Trogdooooooor! Trogdooooooor! Is there anything more effective for treating a chronic bad
mood than Homestar Runner? I have loved this site since its launch on January 1st, 2000,
and I kept up with it until 2010, when the creators began a four year hiatus. If you
have NO idea what any of this is, let me educate you: Homestar Runner is a character created
by Mike Chapman and Craig Zobel - they initially wanted to write and illustrate a children’s
book using crudely drawn characters, but it was intended to be a joke among themselves
and a few friends. Mike’s Dad must have had faith in it because he sent it to a TON
of publishers, which resulted in a lot of rejection letters. A couple years past, and
in 1999, when Flash was becoming popular, Mike and his brother Matt decided to learn
the program to animate their own cartoons, and took inspiration from the characters in
their book. Even though the websites namesake refers to a specific character, it was Strong
Bad who fans most adored. And for the most part the Homestar Runner website encompuses
the entire world of these characters.
I remember when Strong Bad emails were a weekly occurrence; I was a teenager at the time,
and when I look back I reflect on how cool it is to have grown up with something that
is now so iconic, and every week those emails would bring me and my friends together and
we’d laugh like crazy at these silly jokes; to this day I have a lot of love for these
cartoons and these eccentric characters, with a special fondness for Homsar. “I’m a
song from the 60s!” But I am not going to talk about the cartoons today, as much as
I love it; today I want to focus on the adventure games on the site. As Homestar Runner inclined
in popularity, the Brothers Chaps and their friend Jonathan Howe started developing fun
lil web games that usually spoofed titles from the 80s and 90s; later they created a
logo and a company name; Videlectrix; Mike and Matt started with really simple applications,
which are still available on the site, like this dancing Bubs program. “I say come on
fhqwhgads, I say on fhqwhgads, everybody to the limit everybody to the limit everybody
come on fhqwhgads.” But eventually moved onto more involved games with the help of
Howe, who composed music and programmed many of them; there’s Stinkoman, a Megaman parody
that was inspired by Strong Bad Email #57; Japanese Cartoon, there’s Awexome Cross,
which was initially an EASTER egg in Email #61, Monster Truck, and of course, we have
Peasant’s Quest. Which...was also inspired by a Strong Bad email. I am tellin’ ya,
so many things came outta that segment.
I think the adventure games really shine because it’s so obvious that the creators have a
love for them, especially some of the more classic titles; For example, in an early strong
bad email, titled “Sisters”, the women Strong Bad fantasized about are designs from
Leisure suit Larry. As you can see Peasant’s Quest, if you cannot tell, is a King’s Quest
Parody. When I saw this on the site, I was thrilled. I could not contain my excitement.
“Butt dance again, like the rhythm’s down your pants now” I grew up with adventure
games, and some of my favorite ones WERE Sierra’s King’s Quest series, so I was very happy
that two of my favorite things were coming together to make a delicious cocktail, full
of silly puzzles, fitting graphics, and “TROGDOOOOOOR!!”
In an interview, Mike, Matt, and Jonathan were questioned about their inspiration for
Peasant’s Quest. When asked which about the first adventure game they had ever played,
Mike and Matt said King’s Quest I, followed by King’s Quest II. Mike says: “Outside
of text adventures, the first adventure game I ever played on PC was King's Quest 1. It
taught me the word 'crotchety.' Later, when we played King's Quest 2, I remember being
legitimately terrified while inside Dracula's castle. Like, I had nightmares in 16 color
EGA.”
You know, I totally understand that because King’s Quest III taught me the word horny.
As in horny toad. It was only later that I realized the word had an alternate meaning.
When asked about their favorite Sierra adventure games, Matt responded with Space Quest II
and...Quest for Glory II. Matt. Oh Matt, my dude. Those are the worst in their series...
Mike and Jonathan responded with Space Quest I, which is an excellent choice if I do say
so, and Jonathan also went on to say Indiana Jones from LucasArts was the first adventure
game to excite him. He didn’t say which Indiana Jones game though, so I am just going
to post a picture of Fate of Atlantis on the screen and hope that’s the right one.
When I started teasing a video about Peasant’s Quest, I found out that it was many people’s
first time playing an adventure game; I think that’s pretty amazing - to create something
that is well past its prime in popularity and show a younger audience that it can be
fun, perhaps encouraging them to look into what inspired it in the first place. The story
is fairly simple; set in the Daventry like town of Peasantry, you play as a peasant whose
house was just burninated by Trogdor, a majestic dragon with cute beady eyes and a beefy arm
coming out of the back of his neck. In order to climb the mountain and seek your revenge,
you must achieve three things: Smelling like a peasant, looking like a peasant, and being
on fire. Like a peasant. To achieve these things you must solve INVENTORY OBJECT PUZZLES;
This is a VERY close parody of the early King’s Quest games, like eerily close. I’d compare
it most to first three titles, with this lake that spans two screens, this inn that reminds
me of this pawn shop, and the fact that you have three objectives, similar to what you
need to do in King’s Quest II, and even these sparse screens that have nothing on
it. King’s Quest was known to have utterly useless screens with with nothing to interact
with; Peasant’s Quest has several things like this, including this wavy tree screen
where you can see Naked Ned. He doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t say anything. He’s
just naked. He’s Naked Ned.
There is a well that you have to put something in, because of course there is, there is ALWAYS
a well in an adventure game, there’s a horse you can interact with, because of COURSE THERE
IS, there are also always horses, and there are a few characters you can interact with.
But only a few, because adventure game settings, for whatever reason, are always sparsely populated.
The art style is perfect, as are the animations of the characters, and of course the threat
of death is always present. Even this end game dialogue box of the creators is right
on point with the old Sierra games; here’s one of Roberta Williams thanking you for playing
King’s Quest IV as a comparison. This always felt condescending. Thank you for playing,
but you DO suck.
The tone of the game is of course, much different; it is meant to be funny, and the text boxes
pretty much read in Strong Bad’s voice. The puzzles of rely on this humor, as one
of the solutions is to throw a baby in a lake. Don’t worry, it’s a very impressive swimmer
and it brings back a soda. You know what they say, you can’t spell bouyant without baby.
You know. If you reuse the B.
Homestar Runner always teetered into absurd, surreal humor that won’t make much sense
to a new player unless you’re very familiar with the cartoon. If you haven’t specifically
seen the Trogdor email, titled Dragon, then this weird lookin’ thing probably won’t
make much sense to you. And you also might be a hermit with no connection to the outside
world because it’s nearly impossible to not be at least aware of Trogdor. You don’t
necessarily have to like adventure games to enjoy Peasant’s Quest, but you might not
enjoy it as much if you aren’t a fan of Homestar Runner. If you happen to like both
fantasy adventure games AND Homestar Runner, then you are in for a treat. This is also
a full game, complete with a map, an inventory, and a point system - honestly it probably
took me the same amount of time to beat this game as it took to complete King’s Quest
I - I love that the creators committed so hard to such a silly thing.
Peasant’s Quest is probably their most involved adventure game, but they did have a few more
in other styles; Several were teased in Email #94, titled “Video Games” - Strong Bad
was asked what he would be like if he were in a video game, and he comes up with several
examples that did go on to become actual flash games you can find on the site; Thy Dungeon
Man started as a joke about not being able to get a flask “Get ye flask. And , and
went on to become a trilogy of games. The first two are text based, in the style of
classic infocom titles; the second Thy Dungeon Man even gives a little nod to King Graham,
the protagonist of King’s Quest, and Adrian Ripburger, the antagonist from Full Throttle.
The third title boasts THY GRAAAAPHIIIICS. Thy Dungeon Man III looks simply fantastic;
it reminds me of something like The Wizard and The Princess from Sierra, when graphics
were starting to be introduced to parser command games. The monochrome color and scanlines
simulate what you’d see on an older monitor, and more specifically I think the amber color
is meant to parody the Hercules graphics card. Any time the next screen has to “load”,
it mimics the noise of a 5 ¼ floppy disk drive. Once again, the humor is on the absurd
side and the entire point of the game is to get ye flask, calling back to a previous joke
from the Video Games cartoon. Previously you could not get ye flask. Now you CAN get ye
flask so you never have to imagine why on EARTH you cannot get ye flask.
The last game I want to talk about is Dangeresque, officially titled Roomisode 1: Behind the
Dangerdesque. Is...is that what it’s actually called? This is in the style of a point and
click akin to the popular LucasArts games of the early to mid 90s. The main character
is based on a Strong Bad email called “Stunt Double”, and recurs in a later email called
“Dangeresque 3.” Strong Bad’s persona is meant to be a hard boiled, yet relatively
lazy detective, whose catchphrase is “Looks like I’m gonna have to jump!!” this game
is not as involved as Peasant’s Quest, as the entire thing takes place in this one office
setting and has fewer puzzles, but the fact that it exists makes me happy.
You play Dangeresque himself, and using only a few resources on the screen, you have to
trick the chief into thinking you solved a case. This reminds me the most of Sam and
Max hit the Road; I am not sure how intentional it was but the fact that I am in an office
with jazzy mystery music in the background while playing as a cartoony detective gives
me those vibes. In fact, I would have loved a full game in this setting and using a retro
style design; it looks so good; I’m pretty sure I would have prefered something like
this over Strong Bad’s Cool Game For Attractive people; not because that game is bad or anything,
but because I genuinely enjoy these web games way more and they are reminiscent of mechanics
and graphics from past adventure games. A Homestar Runner point and click in the pixelated
art style of Sam and Max Hit the Road would be amazing.
Even though the adventure games on the site are easily my favorite, their other games
are fun as well. Some are obviously not meant to be a long experience and are more on the
jokey side, like the Atari inspired Secret Collect, and Rhino Feeder. But others are
more complex, like Trogdor, where you get to play the famous wingaling dragon and burninate
all the peasants; and my personal favorite of the non adventure games, Awexome Cross,
which was also the first game developed by Videlectrix. When I was capturing footage
for this video I suddenly remembered playing this game when it came out on the site, and
became completely obsessed with beating it. Not sure what happened there, I probably would
have had this video out earlier had I not spent so much time with this thing; I had
myself CONVINCED that I could beat it, even though there was a lot of unpredictability
due to a glitch where the the powerups and obstacles move at different speeds, but it
was too late. It got personal. I had to win. What would I get if I won? Absolutely nothing,
but I needed to win. So I played it until I won. “Yeah, you won.” This is what I
get? Really?? Where is my trophy filled with Steak’ums???
I digress, I think Mike, Matt, and Jonathan shine the brightest with these adventure games,
Peasant’s Quest being what I consider their magnum opus. They wanted to recreate an AGI
game in the style of King’s Quest and they did just that, while putting their own flare
into it, and it is very well liked among fans. If you’ve never heard of Homestar Runner,
I highly encourage you to check out the site and play some of the web games; I do hope
it is all preserved after Flash is discontinued in 2020, the cartoons definitely will be as
they have found a place on YouTube, but I really hope the games are as well, because
they have brought people such happiness, myself included. Homestar Runner has been one of
my favorite things on the internet for a long time; it’s like this little beacon of light
in a pretty depressing world, and will likely be remembered for a long time. I’m kind
of talking about it like it’s dead though, this isn’t meant to be in memoriam thing,
I don’t know why I went all Strong Sad on ya. After their four year hiatus from 2010
to 2014, Mike and Matt started making cartoons again, though less frequently. They are also
still active on Twitter, posting drawings every now and then, and also on YouTube - and
it’s clear to me that they still love adventure games. “And for towers, just a pair of King
Grahams. There they are. Here he is, off on a quest.” This makes me feel warm and fuzzy
like mold.
I want to thank everyone for joining me on this look back at some of the Homestar Runner
games; I am going to leave you with my personal favorite character, Homsar. Let his words
stimulate great art and inspiration. “Don’t look now, I’m just a friendly reminder.
Whaaaaah. WHAAAAAAH. Think I won the powerball!”
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