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The Casual RPGer

Favorite Games From A Woman in the Real World

I am what some call a “casual” gamer. I tend to gravitate toward games that allow me to leave the game at a moments notice to take care of real life. Growing up I never spent hours and hours in a video arcade, but still have memories of the occasional game of Millipede or Pac-Man.

In 1989 I was newly married, living away from friends and family, with lots of time on my hands. This is when I discovered Larn. Larn was a "D&D" type game using very simplistic graphics with mazes, monsters, dragons, a single quest, skills, magic, potions and lots of adventures. I played it for hours at a time. But I didn’t have to be at the game all the time because when I wasn’t playing it, the game didn’t go on without me.

A few years later, I discovered Civilization (the original version). We played it on my husband's Amiga 2000. It ran very slow and the graphics were hideous, but quite the upgrade from what was found on Larn. I never could conquer the game, but I did do an all-nighter a time or two.

Following that was Civilization II and III in the line up of favorites. I did more than my share of all-nighters playing Civ II. I LOVED Civ II. But I could never remember the details for my caravans. I would send it off to one city but on the way forget where it was going. Civ III took care of that by automating the trade end of the game play. I really liked the fact that you could win Civ III with a cultural victory. I got so good at the cultural aspect of the game that I finally turned off the ability to win culturally. That was the only way I could keep the game going long enough to get a space ship launched.

The space race was another thing I liked about Civ II. But my favorite thing about the Civilization games was that I could leave the game when chores, kids and all needed my attention.

I am still trying to get Civ IV to work on my computer. I guess I will have to wait for a faster, slicker machine.

With all this background as a casual gamer, a friend of mine, Jay, who owns the Rampant Games website (http://rampantgames.com) asked for my opinion on a couple games he was thinking of advertising on his site. The first one was Cute Knight. The other was Aveyond.

I couldn’t get Cute Knight to run on my computer, but I did manage to get Aveyond up and running.

At first Aveyond seemed rather boring. In the early minutes of the game there is little choice for adventures. It leads you to traps that are critical to the story line. I almost gave up on the game. But I decided to give it a few more minutes of my time. This is where I got hooked. The beauty of this game, as it played out, was that you could make mistakes in the game and not be able to complete quests because of it. But you could still win the game.

At one point in the game I chose to get the gold instead of learning rope climbing. Because of that I was never able to reach an item that gave great powers. On another quest I did the right thing, but a friend of mine did not succeed in that quest, because he had killed all the vampires leaving the ability to finish that particular quest null and void.

I would have liked the game even more had it made use of a computer mouse, but once accustomed to the use of the keyboard, I was fine and enjoyed the game nonetheless.

I also have another game I play, thanks to this same friend. I love to play Kingdom of Loathing. http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/.

This game goes back to simplistic graphics and is completely web based. It is loads of fun. The great thing about this game is that once you complete the final quest (killing the Naughty Sorceress and freeing the King) you get the chance to go through the entire set of quests again (ascending), starting at level one (with no experience) but with the advantage of an added skill from the previous go around. I have now ascended three times. Like the other games I like to play, I can leave the game, come back and not miss something…I don’t even have to save this game.

I may be a casual gamer, but I still enjoy a good game.

Kelly Olsen
www.paperclippings.com

About the Author: A mother of five (including twins), and the guardian of four other children, Kelly rarely has time for games. But when she does, she often enjoys a game of Chuzzle, or one of the above RPG or strategy games. She's also rumored to have contributed her mad Photoshop Skillz to the production of HUD art for Void War.

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