I just recently discovered this little game on the web at
http://www.loathing2.com/. Since I've found a few other people here at AnimeSuki play this, I thought I'd create a thread where we can share our experiences with it, bring the fun of KoL to others and share some tips.
One of the fascinating things about the Kingdom of Loathing is its lack of beautiful graphics. This is a game illustrated with stick figures and doodles. The graphics are so low tech that it is clear they are making a point about how little great graphics have to do with the real quality of a game. In this age, where nearly every game has incredibly realistic graphcs, I find it refreshing that someone would purposefully do without such eye candy. And KoL thrives in its graphical simplicity.
They even have homages to some of the great NO graphic games of the past. It contains the Dungeon of Doom which is an hysterical homage to Nethack, a game created in the days when monitors could only display text. Nethack created a dungeon by using text symbols to represent monsters and objects. I suspect not many people here remember Nethack, so this might help you understand some of the weird things in the Dungeon of Doom. Far more people will recognize that the leaflet adventure is a parody of Zork and similar text adventures. These are just two of the many places in the Kingdom of Loathing, but they are two of the oddest.
What really makes KoL work is its sense of humor. This game is irreverant and full of pop culture references. It doesn't take anything seriously, including itself. For example, these are the descriptions of a couple of items:
If you didn't crack a smile while reading any of those, then KoL isn't the game for you. On the other hand, if you like any of what you're reading, then click on
Kingdom of Loathing and give it a try. It's free... unless you decide to donate.
