If you head to the 'Games' section of the Homestar Runner website, you can play a whole bunch o' affectionate parodies that are actually pretty sweet games in their own right.
The closest to MS Paint Adventure's 'Problem Sleuth' is 'Dangeresque - Roomisode 1: Behind The Dangerdesque'. Problem Sleuth creator Andrew Hussie is an avowed fan of Homestar Runner, and the two share a lot of influences.
Here, you play hard-boiled detective Dangeresque (played by regular Homestar Runner character, Strong Bad, a brash luchador who's always cooking up mischief), who has to try to solve a case without leaving his office. It's a fun little mystery, with the usual pleasures and surprises of the point n' click system, and it reminds me of Sam & Max Hit The Road, which can only be a clamorously ringing endorsement.
Peasant's Quest is a tidy little parody of the old Sierra game King's Quest. It uses a combination of controlling your character with the cursor keys and typing in verb commands to LOOK, GET, USE, etc:
Finally, for hardcore retrophiles, there's Thy Dungeonman, a spoof sword n' scorcery text adventure. Took me right back to my days playing Guild of Thieves on my Dad's green screen Amstrad, it did. He only had a pirate copy and the copy protection kicked in after a hundred moves, rendering it tantalisingly unplayable. I still found the diamond ring hidden inside the billiard ball, though.
There. Don't say I never give you anything. Or that my feet smell. Or that the holocaust never happened. Especially that my feet smell.
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Ifiction has a few of these you can play through your browser, including what I think might have been the original: Colossal Cave Adventure.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ifiction.org/games/play.phpz?cat=&game=1&mode=html