In topic: "SBURB GAME MECHANICS"

Wednesday, September 17th, 2025, 2:24 AM2 days ago

I really like the ceramic porkhollow. Might be my favorite recurring gag, but I'm glad it didn't overstay it's welcome.
Also, while the Sylladex, Captchalogue, and strife Specibus are gaming abstractions, I find it interesting that they aren't apart of SBURB. I know this thread is for Sburb mechanics, but I think how the characters adapt and treat the Sylladex system as opposed Sburb is very fascinating in how it represents that depiction of Homestuck as an adventure game.

John famously has a lot of trouble with his Sylladex in the beginning despite it being something he's supposedly lived with all his life, while everyone is mostly able to get the hang of the Sburb mechanics without questioning it despite it being completely new and reality-altering.

Taking the perspective of Homestuck as an adventure game and the reader as the player, this makes more sense.

A person playing a game for the first time will often struggle with the basic mechanics in silly ways that wouldn't make sense for their character to have the same difficulty with. This is especially true for mechanics as convoluted as the Sylladex.

Conversely, the player's suspension of disbelief would allow them to engage with new systems like the construction mechanics of Sburb without it having the paradigm-shifting relevance that the character they are playing as really ought to be experiencing.

Am I making sense? Am I rehashing stuff that's already been explored? Speaking as a four-month old Homestuck here.

they are marching by

Kat Sosno