Homestuck is a webcomic inspired by old text-based adventure games. As such, readers could send commands through the MSPaintAdventures (MSPA hereafter) forums, which a character may respond to on the next page. Homestuck is the fourth of Andrew Hussie's webcomics to follow this format, for its first year at least; you'll learn why as you read. But there's more than one way to put the web in webcomic: simple animated GIFs, complex Flash animations, and the occasional Flash minigame often take the place of still pictures. All of this accompanied by a beloved soundtrack by a dedicated team, including Toby Fox of Undertale fame amongst many, many others.
The typical Homestuck page
I took the plunge on one fateful day in August 2023. I thought it looked a wee bit cringe; before I knew it I was on page 5,000. And now I must dutifully spread this infection to you.
With Homestuck's extensive use of Adobe Flash, its discontinuation in 2020 has left the official website in varying states of disrepair.
The official website, ladies and gentlemen
Enter The Unofficial Homestuck Collection (the UHC hereafter): a program made by Bambosh and maintained by GiovanH that lets one read this quirky comic, alongside extensive supplementary material, in its original state and fully offline.
The UHC comes in two parts: the reader program itself and the asset pack, both of which can be found at the link above. The latter is all of Homestuck; the former puts it in order.
On startup, point it to where the asset pack is. You can put it wherever you want, but you may as well keep everything in the same folder. You will then have some choices to make:
New Reader Mode hides content like side stories and music placement until a point in the story where it won’t give anything away. I’d keep this on if you’re concerned about spoilers
Page numbers can be set to either the page IDs from mspaintadventures.com or the new ones from homestuck.com. Links and bookmarks work across numbering systems either way
Reading Experience is here for events that change earlier pages. As above, Replay will hide these edits on a first reading, if you think them spoilers
With that done, there's one setting that deserves especial mention:
Controversial Content
Mr Hussie's work is no stranger to racy content, in more ways than one, and some pages were later altered afterwards. The UHC lets you toggle them on or off; they're off by default.
Ten early Flash pages had to be re-scored because musician Bill Bolin left the team on bad terms
One of those re-scored pages features a song from another removed musician: SolusLunes. Enabling this will still overwrite a Bill Bolin page
One Homestuck panel included a joke related to a character's race, not in a disparaging manner mind you, but still shocking to some
A Paradox Space page featuring a non-human's insides was thought too graphic, and thus replaced with a written description
The text files hidden on skaianetsystems.com mock lesser known historical figure Adolf Hitler. I see no need to hide something you must actively seek out in order to read, but I'm no programmer
On your first reading, I advise keeping everything on less (2); it's important to view any piece of art as closely to how the creator originally intended as possible, so that you may decide for yourself whether or it's objectionable. Besides, none of it's that shocking anyway.
Mods
To my surprise, the UHC has a modding scene, many of which further improve the reading experience. You can find a fuller list of mods here, but below are my favourites:
Text Color Adjustments by SSM24:
Some characters’ text uses bright colours which may be hard to read. This will swap those for colours easier on the eyes
Rex Duodecim Angelus by Ariah:
Adds a well-known fan animation at an appropriate point in the comic. It’s bloody good. Watch it
Social Links/NewsSocial by wheals:
Appends Mr Hussie’s most recent blog or social media post to pages at time of said page’s release for both Homestuck and Problem Sleuth. May be funny or interesting
UHC POV Cam by FlaringK:
A ported Chrome extension which adds extra buttons to pages for each on-screen character, leading to that character’s next appearance. This will disable arrow key shortcuts for page navigation
Homestuck Epilogues by FlaringK:
Adds the Epilogues to the Collection for easier reading until native support arrives. There's also one for Homestuck^2, but I couldn't get it to work
Reading on Mobile
For a mobile user, the UHC is out of reach for now, leaving two main options:
The UHC web version: Most text is reasonably sized on mobile devices, but buttons and page links are very small. Flash elements are handled by an emulator named Ruffle that needs Javascript and WebAssembly. Bear in mind that Ruffle is still in early days, so your mileage may vary
The official website: Homestuck's then publishers, VIZ Media, have attempted to re-create Flash pages with Javascript; this mostly works, though at a lower quality, but interactive pages will often behave unexpectedly or not play at all. Notably, the EarthBound-style walk-around pages are replaced with very long slideshows
As of August 2025, the latter is more broken than ever and the former is gone entirely. For now, I'm afraid it's tough luck on mobile.
Reading Order
If you just want to know what all the fuss is about, you'll have little issue reading the main comic from start to end. However, there are many bits of side material within the UHC. Whilst not essential reading, doing so gives you the right to feel smug for understanding the many inside jokes, inspirations, and references present in Homestuck proper. New Reader Mode will unlock these as you go along.
Jailbreak, Bard Quest, and Problem Sleuth: The first three MSPA comics are fun in their own right. What's another 1,855 pages?
Team Special Olympics: Mr Hussie's older works before even MSPA, amongst which I like The Starlight Calliope and And It Don't Stop
Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff and The Blog of Dave Strider: May be funny
Mr Hussie's Blogs and Q&As: May also be funny. Best experienced with the Social Links mod above
Paradox Space: An anthology of fan comics commissioned by Mr Hussie, mostly being side stories and what-ifs
Have you read all that? I'm afraid you're not done yet:
The Snaps: A series of Snapchat stories, from many perspectives, following Homestuck's ending. I prefer them to the Epilogues which decanonised them
Skianet Systems: This now defunct website had some backstory hidden in its source code, which has thankfully been preserved in the the UHC
The video games: Released in the order Hiveswap Act 1, Friendship Simulator, Pesterquest, Hiveswap Act 2, and two more acts yet to be released. As of August 2025, they're never coming out, are they? I have not played any of these, so I cannot comment on their value for money. Be warned, Pesterquest contains Epilogues spoilers
The Epilogues: Taking place ten years after Homestuck. It's styled like an AO3 fanfiction and, depending on who you ask, feels like one too. I'd read the prologue to see if the setting works for you
Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon: The most recent, and currently ongoing, project. This one's styled more like the original. Again, I suggest giving the prologue a go to see if you like it
That's all there is. If you've any questions, please feel free to contact me. Happy reading!
See Also
MS Paint Fan Adventures: Many in the fanbase have created their own works inspired by Homestuck; this is the biggest collection thereof. Be warned that it contains excessive advertisements and requires a Google account to log in, so I advise keeping progress with bookmarks and using an adblocker
Homestuck timeline: More detail on Homestuck's history with light spoilers. Requires Javascript
Homestuck.net: A directory of Homestuck resources that knows know equal
