First off... I enjoy various kinds of text games from the early Infocom games, to the King's Quests, to the Monkey Islands, and event a Zork or two. Yes, Legends of Zork took elements from the world of Zork, but it lacks challenge. In the text games, I like trying everything under the sun to try to get that one step further in the game, even if that meant starting over a million times. It was part of the challenge, part of the fun. This... I found very frustrating. It's like the game is so incredibly dumbed down that it's like a slightly interactive advertisement for something I don't want to buy into.
Games like
Kingdom of Loathing and
Twilight Heroes, are what lit a fire under me to create my own,
Urban Legions.
Kingdom of Loathing is incredible. Since the day I stumbled upon it via Wikipedia (looking up "Trifids" of all things), I have been hooked and play it practically every day since. I love the sense of humor. I love collecting all the crazy items. After ascending about 8+ times, the quests are getting a little tedious. But, they add new content, which makes me want to play it even more. I haven't even broken into the Hobopolis or PvP sides of the game, and it's kept me entertained for 2.5+ years.
Twilight Heroes... I played for a while. Then, I got stuck on one of the quests. After a while, it got repetitive and I dropped it (mostly). I go back every once in a while. It's not a bad game. It's as easy to pick up as KoL. It's got a good sense of humor, and I've enjoyed playing it. Yet, it lacks something (for me, at least) to want to keep playing it. Maybe they've found that certain something that I lacked, and maybe I should pick it up again.
Urban Legions... Why did I create this game? Because I told my friend about KoL, how much fun it was, and we both agreed it was something we should try doing ourselves. During the creation of the game, we broke away from several traditions, but kept various elements we enjoy from playing other games. One of the things we broke away from is character creation. All characters start the same except for their names. You enter a name and an alias, and you're off and running. Stats? We limit it to Brains and Brawn. I mean seriously... How often do you roll for Constitution while playing D&D? We also wanted the game to play differently. The world is very much open ended. There is an over-arching plot that we continuously add to, but there are various side quests along the way. We are light years behind KoL in the amount of content, but of what we already have, we are already building a community of people who play on a regular basis and crave more (By the way... We love you guys and gals!). Like the others, KoL, TH, and LoZ, we provide a few turns per day with the options to subscribe for more turns per day or to buy a big block of turns that you can slowly whittle away. Sure, he and I would love to make enough money from this to one day quit our day jobs and focus solely on this and a few other projects up our sleeves, but the enjoyment we have of creating something that we are most proud of and trying to constantly out-do ourselves is also so incredibly rewarding.
So, back to Legends of Zork... As I said, I enjoy playing these kinds of game, if not for seeing "what not to do". One of the first things that irked me is the combat. I can't control what my character does in regards to combat, so why even go through the motions of creating a character? The next thing that bugged me... I went to my inventory to see what I thought I gained, but didn't. To get back into the game, the only way I could figure out was to go back to the map and into the location I was just at. This took another couple of action points to do. Seriously?! It takes an action point if I want to view my character and click ONE LOCATION on the map?! Are you fbleeping serious?! That right there should have been caught during beta. I can see "Exploring the Area" as one action point, and maybe healing at home, but picking which area you want to explore, especially when there is no easy way to go from your inventory back to where you just were?! After that, I decided to call it a day. I think I still have about 22 of my 30 Action Points left. Anybody else want them? Anyone?
If ya'll know of who else is out there in the world of browser-based games such as these, drop me a line. I'd love to check out the "competition". And, if ya'll would like to try Urban Legions, I'd also love to hear what you have to say aboot our game, both the good and the scathing.