CSSTORY is a text adventure game about squeezing a single game of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in before your real-life friends arrive in expectation of real conversation and real hosting skills.
It turns out to be tougher than you’d think.
CSSTORY is the work of Mojang man of words Owen Hill. It’s unmistakably a tale of PC gaming and the trappings we alone enjoy – the tipped-back office chair; knowing the insides of the Properties menu well enough to eliminate precious seconds wasted on splash screens; the frankly embarrassing level of satisfaction to be found in manually piecing together a desktop shortcut.
It’s clearly fuelled by an honest, self-knowing love for a game about shooting strangers in the head. And it’s also true to the text adventure genre – in that, however implausibly, all possible endings but one result in the End of All Things.
The ‘right’ ending is glorious stuff – a hyperbolous celebration of the positive effects a harboured game addiction can have on Real Life. And a close-to-the-bone suggestion that the reward for a successfully social night should be the promise of none more like it for a couple of weeks.
Or perhaps I’m wilfully misreading it. Have a play and let us know what you think in the comments – it’ll only take you 15 mins or so to explore all possible solutions. And you’ll want to.