Andrew Hussie's latest comic enterprise at
MSPaintAdventures.com (
previously),
Homestuck, has been hurtling along at a truly absurd pace. Designed as a pastiche and parody of videogames in general and text-based graphical adventures in particular, updates are structured as a hypothetical game's response to your typed commands, such as "
Examine room." The art may not look like much up front, but it enables AH to maintain his multiple-updates-every-day pace for weeks at a time; it also lets him modulate the quality where appropriate for the storytelling. It's sort of a multimedia extravaganza: the story is told using
static and
animated gifs,
narrative text, dialogue presented as
instant messaging chat transcripts (click the
Show Pesterlog button to see the text),
flash-based static animations with
music and/or
sound effects,
interactive vignettes
reminiscent of
console RPG-
style combat, interactive
sound mixers and
animation compendia,
GameFAQs walkthroughs, an
enormous hyperlinked synopsis presented by the author himself during
a highly indulgent self-insertion into the story,
multiple webcomics within webcomics, and in at least two cases,
an entire miniature action/
adventure game.
The story follows the setbacks and successes of
John Egbert, one of
four thirteen-year-old players of an "immersive simulation" game similar to
The Sims which
affects the real world in a variety of ways. It begins with a very gradual, meandering pace as John and the audience learn how the rules of the world and the game interact, but speeds up considerably as additional protagonists and plotlines are introduced; the
current story arc gives proper introduction to a set of 12 alien trolls who'd played their own section of the game, and seems to be moving the story much closer to its conclusion, which will probably occur within the next year.
While MSPA has always been a collaborative effort, using feedback from fans to drive the stories, Homestuck took things to the next level in May, when AH began employing additional artists to provide content for his more ambitious and potentially spoilery
animation projects; then in June, they officially launched
What Pumpkin, the music label under which Homestuck's various soundtrack albums are sold.
Naturally, there's
a wiki and
TVTropes articles, although Andrew himself talks at length about the world of Homestuck and how he creates it at his
Formspring page and his
blog.
posted by Electrius at 8:06 AM on August 10, 2010 [1 favorite]