stay tuned for your irregularly-scheduled game pitch…
http://www.kingdomofloathing.com
Once every few years I come back to this game and am amazed at how much it can change. I feel it’s worth it to start a new thread and try to get people back into KoL, and I hope by the time you finish reading this pitch, you’ll jump in.
KoL (short for Kingdom of Loathing) is a browser-based RPG that was created in 2003 by Asymmetric Publications and has been surviving ever since. It’s free-to-play, but there are rewards for donating to help support the game (that can also be acquired with enough hard work in-game). And yes, it can be very, very fun.
The game’s art is stick-figure based, which lends a certain charm to the game. And its writing is quite witty (which is the main selling point for the game). You start off with 40 ‘turns’ a day (80 on your first run) and gain more turns by eating food, drinking booze, or abusing your spleen (among other things). Once you’re out of turns or are too drunk to function, that’s it for the day. Your next opportunity to play comes at 2:30 AM GMT. If you miss a day, your 40 turns are banked and stored until the next time you play (capped at 200).
You can play as one of six character classes — a Seal Clubber, Turtle Tamer, Pastamancer, Sauceror, Disco Bandit or Accordion Thief — and embark on a quest to save the Kingdom from monsters controlled by the Naughty Sorceress. And after that (or during), you could do a whole bunch of other stuff too. Like collect items.
It’s mostly single-player, but has social and competitive multiplayer elements — PvP, clans (and three multiplayer [I]clan dungeons[/I] - Hobopolis, the Slime Tube, and Dreadsylvania), chat, occasional cooperative world events, and much more! And if single-player really is your thing, once you finish the main game you can start over (ascend), keep a skill you learned (and most of your items and Meat (currency)), and play the game as a different class, under restricting conditions (no food, no booze or no food and booze), or take a unique challenge path! Challenge paths change four times a year and older ones can be played at any time. Older challenge paths have included Bees Hate You (bees really hate you, and you can’t wear/consume items with a B(ee) in their name), Zombie Slayer (become a real Zombie Slayer!) and KOLHS (your character comes back to high school!). An influx of content keeps this game fresh, and has kept it in a changing state for over 10 years.
But I’ve already played this game before. What’s different now?
Well, besides new challenge paths, new items and new content (Dreadsylvania, the third clan dungeon, just came out a few months ago), all six classes have recently been revamped, adding new skills to learn and perm and new/improved playstyles! And if you’ve already finished an ascension before, you can try out those new skills at once in the new Class Act II: A Class for Pigs challenge path where you can only use your class’ skills, but get them all at once! Not to mention Crimbo is coming up in December, which is always a fun time of the year.
You’ve read this far — create a character and start playing today!
theartofmadeline
amandla
turnnoffyourmind
titsay
yousharknotpass
