The Kingdom of Loathing - Review

I've been playing an online role-playing game the last couple of weeks. It's called The Kingdom of Loathing. It's free. And it's really weird. But also super funny. The graphics are in a hand drawn stick figure style. This game helps prove something that I believe in... Games can be fun without super fancy graphics.

Accordion Thief? Seal Clubber?

Basically you create a character by picking your character's class and then you get right to the playing. The classes include Accordion Thief, Disco Bandit, Seal Clubber and three others. My character "weasel" is a Pastamancer. Yes. Yes. That's right. He is wily in the ways of pasta sorcery. You can see him here wielding a deadly pasta fork.

Once you have your character you click on icons to adventure in various places (Mountains, Plains, Town). There's a tutorial to teach you the basics when you first start playing. You never know what you'll find in a new place. But there are puzzles to be solved and lots of adventures to be had.

But is it fun?

It's goofy and weird and it's a lot of fun.

• The artwork is funny
• The user interface is easy
• After two weeks I'm still turning up new things each time I play
• The battles make me laugh
• It's free

There's always that fun of discovery. And the things that come up in the game are so crazy and goofy that the discovery is that much more fun.

Orcs and Dragons are Boring

In other games you might run into a Orc or Dragon. Y'know, things you've heard of before. "Ooh, I'm fighting an orc now. Weren't those the ugly guys in that Lord of the Rings movie?" Big deal. They have 'em in every movie these days, don't they? Now in Kingdom of Loathing all bets are off. You never know what you're going to fight. Maybe a WereTaco, maybe a scary clown. You never know. Here's an example:

You're fighting a Knob Goblin Chef This is one of the chefs of Cobb's Knob. He may look harmless, but he wields a mean ladle. He spatulas you in the throat. Oof! Ugh!

MEAT!

The currency in Loathing is not gold as in many role-playing games. Nope. In Loathing it's meat. So you use your hard-earned meat to buy things. There's also a whole world of meat-smithing that I've only just discovered. With a little know-how and some meat you can create all kinds of things. Like meat armor and weapons! YES!

Kingdom of Loathing is fun. And it's free. So check it out.