Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 14 years and 8 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

I haven’t been a PC gamer in a long time. Other than our annual holiday deathmatches the last major PC game I remember playing with any regularity was the free version of Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

My friends and I used to play the original WarCraft at LAN parties back in the late 90s but I usually got my butt kicked. I would finally have a few modest buildings and be able to build trebuchets and then I would get wiped out by one of my buddies who somehow had armies of flying dragons already. Since I found myself with less free time for gaming as time went by, I never got into World of WarCraft or any of the other MMORPGs that have popped up.

Then this week I heard about Kingdom of Loathing from creator Zack Johnson on the Adam Carolla podcast (the July 27 episode). While not technically an MMORPG, KoL is an online (browser-based) role-playing game with a comical twist. It’s also free (but “donations are appreciated and rewarded”).

If you need high-res graphics and rich 3D environments, KoL is probably not for you. If you cut your gaming teeth on Infocom text adventures, love the humor of Monty Python, and can appreciate the art of xkcd, you should definitely give this game a try. Just read the “about” page and I’m sure you’ll want to sign up and create a character (I’m a currently a level 3 pastamancer).

As you can see from the screenshot to the right, the interface is point-and-click simple. I love the “hand-drawn” look too. It reminds me of playing D&D with friends on the school bus using paper and pencil to create the “dungeons.”

Again, KoL isn’t massively multiplayer, but it does have some multiplayer features: there’s a chat room and player vs. player combat, neither of which I’ve experimented with yet. There are clans as well, but I’m not sure if you can go questing with other online players at the same time, ala WoW. I’m content just to do a little questing on my own, though.

Another neat “feature” of the game is that it’s turn-based and you’re allotted a certain number of turns each day. Some might think this is rather restrictive, but I don’t mind having a limit to how much I can play per day. So if you love pulling all-nighters killing orcs with your guild, this game isn’t for you. But if you don’t mind spending a few minutes a day killing possessed cans of asparagus in the Spooky Pantry or meatsmithing some components together (did I mention the in-game currency is meat?), you’re going to love Kingdom of Loathing.

My current character stats: