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The Drunken Harlot
Author: kkennon
Date: 2012
ADRIFT 5
What does AIF stand for? Adult Interactive Fiction.
If you likely to
be offended by games with sexual content, you are advised not
to open these
files.
Reviewed by The Blue Satyr
Overview:
You are a handsome, silver-tongued bard on the run from his latest trail of
broken hearts. As luck would have it a ruckus inn called The Drunken Harlot
looms ahead at the crossroads. Inside will you find a lovely lass to warm your
bed or will you find a fate not fitting for a strapping adventurer such as
yourself?
Author:
Kkennon is the author of The Drunken Harlot. I don't recall his name before so
this may indeed be his first game.
Protagonist:
The bard! What could be more fun to play than a bard that can make the women
swoon and turn the most vile lie into the most honest truth anyone has ever
heard? Anyone familiar with the roleplaying games Dungeons & Dragons or
Pathfinder will know
exactly what I am talking about.
The protagonist's character is glimpsed during the game introduction and it is
enough to determine that he is one selfish son-of-a-bitch. Hey, most bards are,
that is what makes them fun. With so many conquests behind him it is obvious he
can seduce almost any lady he desires. And it sounds like this bard is
constantly running from trouble he created. No problem, with a skill set like a
bard he is confident to make a full recovery and most likely at some poor
gullible sod's expense!
At the start of the adventure you must input a name for your bard. Argh, really?
I find it easier to get into my character if the protagonist already has a name
or if he is presented as the nameless Everyman type. However, that is just my
opinion.
Characters:
The two other characters are given life through their actions and what they say.
Both have many options to interact with, although less so with Arsya the
barkeep. While their descriptions are left a little vague they are long enough
to give a visualization of the character. Each one has a distinct personality
and motivations, kudos to kkennon for that, it helps bring them both to life.
Sex:
The main course for the bard is a blonde hottie with big tits named Cherise.
Although the author didn't mention she is attractive it was obvious by the
description. Cherise is not much of a challenge to get in the sack, especially
for a bard, but the way in which all the men in the room looked upon you with
jealous scorn really made me feel good at completing the seduction.
The sex is nicely varied in one regard, depending on what items you use before
the sex commences. These items can unlock extra sex actions like the blowjob and
anal. And they also unlock different descriptions of some of the sex acts. On
the other hand each sex action has a limit of only one description per game. If
you try to repeat a sex act (except for kissing) you are greeted with a message
that says you have already tried that. Grrrrr. That is one of my pet peeves, I
like more freedom in my interactive sex.
To do anything with Cherise you must write her name in the command like 'suck
cherise's tits'. OK, annoying. In the readme kkennon said he did this on purpose
so to practice for coding threesomes. Actually I think kkennon should be
practicing more one on ones first and drop the person's name in the command. The
easier it is for the player the more enjoyable the game play.
Overall though, I'd say the sex is pretty darned good. Kkennon wrote the
descriptions of sex very well thus making for one hot lovemaking session. I'd
just wish he'd included more body parts and more detailed descriptions for
Cherise's body parts.
Writing:
The game is polished and I found the writing to be a treat. Good descriptions
without being too long are what I think is a trademark of good IF writing. The
world was immersive, convincing me that this was a fantasy world and you were
inside a wild, sinful inn. I felt like I was a part of the fantasy adventure so
I give big props to kkennon for that!
I do have one complaint, not enough peripheral descriptions. What I mean is
things like room decor, minor objects and clothing items worn by characters. I
love to feel fully immersed within a world and although TDH did a great job of
selling me the fantasy world atmosphere it came up short with the little details
that seal the deal for players like me. For instance when I examined Cherise's
stockings I expected to see a description of her lovely legs encased in
stockings. Instead I got the generic message telling me the game didn't know
what I was trying to examine. Curses!
Technical:
I didn't find many typos at all. Out of the few I found the most glaring one was
in Cherise's description.
The game uses the commands greet, compliment, impress and 'talk to <person>' as
means to communicate with the characters. I found this to be a delight. It is
simple, straight forward and helps you to get to know the other characters
through their responses. Since I like variety I thought the game would have been
better if the impress and compliment commands could be repeated (like the' talk
to' command) instead of just the one time limit imposed on the player. The' talk
to' command is a great tool to help the characters chit-chat so you can learn
about their thoughts, desires and personalities. It generates
random responses from a list and you can repeat the 'talk to' command until you
read them all.
As much as I liked the above commands for communicating I found the lack of
conversation subjects to be unfortunate. With a little more time and devotion to
fleshing out conversations I think kkennon could have made his characters really
pop to life in the player's imagination.
Bottom Line:
To all you people out there with ADRIFT-envy whom badmouth it whenever you can I
give you this game as exhibit one. The Drunken Harlot is a strong game with few
to no technical mistakes and my choice to be the dark horse that finally has the
chance to hand Goblinboy his first defeat. That is no small feat to accomplish.
For even with the surprisingly lukewarm reception of GB's game this year his
vast numbers of fanboys will be hard to defeat at the ballot box.
TDH really hit a soft spot in me. I love old school IF adventure and I hope to
see more games with our bard friend in a more expanded adventure world.
Reviewed by Deus ExLibris
To begin at the beginning, the game opens by
asking you to name the PC. Fortunately there's a readme file that contains
enough information to work out what sex the PC is supposed to be. I think it
would have been better if it had included a description of who the PC was and/or
the basic concept of the game (or asked the player for a name after the intro,
although I'm not sure if ADRIFT can do that). However, DH (as I'm going to
abbreviate it from now on) gets a gold star for having a readme file at all,
since it's something that's been missing from a number of recent releases (one
of my many pet peeves).
For the most part the puzzles are rather
uncomplicated. It's mostly a case of doing what the game tells you and searching
a few objects. The only thing I had difficulty with was getting the blindfold
(once I knew it existed), which would have flummoxed me if the task list wasn't
accessible via the debugger (I guess that's an ADRIFT 5 'feature'). I also had
some trouble getting Cherise to come up to my room due to overlooking the
straightforward answer.
However, once you reach the final scene the
puzzles start to become more interesting. Different combinations of actions
produce different results once the sex actually starts, as well as different
endings, and it's fun setting them all up. The sex scene itself isn't as
interactive as I would have liked, with only one response per action (although
that's partially excused by the fact that the response varies according to how
you've set up the scene). Having to specify the character's name for every
action is a little bit annoying, although poor object disambiguation has been a
feature of a number of ADRIFT games I've played recently, so I'm more inclined
to blame the authoring system than the author.
The quality of the writing
is more than acceptable. Objects are described in a way that makes them seem
believable, and there's a fair amount of background 'colour' that lifts the
gameworld above being merely generic fantasy. My one criticism is that although
the game's skeleton is solid, it could have been more fully fleshed out. In
particular, I would have liked more dialogue. Although the background colour is
interesting, there's nothing that the player can interact with or ask about. The
readme specifies half a dozen topics, and the game itself tells you to ask about
a couple of others, and that's apparently it, which doesn't really bring the
characters to life.
A more minor quibble is that the endings seem a
little inconsistent, both with each other and with what's happened in the game.
In particular, I was surprised by the sudden personality change the PC undergoes
in the 'canonical' ending although that's possibly just a result of all the
magical plot devices that are in play.
Be that as it may, of the four
games I've played so far, DH has been the one that's given me the most enjoyment
overall. It's polished and painless to play, with gameplay that's interesting
without being frustrating. So cheers for that.
Reviewer: Deus ExLibris
Review Date: July 2012
To begin at the beginning, the game opens by
asking you to name the PC. Fortunately there's a readme file that contains
enough information to work out what sex the PC is supposed to be. I think it
would have been better if it had included a description of who the PC was and/or
the basic concept of the game (or asked the player for a name after the intro,
although I'm not sure if ADRIFT can do that). However, DH (as I'm going to
abbreviate it from now on) gets a gold star for having a readme file at all,
since it's something that's been missing from a number of recent releases (one
of my many pet peeves).
For the most part the puzzles are rather
uncomplicated. It's mostly a case of doing what the game tells you and searching
a few objects. The only thing I had difficulty with was getting the blindfold
(once I knew it existed), which would have flummoxed me if the task list wasn't
accessible via the debugger (I guess that's an ADRIFT 5 'feature'). I also had
some trouble getting Cherise to come up to my room due to overlooking the
straightforward answer.
However, once you reach the final scene the
puzzles start to become more interesting. Different combinations of actions
produce different results once the sex actually starts, as well as different
endings, and it's fun setting them all up. The sex scene itself isn't as
interactive as I would have liked, with only one response per action (although
that's partially excused by the fact that the response varies according to how
you've set up the scene). Having to specify the character's name for every
action is a little bit annoying, although poor object disambiguation has been a
feature of a number of ADRIFT games I've played recently, so I'm more inclined
to blame the authoring system than the author.
The quality of the writing
is more than acceptable. Objects are described in a way that makes them seem
believable, and there's a fair amount of background 'colour' that lifts the
gameworld above being merely generic fantasy. My one criticism is that although
the game's skeleton is solid, it could have been more fully fleshed out. In
particular, I would have liked more dialogue. Although the background colour is
interesting, there's nothing that the player can interact with or ask about. The
readme specifies half a dozen topics, and the game itself tells you to ask about
a couple of others, and that's apparently it, which doesn't really bring the
characters to life.
A more minor quibble is that the endings seem a
little inconsistent, both with each other and with what's happened in the game.
In particular, I was surprised by the sudden personality change the PC undergoes
in the 'canonical' ending although that's possibly just a result of all the
magical plot devices that are in play.
Be that as it may, of the four
games I've played so far, DH has been the one that's given me the most enjoyment
overall. It's polished and painless to play, with gameplay that's interesting
without being frustrating. So cheers for that.
Reviewed by Gary Plume
Drunken Harlot was a nice slice of fantasy
including all the major "good" humanoid races. Tolkein tended to play up the
prejudices and segregations between the races. Seeing humans, elves, halflings
and dwarves, living in "harmony" was a fun touch (I'm smiling at the clever
halfling scene).
The scenery and the inventory items such as a leather
bag and the lantern created a period feel and successfully invoked nostalgia for
the golden age of text adventuring. I loved the grue homage.
It took me a
while to place the purple-skinned matriarchal night elves from Warcraft 3 since
I'm more accustomed to the black-skinned matriarchal Drow from Forgotten Realms.
I'm reading Feist's Midkemia with its Moredhel dark elves. Too many species of
elves. I liked the dry humorous tilt of the barkeep, but wished that she/he
could have showed me hers/his in a surprise cut-scene moment like "The Crying
Game". I don't think that would have violated the rules of the Mini-Comp.
I liked that the simple object of bedding the harlot became surprisingly
complex with the layers of puppets and puppeteers.
The varied endings
were interesting enough to make me play to get all seven. But I had difficulty
getting into the sex between the characters because I'm a big fan of free will
and mutual respect. A traveler buying a tavern harlot became a relationship
built on the power of magical devices to assert mind control and domination.
Unless she's a user, Cherise's motives seem in conflict: you need to seduce her
with your charm and stories and liquor, before she'll pick you to be drugged and
enslaved and discarded (Lost Soul ending).
I too spent too much time in
the Great Underground Empire. Perhaps I haven't seen enough AIF, but I didn't
find this game cliche. Instead, I found it to be the most interesting Mini-Comp
game in terms of setting and branching to distinct endings.
Reviews should be considered copyrighted by their respective authors.
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