by @marathemara

This week we return to Homestuck’s origin as a parody of the adventure games of the 1980s and 90s. One of the central mechanics of these games involves picking up items, storing them in an inventory, and using them later. So Homestuck has to have its own inventory system, and that system is called the sylladex.

I refer the reader to the Let’s Play blog The Adventure Gamer for examples of the good, the bad, and the ugly in both inventory systems and inventory-based puzzles. Homestuck’s sylladex system immediately stands out as unique, and as much cooler than the average adventure game inventory. For one thing, its layouts are reminiscent of several data structures used in programming–a structure usually hidden from the player of an adventure game. In most adventure games, the player simply sees a list of items, or a space in which items collect–it may have a size limit, but there’s rarely a way to sort things, or any restrictions on what can be accessed when. Items in a sylladex, on the other hand, are stored on cards indexed in a predetermined way and can be accessed according to specific, sometimes obtuse, rules which provide much of the comedy of Act 1.

(And occasionally an important plot point. Without sylladex shenanigans, Davesprite would not exist.)



Note that these types of interesting restrictions on inventory systems were not beyond the technical capabilities of 90s computer games. In fact, the widely-disliked inventory system in Diablo, an action RPG from the mid-90s, has an inventory that might have inspired Jake English’s cumbersome Puzzle modus.

Sylladexes are also unique and cool among adventure game inventories in that each character has their own layout and rules for their sylladex. In adventure games with multiple player characters, each usually has the same kind of inventory. In Homestuck, these rules, known as fetch modi, reflect their owners’ personalities. John, who generally takes life as it comes, uses the default setting until it gets frustrating, and then he upgrades to an Array modus, which is more useful but still a basic uncustomized data structure.

Fastidious Rose uses a Tree modus, and goes through several different methods of alphabetization and retrieval to figure out what best suits her needs.

Dave, to improve his rapping, uses a hashmap whose sorting rules are based on wordplay.

Fanciful Jade goes through a series of modi based on board and card games.

And so on. Eventually we move away from data structures to fetch modi that are more directly symbolic of their users, like Dad Egbert’s wallet, Aradia’s Ouija board, and Roxy’s wine bottles. I love those little character details.

But what’s really awesome is when the sylladex system starts to fade into the background. Homestuck gradually moves away from its adventure game roots as its characters level up and develop more complex personalities. This really hits home after most of the main characters reach God Tier and start putting things in their pockets.

Just as God Tier players transcend pesterlogs with the Gift of Gab, and Strife Specibi with multi-weapon abilities, they transcend the inventory system by wearing hoodies and using the pockets. Only a few adventure games allow players to store objects in characters’ pockets. In those games, it’s usually a mechanic that expands the inventory, or maybe it just makes it hard to remember where you put things. In Homestuck, it’s a step in humanizing the characters, in making them less like game constructs and more like real people.



There is still a time and place for the sylladex, though. Like when you need to save an entire planet for later.