forum wars, a browser rpg about trolling
I know the game Forum wars found here has been kicking around on whitestick.co.uk's online accessible games list for some time,and I gave it a try earlier today.
The game is a turn based rpg based around defeating web forums by causing all the thread in them pwnage. Each thread in a forum is like a monster battle which takes your ego, and you fight back with abilities like drooling on your keyboard. At level 2 you can choose different classes like the hacker, the emo kid and the troll.
Bookmarks are like places in other games, with the S talk tab for chatting to npc contacts that give missions, the forums list for looking up different forums to slay (either ones created by the games community members or ones in the story), and the drugs are fun sight for purchicing your healing items.
Firstly, the reason I've never got that far in the game is that getting past the initial cut sceen is a little odd. You
start off with a fairly standard multiple choice question set and then get dropped onto the parody web search version of google. What you need to do is first type into the box, and then look towards the bottom where you start getting messages from Shallow Assophagus, who is your first npc in the game.
Just click on responses and continue, and then you'll be put into the tutorial and go to your first battle.
The battle screen is a bit screwy sinse it has the battle log up top and your abilities with lots of mouseovers. I'd recommend turning off the display of community images under options and turning on the display of numbers in battle so you can keep watch on what is going on, also note that while the text of the forum replies and your attacks is there for commic value, the battle log shows what's going on stats wise in terms of damage so I'd watch that.
Battles are actually moderately tactical sinse each ability has cool down time and you al
so have a limited pool of mana, (or the closest thing the character classes have to mana).
I also had a look at the shop, and htere are some interesting options for those who might want to donate to the game, such as for example buying extra forum visits if you don't want to wait for the dayly adventure counter to fill up and just want to play through the story, or indeed buying super cheater options to make the game ridiculously easy, though unfortunately the episodes 2 and 3 of forum wars story do need to be purchiced.
I actually think it's a pretty well designed game. The problem for me is the humour is a little off for my taste, sinse while the principle of playing classes like troll and emo kid is an interesting one in itself, the actual execution just seems crude and unsubtle to me with nothing particularly whimsical or satyrical it's just sort of "yeah you can be an emo kid and go on about self harm and your parents", or "yeah you c an be a jail bate girl and threaten to get people arrested for child molestation online and cause major havoc", (and you can imagine what the troll class is like).
I'm also not sure on the inference that basically your justified in causing enough assorted flamingg, heartache and forum vandalism that you cause various forums to be shut down just because your basically a bitch. It's not really satyrical, sinse a decent satyr usually comes at things sideways or with at least a little bite rather than a streight up complaint, indeed the hole game feels rather to me like one of those wrants about nasty people who cause havoc on forums you often get posted by nasty people who cause havoc on forums.
It's sort of the cyber bullying or havoc version of something like psychostrike, though I suppose it's a nice way for anyone who wants to be an utter douchenozzle online to have a go in a game, albeit as I said some of the character classes felt more like a complaint on the part of the developers than a way for players to innact their forum vandalizing fantasies.
As I said though, the game design actually i thought looked pretty cool, which is why I'm posting this reminder topic even though I have currently reached level 2 myself and probably shan't be playing anymore.
I am aware this isn't exactly the world's most glowing recommendation, but as I have tried the game and as the game mechanics are fun from a turn based rpg perspective I'd thought I'd let people know anyway sinse my objections were more with the writing style, and also because I do wonder how many people had a few access shenanigans with the game being as I did notice it's not the usual sort of interface you'd seen in a browser game.
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