:: Start [nosave] This is a decompilation and port of "The Masculine Mystique", by Barabbas, to Tweego and Sugarcube 2. This is being done in hopes that someone will be able to pick it up and finish it someday. Barabbas no longer works on this game (but he has given permission for the community to decompile and continue it), so some or all of the contact info, bug reporting data, etc may no longer apply. If you are interested in this port, and helping out or adding to it, please visit the Echo Hollow Discord Server or find me on the TFGamesSite Fora. As I continue to port it, new compiled versions of the game can be found here: http://svn.echohollow.net/public/The%20Masculine%20Mystique/dist/TheMasculineMystique-Unstable-debug.html (for now). Source code: http://svn.echohollow.net/public/The%20Masculine%20Mystique/src/ [[Continue|OldStart]] :: OldStart [nosave] This is an interactive story, sometimes called a gamebook (popularly known as a Choose Your Own Adventure after the most well known gamebook company). DISCLAIMER: This story contains extremely explicit sexual scenes with heavy BDSM and humiliation themes: content includes oral, anal, M/F, M/M, F/F, and group, some semi-nonconsensual or even outright nonconsensual (trigger warning!), and male to female gender transformation. The player can usually avoid engaging in most of this content most of the time, but probably can't avoid hearing about it. Note that the story also includes some extremely politically incorrect and potentially offensive opinions and examples of gender relations which do not reflect the views of the author, who considers the setting of the story to be a fantasy universe and not the real world. Be sure that this is something you want to read before continuing. ''I WOULD CAUTION AGAINST TRYING TO "SEE ALL THE CONTENT" IF ANY OF THE THINGS I'VE MENTIONED MIGHT BOTHER YOU. ANYBODY WITH SERIOUS ISSUES WITH THE TYPES OF CONTENT LISTED ABOVE SHOULD SIMPLY NOT PLAY THIS GAME. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.'' <>[[Continue.|Check for Age]]<>[[Continue.|Introduction]]<> [[Instructions and About the Game]]<> [[Reset Preferences.]]<> :: Reset Preferences. [nosave] <>Preferences reset! [[Continue.|Incest Toggle]] :: Check for Age [nosave] Click "Yes" only if you are at least 18 //and// legally allowed to view pornography in your jurisdiction. [[Yes|Incest Toggle]] [[No|Underage]] :: Incest Toggle [nosave] <>Would you like the game to include incest? <><><> <><><> :: Underage [nosave] Sorry, but you're not legal to play this game. Please try something else. :: Introduction Your name is Parker Comstock. [[You]] were a fairly ordinary teenage boy until recently. You've always been small and delicate with features which are even a bit feminine. You never had many friends except your best friend Billy who was also something of a social outcast. Billy would try to get you involved with his other friends, but they never seemed to like you much. Your father was an insurance executive. He didn't approve of most modern technology so you never had a cellphone or been allowed to go on Facebook like all your friends. You think this may have had something to do with your social isolation, but your father was always very kind to you and would comfort you whenever you got bullied at school or something so you still adored him. Your mother worked as a personal assistant to a chemical company executive and your relationship with her was always more distant. Then your father died in a car accident a year ago. Shortly after, your mother bought an entirely new wardrobe and started dressing very differently for work. Short skirts with stockings, high heels, push-up bras, that sort of thing. Appropriate for work, but really close to the line. At some point she started having an affair with her boss. Or at least so you figured, though she never told you. But all the late nights at the office with her boss driving her home, obviously intoxicated, with her clothes in disarray and reeking with the smell of semen.... Well, you don't need to be hit over the head. You eventually reconciled yourself to the reality that your mother had become a slut. Worse, her boss was married with a couple of kids. You'd always been pretty non-confrontational so you didn't make anything of it, though privately you raged at this betrayal of your dead father. A few weeks ago, she announced that the two of you would be moving in with her boss, away from Eastbourne where you've lived all your life, and you'd have to switch schools to the suburban school in Rosestead where he lives. You were livid; you had finally gotten yourself a girlfriend - Emily, who you had met while roller-skating with Billy and who went to another school. Sure, you'd only gotten to first base a couple of times and never gotten to second, and you always felt like she was about to break up with you, but it was something. And you'd also have to move away from Billy. "Besides," you said, "I thought he had a wife and kids?" Your mother then informed you that the two of you would be moving in with him, his wife, and his children. "That's crazy," you said. "Why would his wife possibly agree to this?" But [[your mother|Rosalind]] wouldn't explain it. "Maybe the rich are different," you thought. [[Continue.|The Mansion]] :: Instructions and About the Game <> If you want to report a bug, keep up to date on the game's progress, join the discussion, or just see when a new update is available, try [[the discussion thread on TF Games Site|http://www.tfgamessite.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3483]. I can also be reached via email at [[barabbas.gethsemane@gmail.com|mailto:barabbas.gethsemane@gmail.com]]. Below are instructions for players who wish to help me beta-test. [[Beta-testing: What I'm Looking For]] If you want to save your game's progress, use the Saves command on the sidebar. This allows you to either bookmark a saved game or to save a saved game as a file. You should be able to load saved games from previous versions, though sometimes that's going to have unpredictable results if paths or variables have been changed between versions. Also note that clicking on character links in the story passage looks at the character (including yourself). These links do not constitute choices and you will still be able to go back and make a choice at the end of the passage. Other than looking at the main character, which does update, these links do not update as the story progresses. You'll get the same text every time you click on it. There is a button on the sidebar throughout the game called "See Stats" which allows you to see your statistics so far. It contains spoilers for the sexual activities available in the game and, by omission, spoilers for what is not available yet. This is used for debugging purposes primarily. I recommend not using it until you have already played through the game at least a few times. The "Create Bug Report" button on the sidebar should be used to report bugs to me on TF Games Site. Included is a method for easy copy and pasting and a link to the main game thread where it should be pasted. If you don't want to report a bug that way, contact me on my website or via email and tell me the nature of the bug or typo and the //last passage// listed on the "Create Bug Report" scene and I'll see what I can do with that. There is also an FAQ on the sidebar with a few very frequently asked questions. This game was created using TheMadExile's SugarCube header. I would like to give a very special thanks to TheMadExile for his work on the header which finally adds save and load functions for Twine and makes a great many improvements and corrections to the standard Twine headers. He has also provided a large amount of technical assistance and most of the "fancy" features available in //Mystique// not typically found in other Twine games are thanks to him. Also special thanks to Unstable Egghead who made a number of very useful changes to the Twine editor, which greatly helped with certain technical problems I'd been having. Thanks to RIPCPU for introducing me to Twine. Thanks to Fun Times, Drpwrites, Lig, Ana, Bobmarquis2002, Serpent, and Visiter for suggesting scenes or plot ideas. Thanks to TimeBunny for creating the Wiki page for the game and to JoeMill and Lig for suggesting some improvements to the game's beta-testing interface. Thanks to Pixelmancer for designing the table on the stats screen. Thanks to Lig, Bobmarquis2002, aScannerDarkly, and Emmeken for the horror movie titles. And thanks to all the rest of the beta-testers on TFGS (Tontje, CeilingCat, Emmeken, Millstone, Bobmarquis2002, Smuggl3r, Heartbroken, Lig, Eres1012, Axillia, Pixelmancer, Fiftysheep, FeiFongWong, Darthan, Daishi, ChandraMagic, Tick Tock, Laevus, Karen, Kenrou, Retromancer, RIPCPU, Napdragon, Mondayschild, and many, many others) who have supported the story, caught my bugs, inconsistencies, or mistakes or otherwise generally made the game better. Finally, all due apologies to Betty Friedan for the story's title. <> :: Beta-testing: What I'm Looking For [nosave] <> Things I would particularly like reported: Bugs - Use the Create Bug Report button on the sidebar and post it to the TFGS discussion thread for the game. If reporting a bug any other way (e.g. on the development website), please describe the bug //thoroughly//, particularly saying exactly what passage it occurred in. (If you don't know the passage title, give the first sentence from the passage.) Note: if a bug occurs after restoring from a saved game made in a previous version of //Mystique//, please try to replicate with a fresh playthrough or let me know that you got there from an older save game file. Typos Editing Mistakes - Sometimes I change the story and artifacts from prior drafts are accidentally left unchanged, because I don't remember all the places I needed to change things. Missing Punctuation or Whitespace - In particular, spaces. Sometimes, in conditional text, Twine ignores whitespace. So I'll put a space into the text, but find the two sentences have merged together, once the conditional text goes in. I can fix this if I know about it. Inconsistencies in the story - If something jars you about the story you've selected (e.g. Parker is losing his virginity for the second time or doesn't seem to notice that he's losing his virginity), this is probably because I've forgotten to add some conditional text when I should have. I also very much welcome suggestions on where a passage could be improved by adding conditional text. Missing Links - Every visible character should have a link in every passage where he/she is mentioned, especially you. Mentioned characters who aren't physically present don't get links. Railroading by the author - If you feel like you've been railroaded into a sex scene which you didn't particularly want and you don't think the story should have forced you there given the decisions you have made hitherto, I want to know about it so I can see if I agree with you. This is distinct from story railroading, where a scene is integral to the overall story. (E.g. if you don't like being examined by Mr. Anderson, I'm probably not willing to change it since every path goes through there.) Reporting bugs - Use the "Create Bug Report" button on the sidebar which has instructions on how to report bugs. The only thing I do ask is not to bother criticizing content (though see Railroading by the author above). I am fully aware that the game contains some sexual scenes and practices not to everybody's taste, some rather offensive gender stereotypes, and at least some of the characters in the game seem to be of the opinion that there is something shameful about being on the receiving end of male sexuality. All of this is in service of a kink and is not the considered opinion of the author. Thanks a lot for your help, beta-testers. --Barabbas <>