Stiffy Makane
Stiffy Makane is a character originated by Mark Ryan in The Incredible Erotic Adventures of Stiffy Makane (1997; AGT). Per Carl Muckenhoupt, writing at The Stack:
The original Stiffy Makane, written in AGT in 1997, was never a sincere attempt at making an erotic game. It was deliberately stupid and low-effort, the entire plot being “walk into a house and have sex with a woman there”, minimally implemented and yet still buggy — possibly its most famous feature is that it represents the player character’s penis as an inventory object, with the result that you can drop it on the floor. It’s also infamous for its horrifying ending: to complete the game, you have to shoot the woman, an act motivated by nothing more than the fact that you have a gun in your inventory and there’s no one else to shoot with it. When IF review sites (such as my own Baf’s Guide) started appearing on the early web, this was one of the games to consistently earn the lowest possible rating. And so it became somewhat legendary.
The IF community being what it is, this inspired not just mockery and derision, but in-jokery in the form of referential games. It was only about a year old when it received the MST3K treatment (the addition of a humorous and sarcastic commentary track), and Stiffy Makane: The Undiscovered Country (2001) began a tradition of putting the character in other settings, such as outer space and ancient Rome. Stiffy became something like a public-domain Leisure Suit Larry, but with less personality. The games themselves acquired more satirical bite: turning the mockery of one game into a mockery of “adult IF” in general, filling it with metacommentary on the idea of a game about sexual conquest and not shying away from the more uncomfortable implications. All while maintaining a sense of humor about it. These are not erotic games — frequently, their sex scenes are deliberately off-putting. But they’re just about the raunchiest games I’ve ever played.
Game appearances
As a player character:
- The Incredible Erotic Adventures of Stiffy Makane (Mark Ryan; 1997; AGT).
- Stiffy Makane: Mystery Science Theater 3000 (Dastardly Coward and Adam Thornton as "Drunken Bastard"; c.1997; Z-code).
- Stiffy Makane: The Undiscovered Country (Adam Thornton; 2001; Glulx).
- Mentula Macanus: Apocolocyntosis a.k.a. Stiffy Makane: Apocolocyntosis (Adam Thornton as "One of the Bruces and Drunken Bastard"; 2011; Glulx). This version of Stiffy—actually, Stiffy's ancestor, Mentula Macanus—won the Best Individual PC award from the XYZZY Awards 2011.
- The Cavity of Time (Sam Kabo Ashwell; 2011; Undum; Web browser).
- Rape, Pillage, Makane! (Chandler Groover; 2015; Twine; Web browser).
- Citizen Makane (sort of) (The Reverend; 2023; Inform 7).
As an NPC:
- Nemesis Macana (Victor Gijsbers; 2012; Z-code).
As a reference only:
- Competition '99 (Lucian Smith; 1999; Z-code). In the list of fake games entered in the then-future IF Comp 2006, one of the games listed was Stiffy Makane: Hyperspace Edition (Big Richard; 2006; AGT).
Links
- IFDB page for The Incredible Erotic Adventures of Stiffy Makane
- Stiffy Makane. A site devoted to Stiffy Makane. Really.
- The many loves of Stiffy Makane. A short blog posting by Jason McIntosh, summarizing the Stiffy oeuvre. May 2011.
TODO: A description of the character is needed, and maybe something to help explain his enduring fame or infamy. Like, how many other characters from AGT games can the average IF player remember today?