What I'm Playing

Kingdom of Loathing (of course)
Animal Crossing: Wild World (again, of course) There was recently a bug that was distributed over the Wi-fi network. Nothing like introducing bugs into a game after it's been released.
Urban Dead A MMO humans vs. zombies RPG with no NPCs: every monster is controlled by a player
Cities Another lo-fi MMORPG that seems a cross between KOL and Urban Dead
Mister Mosquito I mentioned this earlier but haven't played enough to do a whole Used Game Review. After playing the first four levels, I can safely say it's a hoot! However, it's supposed to be a very short game.

I notice all the games I'm playing (except for the last one) self-limit the amount of time you can play them each day and still have fun. I've logged 6-8 hour sessions of Grand Theft Auto or The Sims or Morrowind but I can't imagine playing Animal Crossing for more than about an hour, even with the online element. On the other hand, all the self-limiting games are most rewarding when played every day. I'm a fairly serious gamer but I've never played a game every day for more than a year before Kingdom of Loathing. I'm sure most serious gamers could say the same (although many would probably substitute World of Warcraft for Kingdom of Loathing). I wonder if a boardgame or card game could be designed in such a way so that a single player could play for a few minutes a day and have a rewarding experience. Page-a-day choose-your-own-adventure? The crossword puzzle in the paper (and other newspaper games) probably come closest to this idea but I wonder if a boxed game could fit the bill.

As I was thinking I had another idea: instead of a game such as Animal Crossing in which the time of day that you play makes a difference, let's expand on yesterday's post and build a GPS receiver into a DS game in the same manner the rumble pack was built into Metroid Prime Pinball. Then the gameplay could be enhanced by where the game was played. The game is perhaps more difficult if you always play at the same location. You get additional items if you play at certain areas like national (or international) landmarks. Your character gains power for each state capital you visit in real life.

Or, what I'd hope for, different Pokemon can only be caught when traveling. Oddish can now only be found in Nebraska; Charmander is only in Miyagi prefecture, Japan. Catching 'em all would be a real achivement.