==> HS: But wait! There's more!
Homestuck achieves the greatest height of its ergodicity not in gifs and animations but in interactive games. The first game was introduced in Act 2 with [S] YOU THERE. BOY, and most recently, as seen in the above video, the whole of Act 6 Intermission 3 was comprised of three games (collectively referred to as Openbound), all of which demonstrated more detailed graphics and more complex game structure than any interactive pages before them. Openbound, like its predecessors, allows readers to fully interact with the text in a manner than continues Homestuck's videogame metaphor to the greatest possible extent. Like Homestuck's use of second person narrative, which lends itself perfectly to the inclusion of video games, these interactive portions are immediately engrossing to the individual reader. "While gaming can be watched it’s clear that any audience is peripheral and insignificant; all that matters is the playing self." (Kirby 169) Video games are meant to capture the undivided attention of the player/reader, and require no more than this one individual to create what Kirby calls a "super-subjective" experience. "You play, then, as yourself [...] but vastly inflated." Readers begin the game in control of the character Meenah Peixes, ancestor of Alternian troll Feferi Peixes, and through her are able to fully explore the game environment by finding treasure in chests, interacting with objects, and holding conversations with other troll ancestors as they are introduced for the first time into the story. In order to fully access all the information available in this portion of the text readers must solve puzzles within the game by taking control of a variety of characters to perform certain tasks that eventually allow admittance into new areas of the game. It is possible to entirely bypass all three installments of Obenbound, but the most serious of Homestuck fans will often choose to play through every part to the fullest extent in order to read and learn the information made available by every item and conversation in the game.
While other portions of Homestuck are undeniably ergodic and rife with hypertextual elements, thus far it is only these interactive games which branch out into the realm of cybertext. Cybertext is described by Espen J. Aarseth as being created through a combination of focus on "the mechanical organization of the text, by positing the intricacies of the medium as an integral part of the literary exchange," as well as the part of "the consumer, or user, of the text, as a more integrated figure than even reader response theorists would claim." (Aarseth 1) Cybertextual works present to their readers a text which holds the potential to be experienced in a variety of distinct ways. Unlike hypertext, which functions on a Point A to Point B structure, cybertext demands more "selective movement," and contains options that link together in more complex ways. In Openbound, it is possible to reach the end of the game sequence without speaking to every character, investigating every treasure chest, or exploring every pixel of the world, just as it is possible to do the opposite or something in between. It is up to the reader to decide how they will traverse this section of the narrative and what selections they will make in-game, and these decisions will determine what portions of the entirety of the text they are able to experience.
Many of the extraneous information tidbits in Openbound can be found in its heavy references to social media and fan culture. For example, through examining certain objects in-game it is possible to view a twitter fascimile which displays mock tweets made by Dave, under the username "dave_ebubbles."
(This element of the game was inspired by popular twitter account "Horse_ebooks" and following Openbound's inception was briefly made into an actual twitter account which published 345 tweets and gained nearly 8,000 followers."
Each character's dialogue is accompanied by hashtags, in the style of tumblr or twitter, that add extra information and personality to their speeches. Likewise it is possible to "rebubble" conversations and receive a corresponding message. The characters Meulin Leijon and Kurloz Makara communicate primarily by the use of gifs that are used to represent their ideas and emotions, a common practice amongst tumblr bloggers. The character Kankri Vantas is likewise inspired by tumblr, as stated by Hussie on his twitter. Presumably his long-winded lectures are intended to satirize tumblr's so-called 'social justice warriors,' who frequently warn other users against often-innocuous 'triggering' material and post misguided rants in the same style as Kankri's endless pages of text. An understanding of these portions of the text requires not only an understanding of Homestuck's story up until this point (something that is arguably not entirely necessary, as Openbound features entirely new characters and plotlines) but also a familiarity with the culture of social media, which implies the reader also possesses a fluency with various social media platforms, primarily tumblr. Homestuck is written for the internet user, for individuals who will seamlessly understand the usage of gifs and hashtags in casual speech and will not pause to question or misunderstand their presence in the text.
==> Fandom, Fan Culture, Fanart
