Preggers
Release type: Shareware
Release date: July 17, 1993
Levels: 5
Author: Sherwood Forest
Registration bonus: Free game or two + current catalog
Registration price: $15
Related games: none
When you provide a creative outlet for adolescent fascinations, there will be certain recurring themes, perhaps not all of which RSD intended or foresaw.
The NES was a famously closed platform, a standing challenged by only a handful of publishers. One of the reasons for Nintendo's draconian licensing scheme, later to be adopted by every major console manufacturer, was to prevent a repetition of the final days of the Atari VCS. With Atari's lack of foresight, their first multi-game system became a clearing house for whatever cheap or exploitative product a publisher felt like producing.
Although there are many arguments to be made for an open format, most of which would be echoed by RSD lead programmer G. Andrew Stone, few of those really applied to the reality of 1984. To produce a viable product in the face of well-designed legitimate games, fly-by-night publishers dialed down to the easiest models available: copycat design, facile licenses, and prurient interests. Of the three categories, the third was the most prone to creative development -- if only because it took such effort to construct an erotic premise under the limitations of Atari's hardware.
The best third-party VCS games, then, were either from visionary artist-focused activists like Activision or from aspiring pornographers like Mystique. Amongst their gems are such legends as Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em, Bachelor Party, and Custer's Revenge.
Fast forward a decade, to another budding open platform, and cue the hormonal switch. With the demographic of RSD's Game-Maker, a certain genre arose, comprised of dumb sex games built on reused material. At times developers were less interested in totally original assets or fully developed games than in figuring out how to wring smut out of a few 800-pixel sprites, each with a limited number of animation frames or sequences.
For Preggers Rob Sherwood reused the visuals and levels from one of his better games, Adventures in Melgratta. A nude man wanders around a largely natural environment and tames violent women by impregnating them. When he stands alone, he waggles his penis. At the end of every level, should the player locate it, is a magic dildo. What the protagonist means to do with this prize, the game declines to clarify.
Preggers plays well enough; it takes the form of a Robotron/Berzerk-style top-down action arcade game. The level repeats continually, as it tends to in Rob Sherwood's games. In this case the cheapness and repetition are easier to stomach, as the whole game comes off as a foolish satire. It would perhaps be more worrisome had Sherwood put more care and attention into Preggers, especially given the strange social and sexual perspectives that it seems to reflect (and despite Sherwood's own attempts in the included notes to dissuade serious analysis).
As a whole, Preggers stands out as one of the more successful Sherwood Forest productions. There is no way to take the game seriously, so any shortcuts in its design become part of the joke. The game is ridiculous, but charming -- assuming you can remember your own adolescence with a certain humor.
Story
Welcome to Fig Leaf Estates, the largest nudist camp in the united states. The camp has one rule, anything goes. So you, Mickey Macho, are here to spend some vacation time.
The ladies are the lovely, the ladies are here, the ladies are willing, and best of all the ladies are naked. So get rid of your inhibitions, get rid of your fears, and get rid of your pants, and welcome to... Preggers.
Instructions
First off let me say that like our game Shoplifter, we are not trying to say anything or advocate any kind of behavior with this game. Preggers is just a game to have fun playing, nothing else.
The object of Preggers is to move throughout each of the five fields either dodging the ladies, or getting them pregnant, thus disabling them.
You control the man by using the four main arrow keys or the joystick to make the man go in the direction you wish.
To "shoot" press the fire button on the joystick, or the spacebar.
Each screen has the "magic dildo" when you find it go to it and you will be in the next screen. The higher the screens the harder it is to complete.
You also want to look for the condom packs laying around the nudist camp, a condom pack means more points, as well as adding "hit points'.
Credits
This demented game comes from the demented minds at Sherwood Forest Software. It has been thought up, designed, drawn, and executed by Rob Sherwood. The nut hut beta testers tested it for me, but I ain't gonna give them credit yet. Sorry about that Randy, Pat, and the rest of your guys.
Availability
Available on several shareware compilation CD-ROMs, including Public Software Library's PSL Monthly: November 1993 (November 1993).
Archive History
Added to the archive on September 29, 2010. Located on the November 1993 PSL Monthly CD-ROM, as hosted on cd.textfiles.org, during a search for Game-Maker file types.
Links
Downloads
- Preggers (138.3 kB)
- Level 1 map (400.1 kB)
- Level 2 map (404.6 kB)
- Level 3 map (401.4 kB)
- Level 4 map (405.1 kB)
- Level 5 map (402.0 kB)
