Confessions of a Literary Addict

Minor rant from me real fast, unrelated to gameplay:

Yeah. Let’s just preface this with a disclaimer: I’ve been in the Homestuck fandom since the great hiatus of Cascade’s past (AKA the epic pause, but not Gigapause, that accompanied Cascade’s release), and, as the fandom grew, I became very involved in it. Especially on the roleplaying side of things, which I actually still take part in, because you can pry Karkat from my dead, cold hands.

(… Maybe too much involved — you learn a lot about a fandom when you mod a site for it, and my views have been skewed vastly thanks to my experiences. However, I did make some of my closest friends thanks to Homestuck, so. Can’t be TOO bitter.)

Anyway.

I won’t delve into it, because I could go on for days, but I was heart-and-soul into this fandom. Then, and call me a salty, bitter bitch, Homestuck ended, and so did my ability to reign in my annoyance.

BUT. This game? Kind of renewed my love for the comic and fandom I got sucked into so long ago. So, if you kind of gave up on Homestuck after it ended like I did and weren’t planning on giving this a try (I certainly wasn’t, even though I backed it on Kickstarter forever ago), I say rethink it. It’s … actually really good.

Actual game review:

Art: ★★★★★

I will forever adore the art style of this game, especially since it still relates back to Homestuck’s art style. (Not including those of the flashes — though I still fucking adored Cascade’s art. Cascade is very special to me, if you haven’t caught on.)

The animation scenes are fantastic and very nice. Possibly the best part of the whole game.

Music: ★★★★★

Yes.

Gameplay: ★★★☆☆

Like the interface. Don’t love it, but it’s really nice. The most annoying part is the walking feature. It’s fine in large rooms but smaller ones are annoying. The Strife interface is also kind of confusing.

Kind of buggy, though. Don’t understand why, they’ve had copious amounts of time to work on this damn thing.

Maybe it’s more of 3.5 stars. I’m ready for more, though.

Storyline: ★★★★☆ (?)

Like Homestuck, it’s way too confusing to understand much of the story yet. It looks interesting so far (who are those figures?), but I guess we’ll find out more as we go. Can’t really rate it just right yet, though.

Overall: ★★★★☆

Thoughts as I played:

**WARNING FOR SPOILERS FOR HOMESTUCK & HIVESWAP**

• Okay, game’s gorgeous, of course. Thank god.
• Love the house.
• L-O-V-E the music. Keep trucking’, Toby m’boy.
• Wait, is Roxy Joey’s babysitter? It’s 1994, Dave and Rose are claimed to have been sent (or “born”) in 1995? How old exactly were Roxy and Dirk when this happened, what. (Pretty sure we were never told in the comic.)
• Okay I’m nostalgic. Dammit.
• What the fuck. Why is there a Cherub key in here. What the fuck.
• Is this an alternate alternate timeline to the comic?? I’m so confused.
• Okay, Joey is adorable. I love her.
• Oh my god this game is beautiful. [Looking out the window at the sky.]
• Oops. Glitch.
• And typos. Really?
• Oh, not typos. More glitches. Really??
• This is so cute but come on.
• Oh. Roxy has a lab job? I guess she’s not a teen then.
• Is– is that Signless? Oh, god.
• Nice to see the sass is still rampant. Nothing less to be expected of Hussie.
• Omg is Jude’s Pet’s name Mulder? Hell yes.
• Oh yes the animations are WONDERFUL.
• … Is that Jake. What. What?????
• ??? AND JANE?
• I’M SO CONFUSED.
• So Jake married this lady and had Jude and– JUDE ISN’T DAD IS HE.
• BUT CLOWNS??? HARLEQUINS???
• WHAT IS HAPPENING.
• Oh my god but Jane. Jane is Dad’s mom right. But he’s … adopted?
• Didn’t we know Dad’s name though. It wasn’t Jude.
• AND DAD IS CLEARLY DAD WHEN HE PICKS JOHN UP TO RAISE HIM SO HE’S NOT JUDE.
• Help I’m so confused.
• Okay yes the Homestuck storyline is confusing in itself but I had a good six years to get that bitch down as pat as I could, throwing new information at me like this is painful.
• Excuse all this, this is how I handle new information. You should have seen me in my Harry Potter days. It was bad.
• Anyway. Well, we know what happened to Jake and why he’s not in the picture here.
• Aw man, this is making me sad. Jake just up and leaves his kids and Roxy takes care of them.
• HELL YEAH, STRIFE!!!!
• Were burns a thing in 1994? I was two, so I don’t remember.
• Wait a minute, Jude’s last name is Harley, but Joey uses Claire, which is her mom’s?
• Are those daddy issues I’m smelling? Or did I miss them like actually telling us why.
• Oh my god. Jude.
• Oh my GOD. JUDE.
• The nostalgia is so real. I’m so glad they kept to the original style from the comic.
• So far, though, none of the profanity of the comic is present. I kind of like it. (Homestuck was REAL BAD with profanity and crude humor.)
• … Um. Wtf was that fire. That fire was pathetic.
• HELL YEAH BRING ON THE TROLLS.
• Sooooo we have a different heiress, right? But how does that work if Meenah reigned for a long-ass time since she lives forever and then Feferi was along as the next Condy?
• Sigh. So many questions.
• The mini games are nice.
• That background music.
• Xefros is kind of annoying. Don’t like him much.
• Dammek must be an asshole though.
• Good ol’ blood color talk. Anyone who doesn’t know Homestuck would probably be real confused, huh.
• Okay wtf is up with Tetrarch? That’s not his name, right? That doesn’t fit the pattern. It’s just a title, correct?
• Okay THIS is cool. We never really got to see much about Alternia until after it was ravaged, so seeing it how it is now is really awesome.
• Joey.
• Aaah Dammek is his moirail. Okay. Dammek still seems like an asshole.
• “Some trolls actually eat sopor slime, which helps them to be really stupid.” I love it.
• Oh, oh my god. They play the game with balls for pool? What does that mean?
• Welp I’m stuck.
• Nvm got it.
• XEFROS NO.
• Okay starting to love Xefros. He still needs a spine though.
• Wait a minute, since when can Joey read Alternian?
• “That’s about the saddest thing I ever heard get said” I C U HUSSIE.
• Okay I’m loving this fuck everything.
• Xefros’ lusus is so cute.
• So is Xefros.
• Wait that’s it?
• Dammit.
• Until the next act, I guess.