Leather Goddesses of Phobos

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Leather Goddesses of Phobos

Developer(s)	Infocom
Publisher(s)	Infocom
Designer(s)	Steve Meretzky
Engine	ZIL
Release date(s)	Release 50: July 11, 1986 Release 59: July 30, 1986 Solid Gold: April 5, 1988
Genre(s)	Interactive fiction
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	n/a
Platform(s)	Amiga, Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, TRS-80, TI-99/4A, Macintosh
Media	3½" or 5¼" disk
System requirements	No special requirements
Input	Keyboard

Leather Goddesses of Phobos is an interactive fiction computer game written by Steve Meretzky and published by Infocom in 1986. Like many other Infocom titles, it was released for the IBM PC (DOS), Amiga, Apple II, Apple Macintosh, Atari ST and Commodore 64 computers. This game was Infocom's first "sex farce" and featured selectable "naughtiness" levels ranging from "tame" to "lewd". It was one of five top-selling Infocom titles to be re-released in Solid Gold versions including in-game hints.

1 Plot
2 Feelies
3 Notes
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Plot

The game begins in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, in 1936 and is presented in the manner of a science fiction serial of that time. The Leather Goddesses of Phobos are just finalising their plans for the invasion of Earth. The player's character has been abducted by the Leather Goddesses for the final testing of the plan which will enslave all of humanity. Unless this nefarious plan is stopped, the Earth will be turned into these twisted vixens' pleasure dome. (It should be noted that, despite the player's possible motives, this outcome is considered unfavorable.)

[edit] Feelies

The game featured no copy prevention as such, but like many Infocom games, it included puzzles that were nearly impossible to solve without hints from the accompanying documentation (the so-called feelies). Leather Goddesses included the following feelies, one of which was quite unique among Infocom's games:

A small scratch and sniff card which bore six numbered areas (at certain points in the game, the player would be instructed to scratch a certain number and then whiff the resulting odor. Given the possibilities for a game featuring a "lewd mode", the scents were relatively innocuous, such as pizza and chocolate.)
The Adventures of Lane Mastodon, a 3-D comic book containing vital hints to the game
3-D glasses for the Lane Mastodon comic book
A double-sided map of the catacombs

This creative take on copy protection earned Leather Goddesses a SPA Excellence in Software Award for Best Software Packaging in 1987.

[edit] Notes

In a particularly clever way, Leather Goddesses forces the player to "choose" a gender for his or her character: the game's first scene is in a bar, and the player's character has a sudden, powerful urge to urinate. The player has a few turns in which to enter either the men's room or the ladies' room, or else face an early, embarrassing end to the game. The game assumes that whichever restroom is entered is "appropriate", so entering the men's room means that the player's character will be male. Further, LGOP assumes that the player's character is heterosexual, in that in "Lewd" mode a variety of sexually suggestive situations with the opposite sex are encountered. (As another note, the first scratch-and-sniff moment occurs in the bathroom -- fortunately, the item is a piece of day-old pizza, and not what most players would fear finding in a bathroom.)

An additional by-product of the player's chosen gender is the nature of the "sidekick" character. If the player's character is male, he will meet a burly but dim-witted man named Trent; if the player's character is female, she will find an attractive but somewhat ditzy woman named Tiffany. There were a few differences in game-play between the two sexes, so players would often replay the game as the other sex, just to see what would happen. If the player referred to things pertaining to one gender when playing as the other (such as using the words "bikini" or "Tiffany" when playing as a male), the game would reply, "I see you've played the game as both a male and a female. You must be the kind that swings both ways -- wink, wink, nudge, nudge!"

So as to appeal as widely as possible to Infocom's existing customer base, the game included three different "naughtiness levels", offering the player a choice between a sexually explicit ("Lewd") game, a merely titillating ("Suggestive", the default) game, or a family-friendly ("Tame") game. The basic puzzles are the same in any mode, just described differently. For example, at one point the player can gain entrance to the harem of a Sultan(ess), one of whose spouses is also present. With the right information the player can get help from this spouse which is necessary to complete the game. The player may also choose to interact more "personally" with the spouse, which in Lewd mode produces a detailed description. Tame mode restricts the interaction to stimulating discussion about such subjects as jazz music and the writings of Jules Verne.

Another interesting feature was the inclusion of a Boss Key that displayed what looked like a Visicalc-like spreadsheet, so that if the boss walked by, the player might seem to be really working, instead of playing a game. However, looking closely at the spreadsheet gave the secret away as it included some rather "unique recreational items," such as leather whips.