Flutterby™! : Day 7: KoL

Influential video games, day 7: Kingdom of Loathing

In the history of games, you've got to have a cow-clicker of some sort. And I also like to celebrate the triumph of small teams or individual authors; there's something about the rawer stories that connects with me better.

So you'd probably expect that I'd go for Stardew Valley. It has all of the traits that I like: very open world, resource management, exploration, a story that gradually unfolds, and, sure, that kinda made my list, but...

I didn't play Kingdom of Loathing very long. I think I did send them money for the upgrade, and I even forget what the particular beneficence upon other players that that upgrade allowed you to bestow, although I do remember that I was stuck somewhere and someone else gifted me.

But KoL is the multi-user exploration reduced to its raw simple self in the same way that Cow Clicker managed to reduce the whole Tamagotchi/Farmville/etc experience to one simple action. And with stick figure drawings and a surrealist sense of humor that had me referring to the wiki and then going "duh", or "huh, I don't get it". It's a small team operation that managed to capture the hearts of many former Glitch players.

And in the era of multi-million dollar AAA titles, and MMORPGs with tens of millions of players, it's carved out a neat little niche for itself.

#VideoGameInfluence