• she/they/it 🏳️‍⚧️

∍⧽⧼∊ ΘΔ

grey ace, adhdtism


hobbyist game developer, professional procrastinator, and kink trash goblin


avatar by @theobii
Zorotek is @7x9000's
header by Gluepaw

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in reply to @GoopySpaceShark's post:

Ooo, these are good questions. There's two things I can think of that handled something like this that I think would be worth checking out.

Pokemon Rainbow: https://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/ga3scped-kuxsuxtkrkxtq/pokemon-rainbow One of the items you have in an inventory is a "kink scope" so you can use it on someone you see and it gives a high-level overview of the scene and the kinks involved. So if there is something you don't want to engage in, then you don't gotta! This is more like a "game" than a story, you just run around and do whatever, so it's very easy to avoid scenes you don't want.

The City of Nodd's Noddules: https://www.cityofnodd.com/noddules Not only does the site have general cws, there's cws at the start of each noddule and then additional cws before you click into a scene that. But I really like how Nodd starts each story with doing an inventory of body parts of the user lol

So maybe you could do something like that? Have them check off what they're okay with encountering when they start the game. This could even be diegetic, depending on the story. Like the player picks a themed room to go into or what science experiment they want to be a part of.

There's always the risk that the reader is gonna encounter something that doesn't fully tickle their pickle, and that's okay! You can't make something 100% perfect for 100% of your readers. And having a (btw there is some [kink] ahead dont click this if you dont want to see it) can interrupt the flow of the story, yeah, but the reader being so squicked out that they leave your story would be even worse.

I can think of two other ways to do it:

the first is a kinda dependent on how long and game-y you wanted the text adventure to be, but u could make it so that the player character starts off as vanilla, and unlocks more kinks through experience. if a player hasn't unlocked it, it could change scenes to a default version or just gate away that part of the game if it is optional. if they don't want a certain kink they never have to unlock it, and because they're opt-in instead of opt-out you can shape game progress around them and players aren't front loaded with a "pick everything u don't want" list before playing. also kinda fun to see a character go from vanilla to more kinky over time and experience. there could obviously also be a mode that unlocks everything by default.

the second is better for a non game-y text adventure, probe the player to see if they are interested in or dislike something much earlier on in the story with questioning/teasing, but don't engage in it until much later on when the player forgets about the subtle questions that were in the middle of everything else happening. kinda like a... telltale games will remember that kinda approach to getting a feel for what the player likes and dislikes, with the safeword as backup.