Topic: My new favourite browser game (Read 1247 times)

Banshee · « **on:** April 07, 2011, 04:23:54 PM »

I've been getting into an MMO-like community-based zombie-themed browser game called Die2Nite recently. It's a game that essentially revolves around social interaction and cooperation (or choosing to defect) in a big Prisoner's Dilemma-type framework.

Basically, you are thrown into a town with 39 other complete strangers and the objective is to have the town survive as long as possible. You work together to scavenge materials, build improvements and defenses and plan strategy with other citizens, with the ultimate objective of surviving the "zombie attack" that occurs each night, which gradually gets more and more difficult with some random spikes thrown in for fun.

Everything is a finite resource, starting with your Action Points (AP) that you expend for most actions in the game. Making sure the town uses all of their AP efficiently is one of the focuses of the more organized towns. You also spend 1 AP to move one square out in the desert of the "World Beyond" that lies outside the town gates, made up of zones that you can search for resources and items (that are also randomized each game). There are also zombies out there, though, and making sure you have enough AP to get back to town is equally important as not running blindly into a zone full of zeds and making someone come rescue you (if they want to, that is).

The Prisoner's Dilemma bit comes in when you realize that in some cases, the game subtly encourages you to work against your fellow citizens. There are also some people who have the most fun by plotting to screw over the town in the most clever way possible, or something similar. Social controls to prevent this selfish behavior or "griefing" include being able to shun or hang the offenders, and recognizing the hallmarks of a griefer through actions or past behavior (each player has a Soul page that records past actions with "Distinctions") is a whole new meta game on top of the surface objective.

In the end though, everyone's going to die -- it's just a question of when.

What I like most though is that the game allows you to mostly play at your leisure. You aren't required to be online all the time, although that can help in certain ways (like watching the forum or the town register for suspicious or ignorant citizens). Searching a zone, for example, is an action you can perform immediately, once per zone, each day. However if you remain in the zone, you will repeat your search every two hours, so you can take 10 minutes to play the game on your lunch break, or before bed, and still be a productive contributor.

I hope I've piqued the interest of some of you. If you decide to sign up, put in my name as your referrer: Banshee85. Hope to see you there!

Min · « **Reply #1 on:** April 08, 2011, 05:41:16 PM »

I wish I could play with you. No time for games these days.

Sounds fun though.

ivan · « **Reply #2 on:** April 08, 2011, 09:00:00 PM »

I went so far as to find out that "ivan" is already taken.

Banshee · « **Reply #3 on:** April 09, 2011, 12:18:17 PM »

Day 5: There's still the 18 of us left. We didn't lose anyone last night, thankfully. And today, citizens returning from the watch tower tell the rest of us that tonight's attack looks like it's even smaller than last night's. We're not sure what to make of this, except that it feels like the calm before a hurricane.

We prepare as best we can. Work proceeds on the town's water purifier, and there are cheers all around when we link it up with the town's pump and reclaim our first jerrycan's worth of water from our town bank's stocks. We started expanding the well using McFly's clever well drilling rig design. The well is going to be dry in two days. People are worried. We're all worried. Something needed to be done. A bunch of us plan made plans for another lethal defense against the zeds, too. We want to create a large amount of wooden stakes to fill the town's dry moat with. Damned zeds have no idea what they're in for. Poor bastards.

We'd need that spiked pit, I knew. It was only a matter of time. All of us are too exhausted to do much work on it.

I woke up this morning in a dead sweat. I was in withdrawal. I felt the shakes come on right afterward. I knew addiction was a possibility when I took those anabolic steroids and twinoid two days ago, but if we hadn't finished those defenses on the night of Day 3, we would all be dead by now. I don't regret it. I felt like a hero; the convulsions were just a symptom.

Went out scavenging in the desert today with four others. We were running low on our stocks of raw wood and metal, and I figured I might as well take the rest of our stimulants with me to get a little pick me up while I was out. We spent the all of the early morning hours searching diligently, singing old work songs. A guy we call "Tatertot" had this old tune he taught us by a guy named Rick-something. We sang that one the most.

I think that crazy bastard McFly went a little nuts while we were out there. I saw him charge two zeds armed with nothing but an old PC case. I don't know how he managed to kill two of them. Maybe the zeds were just more surprised than we were, the dumb bastards. I tried to give him my pistol but he just pushed me away and didn't say anything. He had this look... I don't really know how to describe it. It scared the shit out of me. I made sure to stay away from him until it was time to head back to the town gates.

I was lucky enough to find two more pill boxes of steroids out there too. Lucky me. I carried back three times the load of the others. And then went out for more. When I finally quit, my mouth felt like a whole 'nother desert. I just wish I could calm down now. Maybe if I had another pill-- Where are my pills? oh god what did i do with them i need to find NO the shakessssseeare backksss..
(entry cuts off)

Jaepheth · « **Reply #4 on:** April 10, 2011, 01:01:53 AM »

Seems rather fun...

but HOLY SHIT 12 Euros for a 1 month subscription to get the extra content?
Someone has an over-inflated sense of what their game is worth.

Also, I dislike these games where you can only play for 10 -15 min each day.

I'd rather it be accelerated time and the birth, life, and death of a city spans a few hours at most.

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Author Topic: My new favourite browser game (Read 1247 times)

Banshee

My new favourite browser game

Min

Re: My new favourite browser game

ivan

Re: My new favourite browser game

Banshee

Re: My new favourite browser game

Jaepheth

Re: My new favourite browser game