Back in December 2010, Dirk Van Dom put together this "Choose Your Own Adventure" style game for the 2000ad forum's annual xmas calendar. It tells the tale of "a 2000ad christmas party, which the reader gatecrashes, mingling with various 2000ad characters and getting mixed up in all kinds of shenanigans." You all know how the old "Choose Your Own Adventure" books worked right? Essentially the reader (you) assumes the role of the protagonist and makes the choices that determine the main character's actions and the plot's outcome. After a couple of pages of reading, the reader faces two or three options, each of which leads to more options and ultimately to one of several alternate endings. These books were still pretty popular when I were but a nipper, however they were already beginning to be superceded by computery games and the like. The idea of tailoring this archaic format for the world wide web is rather charming, a real shot of nostalgia. The average 2000ad fan is a little bit older than me so their youths would have coincided with the books 1980s heyday, this combined with fan-pleasing cameos by the myriad stars of the Galaxy's Greatest shows that Dirk really knows his audience. Probably because he is "LIKE US!"
Dirk did an bloody impressive job creating 4 seperate but interweaving story threads, but realised pretty early on that as engaging as the storylines were he needed something else to reward the player's incessant clicking. The books used to have the odd black and white illustration interspersed throughout the text, and Dirk's online tribute was to be no different. In fact it is better, every choice is rewarded with it's own illumination and some are even in wonderous TECHNICOLOR. In all there are 29 completely original illustrations to be discovered, all specially created for the game by Dirk's artist mates who frequent the forum. My picture of Ace Garp and crew baking a cake is presented above, please to be clicking on it to be redirected to the game where you can hunt for the other 28 piccas and wallow in much nostalgia to boot.
