As long as people have owned computers, entrepreneurs have tried to sell technosex. Most early attempts were too inept or too crude. But Valerie, like Saenz’s earlier MacPlaymate, offers professional graphics - and no small bit of wit. In both programs, a curvaceous courtesan offers the player a chance to undress her using the Macintosh’s user-friendly “point and click” method. Click on the blouse, it’s gone, revealing appropriately lacy under-things. And on - or off - it goes. Virtual Valerie is more like a novel told on computer screens than a peep show; the player can stay with her through 30 megabytes of pictures and story.
Saenz has also produced a more mainstream science-fiction epic, Spaceship Warlock, which promises to be another big seller. And Saenz is already looking toward the next computing frontier: “virtual reality,” so far used for applications like letting architects walk through a proposed building. Saenz, of course, has ideas for an entirely different kind of action.
