The air was still as I approached the enemy.  My journey was near its end, having just made the sojourn from the Nearby Plains through the Distant Woods and on to The Mysterious Island of Mystery.  Now, as I stood at the entrance of The Obligatory Pirate's Cove, I faced my greatest combat challenge yet: a Smarmy Pirate.  I stood at the ready, holding my perforated battle paddle defensively, muttering the precursors of an incantation.  My opponent...well...he just rolled his eyes and commented on how I was SOOOO obviously a skilled warrior.  Then, before he could make a move, I [review]Kingdom of Loathing,8.5,Among the myriad reasons I like KoL so much is it's exceptional accessibility. Being a turn-based browser text RPG...,http://www.ablegamers.com/pc/kingdom-of-loathing.html[/review]summoned a wad of entangling noodles at his feet.  As he futilely struggled to free himself, my vicious attack familiar – a Ghost Pickle on a Stick – floated about, dripping pickle juice on him and occasionally poking him in the eye.  "Arrrr," he screamed, "me eyes!  Arrrre ye some kind o' magician?" I closed my eyes and worked up some serious magic, bringing into existence a massive cannelloni cannon.  "No," I replied with a smile as the cannon obliterated him.  Where he once stood, nothing remained but bits of pasta, cheese, and smarn.  "I'm a Pastamancer," I declared as I mixed up a martini to celebrate my victory.

No, this isn't a recounting of a particularly vivid hallucination.  It's just your average day in the greatest browser RPG ever made: Kingdom of Loathing.

Kingdom of Loathing

Kingdom of Loathing (KoL) is an incredibly content-rich RPG that is played in your web browser.  It's turn-based, and despite the presence of (hand-drawn) graphics, it is largely text driven.  In many ways, it feels like the spiritual successor of such classics as Zork.  Basically, it's what you'd get if you put your favorite text adventure and your favorite RPG together in a room with some candles and romantic music, and then raised their hybrid offspring on a steady diet of parody and pop culture satire.

Don't let its seemingly low-fi nature fool you, though.  KoL is quite an impressive achievement of game design.  Though largely single player in its main quest line gameplay mode, the game also features an interesting ingame economy, rich social interaction, and more recently even high-end multiplayer raid content.  It's creators, Asymmetric Publications, LLC, have been keeping the game in a state of steady development for the past 7 years.  Every month, new content is added to further expand gameplay and keep players' interest.

An Adventurer Is You!

This is the game's slogan (itself a spoof on the NES classic Pro Wrestling) and it does a good job of summing up the basic crux of the game.  When you first begin playing, you assume the role of an aspiring adventurer, looking to make a name for yourself in the Kingdom.  You can choose from one of six character classes at this point, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.  The game is built on a system of three main player stats – muscle, moxie, and mysticality – and two classes specialize in each of them.  Turtle Tamers are the defense-oriented muscle class, and Seal Clubbers are the offense-oriented muscle class.  They are your traditional tanks, for the most part, taking and dishing out damage with the best of them.  Accordion Thiefs and Disco Bandits are the moxie classes; while Accordion Thiefs are almost exclusively a buffing class (able to improve the abilities of themselves and others through their rockin' accordion tunes), Disco Bandits are more like KoL's assassin class, relying on high evasion ability and quick strikes to weaken opponents.  Finally, we have the game's two mysticality classes: Pastamancer and Sauceror.  Pastamancers are incredibly high-powered magic-based soloers.  Their mastery of the ancient art of Noodlecraft allows them to cast some of the most powerful offensive spells as well as heal themselves.  Saucerors don't quite have the same caliber of raw offensive power, but they make up for it with their self-buffing and shielding spells.

All six of the classes are quite entertaining, and each offer the player a unique spin on the gameplay.  Don't worry too much about your choice, though, because you'll have a chance to try all of them.

Gameplay & Progression

The main line of gameplay surrounds your character's lengthy journey to free the Kingdom's ruler, King Ralph XI, from the clutches of the evil Naughty Sorceress.  This involves the completion of 13 distinct quests, each given to you in succession and growing progressively more challenging and more complex.  Whilst on this journey, your character will gain stats as in any RPG, growing more powerful and acquiring more equipment and better skills along the way.  To date, there are over 4500 different items in the game, so customizing your character's hat, shirt, weapons, pants, and accessories gives you a great deal of flexibility.

Each day, you receive 40 turns, or "adventures" as they're called, to play the game.  You can increase this number, though, by eating food or drinking booze.  These consumables can be found throughout the game as drops from various vanquished foes, but the best food and booze comes from the player base.  Pastamancers and Saucerors have class skills which, among other things, allow them to produce top-notch foodstuffs, while Disco Bandits are the Kingdom's premier cocktail crafters.  This isn't a way to play an unlimited number of turns each day, though.  After all, your stomach is only so big, so after a finite amount of eating you'll be full until the next day.  Drinking is even more touchy, because surpassing the limit not only cuts you off, but will leave you in a stupor that will prevent you from useful adventuring until you sober up (after the game's nightly rollover).

Beyond the primary quest line, there are numerous optional side quests throughout the Kingdom that can be undertaken.  Upon completion of the final quest in the primary sequence, the player is given a choice.  He or she can either stick around to continue adventuring and wrap up any unfinished business on the mortal plane, or they can "ascend."  Ascension is where KoL really shines in terms of replayability.  It basically starts you over, allowing you to choose a new class (or keep the same one) as well as several new features only available after the first time through.  One can choose from three difficulty levels: "casual" instantly returns all of the loot acquired in your previous runs but offers no rewards for completion, "normal" requires you to play for an initial period without any of your old stuff, and "hardcore" keeps you away from your previous earnings throughout your entire run but gives an extra reward after completion.  Four dietary paths are also available: an unrestricted one, the booze-free "teetotaler" path, the "boozetafarian" path which prevents the consumption of food, and the pinnacle of difficulty "oxygenarian" path in which no food or booze can be consumed.  Finally, upon ascension one can choose which "moon sign" they want their new character to be born under, each of which opens up new zones and content in the subsequent run.

The final bit of gameplay that I want to highlight is the clan basement.  In KoL, players can create or join clans which are equivalent to guilds in standard MMOs.  Beyond the social interaction this affords, it also opens up the game's most recent facet of gameplay: multiplayer content.  For a set amount of meat (which is the game's currency), clans can excavate a basement beneath their clan hall through which they may access "clan dungeons."  In these raid zones, numerous players must cooperate to progress through the raid in order to get powerful drops.  Two dungeons have currently been released, and a third is said to be under early development.

Accessibility

Among the myriad reasons I like KoL so much is it's exceptional accessibility.  Being a turn-based browser text RPG, it is instantly accessible to those with nearly every sort of mobility impairment.  All actions are carried out through text links and buttons which can either be clicked on or tabbed through with the keyboard or a switch interface.  Due to the nature of gameplay, time is also a nonissue, meaning that those with either mobility or cognitive impairments can take as much time as they need between executing actions.

The game is also something special for the visually impaired.  Being largely text-based to begin with, KoL started out of the gate with a great deal of potential for visually impaired gamers.  Through the use of screen readers, they were already on a fairly level playing field with any other gamer.  However, one of the game's creators, Zack Johnson (known as "Jick" in KoL), has taken a highly proactive stance and didn't settle for the incidental accessibility afforded by the game's text-heavy style.  Whenever rolling out fresh content and new aspects of gameplay, he and his team always ensure that they are fully accessible with screen readers and other assistive tech.

Final Thoughts

KoL is a casual game, but only for those that want it to be.  Players that want to pop in for 10 minutes each day and spend their daily adventures during their coffee break will have just as much fun as those that want to dig deep and explore every nook and cranny of the Kingdom while striving to become the most powerful adventurer out there.  It's completely free to play, though the game supports itself with a micro-transaction system where one can donate to the developer in exchange for stuff in-game.  However, Asymmetric has made it abundantly clear that they are philosophically opposed to the typical modus operandi of games which let you play some for free but require payment to be truly competitive or access all content.  As such, there is nothing that you can't do without these premium items.  Furthermore, they take steps to ensure that players who either can't donate or don't want to do so will be able to acquire these premium items through the game's economy.

Play it for the humor, play it for the rich gameplay, play it to socialize with the game's awesome community.  It really doesn't matter *why* you play; it has something to offer everyone.  Just so long as you have a few minutes to spare and a sense of humor, you owe it to yourself to check Kingdom of Loathing out.