Let's Fuck !!

Freya Campbell
Content Warning: This essay features crudely rendered
images of a sexual nature, as well as occasional mention
of games featuring rape, statutory rape, bestiality, and
general distaste (although no imagery of such content has
been included). Whilst this essay is not intended to
promote such content, mention such topics necessarily come
up when discussing adult videogames history.

Due to the age of these games, large chunks of this essay

rely on descriptions provided by others, so some details
may be incorrect.

I despise 1982 Atari videogame “Custer's Revenge”. For

years this has been one of the few “early sex games” I've
seen mentioned, usually as a way of illustrating that sex
in videogames has been bad – until Mass Effect or
something with a similarly trite conclusion. Custer's
Revenge is capital B Bad – a colonial rape simulator with
terrible graphics even for its time – but my main
grievance with it is its the one old sex game people bring
up constantly. I'm bored of hearing about it.

So it doesn't exist now! Fuck that game! What other early

80s sex games could we have been handwringing over for
years? What other early 80s sex games could have occupied
the public videogame consciousness via inclusion in
listicles and reference to How Bad Sex Was In The Past? Or
what vintage smut could we have based the industry on? Or
what problematic vintage smut would have ramifications for
obliterating from existence?
 “Couch” Co-op : Interlude + Night Life

Both Interlude (1980), by Syntonic Software Group, and

Night Life (1982) by Koei loosely form what, for lack of a
term other than the loaded “JOI”, I am going to call Sex
Instruction Games. Each of them takes a similar form; the
computer based gameplay consists of a series of interview
questions for one or two participants, discussing what
kind of sex they like, and in the case of Night Life
entering the woman's period cycle (!).

The output of this interview is suggestions of what kind

of sex to have. In Night Life's case, this is sex
positions drawn on the screen. Interlude provides a
numerical reference to a part of the physical manual,
describing the usually heteronormative – albeit with the
occasional BDSM or male butt stuff - sexual activity that
the computer has chosen for you to perform.
I find this kind of gameplay – using the game as an aide
to real meatspace sex – fascinating, as is the games'
expectation that you play them as a couple, working out
your desires together. It's an unexpectedly wholesome –
and yes, I will use that word for a sex game – form of
videogame to find when looking at the early 80s. It's
Night Life, in fact, that motivated me to make this entire
essay; what would it be like for this to set the model for
how we discuss adult videogames now?

Imagine: it's 2022 and couch co-op sex games are still all
the rage. Taking instruction from the computer as to how
to fuck – whether given via quiz, video, gameplay, or
delivered in screen, VR, audio – is a standard format no
different to FPS or RPG games.

This image of games-as-a-thing-for-sex-having-couples

clashes against some of the industry-manufactured
archetypes of the Gamer; angry single men in their
parent's basement, etc. Instead the market forms around
sex-having singles, couples, throuples, groups, desperate
to encourage them to purchase their games not as escapism
but as improvement. Videogames as sexual self-help tools;
as enablers of a better life; as training, tutorial, sex
mentor.
RPS (Rock Paper Strapon) writes review articles of the
best games to inspire & enable your sex life. AAA games in
the genre use the full range of hard(lol)ware to deliver
the best simulated sex advice possible. See the light
warping and accurate physics of the sweat on this you-
simulacra as your partner's digital version licks it off
your tits!

I almost wonder if, had this genre of sex game continued

in graphical & gameplay advancements, it might have doomed
itself by representing something too unachievable to the
average user. Unless they continued inclusively; look at
these imperfect bodies showing you how to fuck! Or scan
yourselves into it and see from the third person, partake
in autovoyeuristic pleasures; the videogames version of
sex in front of a mirror, or recording a sex tape to play
back later.

The downside to this approach to photorealism is, I think,

that you lose something as you approach it; uncanny valley
takes over from the power of suggestion. There's something
endearing about the simple lineart of Night Life. If made
NOW, the simplicity to me would say: these images are not
the point. They are suggestion. The real game is played
with your partner. Make this lineart reality!
 Play Ball! : Yakyūken + Lolita (Yakyūken)

From Wikipedia: Yakyūken ( 野球拳, lit. "baseball fist") is

a Japanese game based on rock–paper–scissors. Three
players compete. The host cries out "Play ball", the
audience chant related baseball phrases ... By the late
1950s, it became common for the loser to have to remove an
item of clothing.

Yakyūken's association with striptease seems to have come

from a variety tv show in which women competed against
each other, with a loss resulting in removing an item of
clothing and auctioning it to the audience, the proceeds
going to charity. This one show in 1969 sparked a japanese
trend that would become popular in both adult videos and
videogames.
Both Yakyūken (1981 or earlier, possibly 1979) by Hudson
Soft and Lolita (Yakyūken) (1982) by Pasokon Shop Kochi
(PSK) are early examples of videogames built around the
premise, both which forefront the game in their name, much
as something like Pong would. Gameplay consists of waiting
for the cue and pressing 1, 2, or 3 to select the hand you
wish to play. On success, the girl you are playing removes
an item of clothing, and you continue.

Yakyūken is notable for being perhaps the first adult

videogame with images, albeit ones made of angular ascii
art, whilst Lolita (Yakyūken) used to hold the title of
earliest listing on VNDB.org until it was removed for
being a “a stripping game with practically nothing in the
way of text, not a vn”.

The elephant in the room is age. Whilst Yakyūken at least

features a 19 year old girl as your opponent, if Lolita
(Yakyūken) specifies your opponent's age, I cannot find
mention of it. The name and visuals (I have pointedly not
included an unclothed screenshot; the other screens are
much worse) are giveaway enough. Plus, should you manage
to strip her fully, the game ends with a fakeout load
screen before you're taken away by police. At least it's
self aware but, yikes.
These two games are each sometimes remembered as firsts;
Yakyūken as the first adult videogame with graphics, and
Lolita (Yakyūken) as the first bishōjo game. Bishōjo (lit.
pretty girl) games, or gal games, are a subgenre of dating
sims and similar games primarily aimed at young men. Early
games that fit the genre are amongst the first uses of
anime-styled art in videogames.

In the 1980s and 1990s, following

public outrages over the content
of bishōjo games and their
consumption by perpetrators of
real-life crimes, the genre
started to move (at least partly)
away from the erotic, violent,
and problematic tones present in
many early games in the genre;
the industry formed an “Ethics
Organization for Computer
Software”, and set guidelines for
acceptable content that would
help shape the marginally less
problematic direction it moved in
(on average, anyway).

So what if baseball didn't exist?

I wonder if we can pin the

origins of pretty girl games on
baseball, its influence on
Yakyūken the physical game, its
influence on Yakyūken the video
game, on bishōjo games, and right down the domino chain to
the abundance of cute girl dating sims – whether erotic or
not – that you can find on any games site today.

I mean, probably the genre would have emerged another way;

whilst they're remembered as “firsts”, it feels like they
are just crystallisation of a kind of ambient desire for
sex games; maybe a tennis inspired rock-paper-scissors-
alike would've been the catalyst for bishōjo games
instead.
 Apple Perverts : French Post Cards &
Assorted Apple II Games

The Apple II was a home computer released in 1977, and

home to a large array of amateur erotic “games”. I'm
giving games apostrophes there, because their ludic
content is of some debate in the various sources I've been
looking at for this history of 80s sex games. Personally I
think they count by virtue of being functionally the same
as a kinetic novel that serves you pictures and text as
you click; only for a lot of these Apple II games, they're
explicitly – and explicit – cartoons.

French Post Cards seems to be one of the more well known

examples of these, its name confirming the influence of
erotic postcards somewhat common in Europe – a caption and
a drawn smutty scene, often somewhat comedic, perhaps on
the beach, maybe found in small books kept in the
bathrooms of people of a certain age.
When I found a copy of French Post Cards to download and
emulate, I found a whole range of other archived Apple II
erotica, much of which followed the same lines. Several
had crude 1-bit, 2-frame animations that would speed up as
a square wave noise also sped up & increased in pitch,
approximating... sex? I guess it's hard to make a 1-bit
speaker sound sexy.

A lot of the comics/games are pretty heteronormative and

what you'd expect from funny sex jokes; a surprising
number feature salesmen wooing or taking advantage of
women home alone (a staple of 80s sex videogames in
general); and there's a distinct strain of crude humour
(even going so far as to make bestiality an unexpected
punchline in one game I saw). Unpleasant examples aside,
it's the lack of seriousness that makes the sex scenes
stand out to me. A lot of videogames don't make sex funny
when in real life it often can be, and instead treat it
with a sort of grim seriousness that it's a Big Deal.
Which, sure, it can be to many people, I get that; it's
just nice to see it presented differently.
But what was most surprising to me on looking through the
archive was how much lesbian stuff there was. Like –
lesbian sex games! In the 80s?? Where's THAT entry in the
history and canon of videogames!?

Okay so yes the examples I found in the archive are

overwhelmingly made by & for men, which does somewhat
change the effect; girl on girl action was a staple of
pornography made for men even in the 80s. That's not to
say it's as cut and dry as that – any other trans woman
will probably agree that we look for representation
wherever we can get it, and what's hard to find was
fucking impossible before, so like – a crumb of Apple II
lesbians? Fuck yeah, so what if it's made by cishet guys.

That aside, run with me: what if the famous examples of

old sex games, influencing generations to come (lol), was
lesbian sex comics?
It's 2022 (lesbian games AU) and you are about to press
publish on steamy to share your latest videogame release.
It is a comical lesbian hookup game (dating sims don't
exist in this universe because baseball also doesn't
exist). It is compatible with a range of teledildonics
devices (e-dildos) if you want to lean closer to the
simulation side of gameplay, but it also comes with a co-
op instructional mode for playing with a partner. You have
of course rigorously tested this.

Reviewers are split on your previous game. A dedicated

group of players prefer the 2d sex over the 3d version the
player is encouraged to re-enact, whether for lack of a
partner or else physical incapability or disinterest. But
your main concern is about standing out; basically every
game in the world is a lesbian sex game. How can you stand
out? How can you be different?

Your eyes are drawn to the rifle in the corner of the

room. You only use it for hunting game. What if...
You dismiss the idea as stupid. Who'd want to play a
shooting game? What would you shoot? Animals? People? You
wouldn't be able to get it certified for a proper release.
Ever since that huge public outcry at the turn of the
millennium, when those kids shot up the school, the whole
industry's changed. You're a card carrying member of the
Ethics Organization for Computer Software.

You'd have to release it under a pseudonym. Everyone would

think you were some kind of gun pervert. You certainly
couldn't tell your mother you were making a game about
shooting people. And you can't tell the banks; they'd pull
your account. People keep getting kicked off social media
for making games about shooting people; websites get
blacklisted by payment processors for it. And god - think
of the children!

No. There must be a better way to stand out from the

crowd. You could do something unexpected in the next game;
maybe it's got puzzles. Maybe you make it a puzzle sex
platformer – no, they're too common. Think harder... what
if it was a puzzle sex platformer - with a twist. You can
turn back time! Accidentally squirt on your partner's face
when you know they hate that? Hit rewind and undo it.
Maybe it's about, like... a woman who's running from a
horrible and evil monster. She could be a princess – sex
games with princesses are kinda passé by now though. Hmmm.
You could make it deep though... criticise the indsutry a
bit. Maybe you're the monster. You start sketching a
character based on the last girl you went on a date with –
she had nice braids. Yeah. This'll be the game that makes
you stand out. You don't need to do a game about guns or
anything. Play it safe.

Doubts assuaged, you hit publish on your sex game, but the
thought lingers.
 Epilogue

I feel like my essay this year is less eloquent than

previous february writing jams but in my defence my brain
is melted by two years of pandemic and also its hard to be
eloquent about 80s smut games

I meant to write a bit more imagination stuff and have a

whole forth chapter about more high-concept 80s sex games
– including the two games made by Koei after Night Life,
Seduction of Condominium Wives – in which you play a
condom salesman trying to sell to &/or fuck housewives
whilst fighting off yakuza - and Do Dutchwives Dream of
Electric Eel?, a top-down early JRPG-like about hunting
down newly-sentient sex dolls akin to sexy Blade Runner.
Or other early examples of porn parody games, and
imagining a future where that was a self-financing
business in the way porn parodies of hollywood films is.
But why am I writing this anyway? Why did I pick this as
my conceptual keystone for a jam about Undoing things and
alternate universes of videogames?

I guess I am interested in the history and pervasiveness

of cheaply made &/or amateur made sex games. Whether the
flash games I grew up with, the uncanny valley 3d-poser
ones littering itchio today, or the range of 1-bit Apple
II ones brought up in this essay; I find something
fascinating in how they come about. Like – the amount of
work that goes into taking/making smut and obscuring it
behind often tedious or difficult gameplay; the unclear
nature of who is making and who is playing these games,
now or historically; the lack of self-admittance that a
lot of the industry has about it being a cornerstone for
literal decades.

Like – when I got the idea for this essay it was mostly
“fuck Custers Revenge I hate that stupid game”, but on
digging through 80s sex games, it's... really not that
much of an outlier. With the exception of my glee in
discovering lesbian Apple II sex pics, or the surprising
charmingness of a game enabling real-life sex – a lot of
the games are just not very good. Yet all that work goes
into them! Someone had to code Yakyūken's angular teenage
girl in basic. I can't do that shit!

What I am fascinated to pitch as my Final Undo of this

essay is – what if we undid the industry's sweeping under
the carpet of this? (okay Freya shut up about
mainstreaming sex games lol we get it)

Anyway – imagine seeing The Worst Old Sex Videogames not

as aberration but as bedrock, the same way that a thousand
puzzle platformers or generic feelings-based twine game or
scifi FPS shooter all get acknowledged as integral parts
of the industry in one way or another. We built this city
on digital tits, and many purveyors of sex games went on
to become big name companies after quietly abandoning
their roots. What I am curious about undoing is that
unlinking of the past and present.
I think about Annual Writing Jam Organiser Em Reed's
reading list on Dark Matter, and how she describes Gregory
Sholette's eponymous book Dark Matter as:

“Dark matter” to Sholette is all the work in a field that

is uncompensated, unofficial, often unnoticed and almost
always labelled “unsuccessful” and yet creative fields
increasingly rely on to maintain their aesthetic hierarchy
and rate of profit.

That's sex! That's the early JRPGs, Dating Sims, Text

Adventures, Kinetic Novels, Rock-Paper-Scissors-alikes,
Arcade Games...

I guess in a fight between the horny-for-sex and horny-

for-guns nerds making early videogames, the gun guys won,
and we had Doomlikes evolving into First Person Shooters,
and 4x games, military strategies, arcade shooters, etc. I
feel like that point goes uninterrogated on average
(though certainly not by people who actively research this
stuff, like, professionally/academically). Maybe it's due
to big games industries being based in military colonial
countries, maybe it's the DARPA / CIA funding. Maybe it's
just the fact that horny nerds were at least sometimes
getting laid instead of programming.

Idk man. I'm out of energy now. I just think everyone

could do with unscrunching and looking at some 1 bit
erotica and laughing a bit. Would the world be different
if Mainstream Games was sexier? - (Ideally less
heteronormative &/or problematic than the examples given
here, but – that was the 80s, innit.) - probably yeah.
Especially if it was the Interlude/Night Life model. Play
this game, get your results, but then... step away from
the keyboard. Touch ass.
 Timeline / References / Useful Links

1980 – Interlude by Syntonic Software Group

https://www.brutaldeluxe.fr/projects/cassettes/syn
tonic/k7_syntonic_interlude_manual.pdf

1981(?) - French Post Cards by (Bayou Bic?)

198X - Apple II erotica archive

https://mirrors.apple2.org.za/ftp.apple.asimov.net
/images/misc/erotica/

1981 - Yakyūken by Hudson Soft

https://videogamesdensetsu.tumblr.com/post/1533363
34460/yaky%C5%ABken-%E9%87%8E%E7%90%83%E6%8B%B3-
probably-the-first-erotic-video
https://ultimatehistoryvideogames.jimdofree.com/ya
kyuken

1982 - Lolita (Yakyūken) by PSK

https://ricedigital.co.uk/the-history-of-lewd-
lolita-yakyuuken/

1982 - Night Life by Koei

https://ultimatehistoryvideogames.jimdofree.com/ni
ght-life/