Don’t shit your pants!

Christian linked me to this delightfully short and awesome Flash game called Don't Shit Your Pants! It's pretty absurd and a great example of why I love Flash games, but also got me to thinking about all of those old text adventures I used to play. I think they're a pretty interesting medium, and there's probably a lot of really interesting things one could do with the format beyond the standard Zork guess-a-thon that usually seems to happen (and happens, incidentally, in Don't Shit Your Pants! even though I beat it first try. Woo!)

There's an entire community of people on the internet still programming these text adventures, and while some are pretty fan-fiction-y (or, you know, erotic story-y, though not on the link I've provided here), I think there's the opportunity to really create a strong authored experience. Sure, you could just as easily read a book, but the opportunity is there to create this feeling of uncertainty in the reader/player that a book might have a hard time doing. I haven't played a text adventure in awhile, but I think that once I get home I'm going to check a few out.

NOW, the official VIGIGAMES TEXT ADVENTURE!

You, a bored, probably twenty-something Canadian are sitting at your computer. Your fingers move to type in your favourite website.

>> www.vigigames.com

The website VIGIGAMES, with its familiar orange and black colour scheme, welcomes you to a world of sometimes regrettable prose from a bunch of hoity-toity know-it-alls. You think for a moment, then

>> realize that everyday looks like Halloween on this webpage.

Then you feel creeped out, and decide to quickly read the latest post. A post called "Don't shit your pants!" catches your eye. You don't enjoy shitting your pants either. You play the game and

>> win.

Now you feel happy, so you decide to read further into the article. You come across the Official VIGIGAMES TEXT ADVENTURE and read the funny lines within. Secretly, behind your mug of Earl Grey tea, you

>> laugh.

A hearty "ha ha!" now escapes your lips, and you can't get it back in. You quickly get up to leave the coffee shop leaving an

>> unsatisfactory tip.

When you get home, you decide to never read that VIGIGAMES website again; you find its use of metanarrative far too pretentious and inane. You

>> go to sleep.

Congratulations! You've beat the game! Enjoy this MC Frontalot video.