A Tale In The Desert
It's always pleasing to find a new game that grabs you straight away. Especially when it's a free trial. A Tale In The Desert is one such, even though it's a very odd beast - an MMORPG with no combat whatsoever.
Most of the documentation for it is via a wiki, which is immensely useful. The game's footprint is so small, too, that you can run it in a window with the wiki in the background, and not have any memory issues.
It's set in ancient Eygpt, and the makers seem to have done their work well with regard to the setting; it's not all pyramid and sphinxes, for a start. The main focus of the game is on resource-gathering and crafting. You start in by having to do a few basic gathering and tradeskill bits to qualify as a citizen. This gets you to the state where you know how to make straw, wood, bricks, flax, and twine, and have a feeling for how the game works. That's your first level. Subsequent levels are much the same, you qualify by building skill trees forward, and achieving particular aims.
It's only about the third MMO I've tried that has actually sucked me in, and I suspect it's one where you look up in mild horror as dawn breaks and you haven't slept, then shrug, and play "just a bit more". I recommend it highly.
Comments closed due to spam
Posted by Drew Shiel at June 7, 2006 7:35 PM
