Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

"It's a little bit hard to work out without knowing the altitude of that dragon..."

If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

The Fallout Sex Formula

Here's a thing.

When you weren't trying to save your village in Fallout 2, you might have dabbled in a little extracurricular activity. That's cool, I'm not here to judge. Crack on.

But here's a thing! Fallout 2, it turns out, has a surprisingly involved formula that works behind the scenes to determine exactly how good your character is when it comes to, y'know, a little afternoon delight.

This sounds daft, doesn't it? Well it is. And that makes for a pretty fun story, I reckon. Join me in this week's episode as we take a look at the formula itself and share some insights from its actually-quite-famous-creators, Chris Avellone and Tom French.

Cover image for YouTube videoThe Fallout Sex Formula - Here's A Thing

Man, these Here's A Thing episodes have been all over the place so far: WOW's stealth mechanic, the design process behind 25 years of Civilization, Nintendo's stance on emulation and now, amazingly, a video game formula for SEX.

I should say a big thank you to both Chris Avellone and Tom French for taking the time to talk to me about such an unusual topic. Considering it's been almost 20 years since they wrote this thing, they were both great sports about it.

Speaking of which, I've uploaded my chat with Tom French to SoundCloud, if you want to listen to us both awkwardly avoid saying the word 'sex' for about 15 minutes.

As ever, I'll be in the comments if you've got any feedback on the series so far. We've been doing this for a month now and I'm interested to hear what you'd like to see more of.