The Kingdom Deck
I thought of the central deck mechanic as a way to avoid going to down the much-travelled route of summon mons and smash 'em into each other.
Time to brainstorm how that mechanic might work.
In abstract terms the kingdom deck represents a battlefield (in this case the organisations and individuals available to the players to corrupt) and making it a deck of cards is a simple way of varying how each game will play out.
At any time a certain number of kingdom cards will be in play. This can be thought of as a window of access. These are characters that are accessible to the warlock's sexy minions. This window of access will be constantly moving - cards will cycle out at end of turn and new cards come in (representing opportunities to get at an individual passing). Thematically and mechanically this seems plausible. If the current configuration locks all players out from doing anything the game should have a way of keeping things flowing. Effectively the cards in play are a queue. At the end of turn the bottom card is removed from play, all the others slide down and new card is turned over from the kingdom deck and added to the top of the queue.
With that mechanic in place the questions become:
How big should the kingdom deck be?
Big enough to provide enough variety without being unnecessarily unwieldy. Less than 100 and greater than 50 at a rough estimate.
How many cards in play at any one time?
This is the size of the window of access. Too many and it becomes overwhelming. Too few and reduces the possibilities of interaction between kingdom cards. I'm thinking of starting with 12 and seeing where it goes from there.
Is the layout important?
This shouldn't matter. Designate where the top is and where the bottom is. As the game progresses cards cycle off the bottom and new cards are added to the top. It shouldn't matter if this is a line or a grid. The reason we might want to specify a specific layout is it allows for a spatial mechanic. eg. Bodyguard - while this is in play cards adjacent to it may not be seduced and corrupted.
How fast does the kingdom deck cycle?
Do we expect to go through it once or multiple times in a game? This will affect strategy. Deckbuilding games such as Dominion have the player cycle through their own deck many times in a game and having some control over the content of that deck is a major part of the strategy. I'm not sure how it would work in a physical game (as opposed to computer game), but an interesting idea would be a "capture'n'subvert" type mechanic - seduced minions are shuffled back into the kingdom deck. The game would then become about both players try to "build" the kingdom deck (by corrupting some pieces to their side, removing others that are detrimental to their strategy). I think that could be interesting, but probably online only as tagging the characters once they go back into the deck to indicate who had turned them would by tricky to implement in a physical card game.
Then to think about what goes in the kingdom deck. Characters for succubi to target, tempt, seduce and then corrupt to the player's side is the most obvious. So what type of characters?
Resources
Basic characters that don't fight and don't have influence. They exist as an energy source for monster girls to slurp energy out of (and give us lots of lovely perversion potential). Also, if we don't mind wandering into grimdark territory, bloody sacrifices required to bring the more powerful demons into play.
Keys
Seducing these opens up access to higher tier characters.
Blocks
While these characters are in play, players are prevented from certain actions (eg a priest that prevents succubi seductions from taking place while they're on the table).
Keys and Blocks are functionally doing the same thing - controlling access to higher rank cards. Main mechanical difference is that a key can be grabbed at any time and used later on the higher target while the block needs to be in play at the same time the target is. If the goal of the game is to capture top-rank "King" cards, it's going to be important that there are Blocks in play while the King is in play.
Heroes
These cards exist to be a nuisance to the player through things like banishing succubi, rescuing seduced characters, hampering certain magic. Think of them as like random events being turned over for the turn.
Thinking about heroes as mechanical representations also makes me think about when events trigger.
Here are some possibilities:
When the card comes into play (is turned over from kingdom deck at start of turn)
When the card leaves cycles out of play (less important)
And also on player actions:
When a succubus is summoned
When a spell is cast.
We can also have triggers that are specific to spells and succubi of different factions (Most card games divide into groups - e.g. the five colours of Magic: the Gathering).
When a character is seduced
This should give a lot of design space for making cards. (and we haven't even started on the succubi yet!)
Dangers
Not in-game dangers, but design dangers. I think the game wants the various kingdom cards to be able to interact with each other and the player. The danger there is that if the interactions are too specific (eg limited to one of maybe five factions within the kingdom deck) or there are too many card types, there's a danger there will be too many instances where none of the kingdom cards in play at any one time do anything.
For this reason I like the idea of making the kingdom deck all characters. That way there's more overlap between the types.
e.g. Strategically a player will want to remove Blocks to open up access to other characters. The choices there can be:
a) Very easy - temporarily take them out of the picture. e.g. an arachne sticking them in a web, sending them to sleep with alraune perfume.
b) Easy - removing them permanently. e.g. Nom-noms for the more vore-y monster girls.
c) Hard - seducing them into resource. e.g. Succubus drains them for mana a player can use for spells.
d) Very hard - seducing them and using them as a double agent.
Hmm. I should start thinking about those sexy succubi cards now...
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Sunday, November 08, 2015
Monster Girl Card Game - Brainstorming II
More rambling notes and musings I'm jotting down here in the hope that they coalesce into something fun people would like to play.
While doing some research on the internet I remembered some articles Mark Rosewater wrote on game design a while back. MaRo is the public face of the design and development teams for Magic: the Gathering and writes a regular column on game design. He knows his stuff on this topic.
His Ten Things Every Game Needs articles are a good checklist to run every budding game idea against to see how it holds and identify possible weaknesses.
So let's try it here.
As a recap from the last post, my idea is for a game where the player takes on the role of a succubus-summoning warlock and uses their sexy minions to gain control of a kingdom behind the scenes. Nothing about this is set in stone. Rather than ye-olde-world-fantasy, the kingdom could just as easily be a corporation, or army invading hell-space, or even a college for warlocks. The succubus minions could be intelligence agents. You get the idea. What I'm trying to do is think up a monster girl game that's slightly different from the usual path of smashing mons into each other (coz, I'm awkward like that! :) )
Let's run through MaRo's points and see if that helps to clarify things.
1) Goal
The player is a warlock capable of summoning demons and other monsters. Their goal is to take over a kingdom (or other similar organisation) by gaining control of various key pieces. The kingdom is represented by a deck of cards.
Having a central kingdom deck opens up possibilities for solo or collaborative play if the central deck is capable of defending itself. The solo option in particular might be important. I want to try and keep the sexy if possible, but there's a danger then that most players might find it too embarrassing to play with others. Personally I'd prefer to aim at a niche audience than water everything down for a larger audience that probably wouldn't even notice it.
2) Rules
This is the mechanics. From the rough concept we know each player is able to cast spells and summon monster girls to do their bidding. These monster girls are then able to seduce and bring NPC characters under the player's controls. The rule system should determine how and when the cards can be played and captured, and also enable players' to interact with each other.
3) Interaction
And the first warning flag.
One problem with the concept is it might not lead to interaction between players. They could end up working their plans in isolation, with the winner randomly determined by which kingdom cards get turned over during the game. To get around this the game will need plenty of cards that can disrupt an opponent's strategy (but not so many it becomes overwhelming) and the game should force conflicts over the various kingdom deck cards.
4) Catch-up feature
A lot of games suffer from a snowballing problems. That's when an early advantage for one player increases their chance of further advantages later on to the point where the game is effectively decided in the first few turns and the rest is an annoying grind to a foregone result.
With the concept's theme, a player with more puppets has more influence and is closer to a goal of total domination. But they're also more visible to authorities trying to weed out corruption. Assuming the kingdom deck contains random negative effects (e.g. witchfinders and paladin heroes), having these disproportionately affect the leading player will give the other player(s) chances to catch up.
5) Inertia
The pull to get the game finished.
As MaRo says in his article, in Magic the power level of the cards ramps up as more mana is available to the player until something will go unanswered and end the game (dragons cost more to summon than goblins, but they typically end the game in short order if they're allowed to stay in play). There's also an alternate loss condition where a player runs out of library, so even long games will end eventually.
I probably want a resource system - start with low-level succubi and spells, but open up access to much more powerful demons and magic in later turns.
The easiest termination condition is have the game last a set number of turns.
A more complex condition (and one I'd like to make work) is for it to be provided by the kings in the central deck. For that condition to work there needs to be reasonably fast cycling through the central deck to make sure the relevant win conditions make it into play before everyone gets bored.
6) Surprise
Cards are good for this. Players need access to 'trick' cards to surprise the opponent. That means we'll need spells as well as succubi. The central kingdom deck can also be a source of surprise factor if seeded with cards that have interesting impacts on the game whenever they're turned over. Having a random deck of cards determine these events also adds to replayability as the game should play out differently depending on what order the kingdom cards are turned over in.
7) Strategy
Different factions in the kingdom deck. Different factions of monster girls available to the player. They should play differently and open up different routes to the end-goal. For example - succubi might be good at seduction and temporary charms, other monster girls might favour taking pieces off the board entirely (e.g. carnivorous plant girls eating them), an angel faction might favour disruption by making it harder for kingdom NPCs to be seduced.
8) Fun
Playing a warlock with a harem of hawt monster girls. Sound fun? ;)
The last two points are easier for this concept. It's a top-down concept, in as much as I have the background and flavour first, and I'm trying to come up with game mechanics to get that across.
9) Flavour
Sexy monster girls. I'm also trying to reinforce the sex being important by making the game about seduction and corruption rather than fighting.
One question of flavour is where to turn the dial in terms of atmosphere. Cute monster girls or sensual-but-deadly femme fatales? Crude sexual humour or gothic elegance? Light and fluffy, or total grimdark?
10) Hook
Also easy. A fun, sexy monster girl card game for an audience that likes things like my stories, Kenkou Cross's Monster Girl Encyclopedia and Monster Girl Quest. Here's where I might need to rein in some of my own grimdark predilections so as not to scare everyone off! ;)
Still very vague and general. I'll see if I can start throwing out more concrete mechanics in future brainstorming posts.
Thoughts and suggestions in the comments appreciated!
While doing some research on the internet I remembered some articles Mark Rosewater wrote on game design a while back. MaRo is the public face of the design and development teams for Magic: the Gathering and writes a regular column on game design. He knows his stuff on this topic.
His Ten Things Every Game Needs articles are a good checklist to run every budding game idea against to see how it holds and identify possible weaknesses.
So let's try it here.
As a recap from the last post, my idea is for a game where the player takes on the role of a succubus-summoning warlock and uses their sexy minions to gain control of a kingdom behind the scenes. Nothing about this is set in stone. Rather than ye-olde-world-fantasy, the kingdom could just as easily be a corporation, or army invading hell-space, or even a college for warlocks. The succubus minions could be intelligence agents. You get the idea. What I'm trying to do is think up a monster girl game that's slightly different from the usual path of smashing mons into each other (coz, I'm awkward like that! :) )
Let's run through MaRo's points and see if that helps to clarify things.
1) Goal
The player is a warlock capable of summoning demons and other monsters. Their goal is to take over a kingdom (or other similar organisation) by gaining control of various key pieces. The kingdom is represented by a deck of cards.
Having a central kingdom deck opens up possibilities for solo or collaborative play if the central deck is capable of defending itself. The solo option in particular might be important. I want to try and keep the sexy if possible, but there's a danger then that most players might find it too embarrassing to play with others. Personally I'd prefer to aim at a niche audience than water everything down for a larger audience that probably wouldn't even notice it.
2) Rules
This is the mechanics. From the rough concept we know each player is able to cast spells and summon monster girls to do their bidding. These monster girls are then able to seduce and bring NPC characters under the player's controls. The rule system should determine how and when the cards can be played and captured, and also enable players' to interact with each other.
3) Interaction
And the first warning flag.
One problem with the concept is it might not lead to interaction between players. They could end up working their plans in isolation, with the winner randomly determined by which kingdom cards get turned over during the game. To get around this the game will need plenty of cards that can disrupt an opponent's strategy (but not so many it becomes overwhelming) and the game should force conflicts over the various kingdom deck cards.
4) Catch-up feature
A lot of games suffer from a snowballing problems. That's when an early advantage for one player increases their chance of further advantages later on to the point where the game is effectively decided in the first few turns and the rest is an annoying grind to a foregone result.
With the concept's theme, a player with more puppets has more influence and is closer to a goal of total domination. But they're also more visible to authorities trying to weed out corruption. Assuming the kingdom deck contains random negative effects (e.g. witchfinders and paladin heroes), having these disproportionately affect the leading player will give the other player(s) chances to catch up.
5) Inertia
The pull to get the game finished.
As MaRo says in his article, in Magic the power level of the cards ramps up as more mana is available to the player until something will go unanswered and end the game (dragons cost more to summon than goblins, but they typically end the game in short order if they're allowed to stay in play). There's also an alternate loss condition where a player runs out of library, so even long games will end eventually.
I probably want a resource system - start with low-level succubi and spells, but open up access to much more powerful demons and magic in later turns.
The easiest termination condition is have the game last a set number of turns.
A more complex condition (and one I'd like to make work) is for it to be provided by the kings in the central deck. For that condition to work there needs to be reasonably fast cycling through the central deck to make sure the relevant win conditions make it into play before everyone gets bored.
6) Surprise
Cards are good for this. Players need access to 'trick' cards to surprise the opponent. That means we'll need spells as well as succubi. The central kingdom deck can also be a source of surprise factor if seeded with cards that have interesting impacts on the game whenever they're turned over. Having a random deck of cards determine these events also adds to replayability as the game should play out differently depending on what order the kingdom cards are turned over in.
7) Strategy
Different factions in the kingdom deck. Different factions of monster girls available to the player. They should play differently and open up different routes to the end-goal. For example - succubi might be good at seduction and temporary charms, other monster girls might favour taking pieces off the board entirely (e.g. carnivorous plant girls eating them), an angel faction might favour disruption by making it harder for kingdom NPCs to be seduced.
8) Fun
Playing a warlock with a harem of hawt monster girls. Sound fun? ;)
The last two points are easier for this concept. It's a top-down concept, in as much as I have the background and flavour first, and I'm trying to come up with game mechanics to get that across.
9) Flavour
Sexy monster girls. I'm also trying to reinforce the sex being important by making the game about seduction and corruption rather than fighting.
One question of flavour is where to turn the dial in terms of atmosphere. Cute monster girls or sensual-but-deadly femme fatales? Crude sexual humour or gothic elegance? Light and fluffy, or total grimdark?
10) Hook
Also easy. A fun, sexy monster girl card game for an audience that likes things like my stories, Kenkou Cross's Monster Girl Encyclopedia and Monster Girl Quest. Here's where I might need to rein in some of my own grimdark predilections so as not to scare everyone off! ;)
Still very vague and general. I'll see if I can start throwing out more concrete mechanics in future brainstorming posts.
Thoughts and suggestions in the comments appreciated!
Friday, November 06, 2015
Monster Girl Card Game - Brainstorming I
Writing productivity is still shite. I suspect it's a mild case of writer's block. The ideas are there, but the mechanics of transcribing them down as words and sentences are a little jammed. I suspect it's a little bit of mental sluggishness brought about from trying to make this my sole activity.
In the past I've found programming projects a good way to get the cogs moving again. It might be a good time to start thinking about monster girl games again. While going through old notepads I found some notes on a card game idea and thought it might be worthwhile to brainstorm things out here to see if the ideas could form a viable game.
The most obvious way to use succubi/monster girls is in an adult Pokemon-type game where the player summons various monster girls and has them fight (or fuck) monster girls of his opponent(s).
I want to avoid this.
The moment you slap a */* on a card to represent attack and defence values for the purposes of fighting other cards, it's very easy to get stuck on a path that terminates in generic Magic: the Gathering clone. The design space is large (as witnessed by Magic still being a great game despite being nearly 20 years old) but the basic mechanics tend to end up being very similar. That said, Magic/Yu-Gi-Oh-lite, with sexy monster girls doing smexy stuff to each other, would probably still be a fun game.
The other and main reason I want to avoid travelling down the obvious road is thematically it doesn't feel right. Succubi to me seem more about seduction and subtle use of influence behind the scenes rather than bare-knuckle fighting in a pit.
Picture two warlocks (in Phil's world for example) summoning a pair of succubi to fight each other Pokemon-style. Rather than fight, I think it more likely the two succubi would give each other a wink and then put on a lesbian sex show so hawt their gormless 'masters' would get so horny they'd have to join in... and then get their life/soul sucked out. (I should write that story!)
I like the idea of the player taking the role of a warlock with access to a bevy of beautiful monster girls and succubi to (maybe) do their bidding. That seems fun.
I also like the idea of just keeping it to monster girls and seductive succubi. Having random orcs and other monsters drags it back to being about fighting, which I want to avoid.
So I was thinking of how to represent sexy succubi in a top-down way for a strategy game, and this is what I came up with:
Seduction and Corruption.
And this gives a goal and an idea for the central mechanic. The players are warlocks. They summon succubi and other tempting monster girls to attempt to gain control of a kingdom behind the scenes. This is done through using their succubi to seduce and corrupt various NPC characters.
Mechanically this can be represented with three decks. Each player has their own deck and between them is a third deck representing the kingdom. At any one time there will be a number of cards in play from the central deck. These are the characters (and also maybe locations and items) that each player will attempt to subvert and corrupt with summoned succubi.
One way of determining a winner would be which player has brought the greatest influence value under their control at a designated end point.
Another thing I thought might work is to have the win condition be a variety of 'king' cards. The victory condition would them be the first player that successfully had one of their succubus minions seduce and bring a 'king' under the player's control (the game could have a variety of 'kings' such as an actual king, or a pope, or top general of the military - each would have different strengths and weaknesses).
The idea I had then was of chains. A player wouldn't be able to bring a king under their control right away, even with their most powerful succubus. They'd need to engineer a situation to be able to get at them. This could be achieved by chaining through various ranks. Gaining control of a squire opens up opportunities to seduce knights. Gaining a knight opens up an opportunity to compromise the elite royal guard. Compromising the elite royal guard exposes the king. Once the king is exposed the player can slip their most powerful succubus into the king's (or queen's) bedchamber and claim victory as their succubus corrupts the king into a puppet to carry out their every command (or the succubus's command if the warlock is not careful, succubi being deliciously duplicitous creatures and all that).
It's a rough idea anyway. I'll add to it with a few more brainstorm-type posts as I think things through. If it sounds interesting, feel free to make suggestions in the comments.
At this point there's no point getting too excited. I don't need to remind anyone my track record (especially this year) has not been the best on this type of thing - but if it gets cogs turning again for writing it will be fulfilling its purpose. And there might be a cool game there to build.
In the past I've found programming projects a good way to get the cogs moving again. It might be a good time to start thinking about monster girl games again. While going through old notepads I found some notes on a card game idea and thought it might be worthwhile to brainstorm things out here to see if the ideas could form a viable game.
The most obvious way to use succubi/monster girls is in an adult Pokemon-type game where the player summons various monster girls and has them fight (or fuck) monster girls of his opponent(s).
I want to avoid this.
The moment you slap a */* on a card to represent attack and defence values for the purposes of fighting other cards, it's very easy to get stuck on a path that terminates in generic Magic: the Gathering clone. The design space is large (as witnessed by Magic still being a great game despite being nearly 20 years old) but the basic mechanics tend to end up being very similar. That said, Magic/Yu-Gi-Oh-lite, with sexy monster girls doing smexy stuff to each other, would probably still be a fun game.
The other and main reason I want to avoid travelling down the obvious road is thematically it doesn't feel right. Succubi to me seem more about seduction and subtle use of influence behind the scenes rather than bare-knuckle fighting in a pit.
Picture two warlocks (in Phil's world for example) summoning a pair of succubi to fight each other Pokemon-style. Rather than fight, I think it more likely the two succubi would give each other a wink and then put on a lesbian sex show so hawt their gormless 'masters' would get so horny they'd have to join in... and then get their life/soul sucked out. (I should write that story!)
I like the idea of the player taking the role of a warlock with access to a bevy of beautiful monster girls and succubi to (maybe) do their bidding. That seems fun.
I also like the idea of just keeping it to monster girls and seductive succubi. Having random orcs and other monsters drags it back to being about fighting, which I want to avoid.
So I was thinking of how to represent sexy succubi in a top-down way for a strategy game, and this is what I came up with:
Seduction and Corruption.
And this gives a goal and an idea for the central mechanic. The players are warlocks. They summon succubi and other tempting monster girls to attempt to gain control of a kingdom behind the scenes. This is done through using their succubi to seduce and corrupt various NPC characters.
Mechanically this can be represented with three decks. Each player has their own deck and between them is a third deck representing the kingdom. At any one time there will be a number of cards in play from the central deck. These are the characters (and also maybe locations and items) that each player will attempt to subvert and corrupt with summoned succubi.
One way of determining a winner would be which player has brought the greatest influence value under their control at a designated end point.
Another thing I thought might work is to have the win condition be a variety of 'king' cards. The victory condition would them be the first player that successfully had one of their succubus minions seduce and bring a 'king' under the player's control (the game could have a variety of 'kings' such as an actual king, or a pope, or top general of the military - each would have different strengths and weaknesses).
The idea I had then was of chains. A player wouldn't be able to bring a king under their control right away, even with their most powerful succubus. They'd need to engineer a situation to be able to get at them. This could be achieved by chaining through various ranks. Gaining control of a squire opens up opportunities to seduce knights. Gaining a knight opens up an opportunity to compromise the elite royal guard. Compromising the elite royal guard exposes the king. Once the king is exposed the player can slip their most powerful succubus into the king's (or queen's) bedchamber and claim victory as their succubus corrupts the king into a puppet to carry out their every command (or the succubus's command if the warlock is not careful, succubi being deliciously duplicitous creatures and all that).
It's a rough idea anyway. I'll add to it with a few more brainstorm-type posts as I think things through. If it sounds interesting, feel free to make suggestions in the comments.
At this point there's no point getting too excited. I don't need to remind anyone my track record (especially this year) has not been the best on this type of thing - but if it gets cogs turning again for writing it will be fulfilling its purpose. And there might be a cool game there to build.
Monday, November 02, 2015
Literotica Halloween Contest Recap and Nov 2015 Update
The voting period for Literotica's Halloween Contest is over and they've announced the winners. I didn't place, but to be honest I wasn't expecting to. Both my entrants, "Snuff/Skin Flick" and "Chad's Challenge", are Bad End stories and generally it's the longer (sometimes very long!) stories with heart-warming endings that finish in the top 3.
One thing that did disappoint me was that I only managed to enter two stories. The story I had originally planned to be a third entrant had an ending that was fine for a horror tale, but wouldn't work for erotica. I had an alternate planned, but was not able to finish that in time.
Overall I liked the idea of using October as a short story challenge month. November is normally the month for NaNoWriMo - where aspiring (and some grizzled!) writers attempt to blast out a 50K novel in a single month. NaNoWriMo doesn't work for me as I write out all my first drafts longhand and it's not easy to keep track of the word count that way. What I might do for future years is to instead use Literotica's Halloween Contest as a challenge to see how many short stories I can blast out in that three week period. At least I've set a low bar there with only two entrants to beat!
Update time.
Currently I'm finishing off the two stories that didn't make the deadline. One will likely end up being a mini-serial going out this month or next. The other will be posted as soon as it's done. There's a chance that one will kick up an online shitstorm, which might be fun. :D
"Sandwiched by Scyllas" is moving again. I did the usual thing I do with stories that have derailed - start typing up the 2nd drafts early until I pick the thread back up again.
I want get these out of the way ASAP, so I can get on with the major task of finishing Succubus Summoning 201 and preparing it as an ebook to go out as soon as eXcessica has a spare slot. I have some novel and novella ideas I'm keen to get on with, but I need to really get the second arc of that serial wrapped up satisfactorily first. (This year would have likely been far more productive if I'd got those last two chapters finished this time last year!)
One thing that did disappoint me was that I only managed to enter two stories. The story I had originally planned to be a third entrant had an ending that was fine for a horror tale, but wouldn't work for erotica. I had an alternate planned, but was not able to finish that in time.
Overall I liked the idea of using October as a short story challenge month. November is normally the month for NaNoWriMo - where aspiring (and some grizzled!) writers attempt to blast out a 50K novel in a single month. NaNoWriMo doesn't work for me as I write out all my first drafts longhand and it's not easy to keep track of the word count that way. What I might do for future years is to instead use Literotica's Halloween Contest as a challenge to see how many short stories I can blast out in that three week period. At least I've set a low bar there with only two entrants to beat!
Update time.
Currently I'm finishing off the two stories that didn't make the deadline. One will likely end up being a mini-serial going out this month or next. The other will be posted as soon as it's done. There's a chance that one will kick up an online shitstorm, which might be fun. :D
"Sandwiched by Scyllas" is moving again. I did the usual thing I do with stories that have derailed - start typing up the 2nd drafts early until I pick the thread back up again.
I want get these out of the way ASAP, so I can get on with the major task of finishing Succubus Summoning 201 and preparing it as an ebook to go out as soon as eXcessica has a spare slot. I have some novel and novella ideas I'm keen to get on with, but I need to really get the second arc of that serial wrapped up satisfactorily first. (This year would have likely been far more productive if I'd got those last two chapters finished this time last year!)
Thursday, October 22, 2015
Chad's Challenge
My 2nd story for Literotica's Halloween story contest is up. You can read it here:
Chad's Challenge
No idea where this one came from. It bubbled up from the little black cells at the back of my brain and I wrote it down. I wanted to write a simple old-style manyeyedhydra short story with monster girls and dangerous snu snu to get the machinery moving again. It took a little longer to write than I expected, probably because it's also about 1.5K words longer than I originally anticipated.
It's a little freaky, especially on the sex bit...
I hope you all enjoy it anyway.
I've got today to finish the 3rd entrant. That might be a little too tight. The subject matter is topical, so even if I don't make the deadline I'll still post it to Literotica as soon as the story is finished.
Chad's Challenge
No idea where this one came from. It bubbled up from the little black cells at the back of my brain and I wrote it down. I wanted to write a simple old-style manyeyedhydra short story with monster girls and dangerous snu snu to get the machinery moving again. It took a little longer to write than I expected, probably because it's also about 1.5K words longer than I originally anticipated.
It's a little freaky, especially on the sex bit...
I hope you all enjoy it anyway.
I've got today to finish the 3rd entrant. That might be a little too tight. The subject matter is topical, so even if I don't make the deadline I'll still post it to Literotica as soon as the story is finished.
Monday, October 19, 2015
Writing Updates: Oct 19th, 2015
Somebody highlighted this on my twitter feed.
My first thought was: Well, durr. You people have become the Stop Having Fun people, and it's in the nature of youth to rebel against the Stop Having Fun people.
(@radicalbytes is the man behind Feminist Frequency, responsible for the Tropes vs. Women series on Youtube.)
In the past it was the religious morality brigade. Nowadays it's authoritarian SJWs. South Park has already lampooned it with PC Bros, it's only a matter of time before other comics lock the trope in.
This is nothing new. The late 80s/early 90s saw a similar push for political correctness and trumpeted the arrival of the 'New Man' - in touch with his caring, sharing side. By the mid 90s the New Man was soundly rejected by women as an unsexy wet drip and Political Correctness was buried beneath universal mockery. This was the decade that saw the emergence of Lads' mags and Lad Culture in Britain.
The same cycle is repeating itself now. Unfortunately, the viciousness of the more extreme fringe of activism is greater and more visible this time around because of social media. And I think that means the resulting pushback will also be vicious. My own personal opinion is that the average person is considerably less [foo]ist and [foo]phobic nowadays, but there's only so many times you can get hit in the head by a rock before you give in to the temptation to start throwing them back. It's become a cottage industry (or, in some cases, a financially lucrative business) to throw a rock at a group, then scream harassment and seek sympathy when the riled-up group throws rocks back.
Where does that leave us? Probably with a bunch of virulent anti-women misogynists when those 10 to 14-year-old boys, fed up of being constantly told they're the root of all evil, grow up.
And on that cheery note, it's time to get back to writing.
This week I'll be trying to finish off the two stories I have planned for the Literotica Halloween Contest. It ended up not quite being the story bonanza I was hoping for. Progress was a little too much on the stop/start side. I suspect I might be going too long on my short stories (6-7K instead of 4-5K words) and not getting them finished fast enough. I've noticed my productivity and enthusiasm for a story starts to wane once it drags past a certain number of days. Getting an idea down in 2-3 days, while it's still fresh, is what I should be aiming for.
The second story features plenty of weirdness and dangerous snu snu. That's typed up and should be posted in the next few days after I've finished editing it.
The third story references the #GamerGate controversy, so the response to that should be... interesting. It also features an appearance of one of my regular characters. Sort of. I'm deep in the 1st draft for that one. The closing date for the competition is the 22nd. That might be tight, but I'll still post it even if I fail to make the deadline.
Originally I had another third story planned. The first draft is nearly done on that one. Horror-head and Erotica-head had a fight over the ending and Erotica-head rightly pointed out the original ending, as planned, would likely leave readers feeling like they'd been cheated out of some of the sexy stuff. The story does have plenty of nice cliff-hanger moments, so I'll be running that here on the blog throughout November as a mini-serial.
Then it's back to getting the long-delayed "Sandwiched by Scyllas" ready for publication. I'm hoping a break from banging my head against the wall trying to write the second half of that will get it flowing again. Lots of tentacle goodness to come there. ;)
Breaking the Sandwiched by series out of the monthly cycle that wasn't doing me any good means I won't be immediately pressured to get the 5th done (currently pencilled in as the slightly voretastic "Sandwiched by Stomachs"). That means it will be time to do what people have been asking me for all year and bring Succubus Summoning 201 to a satisfying end.
Thursday, October 01, 2015
Snuff/Skin Flick
The first (and hopefully not only) story for Literotica's Halloween story contest is up. You can read it here:
"Snuff/Skin Flick"
This is a little more horror than my usual stories. At one point after writing it I did briefly consider sending it out to more mainstream horror fiction magazines. Then, after I'd stopped laughing, I decided that was a stupid idea.
All the horror movie references are real horror films. Ruggero Deodato, the director of Cannibal Holocaust, apparently was arrested on suspicion of murdering his cast for real. That must have brought a warm glow of job-done-well to the heart of whoever was responsible for the special effects.
I don't expect "Snuff/Skin Flick" to score very highly. The main PoV character is too far removed from the action to have the same level of sexual intensity as my other stories and my Nasty End stories never score as highly as the Nice End stories. Still, I hope people appreciate it as a more mainstream-type horror tale. There are more typical succubus stories on the way (don't worry, they still have fucked up elements ;)).
As always, if you have any questions about the story or there were things that bugged you about it and you want to let me know, feel free to scrawl something in the comments below.
Oh, I might as well tackle something I saw on Literotica's boards. Snuff is on the list of things that Literotica doesn't allow in stories. So how does a story with Snuff in the title get through? (and correspondingly, how the hell do you get anything posted there at all, Hydra, considering the typical death count in your stories?)
I can't speak for the official policies of the site, but in general it seems to be don't submit anything where the PoV character gets sexually aroused by killing another character in a way that could be copied out in the real world by anyone reading that story. PoV and realism are the important factors. From a horror literature point of view this does rule out certain types of story, but I don't blame the site owners for wanting to be cautious here. No-one wants to feel tangentially responsible for a nutjob enacting a murderous sexual fantasy they picked up from reading a story online. Despite this, there is still plenty of leeway for a writer to depict brutality, as this story will attest. :)
"Snuff/Skin Flick"
This is a little more horror than my usual stories. At one point after writing it I did briefly consider sending it out to more mainstream horror fiction magazines. Then, after I'd stopped laughing, I decided that was a stupid idea.
All the horror movie references are real horror films. Ruggero Deodato, the director of Cannibal Holocaust, apparently was arrested on suspicion of murdering his cast for real. That must have brought a warm glow of job-done-well to the heart of whoever was responsible for the special effects.
I don't expect "Snuff/Skin Flick" to score very highly. The main PoV character is too far removed from the action to have the same level of sexual intensity as my other stories and my Nasty End stories never score as highly as the Nice End stories. Still, I hope people appreciate it as a more mainstream-type horror tale. There are more typical succubus stories on the way (don't worry, they still have fucked up elements ;)).
As always, if you have any questions about the story or there were things that bugged you about it and you want to let me know, feel free to scrawl something in the comments below.
Oh, I might as well tackle something I saw on Literotica's boards. Snuff is on the list of things that Literotica doesn't allow in stories. So how does a story with Snuff in the title get through? (and correspondingly, how the hell do you get anything posted there at all, Hydra, considering the typical death count in your stories?)
I can't speak for the official policies of the site, but in general it seems to be don't submit anything where the PoV character gets sexually aroused by killing another character in a way that could be copied out in the real world by anyone reading that story. PoV and realism are the important factors. From a horror literature point of view this does rule out certain types of story, but I don't blame the site owners for wanting to be cautious here. No-one wants to feel tangentially responsible for a nutjob enacting a murderous sexual fantasy they picked up from reading a story online. Despite this, there is still plenty of leeway for a writer to depict brutality, as this story will attest. :)
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