If you'd like to jump right into reading something, I think Problem Sleuth is a good place to start, personally. But it's a pretty long read, so be sure to have the save game feature handy!
But before you jump into an adventure, a little background on the site would probably help. There are two key points to understand! They are:
1) MSPA stories exist in the format of "mock games", specifically text-based adventure games. You advance through the pages of the story by clicking links which sound like commands you would type in a text prompt to get a character to do something. Generally, the character will respond to that command on the following page.
2) MSPA stories are largely "reader-driven", in the sense that most of the text commands were supplied by readers through a suggestion box. I would select a command from the list, and then illustrate the result of the command.
When I say "largely reader driven", I mean this approach has undergone a lot of evolution from adventure to adventure, and continues to even now. I'll try to give a sense of what the process was for each adventure.
Jailbreak: This was the first adventure, one I started well before the MSPA site existed. I created it on a forum, where people would post suggestions in replies to the thread. My policy was to always take the first suggestion no matter what, which naturally lead to a very haphazard feel to the story's progression. I also experimented with "branching" the story at one point, splitting it into two paths. But then I quickly brought those two paths back together.
I left Jailbreak unfinished. And it's probably fine that way, as a sort of rambling, silly initial experiment with the storytelling format. I doubt I'll go back to finish it.
Bardquest: This was the first adventure I started after launching MSPA.com, back when I had the "choose your own adventure" format in mind for the site as the primary storying device, in addition to the reader-driven feature with a new on-site suggestion box. But the multiple paths turned out to be quite difficult for me to keep up with, and overall, probably pretty hard for readers to digest as well, especially with a longer story.
Mercifully, this one never made it that far. I chalk it up as an interesting failed experiment, and one that I surely won't go back to finish. After halting BQ, I left the site to gather dust for about six months, then started it up again with Problem Sleuth.
Problem Sleuth:By far the longest adventure (Homestuck is now much longer), and only complete one to date. When I started, I revised the approach, completely scrapping the multiple paths concept except in a few minor instances. I also started being more selective with the suggestions, not necessarily always picking the first one in the box. This made for a more controlled style of action, allowing elements of planning and puzzle solving, while still creating a pretty whimsical feel to the adventure.
But I feel MSPA evolved in many more ways than that over the daunting span of Problem Sleuth (exactly one year, in fact). The nature of the parody drifted away from text-adventures exclusively to playing off many other sorts of gaming genres, like RPGs, fighting games, etc. The visual style progressed as well, as I started incorporating more and more animated frames and over the top battle sequences. And the reader-driven element shifted very gradually as well, especially as the story took on more readers.
When a story begins to get thousands of suggestions, paradoxically, it becomes much harder to call it truly "reader-driven". This is simply because there is so much available, the author can cherry-pick from what's there to suit whatever he might have in mind, whether he's deliberately planning ahead or not. But as it happened, I was planning ahead much more as the story neared its end, and I would tend to A) pick commands that suited what I had in mind, or B) just call a spade a spade and outright MAKE UP a command for an idea I had, which I did most often for many of the later attacks (like the Sleuth Diplomacy variations, Comb Raves, etc).
Toward the end, the suggestion box was mostly used as a go-to for the frivolous, funny tangential stuff, and rarely anything story-changing. I've come to view this as the only realistic practice for a site with this format, with this many readers. This practice carried over to the next adventure, right from the start.
The adventure I'm currently working on, with a pretty radically different approach from the way the previous adventures started, mostly in the sense that many elements are already preplanned. I don't know if I intended to make a big point of this as huge a paradigm shift for the site. It was more that I started getting ideas for the next adventure well before Problem Sleuth ended, and those ideas just kept cropping up. Much like with crafting the conclusion for Problem Sleuth, the planning just couldn't be helped!
So the use of user commands has been handled in a similar way, insofar as they contribute to a direction I want the story to go in, or to simply produce a humorous tangential effect (which can sometimes lead to story developments I don't anticipate anyway!) But the point is, the reader-driven aspect of MSPA is still in a state evolution, and truthfully is probably drifting away from being a very important factor in the way the story is structured.
It is manifesting in other interesting ways though. With HS I introduced the incorporation of music into the story, and the production of this music has been a collaborative effort among readers. Other ideas and resources like funny images, game mechanic concepts, etc, have made it into the story outside of the institutionalized structure of the suggestion box. I also picked the characters' names from reader input. There are lots of ways I will inject reader input into stories, and finding out how will be the fun part. But it will almost certainly never resemble the madcap charades of Jailbreak or early Problem Sleuth.
The bottom line is, the MSPA format always seems to be in a state of flux, and I will surely continue to bend my own rules in various ways. Honestly at this stage, I am less excited about the reader-driven aspect than I am about the format that has emerged and somewhat crystallized, which is: telling a story through the vehicle of a mock-game, complete with somewhat convincing and detailed mechanics, but without losing sight of it as a parody. That format has been augmented with the use of Flash animations and interactive pages, which is something I'm sure I'll keep exploring.
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Anyway, if you really are a new reader, I guess that was a lot to digest! But even if you're not a new reader, I'm sure you gleaned some insight from that.
TLDR; Act 6 Act 6 is next. This is Homestuck's final push. But before I start on it, I'll be taking a very significant hiatus to work on the game.
4/13/13 marked the 4th year of Homestuck, and a little more than the 5th year of MSPA's regular updates overall. Thanks to all those who've hung in there the whole time, as well as the very large number of you who piled on to this silly wagon at some point along the way.
The idea last year was to finish Homestuck and then begin working on the game. But as I've started to get into the early game dev process a bit, it's become obvious I have to start working on it much sooner. As in, right now. It takes many months of drawing and programming to make a game. But nobody can start on any of that until I've done a lot of writing and planning. So what it comes down to is, either I delay finishing Homestuck by a few months, or delay the release of the game by what would probably be a lot longer than that. Considering people threw 2.5 million bucks at me to make a game, I think that choice is obvious.
If I could do both at the same time, I would. But that's not realistic. Working on HS is an all consuming thing. Designing a whole game I believe will be too. It may sound obvious, but it can't be emphasized enough - entertainment takes a lot of time to create. More time than most people think. MSPA somewhat obscures that reality because I work on it as maniacally and efficiently as I can to keep the rate of output as high as possible. But the ease of production is an illusion. It is in fact a nonstop grind to generate this much material at a consistent rate. So I have to put all that on hold if I want to get anything else done.
I have noticed that some people believed HS would end on 4/13/13, though I never said that it would. Even if the story appeared to be on the precipice of resolution (which it wasn't), these rumors could be debunked for one simple reason. Animation takes A LOT of time. You've got to expect a story like this would end with some sort of big animation, right? I can't make those without suspending all updates completely for a good while. Trust me, the end to this won't sneak up on anyone. It will be really obvious when it's on the way.
To alleviate some of the suspense and wild speculation, I will give you a very loose estimate of my schedule, from now until the end of HS. Please observe these facts, as organized by this really awesome "html table" I have designed for this purpose.
The thing I am going to be doing
How long that thing is going to take me
Work on the game, and probably some other stuff, like make more HS books. Oh, also go to a few conventions. No updates.
Months
Work on a whole bunch of regular updates for A6A6, leading up to the end of HS.
Months
Work on the final animation, plus zero or more other animations, just before or somewhat near the end of HS.
Months
So that's it for now. See you in a while. Unless you decide to reread Homestuck or something. In which case I guess I'll keep seeing you here. Well not me, but my website will see you. My website is always watching.
In the Topatoco store there is a new shirt, featuring this highly attractive design by Lexxy! The shirt is available in white and black. Lexxy as you may know has drawn a bunch of things that have appeared in Homestuck animations. She is also planning a great looking comic called Cloud Factory. Also, she is basically the star of a reality TV show called Strip Search. This is an up and coming artist for whom I see BIG THINGS. Yes, I know I am really going out on a limb with this prediction, but I am well known for making such bold and controversial claims.
It is called Cherubim. Worth noting: this album contains the song used in Caliborn: Enter. It's the last track, called Eternity Served Cold, by Malcolm Brown.
