You know, if there’s one thing I’ve noticed in a lot of MMOs, it’s that a lot of them tend to use indirect humor. That is, they tend to use puns and references to make the quests, npcs, and items a little more memorable. Very few MMOs try to go out of their way to be funny, aside from the rather hilarious quest in World of Warcraft called “The Day Deathwing Came”, which was a gut-buster in its own right.

Today’s game is an MMO that exists to be a lovingly silly send-up to MMOs, and one that has been around since 2003! Today, dear adventurers, let us enter The Kingdom of Loathing.

The Kingdom of Loathing is a browser-based MMORPG developed by Zack “Jick” Johnson and Josh “Mr. Skullhead” Nite of Asymmetric Publications, though the latter has evidently left the company. Right from the moment you load the homepage, you’ll notice that there are no advertisements of any kind. The banner is simple, with the logo (a stick figure holding a sword and a martini glass) surrounding the name in a very simple blue-and-white color scheme, with a row of links to lead you to what the game is, start playing, the forums, the official subreddit (/r/kol), the radio, the podcast, and the contact page. There’s also an announcement board, a sort of leader board, a message asking for donations (more on that later), and an advertisement for their other game Word Realms. There’s no frills or false pretenses here; just a simple website that does what it needs to.

When you start the game, you’re asked to pick your gender, name, and one of six classes. In keeping with its parody of MMOs, these classes are based on the classic trinity of Fighter, Mage, and Thief, each coming in pairs of offensive and defensive. Fighters get the Barbarian Seal Clubber and the terrapin-themed Turtle Tamer, Mages get the Pastamancer and Sauceror, and Thieves get the booze-powered Disco Bandits and Accordion Thieves. Once you’ve finished giggling at the goofy names and sorted out your email and password, you are asked to heat to Mt. Noob and meet the Toot Oriole.

I’m sure by this point, you’ve realized that this game doesn’t take itself all that seriously. The Toot Oriole has you smash boxes to learn how combat works, craft popsicles and shake cocktails (all of which you must consume as proof), set up your campsite, and generally get you in the know before he sends you off on your first official quest for the Council of Loathing, who use a signal to draw in adventurers. From there, what you do is up to you.

This game makes itself out to be a comedy MMORPG, and it shows. The game is constantly taking pot-shots at the various tropes and conventions of the genre. The currency of the game is Meat, as a take on the concept of animals and  wildlife dropping money on death, many enemies are enemies will consist of things like knob goblin barbecue teams, and haunted soup cans, and experience points are abstracted to thinks like beefiness, cheek, smarm, snark, and so on. Many of the encounter messages either give humorous descriptions or asides about the creature, have brief talks with them, or even just a joke about the monster itself, if it’s name isn’t already enough of one. Many of your attacks have onomatopoeia like the 1960’s Batman series, and items can range from things like bones with price tags, bat guano, or even things like skulls and weapons. The game maintains a sense of humor that snarks at, satirizes, and pokes fun at just about everything in its genre as a whole with heavy uses of surrealist humor, crude black and white drawings, and loads of pot-shots at other RPGs. Think World of Warcraft, as written by Monty Python and drawn like xkcd.

The three main stats are Muscle, Mysticality, and Moxie, all of which can be increased by things like combat, exploration, or if you’re so inclined, eating and drinking. You can also get pets whose level is represented by how many pounds they have, and you keep them in a terrarium. Your quest log is a literal log that sits at your campsite, and PVP is accessed by destroying the Magical Mystical Hippy Stone, a peace-signed artifact that gives you good vibes that keeps you from wanting to fight other players. Like many other browser games, you have a limited-energy mechanic, this time represented by an hourglass as your Adventures. Every day, you get 40, which can be spent on things like crafting, fighting, and questing, and if you run out, you’re done for the day. Unlike most other games that use this mechanic, however, you don’t have to buy anything to get more; you can usually get back a little of it from food and booze, and you always get a good deal of it each day.

From this, we get to the payment model. While this game is completely free to play. You can donate 10+ USD or your regional equivalent to support the game’s development and maintenance and get a “Mr. Accessory”, which can be equipped for a stat buff, or trade them in to get boosts and items to make the game easier for you, but from my experience, you don’t really need to donate to enjoy the game; it’s just there to supplant the need for ads and make you feel better about the game.

One mechanic I’ve not gotten to as of this writing is Ascension, which is the game’s New Game Plus/Macrogame aspect. Once you complete the main quest of the game—defeating the Naughty Sorceress and rescuing the imprisoned King Ralph XI—you go Beyond the Pale to Valhalla, where you can choose from doing a casual run, a normal run, a special challenge run (a run where you play as a particular character or with a particular restriction, like being a teetotaler, not having food OR booze, and so on), or if you’re particularly insane, a Hardcore mode, where the restrictions get even more insane.

You’ll notice that I haven’t talked about the story. The reason for this is while there is a story, either I’ve never come across it, or it is incredibly understated, as the most story I found was in the various quests. The main quest is about the only plot in the game, far as I can tell.

If you need a reason to play this game, play it for a humorous bent on the classic MMO Formula, because if there’s one thing this game does very well, it’s the flavor. While I admit, I haven’t delved quite as much into the mechanics, it’s because if I did, this review would be a lot longer. Maybe I’ll do a follow-up review where I talk about things I missed.

At the end of the day, Kingdom of Loathing is one of the most enduring browser-based MMORPGs I’ve come across. I hope to get more into it with time so that I can talk more about it, but for what I’ve experienced so far, it’s a pretty nice experience for a game whose art consists mostly of stick-figures and whose controls are entirely mouse-driven. If you love the comedic stylings of adventure games and wish you could see them translated into an MMORPG, this could be a good place to start.

Adam Nelon

Hobbyist Writer, Southern-Fried chicken fanatic, and unabashed lover of adorable girls and pastel horses, Adam was born in the saddle when it comes to games. Ever since his infant days with the Genesis, he's had a fascination with gaming, and loves finding obscure and unsung games for any system he can run them on.