More freeware goodness

[DarkDragoonX]

A whole bunch of stuff about Warsow.[/url]

Thanks for the heads up on that game, as it seems really awesome... I'm definitely going to give it a look!

[Rijuhn]

I think the climax of my pre-gaming joy is when I'm browsing the internet on a day like today only to find a thread dedicated to sharing the best freeware games, especially RPGs. I have this surge or excitement flowing through me right now, and I can't wait to start playing these games. Thank you all.


BTW, I miss making my own RPG Maker XP game. If only I had kept it up (and didn't lose my old HD) I wonder how far along it would've been by now.

[AtmaWeapon]

These are browser-based but still free so I'm discussing them and YOU CAN'T STOP ME :mad:

Both games have anti-poopsocking mechanics built in so you only need a limited amount of time per day to play.
Urban Dead
http://www.urbandead.com

This game is zombies vs. survivors. You get one "action point" every half-hour, with a cap of 50 action points (also individual IPs can only access the game a limited number of times per day so having multiple characters won't help you circumvent it). Therefore, you reach your maximum potential every 25 hours. I can't say much personally about the human side of the game because I rolled zombie from the start. It really doesn't matter because you can get revived as a zombie and survivors become zombies when they die, so if you change your mind it's relatively easy to swap sides.

I like the game because I only have to spend about 10 minutes on it each day and it's kind of fun to imagine I upset someone by killing them in their safehouse.

Hints if you play:
The game is EXTREMELY frustrating at the start because of the point cap. The first two character levels are pretty much the cruddiest to get because you have no bonuses to your movement or weapon usage. I think survivors have a bit of an advantage since they have more to do but I don't know.

If you start zombie I would recommend ignoring the guides on the wiki that tell you to increase your to hit and just go ahead and get Lurching Gait when you finally manage to claw your way up to 100xp. This makes movement consume 1 point instead of 2 and pretty much doubles the amount of turns you have in a day.

There's a bunch of information about the game on its wiki that is linked from the main page and I've said about all I want to because I saved the best for last.

The Kingdom of Loathing
http://www.kingdomofloathing.com

This is an RPG with a VERY tongue-in-cheek sense of humor. As far as I know every item has some kind of pop-culture (usually nerd gaming culture) reference. With the help of the wiki that is linked from the main page, you should be able to beat it easily within a month (new content is being rolled out in about 22 days so you might not get it squeezed in before then and after that I imagine the wiki won't be as much help for a few weeks). The fun part is the game has a pretty good New Game+ mechanic.

Whenever you beat the game, your stuff gets dumped in storage and you get to keep a skill that you learned. You have limited access to the stuff for a while, but the truly hardcore can bank stuff in such a way that it is possible to beat the game in a single day.

Basically the entire point of the game is like any other online RPG: stat building and dick waving. There are several trophies that can be obtained for achieving certain feats; from time to time the game is changed such that a trophy can't be obtained anymore and suddenly you possess a badge of honor that shows you were there back then. Furthermore, there exists hardcore and pathed ascensions, which allow you to greatly increase the challenge with much better rewards when you beat the game and more bragging rights.

The anti-poopsocking measure is defeatable through effort. Your unit of turns is called "adventures". You get 80 on your first day (this is changing in the new content) and every night at rollover (approximately 10:30 - 11:00PM Central) you are allotted 40 more adventures, up to a maximum of 200. Clan equipment can bestow about 12 extra adventures per day. Food and booze items can also bestow more adventures but you can only consume so much per day. With careful planning and about 10-15 ascensions under your belt you can have enough junk banked to beat the game in 1 or two days, that's about 900-1000 adventures for a really casual speed ascender I think. Multiple accounts are perfectly acceptable in this game, so if you just can't get enough knock yourself out.

This is currently my favorite game and I highly recommend it.

Hints if you play
If you don't mind spoiling the puzzles (some are kind of wacky and don't really have clues) read the wiki for an hour or two before you play. Get familiar with the classes, their skills, and the mechanics of the game. Each class has a main stat, but Moxie is important for EVERY class since it determines whether monsters can hit you or not. Because of this and how important booze/food is to getting done in a reasonable amount of time, I strongly recommend starting your character as a Disco Bandit and ignoring all of the skills until Level 5, when you can buy Advanced Cocktailcrafting. Every day you should have enough booze to get yourself falling-down drunk and 20-40 extra adventures easily. Make the booze at the beginning, then when you run out of adventures drink it all since you can't adventure while drunk. By the end of my first run I generally had 100+ adventures to spend every day.

You want to start doing hardcore ascensions as fast as possible in my opinion. Skills you make permanent on a non-hardcore ascension can't be used on hardcore ones, but skills you hardcore permanent are available on softcore runs. There's about 8 skills you really need to make ascensions take a reasonable amount of time, and doing softcore runs will just increase the amount of time before you can try to challenge yourself with hardcore pathed runs.

Voice of experience: Sauceror foodmaking skills are worthless without Pastamancer foodmaking skills. It is not wise to make your second attempt a hardcore teetotaler Sauceror, since you will have to farm for all of your ingredients and that usually leaves you either breaking even on adventures or at a slight loss; the teetotaler path further complicates things by restricting your access to booze which fairly early in the game you can daily get 4 boozes for 4 adventures to gain 10-25 adventures. I am in the middle of my second ascension and I'm about to drop my teetotaler path because I am not certain I can finish the game on time without the help of booze.

I'm early in my run so money is scarce but you can always message my character Sitten Spynne for advice. If I happen to have an item on hand that I know will be useful to you I will send it to you. Don't bother trying to pay me back I am on a hardcore run and I won't be able to get your payment for the next few ascensions because I have about 3 more left after this one before I chill out.

[mikeron]

The Kingdom of Loathing
http://www.kingdomofloathing.com

This game is awesome.

[jman2050]

There is a translation to Engage to Jabberwock out:

http://www.romhacking.net/trans/1129/

Check it out :)

[DarkDragoonX]

Ah, a translation, eh? Very nice.

Also, those of you who enjoyed Missing (Daarksied) will also enjoy another first-person adventure game recently released by the same group:

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Fedora Spade - A detective-themed first-person adventure stylized after old 8-bit adventure games. To be released episodically, with episodes 1 & 2 already out! Great writing and a perfect gumshoe vibe make this game one you shouldn't miss. The first episode is rather short, quite easy, and is essentially there just to get you used to the game engine. Episode 2 is much larger and more difficult. But stop reading this and go download it! Go, go, go!



Download page: http://studioeres.com/games/fedora

[Nicholas Steel]

www.binaryzoo.com has 4 or 5 great freeware games that are extremely addictive.

http://www.binaryzoo.com/games/index.htm

[DarkDragon]

I just spent the evening playing the Chzo series, and damn, it did not disappoint. The third game in particular has great atmosphere - it started storming here as soon as I'd started playing, and I found myself looking over my shoulders more than once.

Missing was fun as well, though short, and the plot has the occasional hole. The ending is solid, which I can't say for the Chzo series.

My favorite adventure game of all time is Spider and Web, by Andrew Plotkin. Definitely worth a play, if you don't mind Interactive Fiction.

[{DSG}DarkRaven]

Missing was fun as well, though short, and the plot has the occasional hole. The ending is solid, which I can't say for the Chzo series.

I was disappointed with 7 Days A Skeptic until I played 6 Days A Sacrifice, but then I was very confused about what actually happened there. It tied up a lot of loose ends from the other games, but left me reasonably confused at the final scene. It almost deserves a thread of it's own to discuss.

Desktop Tower Defense is an excellent Flash based tower defense game, much like those commonly found whilst playing Warcraft 3. It has several levels of difficulty, as well as some fun and challenge modes as well.

[Darth Marsden]

The ending to 7 Days a Skeptic is just plain silly, and is the kind of humor that the author, Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw, has strewn throughout the rest of his site. The Chzo Mythos series was supposed to be serious, but I guess he couldn't resist slipping back into old ways for that last scene.

Other free adventures located here, here and here.