in the far ceiling opened and three unusual monsters dropped onto the top platform and started running towards him. They looked like giant wind-up toys—nothing more than metal heads on oversize clown feet. They had a chin a boxer would be proud of and their metallic jaws clanked up and down as they marched across the top platform.
Typical JRPG, Jackson thought. Commonplace orcs and goblins were clearly too passé. Let’s throw cutesy giant clockwork robot heads at the player instead. They even had bow-shaped keys turning in their sides as they walked.
The lead monster dropped down off the top platform and landed on the same level as Jackson. Despite a three-floor fall the thing didn’t break apart or—more likely given it seemed to be made out of solid metal—bust a hole through the floor. It landed smoothly on the floor and continued marching towards Jackson.
Okay, come and get it, Jackson said, drawing his sword. He took up a fighting stance and waited for the battle music to announce the beginning of turn-based combat.
The lead clockwork head didn't instigate turn-base combat. It carried on marching forward and trampled Jackson into the floor. Then it rebounded off the far wall and trampled him again on the way back.
* * * *
Far above, the unseen figure watched events on a dusty screen. It watched Jackson get trampled into the floor and let off an imaginative and probably anatomically impossible curse.
"Do they always have to be so stupid?"
* * * *
Jackson stood back up.
Okay, so this game was a little more active in the combat department than the other games. There wasn't much time to think about it as the third one was already right on top of him.
Jackson swung his sword at it, which was obviously really stupid in hindsight—what was a sword going to do against a giant metal head? Or would have been stupid had the sword not passed straight through it. Jackson was still pondering that oddity when the clockwork head marched through him and he didn't feel a thing.
Like it was a ghost or hologram, Jackson thought.
No, he was the ghost, he realised. He looked at his arms and saw they were flickering.
The third clockwork head rebounded off the back wall and marched back through Jackson's flickering form. He stopped flickering after the thing had passed and watched the clanking metal head walk away from him.
Solid now and the thing had its back to him. Jackson looked at his sword.
Fuck honour and fair play and all of that shit.
He charged forwards and swung the sword down with all his strength. It rebounded off the metal head with bone-jarring force. The blade broke off, leaving Jackson with a hilt and about half an inch of broken blade.
Well, d'uh. What did you expect was going to happen?
And now the first one was coming back for him. Jackson panicked and jumped upwards, hoping to maybe catch hold of the ledge above him. He was surprised when his jump catapulted him far higher than he expected. Crap, he was going to bang his head on the platform above.
It didn't happen. Somehow he passed straight by it. And then landed perfectly on it as he came back down. Which made absolutely no topological sense at all.
Unless...
He bent his knees and jumped again. It was like being on the moon. He sprang upwards through the second platform, which mysteriously returned to being solid the moment he came back down to land on it.
Of course. It made sense now. No wonder all the perspectives seemed screwed up, like the world had lost a dimension. He was such a moron.
This wasn't a RPG; it was an old arcade-style 2D platformer.
Jackson hated old arcade-style 2D platformers.
He looked down and watched the clockwork head crouch and then jump up to the level below him. He ran to the end of the outcropping and bounded across to the central platform. The monsters followed him.
It had been years since he'd played a game like this. How did they work again?
Jackson watched one of the clockwork heads pass by on the lowest level.
Oh yeah, that was right. You had to jump on top of them. He waited for the monster to rebound off the far wall and come back.
Geronimo!
Jackson dropped down on top of the marching head. The clockwork head did not squish. Instead Jackson's foot slipped out sideways, twisting his ankle. He fell off and landed in an ungainly heap right in front of the advancing clockwork metal head. It did not stop. Heavy metal feet crunched down on Jackson, first breaking his legs, then crushing his vertebrae to powder, before finally shattering his skull like an egg.
It was as painful as it sounded.
to be continued...
Ouch. Don't worry, he'll be okay. I think...
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Some Monster Girl Roguelikes in Development: Seduction Quest and Noxico
By and large Western Audiences aren't well-served when it comes to sexy hentai games because depicting two adults graphically having sex in any form of a media is usually a one-way ticket to career suicide. Unless you're insane (me), don't have a career to lose (me), don't give a fuck (again, me) or E.L. James (not me. I'd be living the high-life in the Caribbean, knee-deep in hookers, if I had that much wonga. Hmm, wait a moment...) Anyway, with fenoxo's Corruption of Champions and also Fleshcult, things are getting a little better for English-speaking fans of sexy monster girls. And here are a couple of roguelike's in development that might be of interest.
So, what's a roguelike? Roguelikes are super-stripped down RPGs. The GUIs are about as basic as you get, where your main character might be represented by a '@' and that 'O' running at you could be an Orc or Ogre depending on the colour. This means some (a lot) of imagination is required. There aren't going to be a lot of pretty (dirty) pictures, but it also means a small development team or even a single person can put a game together without bankrupting themselves on artist commissions, and they can also make the world huge and random. If you've ever played NetHack or Dwarf Fortress you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
The first game is Seduction Quest. The game's programmer, Codex, brought it to my attention a couple of days ago. They're only at the alpha stage at the moment. You can check out the demo at their site to get an idea of where they're going. It's a roguelike in a large procedurally generated world with wandering succubi and other monster girls out for the player's...juices. The demo is fairly rudimentary and the player can't die currently, but it gives a good impression of the game mechanics. Their plan is to boost the battle strategy and obviously make the various attacks more descriptive and naughty. They also have some interesting ideas to get around the 'Euww! What's that fetish doing there!?' problem by giving the player some choice in how the world is set up before starting a game (all female monsters, all male monsters, etc).
Currently they're running an Offbeatr campaign to raise some funding for the game. You can check out the details and maybe give them a vote here. Also, if you have any suggestions or questions, you can get a hold of Codex at codex.seductionquest@gmail.com.
One of the links on their site pointed to another roguelike that's a little further along in development: Noxico. This one is a little more like Corruption of Champions with both sexes present, furries, and possibly a whole load of weird sexual shit going on.
I say possibly, because I haven't got that far into it. Mainly because I'm quite possibly the worst player of roguelikes on the planet. Each of my characters is born with YASD tattooed on their forehead and has a life expectancy of maybe five minutes if I happen to get lucky and find one of the less monster-infested regions of the map.
Actually, reconciling the Bad Ends of MGQ with the permadeath ethos of roguelikes will be an interesting design challenge for the developers. The fun part of MGQ is deliberately making Luka lose to see what the monster girl does to him afterwards. In a roguelike the penalties for dying are often brutal as it means you lose everything and have to start again. Maybe a sexy Bad End scene is exactly what's needed to sweeten the pill.
So, what's a roguelike? Roguelikes are super-stripped down RPGs. The GUIs are about as basic as you get, where your main character might be represented by a '@' and that 'O' running at you could be an Orc or Ogre depending on the colour. This means some (a lot) of imagination is required. There aren't going to be a lot of pretty (dirty) pictures, but it also means a small development team or even a single person can put a game together without bankrupting themselves on artist commissions, and they can also make the world huge and random. If you've ever played NetHack or Dwarf Fortress you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
The first game is Seduction Quest. The game's programmer, Codex, brought it to my attention a couple of days ago. They're only at the alpha stage at the moment. You can check out the demo at their site to get an idea of where they're going. It's a roguelike in a large procedurally generated world with wandering succubi and other monster girls out for the player's...juices. The demo is fairly rudimentary and the player can't die currently, but it gives a good impression of the game mechanics. Their plan is to boost the battle strategy and obviously make the various attacks more descriptive and naughty. They also have some interesting ideas to get around the 'Euww! What's that fetish doing there!?' problem by giving the player some choice in how the world is set up before starting a game (all female monsters, all male monsters, etc).
 |
| Seduction Quest - Yuki-Onna Alraune sandwich |
One of the links on their site pointed to another roguelike that's a little further along in development: Noxico. This one is a little more like Corruption of Champions with both sexes present, furries, and possibly a whole load of weird sexual shit going on.
 |
| Noxico - Starting Village. All those letters are people. |
Actually, reconciling the Bad Ends of MGQ with the permadeath ethos of roguelikes will be an interesting design challenge for the developers. The fun part of MGQ is deliberately making Luka lose to see what the monster girl does to him afterwards. In a roguelike the penalties for dying are often brutal as it means you lose everything and have to start again. Maybe a sexy Bad End scene is exactly what's needed to sweeten the pill.
Saturday, March 09, 2013
Jackson in HRPG-World: 4-1 Bubble Bother
Time to continue Jackson's (mis)adventures. I'm going old skool for the inspirations this time. And hoping this section doesn't balloon out of control like the last one.
Jackson in HRPG-World: 4-1 Bubble Bother
“You need to go to the Mountain of Monsters. The princess is being held on the hundredth floor by a...” The barkeep paused for dramatic effect. “...dragon.”
“A dragon, huh?” Ian Jackson said.
The barkeep nodded, his expression grave.
He must have fallen into a really old game, Jackson thought. Everything around him seemed a little blocky, as if the resolution had been turned down low. It was too bright and colourful. He was standing in what should be a dingy pub and it was so bright he practically needed shades. No realism at all.
Which was to be expected, given that this was a computer game and all that. Jackson couldn’t remember how it had happened, but he’d been sucked into his computer. Now he was trapped, forced to play out one random game after another in a futile hope of finding the exit to the real world.
If Jeff Bridges showed up he was so bottling that fucker.
“You’d think they’d come up with something more original,” Jackson said.
The barkeep stared at him and blinked round, owlish eyes as he took a sip of his beer. He immediately regretted it. Whatever was in the mug wasn’t beer, or even vaguely alcoholic. It tasted like someone had melted a toffee apple into a glass and thrown in a few spoonfuls of sugar for good measure.
“I mean, dragon. Come on,” Jackson said.
“It is a fearsome beast,” the barkeep said.
“I don’t doubt it is,” Jackson said. “At least until it comes back later in the game with a dye job and new role of generic wandering mook.”
The barkeep looked at him blankly.
It did seem a little early to throw a dragon at him. He’d only just arrived in this game world. Big critters like dragons didn’t normally show up until later. That was assuming this was an RPG. The game did seem a little primitive.
Slay the dragon, rescue the princess. Maybe that was the whole game.
“So this princess, where is she princess of?” Jackson asked.
The barkeep looked at him blankly.
“I mean she has to be princess of somewhere.”
The barkeep blinked. He said nothing.
“Country?” Jackson asked. “Which country is she princess of? Who’s the king...queen? Where’s their palace?”
“She is a princess,” the barkeep stated as if that was answer enough.
And it probably was. The princess might as well have been an inanimate chest of treasure for all the difference she made to the plot.
“Okay, so where is this...” he sighed, “...Mountain of Monsters.”
“It’s right outside the village,” the barkeep said, clearly happy to be on more familiar ground. “To the south.”
Yeah, right, because when settling a new village the perfect place to locate it was right next to somewhere called the ‘Mountain of Monsters’, Jackson thought as he left the sorry collection of huts behind.
Hi, welcome to the village of Dullasshit. To the north, east and west are miles of lovely rolling countryside. To the south is the Mountain of Monsters, complete with terrifying fire-breathing dragon.
It was not like they’d bothered to put any distance between them and the mountain either. Straight out of the back gate and—wham!—there is was: ugly great spike rising up out of the ground like a rusty nail sticking out of a quilt.
What was it with the ludicrously overly dramatic names in these games anyway. The Bridge of Stolen Sighs, the Mire of Misery, the Dark Forest of Doomy Doom... Who came up with these names? What was wrong with something simple like Firetop Mountain?
And what was the betting the entrance was a cave that looked like a giant mouth with two scary eyeholes above it. Never any damn originality. Slay the dragon. Rescue the princess. Enter the creepy cave that looked like a screaming mouth. They could at least vary the orifice. How about a cave entrance that looked like a nostril. Or—if they were especially daring—a vagina. Haha, a cave entrance that looked like a vagina, that would be sure to wind up the moral guardians.
He was smiling at that thought when something fell out of the sky and smashed into the ground a couple of metres away with a sound like shattering glass. It was followed by a screaming person waving their arms in the desperate manner of someone hoping it would enable them to fly. Jackson caught a glimpse of a rotund boy in Lederhosen before the falling figure hit the ground with a sickening thump.
What. The. Fuck.
Jackson saw right away there was nothing he could do. The figure lay face down and unmoving. A steady trickle of blood formed pools beneath shards of brightly coloured glass. A rainbow, Jackson thought. A glass rainbow and a fat kid had fallen out of the sky.
He looked up. Nothing but blue skies and white fluffy clouds. The poor kid really had fallen out of nowhere.
Jackson turned his gaze to the mountain. There were objects floating around the fang-like peak. They looked like large, brightly coloured balloons.
You’d better not go all Half-Life with some shitty platform levels near the top, Jackson thought. He hated platform games.
He left the fallen boy and continued on. The entrance was on the other side of the mountain. It did not look like a giant screaming mouth with scary eyeholes.
Jackson paused in stunned surprise. Then he laughed.
Damn thing looked like a giant stone vagina.
* * * *
An unseen figure brushed away the layer of dust covering the glass screen with a scaly hand. Revealed beneath was the image of a tiny figure standing before a slit-like opening in the side of a mountain. The unseen observer turned a dial on the side of the wooden cabinet. The picture zoomed in until Jackson’s face expanded to fill the whole screen.
“Oh yes, you’ll do just fine.”
to be continued...
Jackson in HRPG-World: 4-1 Bubble Bother
“You need to go to the Mountain of Monsters. The princess is being held on the hundredth floor by a...” The barkeep paused for dramatic effect. “...dragon.”
“A dragon, huh?” Ian Jackson said.
The barkeep nodded, his expression grave.
He must have fallen into a really old game, Jackson thought. Everything around him seemed a little blocky, as if the resolution had been turned down low. It was too bright and colourful. He was standing in what should be a dingy pub and it was so bright he practically needed shades. No realism at all.
Which was to be expected, given that this was a computer game and all that. Jackson couldn’t remember how it had happened, but he’d been sucked into his computer. Now he was trapped, forced to play out one random game after another in a futile hope of finding the exit to the real world.
If Jeff Bridges showed up he was so bottling that fucker.
“You’d think they’d come up with something more original,” Jackson said.
The barkeep stared at him and blinked round, owlish eyes as he took a sip of his beer. He immediately regretted it. Whatever was in the mug wasn’t beer, or even vaguely alcoholic. It tasted like someone had melted a toffee apple into a glass and thrown in a few spoonfuls of sugar for good measure.
“I mean, dragon. Come on,” Jackson said.
“It is a fearsome beast,” the barkeep said.
“I don’t doubt it is,” Jackson said. “At least until it comes back later in the game with a dye job and new role of generic wandering mook.”
The barkeep looked at him blankly.
It did seem a little early to throw a dragon at him. He’d only just arrived in this game world. Big critters like dragons didn’t normally show up until later. That was assuming this was an RPG. The game did seem a little primitive.
Slay the dragon, rescue the princess. Maybe that was the whole game.
“So this princess, where is she princess of?” Jackson asked.
The barkeep looked at him blankly.
“I mean she has to be princess of somewhere.”
The barkeep blinked. He said nothing.
“Country?” Jackson asked. “Which country is she princess of? Who’s the king...queen? Where’s their palace?”
“She is a princess,” the barkeep stated as if that was answer enough.
And it probably was. The princess might as well have been an inanimate chest of treasure for all the difference she made to the plot.
“Okay, so where is this...” he sighed, “...Mountain of Monsters.”
“It’s right outside the village,” the barkeep said, clearly happy to be on more familiar ground. “To the south.”
Yeah, right, because when settling a new village the perfect place to locate it was right next to somewhere called the ‘Mountain of Monsters’, Jackson thought as he left the sorry collection of huts behind.
Hi, welcome to the village of Dullasshit. To the north, east and west are miles of lovely rolling countryside. To the south is the Mountain of Monsters, complete with terrifying fire-breathing dragon.
It was not like they’d bothered to put any distance between them and the mountain either. Straight out of the back gate and—wham!—there is was: ugly great spike rising up out of the ground like a rusty nail sticking out of a quilt.
What was it with the ludicrously overly dramatic names in these games anyway. The Bridge of Stolen Sighs, the Mire of Misery, the Dark Forest of Doomy Doom... Who came up with these names? What was wrong with something simple like Firetop Mountain?
And what was the betting the entrance was a cave that looked like a giant mouth with two scary eyeholes above it. Never any damn originality. Slay the dragon. Rescue the princess. Enter the creepy cave that looked like a screaming mouth. They could at least vary the orifice. How about a cave entrance that looked like a nostril. Or—if they were especially daring—a vagina. Haha, a cave entrance that looked like a vagina, that would be sure to wind up the moral guardians.
He was smiling at that thought when something fell out of the sky and smashed into the ground a couple of metres away with a sound like shattering glass. It was followed by a screaming person waving their arms in the desperate manner of someone hoping it would enable them to fly. Jackson caught a glimpse of a rotund boy in Lederhosen before the falling figure hit the ground with a sickening thump.
What. The. Fuck.
Jackson saw right away there was nothing he could do. The figure lay face down and unmoving. A steady trickle of blood formed pools beneath shards of brightly coloured glass. A rainbow, Jackson thought. A glass rainbow and a fat kid had fallen out of the sky.
He looked up. Nothing but blue skies and white fluffy clouds. The poor kid really had fallen out of nowhere.
Jackson turned his gaze to the mountain. There were objects floating around the fang-like peak. They looked like large, brightly coloured balloons.
You’d better not go all Half-Life with some shitty platform levels near the top, Jackson thought. He hated platform games.
He left the fallen boy and continued on. The entrance was on the other side of the mountain. It did not look like a giant screaming mouth with scary eyeholes.
Jackson paused in stunned surprise. Then he laughed.
Damn thing looked like a giant stone vagina.
* * * *
An unseen figure brushed away the layer of dust covering the glass screen with a scaly hand. Revealed beneath was the image of a tiny figure standing before a slit-like opening in the side of a mountain. The unseen observer turned a dial on the side of the wooden cabinet. The picture zoomed in until Jackson’s face expanded to fill the whole screen.
“Oh yes, you’ll do just fine.”
to be continued...
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Hentai Game Review: Lv1勇者が女神・邪神と♀モンスター繁殖計画始めました! (Lv1 Yushe Breeding Program)
Okay, I’m not really sure what the best translated version of that title is. I’ve gone with Lv1 Yushe Breeding Program, although the full title is something like Lv1 brave man began a ♀ monster breeding plan with a goddess and an evil deity! I suspect someone will pin a snappy English fan name on it that will stick. It’s a monster girl hentai game and it might be the most bonkers one I’ve played so far.
The trial (big yellow button) has to be played to be believed.
In generic fantasy-world-land the numbers of monster girls are declining. They’re waiting for the hero fated to save them with his magic cum, or something like that. The hero is born but his father really wanted a daughter and decides to raise him as one anyway.
Uh, okay.
The hero(ine?) leaves on some adventure or other and gets waylaid outside the first village by the head of the ‘good’ and ‘evil’ monster girls. These are an angel/dragon thing and a succubus/centaur thing respectively. They’ve teamed up to solve the declining monster girl population problem by finding the hero and forcing him to mate with monster girls all across the world. The first H-scenes give a good indication of what the hero and player...
...are in for.
Ouch.
First stop is a forest inhabited by slime girls. The hero and a cute slime girl are a bit clueless as to what to do next, so the succubus/centaur girl turns the hero into a raging sex bull monster with a two-foot penis to force the issue.
Uh, okay.
At this point I’m wondering what the main game mechanics are as sex combat has largely been on autopilot so far. Then follows a sort of mini-game quest sequence where the hero picks a path and has to navigate traps, treasure chests and other monster encounters. Then it’s off to the next location—some kind of shrine with a temple dog woman with enormous jugs, a girl with a giant mouth coming out of the back of her head and a talking cat. There are also lots of cat girls. Which sets up the next mini-game where the hero has to touch parts (guess which!) of a cat girl’s body in the right order.
Then they all head off on a quest to find Yggdrasil, the world tree (and frequent canon immigrant from Norse mythology to JRPGs). During this the hero manages to fall off a cliff. The others throw the cat after him and both have to find their way through a forest maze while chased by a giant lusty minotaur woman.
And this is just in the trial. The makers deserve a lot of credit for making so much of the game available to sample. It’s worth downloading as there’s probably a couple of hours worth of material there. I think in this case they had to in order to get an idea of what the game is about.
The game is part visual novel and part collection of varying mini-games. Combat crops up regularly, but largely runs without any input from the player. The quest locations, where the hero follows a branching route, also appear frequently. Other main mechanics include the monster girl villages. Once the player unlocks these the goal is increase the number of inhabitants. To do this they have to replenish their... um... magical cum, which happens whenever they complete a quest branch or certain story events. As the population of the village increases it unlocks H-scenes and further story paths for that village.
Oddly, it works. The artwork and overall production is gorgeous. It matches up well with the H-scenes of Violated Hero 2 in terms of quality. They’re not shy of aiming for an epic feel and proper story either, despite being a sex game. This is the moment you find Yggdrasil at the end of the trial.
On top of that nearly everything features voice work. The story and characters have plenty of humour as well, although I probably missed a lot of it through reliance on crude auto-translation. I had to switch to ITH for the text-hooking on this one as AGTH was struggling, although I’ve been told this code fixes things for AGTH: /HA-C@FC4C8.
The one downside is I didn’t find the game that sexy. It’s a little too weird. More like a gross-out sex comedy than a hot porn film, if that makes any sense. Quite a few of the Bad Ends are straight-up ‘bad’ Bad Ends such as being torn apart and eaten by harpies, or the hero being trapped in a wall of meat while someone shoves a cock down their throat, rather than the ‘good’ Bad Ends more typical to games like Violated Hero or Monster Girl Quest. In the end it didn’t matter that much as I was having so much fun wondering what crazy shit the game was going to do next.
Worth a look and the trial is extensive enough to give players a good idea of whether the game is for them or not.
The trial (big yellow button) has to be played to be believed.
In generic fantasy-world-land the numbers of monster girls are declining. They’re waiting for the hero fated to save them with his magic cum, or something like that. The hero is born but his father really wanted a daughter and decides to raise him as one anyway.
Uh, okay.
The hero(ine?) leaves on some adventure or other and gets waylaid outside the first village by the head of the ‘good’ and ‘evil’ monster girls. These are an angel/dragon thing and a succubus/centaur thing respectively. They’ve teamed up to solve the declining monster girl population problem by finding the hero and forcing him to mate with monster girls all across the world. The first H-scenes give a good indication of what the hero and player...
 |
| This isn't going to go well... |
 |
| ...ngn!!!!! |
First stop is a forest inhabited by slime girls. The hero and a cute slime girl are a bit clueless as to what to do next, so the succubus/centaur girl turns the hero into a raging sex bull monster with a two-foot penis to force the issue.
Uh, okay.
At this point I’m wondering what the main game mechanics are as sex combat has largely been on autopilot so far. Then follows a sort of mini-game quest sequence where the hero picks a path and has to navigate traps, treasure chests and other monster encounters. Then it’s off to the next location—some kind of shrine with a temple dog woman with enormous jugs, a girl with a giant mouth coming out of the back of her head and a talking cat. There are also lots of cat girls. Which sets up the next mini-game where the hero has to touch parts (guess which!) of a cat girl’s body in the right order.
 |
| One of the quest mini-games. |
And this is just in the trial. The makers deserve a lot of credit for making so much of the game available to sample. It’s worth downloading as there’s probably a couple of hours worth of material there. I think in this case they had to in order to get an idea of what the game is about.
The game is part visual novel and part collection of varying mini-games. Combat crops up regularly, but largely runs without any input from the player. The quest locations, where the hero follows a branching route, also appear frequently. Other main mechanics include the monster girl villages. Once the player unlocks these the goal is increase the number of inhabitants. To do this they have to replenish their... um... magical cum, which happens whenever they complete a quest branch or certain story events. As the population of the village increases it unlocks H-scenes and further story paths for that village.
Oddly, it works. The artwork and overall production is gorgeous. It matches up well with the H-scenes of Violated Hero 2 in terms of quality. They’re not shy of aiming for an epic feel and proper story either, despite being a sex game. This is the moment you find Yggdrasil at the end of the trial.
 |
| The protagonist is down on the bottom-left. They have a cat on top of their head. Don't ask. |
On top of that nearly everything features voice work. The story and characters have plenty of humour as well, although I probably missed a lot of it through reliance on crude auto-translation. I had to switch to ITH for the text-hooking on this one as AGTH was struggling, although I’ve been told this code fixes things for AGTH: /HA-C@FC4C8.
The one downside is I didn’t find the game that sexy. It’s a little too weird. More like a gross-out sex comedy than a hot porn film, if that makes any sense. Quite a few of the Bad Ends are straight-up ‘bad’ Bad Ends such as being torn apart and eaten by harpies, or the hero being trapped in a wall of meat while someone shoves a cock down their throat, rather than the ‘good’ Bad Ends more typical to games like Violated Hero or Monster Girl Quest. In the end it didn’t matter that much as I was having so much fun wondering what crazy shit the game was going to do next.
Worth a look and the trial is extensive enough to give players a good idea of whether the game is for them or not.
Monday, February 18, 2013
#52Books - January
Following Joe Hill’s Twitter feed I saw he talked about reading 52 books in 2012 and it seemed like such a good idea I thought I ‘d shamelessly copy it. I think quite a few people also had the same idea as the #52books hashtag is fairly popular on twitter. I thought it would also make a decent New Year’s resolution. Even if I fail and only read forty books, that’s still a healthy amount of leisure time reading.
It also gives me a better shot at getting the Recently I have been reading... blog posts right. Those full post reviews of single books...not exactly exciting in terms of hits, which is a common problem for books in general in an age where there is so much competition for our leisure time.
#52Books #1: Karin Tidbeck – Jagganath
A lot of hype for this collection of whimsical weird tales set in the author’s native Sweden. I had problems with the stories, but they’re mostly the same problems I have with most modern short fiction—It’s well-written and clever, but largely utterly devoid of soul and substance. Stories crafted for other writers to admire rather than provoking a feeling in the general reading public. It’s a boil that’s been festering within me for a while. I might post in more detail about this at a later point to get the poison out.
Despite that, the collection did win me over in the end. "Rebecka", "Who is Arvid Pekon?" and "Augusta Prima" are all very good. But there are a few too many whimsical slight pieces where it’s hard to care what happens because there doesn’t appear to be anything at stake for the characters. Overall good, but it’s not going to bring short fiction to the attention of a wider audience.
#52Books #2: Carlton Mellick III – Apeshit
Completely deranged slasher-flick novel with utterly bonkers protagonists. You know how most of the slasher-bait in horror films are obnoxious cardboard cutout teens...not here. Mellick’s collection of jocks and cheerleaders are crazier than their mutant foes. It’s a fast fun read with plenty of gore and sheer WTFery. As always I like how Mellick establishes his ground rules early and keeps to them despite the chaos erupting off the page. There’s a twisted logic to everything that happens, and it keeps his stories from collapsing into silliness.
Another book I’d love to see as a film.
#52Books #3: Jim Butcher – Storm Front
First of the Dresden Files is an entertaining mash-up of wizards and hard-boiled PIs. It’s a little predictable but fun to read. Enough to make me want to check out the others in the series anyway.
#52Books #4: Edward Lee – City Infernal
Edward Lee does hell. It’s an enormous scuzzy city where life isn’t much fun for anyone other than the top echelon of demons (and not much better for them either). Etheress Cassie, along with some new dead friends, crosses over the boundary from the living world and goes in search of her dead twin sister. She gets embroiled in a war between Lucifer and another army of rebel angels. Lots of gore, grue and lashings of twisted imagination. The “good” angels are a bit cardboardy, but other than that it’s a clever tale in a very twisted world. Like Barker, but with more of those squidgy bits you find in entrails.
It also gives me a better shot at getting the Recently I have been reading... blog posts right. Those full post reviews of single books...not exactly exciting in terms of hits, which is a common problem for books in general in an age where there is so much competition for our leisure time.
A lot of hype for this collection of whimsical weird tales set in the author’s native Sweden. I had problems with the stories, but they’re mostly the same problems I have with most modern short fiction—It’s well-written and clever, but largely utterly devoid of soul and substance. Stories crafted for other writers to admire rather than provoking a feeling in the general reading public. It’s a boil that’s been festering within me for a while. I might post in more detail about this at a later point to get the poison out.
Despite that, the collection did win me over in the end. "Rebecka", "Who is Arvid Pekon?" and "Augusta Prima" are all very good. But there are a few too many whimsical slight pieces where it’s hard to care what happens because there doesn’t appear to be anything at stake for the characters. Overall good, but it’s not going to bring short fiction to the attention of a wider audience.
#52Books #2: Carlton Mellick III – Apeshit
Completely deranged slasher-flick novel with utterly bonkers protagonists. You know how most of the slasher-bait in horror films are obnoxious cardboard cutout teens...not here. Mellick’s collection of jocks and cheerleaders are crazier than their mutant foes. It’s a fast fun read with plenty of gore and sheer WTFery. As always I like how Mellick establishes his ground rules early and keeps to them despite the chaos erupting off the page. There’s a twisted logic to everything that happens, and it keeps his stories from collapsing into silliness.
Another book I’d love to see as a film.
#52Books #3: Jim Butcher – Storm Front
First of the Dresden Files is an entertaining mash-up of wizards and hard-boiled PIs. It’s a little predictable but fun to read. Enough to make me want to check out the others in the series anyway.
#52Books #4: Edward Lee – City InfernalEdward Lee does hell. It’s an enormous scuzzy city where life isn’t much fun for anyone other than the top echelon of demons (and not much better for them either). Etheress Cassie, along with some new dead friends, crosses over the boundary from the living world and goes in search of her dead twin sister. She gets embroiled in a war between Lucifer and another army of rebel angels. Lots of gore, grue and lashings of twisted imagination. The “good” angels are a bit cardboardy, but other than that it’s a clever tale in a very twisted world. Like Barker, but with more of those squidgy bits you find in entrails.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Back by popular demand: Succubus Summoning 203 and the return of Phil
I was going to blog about this earlier, but then other things came up and I tend to abandon blog posts if they start to get grindy and scratchy. If it’s not flowing, I’d rather I was battling to get a piece of fiction down than struggle with an ephemeral blog post no one will care about in a month’s time.
I’ve been rather sneaky. If you check Literotica, you’ll see that after a pause of around two and a half years (has it really been that long?) I’ve finally posted Succubus Summoning 203.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean I’ve written the full arc. It was what I said I was going to do, but it wasn’t coming together. I suck at writing novels it seems. I’m too prone to getting distracted by other projects. My hope is that posting the chapters up on Literotica and trying to keep to a monthly schedule will provide the impetus to get it moving again.
It’s what I should have done before to be honest. 203 was an awkward chapter with a lot of new characters to introduce. After writing the first draft I thought it might be too long and be better split in two. But that would mean a chapter without sex. Make people wait two and a half years and then post a chapter with no hot succubus action...that would not go down well.
So we’re back and with any luck the beginning of each month will bring a new chapter. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep to the schedule, but as long as it’s only a couple of weeks slippage rather than a couple of years I think we’ll be fine. I hope you all enjoy the path the story takes and, as always, feedback and thoughts gratefully accepted.
P.S. I’ll try my best not to kill him.
I’ve been rather sneaky. If you check Literotica, you’ll see that after a pause of around two and a half years (has it really been that long?) I’ve finally posted Succubus Summoning 203.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean I’ve written the full arc. It was what I said I was going to do, but it wasn’t coming together. I suck at writing novels it seems. I’m too prone to getting distracted by other projects. My hope is that posting the chapters up on Literotica and trying to keep to a monthly schedule will provide the impetus to get it moving again.
It’s what I should have done before to be honest. 203 was an awkward chapter with a lot of new characters to introduce. After writing the first draft I thought it might be too long and be better split in two. But that would mean a chapter without sex. Make people wait two and a half years and then post a chapter with no hot succubus action...that would not go down well.
So we’re back and with any luck the beginning of each month will bring a new chapter. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep to the schedule, but as long as it’s only a couple of weeks slippage rather than a couple of years I think we’ll be fine. I hope you all enjoy the path the story takes and, as always, feedback and thoughts gratefully accepted.
P.S. I’ll try my best not to kill him.
Friday, February 08, 2013
Jackson in HRPG-World: 3-10 A Sticky Starting Scrap
I appear to be stuck in an airport waiting for a heavily delayed plane. This seems like a good opportunity to post the last part of Jackson in HRPG-World in case I don't get a chance to do it tomorrow. (where I'll probably be otherwise...ahem...engaged)
Here we go: about 7,000 words and a few chapters later than originally intended, the last part of Jackson in HRPG-World 3.
Jackson in HRPG-World: 3-10 A Sticky Starting Scrap
“I don’t think I’ll let you replay the battle when you lose this time. I think I’ll keep you instead.”
Fuck.
Had the game just entered iron man mode?
No, it wasn’t a game, not anymore. He thought she’d seemed too self-aware to be part of the game, and now she’d realized the same thing about him.
He held out his sword before him. The point trembled. Suraimo noticed and laughed.
“There’s no need to be frightened. I’ll make you feel nothing but pleasure.”
A vertical slit opened up at the point her abdomen sank into her mass of undifferentiated slime. It started as a vagina and then opened wider and wider until it looked like a maw capable of swallowing him whole. An overpowering musk of sexual arousal filled the path.
“Don’t you remember the pleasures of being wrapped up in my body? You can experience them again. Just stand still and let my slime engulf you.”
Jackson did remember, or rather his cock did. It twitched to attention in his pants like the stupid brainless moron it was.
This was real. If she enveloped his body again he wasn’t coming out. She wouldn’t digest him like The Blob, but his life would be just as over. The battle theme continued to skip and judder in background, like tunes from a broken-down carousel.
She didn’t call her surprise attack this time. A blue stream flowed out from her main mass and formed a sticky puddle beneath his feet.
Don’t panic.
The control panel flickered and swayed like a bad picture on an antique television set. It was still there and he still had to follow the rules laid out for the battle. He hoped the same was true for Suraimo.
He was bound. First he had to select struggle.
In the background the notes of the battle theme stretched out like soft plastic over a naked flame, slowing down and going lower until it seemed like the tune would snap altogether. The background flickered and wavered around him.
“Not this time,” Suraimo said, shaking her head. A bulge of protoplasm travelled down her pseudopod and folded up over his feet and ankles like a cushioned bear trap. His feet and ankles were yanked down as if he’d stepped in quicksand. Slender tentacles spiraled up and pulled down his pants.
Don’t panic!
The control panel was a minefield. If he lashed out blindly he’d hit one of the submit options and that would be it. There was only one command that worked at this point.
Struggle.
This time it worked. Suraimo’s body sucked at him like thick mud, but he was able to step back out of her snare. He released a sigh of relief. The background music slipped back into playing at the correct speed.
It was only temporary. Suraimo was oozing down the path towards him.
Stay focused. It was a puzzle battle. All he had to do was step through the correct actions in the correct order. Which sucked, as he already knew the next correct action was to swing his sword uselessly like a spastic.
Jackson dutifully swung his sword like a spastic.
Suraimo didn’t even bother to taunt him. She swayed out of the way and kept coming. Her right hand morphed into a tentacular tube, darted forwards and sucked in his exposed penis. Jackson shuddered in surprise as the soft tissue bunched up and squeezed his erection. She wasn’t about to let him go either. In the previous fights, after carrying out a lascivious grope attack she’d always released him and waited for him to take his turn. This time her appendage kept sucking on him even as his command options came up.
Jackson watched his green bar decline. The other thing that sucked was he couldn’t let it fall below halfway. Once it reached that point Suraimo could use her auto-win Suraimo Paradiso attack. Only there was no could about it, she would use it the moment the game allowed her. Which meant he was already effectively at half life.
Jackson performed his second useless attack. He stepped forwards and drove his sword right through her gooey body. Again Suraimo was completely unfazed by the steel blade running through her body. Unlike before, this time she didn’t seem in any particular hurry to let him have his sword back.
The regeneration message flashed up again. Her green bar returned to full. Then the panel froze up.
He couldn’t get the sword free. It was stuck in her sticky body. His natural instinct was to place a foot against her and use the leverage to yank the blade free. He resisted it. He knew his foot would sink right into her soft body and then he’d never get free. Instead he braced it on the path as close to her as he dared and tried to tug his sword free.
Suraimo flowed closer. An advancing bubble of protoplasm crept over his foot and ankle. Tendrils of slime slithered down the blade and attached themselves to his hand and wrist. The tube wrapped around his erection thickened as she came closer. The transparent appendage bunched up and squirted warm blue fluids around his enveloped cock.
“Why fight so hard?” Suraimo said. “I can make you feel this good all the time.”
The thick tube rippled around his cock, rubbing her aphrodisiac secretions into him. Jackson’s knees felt wobbly as blood surged into his lengthening hard-on.
“I’m doing you a favor,” Suraimo said as she pumped more juices over his straining erection. “Some of the girls after me will eat you alive.”
The background music skittered, careered and then finally snapped. The trees and the path flickered out of existence. There was only Jackson and the amoeboid form of Suraimo rising up to engulf him.
No!
Jackson hurled himself backwards with his hand still on the sword. The path flickered into existence and Jackson hit it hard. He didn’t get a chance to gather his thoughts as he looked up and saw Suraimo was already coming down on him in a wave. He thrust out with his legs and rolled out of range as Suraimo splashed down. She reformed immediately with her sexy upper body and jiggling boobs rising back up out of her gelatinous mass.
Jackson got back to his feet and watched her warily. The forest came back into existence and the fight music played at normal speed again. The game seemed to have recovered from its near fatal crash.
More importantly, Jackson’s control panel was back in operation.
He’d got here before, and then it had gone wrong. He knew why. He’d clicked through too fast and selected the useless attack, and then he’d not used struggle when she’d snared him with her Suraimo Torapo attack.
He checked his bar. Still above halfway, by about a sliver.
Not that Suraimo appeared to be paying attention. Her body was swelling up like a wave ready to crash into him.
Fuck.
Jackson selected attack. This time it brought up a second menu with two options. He was fairly sure he’d rushed through here too fast last time. But which incorrect option had he selected? He thought it was the first one, but was he sure about it?
“Time for me to wrap you all up and suck out that delicious semen,” Suraimo said, her body flowing forward to absorb him.
Jackson selected the second option.
He was hoping for some kind of crazed anime-style limit-break special attack the Japanese loved in games like these. Instead he launched into her like a hyperactive chimp flailing blindly with a machete.
As ugly as it looked, it was surprisingly effective. Wet gobbets of Suraimo’s slime went flying in all directions and she stopped her charge. Nearly two thirds vanished from her green bar.
Oh yeah! Oh wait . . . not that effective after all. Suraimo was already pulling the globs back into her main mass. Regenerating . . . reforming. The green bar was already climbing back up . . .
. . . but not all the way!
He’d damaged her!
The music stopped. The first bars of a different theme started . . .
“I’m not finished yet,” Suraimo said.
. . . and abruptly it changed back to the main battle theme, which immediately began to decay to dissonant bleeps and blips. Some of the trees around them flickered out of existence.
Jackson selected the same attack again and span into her like crazed spinning top made out of buzz saw blades. Sticky glops of slime flew in all directions and were left all over the path in quivering chunks. Suraimo concentrated on drawing her body back together, but slowly, too slowly. Her bar was below halfway now.
Jackson prepared to select the same attack again. Suddenly it vanished from his control panel. All the commands did. A message flashed up and a jingle that sounded like every other RPG victory jingle played.
Suraimo looked around with disappointment on her face. The wood seemed like a real wood again and not just a picture of one. A different theme music was playing in the background.
She looked at Jackson. “You can put that down now,” she said, referring to his sword. “You won the battle and now the game has stabilized. I have to follow its rules.”
Jackson didn’t lower his sword.
Actually he really wanted to repeat that spinning attack before she reformed fully, but the game wouldn’t let him. Instead he stood there and watched her warily.
“Such a pity. We would have had such fun together.” Suraimo smiled suggestively at him and lewdly cupped an overflowing breast. “Oh well. Time for me to move onto my next role. Maybe we’ll bump into each other again.”
She flowed away into the bushes by the side of the path. She seemed to change color as she did, the light blue hues of her semi-transparent form shifting more towards pink or violet.
“In the meantime, try not to get eaten,” she called back at him. “This game’s creator really likes their vore.”
Jackson stood on the path with his sword outstretched in front of him. He held that pose even after Suraimo had long oozed away.
Fu-uck, he thought as he let out a breath. It took a while for him to get his trembling limbs back under enough control to continue walking along the path.
This was not just a game.
He tried not to think about the other girls Suraimo had talked about, the ones she’d said would ‘eat him alive’, and definitely tried to avoid thinking about what would happen if they, like Suraimo, realized he was trapped in the game for real.
The path opened out into a clearing.
Wow, what had happened here? It looked like a meteorite or aircraft had smashed through the canopy. Splintered branches and fallen leaves were scattered all over the place and there was a large depression in the ground. Jackson couldn’t see any wreckage. Whatever had hit the ground had either vaporized or—
And Jackson definitely didn’t want to run into it if this was the case.
—got up and walked away.
A fluttering piece of white parchment caught his attention. He walked over and saw someone had nailed a piece of paper to a tree trunk with a dagger. Really nailed it in. The knife was embedded so deep he couldn’t move it. The only way to get the paper free was to tear it out on either side.
He was surprised to see the message was in English rather than Japanese.
The sexy was underlined.
The background music stuttered and collapsed to garbled noise. The game universe stretched and then finally snapped. An electronic vortex opened up around Jackson. He fell in and was swirled around like a cork in a whirlpool before finally being deposited in a brand new game.
Jackson in HRPG-World Part 3, End
Jackson will return in a few weeks in "Bubble Bother". Where hopefully I'll remember how to write 1,000 word chapters and keep the story to less than ten of them.
Here we go: about 7,000 words and a few chapters later than originally intended, the last part of Jackson in HRPG-World 3.
Jackson in HRPG-World: 3-10 A Sticky Starting Scrap
“I don’t think I’ll let you replay the battle when you lose this time. I think I’ll keep you instead.”
Fuck.
Had the game just entered iron man mode?
No, it wasn’t a game, not anymore. He thought she’d seemed too self-aware to be part of the game, and now she’d realized the same thing about him.
He held out his sword before him. The point trembled. Suraimo noticed and laughed.
“There’s no need to be frightened. I’ll make you feel nothing but pleasure.”
A vertical slit opened up at the point her abdomen sank into her mass of undifferentiated slime. It started as a vagina and then opened wider and wider until it looked like a maw capable of swallowing him whole. An overpowering musk of sexual arousal filled the path.
“Don’t you remember the pleasures of being wrapped up in my body? You can experience them again. Just stand still and let my slime engulf you.”
Jackson did remember, or rather his cock did. It twitched to attention in his pants like the stupid brainless moron it was.
This was real. If she enveloped his body again he wasn’t coming out. She wouldn’t digest him like The Blob, but his life would be just as over. The battle theme continued to skip and judder in background, like tunes from a broken-down carousel.
She didn’t call her surprise attack this time. A blue stream flowed out from her main mass and formed a sticky puddle beneath his feet.
Don’t panic.
The control panel flickered and swayed like a bad picture on an antique television set. It was still there and he still had to follow the rules laid out for the battle. He hoped the same was true for Suraimo.
He was bound. First he had to select struggle.
In the background the notes of the battle theme stretched out like soft plastic over a naked flame, slowing down and going lower until it seemed like the tune would snap altogether. The background flickered and wavered around him.
“Not this time,” Suraimo said, shaking her head. A bulge of protoplasm travelled down her pseudopod and folded up over his feet and ankles like a cushioned bear trap. His feet and ankles were yanked down as if he’d stepped in quicksand. Slender tentacles spiraled up and pulled down his pants.
Don’t panic!
The control panel was a minefield. If he lashed out blindly he’d hit one of the submit options and that would be it. There was only one command that worked at this point.
Struggle.
This time it worked. Suraimo’s body sucked at him like thick mud, but he was able to step back out of her snare. He released a sigh of relief. The background music slipped back into playing at the correct speed.
It was only temporary. Suraimo was oozing down the path towards him.
Stay focused. It was a puzzle battle. All he had to do was step through the correct actions in the correct order. Which sucked, as he already knew the next correct action was to swing his sword uselessly like a spastic.
Jackson dutifully swung his sword like a spastic.
Suraimo didn’t even bother to taunt him. She swayed out of the way and kept coming. Her right hand morphed into a tentacular tube, darted forwards and sucked in his exposed penis. Jackson shuddered in surprise as the soft tissue bunched up and squeezed his erection. She wasn’t about to let him go either. In the previous fights, after carrying out a lascivious grope attack she’d always released him and waited for him to take his turn. This time her appendage kept sucking on him even as his command options came up.
Jackson watched his green bar decline. The other thing that sucked was he couldn’t let it fall below halfway. Once it reached that point Suraimo could use her auto-win Suraimo Paradiso attack. Only there was no could about it, she would use it the moment the game allowed her. Which meant he was already effectively at half life.
Jackson performed his second useless attack. He stepped forwards and drove his sword right through her gooey body. Again Suraimo was completely unfazed by the steel blade running through her body. Unlike before, this time she didn’t seem in any particular hurry to let him have his sword back.
The regeneration message flashed up again. Her green bar returned to full. Then the panel froze up.
He couldn’t get the sword free. It was stuck in her sticky body. His natural instinct was to place a foot against her and use the leverage to yank the blade free. He resisted it. He knew his foot would sink right into her soft body and then he’d never get free. Instead he braced it on the path as close to her as he dared and tried to tug his sword free.
Suraimo flowed closer. An advancing bubble of protoplasm crept over his foot and ankle. Tendrils of slime slithered down the blade and attached themselves to his hand and wrist. The tube wrapped around his erection thickened as she came closer. The transparent appendage bunched up and squirted warm blue fluids around his enveloped cock.
“Why fight so hard?” Suraimo said. “I can make you feel this good all the time.”
The thick tube rippled around his cock, rubbing her aphrodisiac secretions into him. Jackson’s knees felt wobbly as blood surged into his lengthening hard-on.
“I’m doing you a favor,” Suraimo said as she pumped more juices over his straining erection. “Some of the girls after me will eat you alive.”
The background music skittered, careered and then finally snapped. The trees and the path flickered out of existence. There was only Jackson and the amoeboid form of Suraimo rising up to engulf him.
No!
Jackson hurled himself backwards with his hand still on the sword. The path flickered into existence and Jackson hit it hard. He didn’t get a chance to gather his thoughts as he looked up and saw Suraimo was already coming down on him in a wave. He thrust out with his legs and rolled out of range as Suraimo splashed down. She reformed immediately with her sexy upper body and jiggling boobs rising back up out of her gelatinous mass.
Jackson got back to his feet and watched her warily. The forest came back into existence and the fight music played at normal speed again. The game seemed to have recovered from its near fatal crash.
More importantly, Jackson’s control panel was back in operation.
He’d got here before, and then it had gone wrong. He knew why. He’d clicked through too fast and selected the useless attack, and then he’d not used struggle when she’d snared him with her Suraimo Torapo attack.
He checked his bar. Still above halfway, by about a sliver.
Not that Suraimo appeared to be paying attention. Her body was swelling up like a wave ready to crash into him.
Fuck.
Jackson selected attack. This time it brought up a second menu with two options. He was fairly sure he’d rushed through here too fast last time. But which incorrect option had he selected? He thought it was the first one, but was he sure about it?
“Time for me to wrap you all up and suck out that delicious semen,” Suraimo said, her body flowing forward to absorb him.
Jackson selected the second option.
He was hoping for some kind of crazed anime-style limit-break special attack the Japanese loved in games like these. Instead he launched into her like a hyperactive chimp flailing blindly with a machete.
As ugly as it looked, it was surprisingly effective. Wet gobbets of Suraimo’s slime went flying in all directions and she stopped her charge. Nearly two thirds vanished from her green bar.
Oh yeah! Oh wait . . . not that effective after all. Suraimo was already pulling the globs back into her main mass. Regenerating . . . reforming. The green bar was already climbing back up . . .
. . . but not all the way!
He’d damaged her!
The music stopped. The first bars of a different theme started . . .
“I’m not finished yet,” Suraimo said.
. . . and abruptly it changed back to the main battle theme, which immediately began to decay to dissonant bleeps and blips. Some of the trees around them flickered out of existence.
Jackson selected the same attack again and span into her like crazed spinning top made out of buzz saw blades. Sticky glops of slime flew in all directions and were left all over the path in quivering chunks. Suraimo concentrated on drawing her body back together, but slowly, too slowly. Her bar was below halfway now.
Jackson prepared to select the same attack again. Suddenly it vanished from his control panel. All the commands did. A message flashed up and a jingle that sounded like every other RPG victory jingle played.
Suraimo looked around with disappointment on her face. The wood seemed like a real wood again and not just a picture of one. A different theme music was playing in the background.
She looked at Jackson. “You can put that down now,” she said, referring to his sword. “You won the battle and now the game has stabilized. I have to follow its rules.”
Jackson didn’t lower his sword.
Actually he really wanted to repeat that spinning attack before she reformed fully, but the game wouldn’t let him. Instead he stood there and watched her warily.
“Such a pity. We would have had such fun together.” Suraimo smiled suggestively at him and lewdly cupped an overflowing breast. “Oh well. Time for me to move onto my next role. Maybe we’ll bump into each other again.”
She flowed away into the bushes by the side of the path. She seemed to change color as she did, the light blue hues of her semi-transparent form shifting more towards pink or violet.
“In the meantime, try not to get eaten,” she called back at him. “This game’s creator really likes their vore.”
Jackson stood on the path with his sword outstretched in front of him. He held that pose even after Suraimo had long oozed away.
Fu-uck, he thought as he let out a breath. It took a while for him to get his trembling limbs back under enough control to continue walking along the path.
This was not just a game.
He tried not to think about the other girls Suraimo had talked about, the ones she’d said would ‘eat him alive’, and definitely tried to avoid thinking about what would happen if they, like Suraimo, realized he was trapped in the game for real.
The path opened out into a clearing.
Wow, what had happened here? It looked like a meteorite or aircraft had smashed through the canopy. Splintered branches and fallen leaves were scattered all over the place and there was a large depression in the ground. Jackson couldn’t see any wreckage. Whatever had hit the ground had either vaporized or—
And Jackson definitely didn’t want to run into it if this was the case.
—got up and walked away.
A fluttering piece of white parchment caught his attention. He walked over and saw someone had nailed a piece of paper to a tree trunk with a dagger. Really nailed it in. The knife was embedded so deep he couldn’t move it. The only way to get the paper free was to tear it out on either side.
He was surprised to see the message was in English rather than Japanese.
Dear Hero,
After lying here on my tail waiting countless hours for you to get past the tutorial fight I have grown bored and have decided to explore the world on my own.
Aryss Fateborn the XLIVth, sexy demon princess.
P.S. You Suck!
The sexy was underlined.
The background music stuttered and collapsed to garbled noise. The game universe stretched and then finally snapped. An electronic vortex opened up around Jackson. He fell in and was swirled around like a cork in a whirlpool before finally being deposited in a brand new game.
Jackson in HRPG-World Part 3, End
Jackson will return in a few weeks in "Bubble Bother". Where hopefully I'll remember how to write 1,000 word chapters and keep the story to less than ten of them.
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