Web Wednesday: Adventure Quest
I've mentioned Adventure Quest before on one of the Short Attention Gamer podcasts, but I wanted to come back and revisit it for Web Wednesday. It's one of those games I like to come back to and play because although is seems to be simple and shallow, it's actually a pretty deep and enjoyable game. It's also something that both kids and adults can pick up easily.
When you sign up for an account, you get to choose one of the five empty character slots to use. You then can customize your character by making initially either a Fighter, Mage, or Rogue, and customizing the character a little. You can change your character class later in the game.
The game is fairly simplistic in play: beat up monsters, get XP and gold, get better weapons and armor and start again. There are a number of quests in the game that you can take on, and the game world is pretty large. As you go through the world, you'll be able to upgrade weapons, armor, equipment and pets so that you can better attack the many monsters of the world. The good news is that you never truly die, but if you're killed you get resurrected by Death and put back into the game world.
When it comes to combat, your choice of weapon and shields will play a major part in whether you win or not. There are a number of element types used in the game and some counteract each other well. You may have a Night weapon which slows down enemies and makes them easier to hit, but it also makes you more susceptible to lightning attacks. Having a wide selection of weapons and shields and switching them in and out during combat is how you'll win.
The same goes for magic. Everyone can learn magic by spending some money, and sometimes magic can help you clinch a battle.
Like many other games today, Adventure Quest is mostly free, and it supports itself by adding additional benefits for pay. You can upgrade your account by becoming a Guardian for a one-off fee of $19.95. This bestows you a ton of benefits including more quests and special weapons, as well as bunch of Z-Tokens (rare tokens that are used in-game for special items like houses). You can upgrade for a little more money by getting an X-Boost, which gives you an extra 10% experience for every monster you kill, 200 more Z-Tokens and 10,000 gold as a boost. You can also buy Z-Tokens straight from the website to help you move along in the game, but you don't need to enjoy the game. Z-Tokens are often dropped by monsters you defeat.
The game is pretty tongue-in-cheek, and there are lots of geek gags in it. For example, one of the cheapest and earliest pets you can get is a rabbit; pets come into combat with you and help you attack your enemies. When attacking, this rabbit attacks just like the deadly rabbit in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It only does a few points of damage on each of its attacks, but its fun to watch it fly across the screen and back. There are plenty of other little jokes in the game, centered around characters and dialogs.
Although Adventure Quest is Flash-based, it operates through a large and well-supported Website, so it qualifies to be posted today. You should check it out. You'll be playing for hours.
Links
Technorati Tags: bagder, adventure quest
