How did you come across SPNATI?

For me it's a huge turn-on to have a bit of innocence and playfulness mixed in with sex, and that's not always easy to find. So I searched for strip poker and... didn't find much. But I did find an unusual little subreddit, and decided to check it out.

What made you decide to make a character, and why did you decide to make the first character you made?

When I played the game for the first time, there weren't a lot of characters in it - but I could see the potential. In my first post to the subreddit, I did what so many other people do: I made a request. I mean, there was a stickied post for it! I figured it was how things worked. I asked for Hermione, from Harry Potter. I really liked Harry Potter. To me, it was the first time something geeky that I liked had made it big, to the point that everyone knew about it, and many liked it. And there was a lot of erotic fanfiction about her, a lot of risque fan art - it seemed natural to think some horny teenage witches and wizards were getting up to something naughty like strip poker. So I made a request, and eagerly awaited the results.

And waited.

When I did a bit more poking around the subreddit, I figured out that none of the requests were getting made - people just made the characters they wanted to see. This was pretty daunting... but I looked into it and realized the writing part was something I could do. I spent a few weeks working on Hermione, from Harry Potter, then asked on the subreddit to see if anyone would be willing to make her images. It turns out that this is a LOT easier to find than people willing to do writing - I got lucky, in that respect.

But I also had FUN. It was interesting to make her - like a puzzle, in some ways. And I liked how I could tell a story through the game, and people started to post telling me how much they liked her, and I got hooked.

Who was your top tier fave?

When I first started the game there weren't a lot of characters, and none of them had a lot to say. I didn't know most of the characters in the game at the time, so I played with them all. I ended up liking several characters I'd never heard of because their personalities shone through. I especially liked Elizabeth from Bioshock and Zoey from Left 4 Dead - both of them seemed 'real' - and more importantly, fun to play with.

The longer I stayed around, the more characters got added to it. I loved BlackRose because she was such a fun character to beat - and her epilogue was one of the sexiest! I was super impressed with Marinette, who was fun and always had something to say. She was actually intimidating in that respect, because I'd gotten used to having several of the characters with the most lines, and suddenly she blew me away. I also loved Elena, because I'd had to sit through all the Elena episodes with my daughter and that made her funny. But I also just really enjoyed seeing all the many characters people came up with, even when they did nothing for me.

What would you say was the hardest part of making a character?

Coming up with lines! It turns out that even I could made the art for characters - I even did so for a few people who were struggling. But writing was something very few of us did at the time, and for good reason. When I wrote Jasmine, I thought it would be easy - but it turns out that Jasmine only has a handful of lines in her own movie. Coming up with lines she might say, in the way she spoke, to make people believe it was her and not some random girl like any other - it was actually really hard. I spent hours and hours trying to come up with topics she might bring up or lines she could reword - and even then, she still has one of the smallest number of lines for any character I'd made! It was then I decided I'd never do a character again who didn't have dozens of hours of appearance for me to mine for ideas.

What would you say was the most fun part of making a character?

Getting to test them! From time to time I'd come up with a line they could say and jot it down on my phone, then I'd spent a couple hours adding lines to their files. But there's only so long you can do that, so when I got tired, I'd stop and load the character and play with her in a game - half finished, full of default lines. But I'd see the beginnings of her personality show up, and I'd come up with new lines just by playing, and I'd realize that what I was doing actually made a difference. It was cool!

Do you still check out the game from time to time?

Yes, I do. Not very often - I'm super busy in real life - but it's nice to see that the community is still going strong. I'm amazed at some of the new code that lets characters be even more interactive, and at the line counts of some of the many new characters in the game. There's really no other game that comes close to how genuine it feels to play with a group like this, so I'm glad SPNatI hasn't gone anywhere.

How did you become a mod for SPNatI?

As I made my first character I had to learn more about how SPNatI worked, and I had to talk to its creator to get access to Git and to ask for help sometimes. And as I did this, I found that I was able to answer other people's questions and give them advice. I tried to stay positive and helpful, and it got me noticed. I was asked to become a mod; at first I said no, because I didn't think I should be one, but I changed my mind and agreed.

Do you have any stories you'd like to share from when you were still developing?

I can't think of anything off the top of my head, sorry.

Anything else you'd like to say?