The Sexuality Life Dynamic... whatever you say, chief.

The Sexuality Life Dynamic

To be honest, I had no idea that this... thing ("game" simply will not do in light of the horrible, twisted insanity to follow) even fucking existed until I started playing around with Apple II emulators a short while ago. Ye gods, was I missing out. If I'd had this as a kid, on my own little, long-gone Apple II, who really knows how fucked-up I'd be right now. I mean, I'm already pretty twisted as it is, but can you imagine having this mishmash fed directly into your head -- and taking the insidious form of alleged "fun", no less -- at such a tender and suggestible age? So here we go, really: straight to the heart of the blurry, horrifying mess that is The Sexuality Life Dynamic. You see, people, this is the kind of thing that makes me really and truly grateful for fanatical emulation communities. Someone, somewhere, has a hard copy of this weirdness, and decided that YES! it must be preserved, and so a disk image was dumped and uploaded to all the important archives and, well, there you go. See, normal people just don't do this sort of thing. But as Harry Dean Stanton said in Repo Man: "Ordinary fuckin' people. I hate 'em." And there you have it.

This will be screen-shot intensive; don't say I didn't warn you. Then again, the screen-shots are pretty small, and should be nothing more than a sniffle to most of you spoiled bastards' ultra-fast eyeballs-plugged-into-a-fat-pipe style connections. God damn it. If you don't wait for this page to load up, I assure you you'll rue the fuckin' day.

(Editor's Note: Anyone who takes issue with Zartan's compulsive and wildly inappropriate use of profanity would do well to download and investigate The Sexuality Life Dynamic, so that you may understand the deep, troubling issues behind why every other word is "fuck", "cunt", or a colorful combination thereof.)

Uh-oh. You've just got to know that when a program begins with an elaborate, noisy animated credits sequence -- and when the name of the folks responsible is, for fuck's sake, "Avant-Garde Creations", that you're in for serious trouble. Only people with serious pedantry issues even know what "avant-garde" means, and only the worst of that lot use it in regular conversation, much less call their shithouse, fly-by-night, one-man-army software extravaganza by that name.

And here's the title, not a second overdue. Cheerfully displaying the very best that the Apple IIe has to offer. But what's this? It's not done? Oh, no, friends and neighbors; Mr. Avant-Garde has more in store for you. The title goes through several iterations of crap, not the least of which being an illegible filled-in white blocky mess. Which is about par for the course, really.

I encourage each and every one of you with a postage stamp and too much free time to send a letter to this address, demanding a next-gen update of The Sexuality Life Dynamic. I mean, really -- it just fucking figures that the guy that made this program would come from a town called "Eugene". I remember my Wasteland Survival Guide ("reads like a sci-fi novella!" boasted the back cover, and sure enough, that bloody glorified hint book was my bible for two impressionable adolescent years) and the milquetoast science geek's name was Eugene. He didn't seem to have much of a Sexuality Life Dynamic, that's for certain.

And here's the big list -- the glorious, breathtaking bounty that The Sexuality Life Dynamic has to offer. Only a grade-A, certified mutant could come up with this stuff. Just looking at the names of these programs reminds me of Tron, and how each and every program that was written took an anthropomorphic form in "Electronic World" (again, I borrow from the fabulous novelization for the proper name; future RPG writers of the world take note) and I can but wonder what these preachy, entertainment-free programs must have looked like. Probably a lot like this. And yeah, The Sexuality Life Dynamic maintains this sort of "in your face", chatty style of writing throughout. Lucky us.

Pick any game you like, and you're greeted with this seemingly simple question. Oh, you actually want instructions? Big mistake.

Very big mistake.

I decided to begin with "The Timing Factor", for the simple reason that doing these games in their prescribed order, rather than in some clever, ulterior-humor-motive order would be much easier on my alcohol-ravaged brain. So I choose instructions and sit through about twenty pages of rhetoric that resembles nothing so much as an "enlightened, modern" parent lecturing his/her children ad nauseam about sex, and this genius' way-out ideas about the role of "timing" in sex and intimacy. The media comes into play; this will prove to be something of a theme in The Sexuality Life Dynamic. Brace yourself.
(My "birds and bees" talk went exactly like this, by the way: "Do you know what condoms are?" "Yeah." "Good." And I turned out just fine.)

Blah, blah, blah. You think you've finally passed all the bullshit and have gotten to the real meat -- how to play this fucking game -- and then the instructions go on for pages as well. This is where that sort of folksy, "straight talk" approach to video game instruction falls right on its ass. And then, after we plow through page after page of text (ahem), we get this double entendre loaded piece of advice: "Timing is everything! So shoot well!" I mean, shit. Aren't guys uptight enough about timing and "shooting well", so to speak, without some fucking Apple II rubbing their faces in it?

And this is it, ladies and gentlemen. This is the game you've been waiting so long to see. And it fucking sucks. See that white bar? It bounces around the screen, highlighting allegedly salacious words at random. Just hit the space bar whenever it's on the word that you want. Yeah, making four-in-a-row is real fucking difficult, let me tell you... well, actually, it kinda is, especially if you're too busy trying to keep your guts from bursting out through your abdominal cavity from laughing too hard. Feel! Caress! Fondle! I feel like I'm getting a telling-off from the high school guidance counselor after the school slut's baby was revealed be my fault. The only place you ever hear those words used is in deodorant ads and hardcore pornography passing as "how to be a better lover" videos.

On we go to "The Big Score!" and the author venting his frustration at not having a date for the high school prom. Shit, man. Even I had a date for the prom, and all she wanted to do was get out of there, go home, and fuck like rabid weasels. I thought that was what the prom was all about for everyone but the six or seven people who (a) planned it or (b) are getting some sort of candy-ass, ready-mix "award". Just before we left, I told my English teacher (talk about a fish out of water) that I'd planted bombs all over the ballroom and they had about fifteen minutes to find them. This was, of course, before middle-class white kids started blowing each other away for real (I blame this on the rising cost of video games), for it was considered "funny" at the time, and not at all due to the fact that I had a head full of speed and my best friend's date was younger than my kid brother.

Blah, blah, blah. No, really. I told you this dude rambles on and on about the media. And then he goes on to plagarize directly from his leftover, "right-on" sociology textbook from 1973. I'm surprised he doesn't ever get around to using the word "mores". Look it up, kids.

I couldn't have written this better myself, and God knows, I'd have tried. Unfortunately, I had my Apple II when my Sexuality Life Dynamic was at the "I know I like looking at boobs, but why?" stage, not the "write shitty and heavy-handed pornographic BASIC text adventures" stage. But yeah, here you go -- a game all about laying as many chicks as possible. I remember returning to my hometown when I was about 13 or so, and getting ready to play Rifts with my old friends. Their character sheets had something mine lacked: a numerical list of "lays". I found this incredibly retarded. Their explanation was that their characters had, at one point, stumbled into a harem. I just wish I'd been a fly on the wall at that role-playing session.

Again this fucking The Sexuality Life Dynamic preys on our insecurities by insinuating that we have no idea as regards half-decent sexual positions. It seems pointless to note that these instructions make little to no sense and don't do a damned thing in preparing on to play "The Big Score!", as you will see anon.

And this is it. This is the game. Just press a button -- any button -- when the "chick" walks by. Notice that I've used 15 of my 20 shots and have yet to score. I have a feeling that Mr. Avant-Garde felt he was striking a nebulous blow for equality when he made "The Big Score!" unfathomably difficult. I mean, come on: the Apple IIe isn't notorious for its split-second timing, yet that is at the heart of this hateful, useless game. It's like the "Word Blaster" segment of The Electric Company's Word Fun for the Intellivision, only (a) it's fucking impossible (b) it's about sex, for fuck's sake and (c) the graphics and sound are nowhere near as good. Plus you could make cool, sophisticated words like "dun" in Word Fun.

Amazingly, I managed to score. Shut up. And this is the big payoff, yes really, followed by a very silly animation of the male symbol repeatedly penetrating the female symbol. If you think I could be bothered to make an animated gif of that twisted little scene, you'd be wrong. Just watch that "People Are Still Having Sex" video on Beavis and Butt-Head next time it comes on and you'll see what I'm talking about. Rewarding? No. Mind-blowingly stupid? Why, yes.

Oh, baby.

The next game? "Sexual Conquest"! (Did I say I was going in order? I forgot. Fuck it.) The instructions get needlessly argumentative here, calling for two players, "no less and no more"! So you can forget about gathering the whole family around the CRT for a good old fashioned game of "Sexual Conquest". Sorry, kids. The four-player version will be available in Shockwave form on the Net just as soon as some lunatic reads this and decides it just has to be made. And no one ever accused The Sexuality Life Dynamic of being sexist; you can be a gender other than your own, and "see how it feels" to waste hours trying to figure out how to play a shitty, boring version of Reversi on your home computer!

Look at your keyboard! Look NOW! DO IT!
Man, I wish I had that kind of power. See what I mean?

The day I have to use "all my sexual prowess" to play a game older than most present-day supermodels is they day I hang it up for good. "But Zartan!" you say, "this is your big chance!" So it is, so it is. So yes, I advise you to sit down with someone you're hopelessly attracted to and to play a few rounds of "Sexual Prowess". And I also advise you to get her horribly drunk before you do, so that having sex with your ugly ass will look like heaven compared to suffering through one more minute of this Avant-Garde Creation. Plus it'll be much easier to win that way, and if you're reading this page, chances are that means more to you than actually having sex with another human being.

Once again, I feel myself compelled to say: and this is it. This is the whole game. Zzzzzzzz. Have fun conquering all those nubile young willing bodies, or something.

Yeah, yeah. This is "Breaking Out Of The Struggle", which takes the fad-tastic view that your parents are to blame for everything that ever went wrong with you, and you have to "actualize" your life or some such shit to overcome your doubtlessly traumatic childhood. Yes, only this game takes the bizarre and heretofore unheard-of approach that you are, in fact, orbiting your parents at 18,000 miles per hour. You must reach escape velocity! Yeah, well, the only people who get this resentful and artsy-fartsy about their parents' "residual emotional baggage" probably have less to blame them for than they thought.

Now it gets downright weird, talking about "trips" and "self-initiation" and "ontological space" and all that. It's like the author of this game was cloned from a leftover scrap of Robert Anton Wilson's toilet paper. Quite a rude awakening, no doubt, for some poor schmuck who downloaded this game hoping for a cheap and filthy wank. No, instead of feasting upon split beaver and swollen tits, you've got to transcend primal pain and unfilled needs. And I hear you asking: how? How can I achieve this narcissistic and nebulous goal? Well...

...here's how. And hey hey, what a surprise, it's a veritable who's who of flash-in-the-pan, late 70's psychological cure-alls. Honestly, though: a few of them make sense: "D" could mean stop hanging around crackwhores and role-playing conventions, and "I" could mean flushing the toilet once in a while, and decorating in something other than pizza boxes and empty pantyhose eggs, but EST? Primal therapy? "You've just screamed like a banshee for half an hour and now you're weeping like a baby in the arms of an almost entirely apathetic stranger! 50 points!" Kinda makes me appreciate my mom and dad, for not being such terminal fuck-ups that I sought out 31 flavors of cure-all after moving out. Jesus.

I can only fucking imagine. This guy must have been beside himself when MDMA made its big comeback.

And here's poor, poor Zartan, orbiting his evil evil parents and blowing almost all of his opportunities to better himself. Hey, just wondering -- do these games seem primitive, useless, and lacking in any sort of stimulation yet? Why, that's because they are! Still, I know you're wondering -- what happened? Did X@r+@N escape the evil authority d00dz?

Yeah, well, almost. But, thank goodness, The Sexuality Life Dynamic believes in me and my orbital velocity!

I could go on, but I won't. I simply can't deal with The Sexuality Life Dynamic any more; I've got screen-shots of the other two games, but I don't want to look at them. I don't even want to think about them. "Catapult!" is an unsurprisingly right-on, simpering look at sexual politics; I was always a left-winger but even this embarrasses me. It's what would have happened if Jello Biafra had invented Scorched Earth.
"Get Off It About Sexuality" is a sort of primitive Dr. Sbaitso; you tell it your sexual-related problem ("with gerund first!") and it gives you the same, self-actualizing crap every time. In fact, the program doesn't even go on unless you make some sort of half-assed pledge to take charge of your life. I only wish I was kidding. I didn't get any help at all from it, not that I was expecting anything more than abuse and a shitty rendering of Mars and Venus dancing around in top hats and blowing great big holes in each other with ion cannons.
You want to play The Sexuality Life Dynamic? Be my guest. Just don't come crying to me when, one drunken evening, you're in the heat of passion and you can't get flickering monochrome sexual propaganda out of your head. I'm already there, man, and god knows I can't help you. I highly recommend Asimov for all your Apple II emulation needs. The comp.emulators.apple2 newsgroup is uncommonly friendly, as well.

Make a chaste retreat to Zeroes Unlimited.