There, there. Now this topic here, it’s not going to be very useful. In terms of much redeeming value that is, for me I’m hoping it proves otherwise. Then again it doesn’t seem like a lot of threads on BM forums have any redeeming values to boot but oh well, that’s another topic. This thread is meant to be a test bed and a place where I would like to receive input from the community on certain questions.
I am hoping to start a MS Paint Adventure game on the forums within the next week (month? year? maybe never, don’t take my word for it), but before that, I would like to make sure if people would be invested enough to grant continuation on the project I’m working on. Simply put, if you are not interested I’d rather not waste my time on drawing and spend it doing something useful - playing video games for example.
In order to evaluate your level of investment in said prospect, I am going to sample a small meaningless story for you and ask you whether you are interested in participating in the medium. If you are, the proper MSPA gets a green light.
Now I’m sure most of you are acquainted with Problem Sleuth, Homestuck and other works of comicsmanship by author Andrew Hussie. And when I say MSPA many a reader would be quick to scream rip-off of Mr. Hussie’s work. I will have you know, though, that Mr. Hussie himself started his first adventure (Jail Break) as a forum game. The idea of a faux point-and-click/text adventure isn’t patented, neither are Mr. Hussie’s MS Paint adventures the only ones on the web. I excuse your ignorance, moving on now.
Said sample story I’m about to post here is only 13 images and was drawn over about an hour with commands given from friends on Skype and Steam (specifically Keresh, Patonki and Soup). In a real MSPA forum game the forumites provide their own input and the author makes do with either the first or best one of the supplied commands. The sample even reuses some “assets” I’ve drawn for the proper MSPA I’m preparing. By the way, a clarification that the latter would have a somewhat more refined look and consistent resolution as I was hardly trying with this. In any case, I’m not one to make pictures of circles and lines in Paint, post them on forums and expect people to get excited over the artistic turd I’ve presented them. I am also not 14 years old so the story will be both different and more original than what you’ll see in this sample, or any other MSPA forum game I’ve seen so far for that matter. Cause to be fair, most of those are basically huge nerd jack-offs to Andrew Hussie’s work filled with awful references to PS and HS. Whether that’s due to the authors’ absolute lack of creative ability or the fact that mspa.com is the only place they’ve experienced any sort of interactive fiction so far - that’s not my judgement to make. And when they are not, they are just bad and that’s that.
In addition of choosing whether BM forums deserve their own MSPA game, there’s some other decisions that you can influence. For example, would you like an Interactive Fiction, that is, a text adventure where the players give commands to the game? Or a Choose Your Own Adventure type of game, where the players have a set of predetermined options they get to choose from? Should the adventure have a set of controls (e.g. pull, give, open, etc.) the players should abide by or no? If you’ve any questions, ideas or concerns feel free to speak your mind.
Alright then, as much as I’m sure you love both walls of text and my verbosity I think I covered my idea fairly adequately. I will now proceed to posting the sample story.
As for the proper MSPA… I’ve always gone for a “when it’s done” approach. If I had to be specific… I’d say… 2010.