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SalamosamMS Paint Adventures is not a game. Except that it is a game, absolutely.
The current game in progress is Problem Sleuth, but two previous games have been completed, and are archived. If you check out the first page of Problem Sleuth, you'll see a crudely-drawn private eye standing in his apartment, with the canonical things present you might expect to see if this were a graphic adventure -- a gun, a desk, a phone, a wall safe, a door from the office. Below is a blinking > cursor, which you might reasonably think is an invitation for you to type in text. It isn't.
Instead, below the image is a single HTML link ("Quickly retrieve arms from safe," a bit of a joke, as the private eye in the first image is drawn in such a way that no arms are visible). Actually, occasionally there are branches, but either one dead-ends quickly, or they reunite.
Click on the link, and the image changes -- and a new link is available for your use. With each image is but a single link, which advances the story. The images (and accompanying text) seem to imply that this is a graphic adventure -- your inventory changes, as do aspects of the game world -- but in fact you never have a real choice about what to do next. It's a single, linear story. And therefore, not a game. Yes?
Except that when you come to the end of the story (as it exists so far), you can suggest to the creator, Andrew Hussie, what action the character should take next. Hussie selects one of the suggestions, draws the next image, and posts it, along with a link for that action. Or to put it another way, it's a form of collaborative story-telling with the external indicia of an adventure game, and it is, in a sense, a game itself -- at least to the degree, say, that The New Yorker's cartoon caption contest is a game. If nothing else, you're competing for the egoboo of having your suggestion selected by Hussie as the cleverest (or perhaps easiest to draw -- not sure really what his criteria are, but based on the story, "cleverest," or perhaps "most deranged" sounds about right). It's not actually an "unbranching story;" instead, it's more like a sort of tabletop roleplaying game, with a bunch of players shouting out what the single PC should do next, and the GM deciding which idea to adopt.
Which sounds like a game to me.
Problem Sleuth has the basic issue that any "round-robin" form of story-telling has; logic and narrative coherence are not strong points. Yet it's entertaining in a way, and I imagine Hussie, at any event, is having a blast. And from our perspective, it's interesting in how it uses the tropes of IF in something that really isn't IF at all, but something odder.
Making this more game-like
I can't remember the name, but I encountered something like what you describe a long time ago... except it was all text, EVERY story point had a two-way branch, and (like a Wiki) you were instructed to fill in the next story point (and two potential choices) whenever you reached a place that no one else had encountered before. It never ended, of course, but it felt more game-like than a linear-narrative-with-voting.
I have read through over
I have read through over 1000 pages of Problem Sleuth so far, and although my only interaction has been that of observation (that is, I have only read and not contributed), I still feel as if I have played a game instead of read a webcomic, a medium which is often used to partially describe MS Paint Adventures. While most webcomics attempt to emulate or recreate the established format of newspaper comic strips, or occasionally a comic book, Problem Sleuth attempts to emulate the established format of various video and computer games. To put it one way, the story of Problem Sleuth is told using game mechanics, specifically LucasArts-esque and Final Fantasy-esque mechanics (amongst others). A somewhat parallel notion is when, say, Penny Arcade attempts a narrative it tells it in segments (like MSPaintAdventures) but each segment has a punchline, adhering to one of the more fundamental principles of comic strips. My experiences with Problem Sleuth is more a long the lines of my experiences with games while, to continue the example, my experience with Penny Arcade is identical to my experience with comic strips. I wonder if this is similar for anyone else who has read through Problem Sleuth or any of the other "games" on the site. If so, I think it raises a question relevant to the aims of this website: where does the bulk of "experience" (I cannot think of a better word) originate in narrative (or all) computer/video game, does it come from the interactive element (the popular belief) or does it come from the mechanics of the narrative (the possibility aroused by MS Paint Adventures)?
i agree that there's
i agree that there's definitely an experience here that is along the lines of a game. systems of rules have emerged and been taught; and having taught them, the author's constructed puzzles. the interesting thing is that since the author is personally narrating the story, he can clue the "players" more and more strongly as puzzles remain unsolved, and guide the characters toward resolution through his selection of the "next move" and his interpretation of that move.
it's sort of what i imagine a lucasarts game would play like with a human game master, albeit with a cathedral full of players.
Branching story "games"
The one I'm familiar with was called "Addventure", but I don't think it's online any more. I did my own version called Storyscape...the problem is that after a while there are simply too many branches to keep track of...
Cathedral full of players
A role-playing game session with a cathedral full of players? That sounds like an idea worth trying...
Brilliant.
I finally finished reading everything, and I have to say I never was bored. Andrew Hussie has got a pretty high IMAGINATION.
Ir strongly recommmend it to anyone.
Andrew's imagination is just
Andrew's imagination is just fantastic! I've enjoyed reading!
I was going to name him
I was going to name him Johnathan. Creepy.