Them Czechs

I always noticed that Polymorphous Perversity is a relatively underreviewed game. As a reference, right now it has 24.5k downloads, a little over 2k more than Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer. But BE:D has zillions of reviews and LPs around the Internet, while PP has a much smaller number. And even among the sites that do speak about the game, very few of them are actually reviews from people who played a considerable amount of it. They're listed on the "They have spoken" tab on the right of this page.

That's why I was pleasantly surprised when I found no less than SEVEN extremely elaborate and insightful reviews of the game on a Czech blog called Brnoblaster. I got to read them using Google Translator. I'm really not sure what is going on there, but apparently a group of people had to choose between 4 games and review one of them: Anna Anthropy's Dys4ia, Molleindustria's The Best Amendment, Lucas Pope's The Republia Times, and my own Polymorphous Perversity. These reviews are in-depth ones, very critical, with references to related material, even including psychoanalytic work.

Here is a list of the reviews, listed by author, linked directly to an English google translation.

Polymorphous Perversity analysis by Michal Zbranek
Polymorphous Perversity analysis by Tomešková Lucie
Polymorphous Perversity analysis by Vit Holubovské
Polymorphous Perversity analysis by Julie Dolezelova
Polymorphous Perversity analysis by Jan Owl
Polymorphous Perversity analysis by Luke Rifle
Polymorphous Perversity analysis by Vančurová

Special mention to Vančurová's review, for it was very daring and insightful in trying to interpret the game's symbolism.

It has also caught my attention that my games have received considerable attention from Czech gamers. Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer is mentioned on several Czech sites, and almost half the downloads for my latest game Suzy and freedom come from this Czech article. Both BE:D and PP have been featured on a Czech magazine called CD-Action. What's even more interesting is that these reviews and pieces are usually very intelligent ones. While reading Brnoblaster's pieces, I actually wondered whether the authors were gamers or psychologists. I'm not sure what to make of it, because I'm not very familiar with Czech culture or really anything related to the Czech Republic.

Funny fact: Portuguese word for Czech is "Tcheca", which is also slang for "vagina".

Let's Play Polymorphous Perversity

A guy named Phobia was brave enough to record a complete Let's Play of Polymorphous Perversity and post it on Youtube. It's incredibly fun to watch, and should be helpful for people who were asking for a complete walkthrough/guide of the game.

---edit may 24th 2015---

Apparently the walkthrough was taken down from youtube. That's my thing, have my game related stuff taken down. If you want to know what happened, check this video (if you can understand what he's saying):

Post-mortem

It has been four months since I finished the first, untouched version of Polymorphous Perversity. Despite mentioning a few mechanics and releasing some screenshots beforehand, it was a game I fought hard to keep to myself. I didn't want people to see it before it was ready for public eyes. Even in the middle of all the player contribution, either in the form of short sexual fantasy testimonials or nude photos exposition requests, the game felt very... mine. Very personal. Anyone who's read a bit of this blog knows how intimate my relationship with the game has been all along. In a way that's not as flat and obvious as it may seem at first glance, everything I put in the game was part of me. In a way, the game was like a personal diary. And as it grew on me, so did the pressure to let it out.

After almost two months of testing - which were very painful to me, as I had to hold it for a bit longer - I made the public release of Polymorphous Perversity. Back then, it was one game. Today, after numerous comments, videos and reviews sprouted on the Internet, it feels like another game entirely. And that's how it should be. To me, games are messages, from developer to player. The content of the message is not exclusively determined by the author's intent, but by the receiver's understanding as well. The content of Polymorphous Perversity only made real sense to me after players started responding. And thus I feel the game - or rather, the project - is actually finished now.

I have vowed myself not to give interviews regarding the game once it was released. I have also vowed myself not to comment on player's discussion on the game, neither try to explain anything. I have to say, keeping those vows has been extremely difficult. I have this urge to keep talking, explaining and elaborating, if only to try and make more sense of the game to myself, put thoughts and ideas into words and making them concrete. But that would defeat the purpose of the entire thing, and I feel it would be too arrogant of me to say that someone didn't get the game. That's not what it's about.

There are two modes in which I functioned while making Polymorphous Perversity. I'll call them the Conscious Mode, and the Unconscious mode. In Conscious Mode, I made deliberate design choices trying to convey specific reactions on the players while fully aware of the message I was trying to send. There are various elements in the game that seem random, I know, but believe me - they aren't. In Unconscious Mode, I refrained myself from overthinking scenes and dialogs, and just wrote whatever came to mind, like free association, no matter how senseless they could seem at first examination. That's also an inheritance of Freudian inspiration, and that's not a bit more random than Conscious Mode. I think both modes worked equally well on constituting the game's content.

I'll say it now, there is intentional meaning in Polymorphous Perversity. I was trying to make a point. From what I've been reading, no one have seemed to quite get it, or rather, think like me. Maybe because in the effort of trying to hide some cues from insipid obviousness, I hid them a little too well. It doesn't really matter. I'm glad that people are still able to make consistent readings of the game, and I am not to say they are any less valid then my own.

What is special about Polymorphous Perversity, though, is how deep those readings can go. It is incredible how the game seems to catch people's attention through entirely different elements. How two people can love the game for completely different reasons, and how two other people can hate it for different reasons as well. And it's not just love and hate - players have engaged on the game on very different levels. And this is exactly what I meant, and what I expected when I said I hoped players to involve with the game sexually. I didn't mean players were suppose to get horny playing the game (though, well... it could happen). I meant that players would react differently to the game for reasons that correspond to their sexuality - and again, I summon Freud for a broader understanding of sexuality. I could mention a good bunch of examples here, but I don't want to point fingers at the people writing about the game. Just google it, or browse the "They have spoken" tab on the right side of this blog.

It would be absurd to deny that there's a lot of myself in the game, but at the same time it managed to allow players to put a lot of themselves in there too. And by the multiplicity of player's reactions, I could say that process number two has carried an important weight. From this perspective, it's funny how I have been called many things as the creator of the game, "transphobic", "misogynist pig" and "juvenile" being some of them. They're blaming me from the things they saw, things lots of other players didn't... and even I didn't. To be honest, I was incredibly surprised that the game has raised debate on the "tranny" issue and on the "rape" issue. My response to this is: those are not my issues, and they're definitely not the game's.

Having said that, I acknowledge a lot of the game's flaws that were mentioned by many players, especially mechanic. I took a lot of risks, and it was hit and miss process. Once some guy asked me when would I make another game like Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer, or even a sequel to it. I would never. I want to make games that challenge me, that take me out of my comfort zone. If anyone thinks playing Polymorphous Perversity is hard, imagine making it. But that's what it's been about, all along.

My original intent of this game was making an RPG that contained pretty much every aspect of the male sexuality (male - intentionally). It would be some sort of clinical exposition, an essay on sexuality, and funnily, that was what some people were expecting. It was bound to fail, of course, and gladly it did. Polymorphous Perversity is not the game I started making in Feb 2011. It's nothing like it, but I'm completely satisfied with what it turned out to be. I'm satisfied with the journey I took, I'm satisfied that I actually finished it (almost a miracle, I could say), and I'm satisfied it communicates with people. I wouldn't change anything.

I don't know if I'll be graded A, B, or F, but my horny meter is definitely down right now.

At last... Polymorphous Perversity!

It is finished. Download it now:

DOWNLOAD POLYMORPHOUS PERVERSITY

The system implemented after the testing phase was a sexual diagnosing system. Click here for info.

I haven't forgotten about the $69 prize and the Polymorphous Perversity Guide to Masturbatory Reconditioning I promised to one of the testers. I'll take care of it soon.

I've talked enough about this game. Now I want to hear about it.

Testing is over

Deadline for testing was extended to June 16th, which is today. Testing is over.

I got almost 300 sign ups for testing, which was a surprisingly huge number, but only 22 savefiles sent, which was surprisingly little. But I take part of the fault for that, because I got numerous reports that the game was somewhat difficult and frustrating at points.

I'm not taking any more sign ups, but if any tester is still willing to send me the savefile within the next few days, that will be great!

Next step is organizing all data from savefiles and doing some heavy statistic work. I said I wanted 100 testers, but I was thinking high. I could work fine with 50, and my very very minimum would be 20. I have 22, which means the outcome of the process will be far from ideal, but it will do.

I'd rather not talk about the actual system I'm implementing using data from the savefiles right now, but it will only affect the ending of the game. I'm also changing a lot of stuff based on testers' feedback, but nothing major.

I set my mind not to change ANYTHING in the game once I've made the final release. The game was finished on April 26th, almost 2 months ago. That's enough fine-tuning. I think I'll have the final release of the game by... let's say... June 29th. I'm sorry for the huge delay though!

I'm taking suggestions regarding where I can host the game. I want something that's reliable, easy to access, and preferably with a download count. I don't want sites like rapidshare or 4shared. I was thinking Game Jolt, which is a pretty great site, unless someone has a better idea.

Thank for you everyone who has tested the game, even those who couldn't finished. Thanks for all the feedback as well! And thanks everyone else for the support. I hope the final "product" is worth the wait!

More time

I contacted the testers, and I decided to give testing more time.

So deadline for testing now is June 16th.

I have also decided to make things a bit easier for testers.

I made a patch that fixes some minor problems: less lag at some points, more items, less difficulty, more instructions. Just extract the rar file to your game folder and replace the previous files.
DOWNLOAD TESTING PATCH

I also wrote a very brief guide for those who are stuck at some point and don't know what to do next. I recommend you do not read it unless you're really stuck. Also, don't read past the point you need.
COMING SOON

If by June 16th I don't have enough savefiles, I'll release the game as it is. I have fixed some problems according to the testers feedback, but I haven't implemented the system that would require the savefiles I'm asking to function. If I don't have the savefiles by then, the game will have to do without it.

Thank you for the help, everyone!

Something wrong?

Testing phase is not going quite as I expected.

So far, I have 178 sign ups (all of them have already got an e-mail with the game's download link), but only five have sent me the savefile. Testing phase has been up for 11 days, and there are only 10 days left.

A few people sent me e-mails reporting trouble running the game on Windows 7, but all of them (I think) have been fixed. I also got a couple of people telling me they got stuck on some part of the game, but I already gave them instructions on how to proceed.

I wonder what has happened to the rest. Have they given up on the game? Why? I need some feedback on this. But more importantly, I need people who are actually willing to finish the game. Without the information from the savefiles, it won't be possible for me to finish the game (EVER!).