Day 1136: Online games

[eve_prime]

Unlike J and D, who play games through to the end, I prefer games that don't have an end per se, but can be played over and over again, each time taking just a few minutes and not really sustained attention. I currently have (or had) two such. One's the Spider Solitaire game on my deskop - I've now played the two-suit version 11028 times, which is one reason I'm reluctant to put that otherwise totally outdated computer aside.

The other is Storybook Brawl. J started playing it in September 2021, and it didn't appeal to me at all; I wouldn't even watch a little bit. He played a bunch for a few months - then I did start watching and oops was instantly hooked. His interest tapered off a few months later, but I played almost every day for well over a year. Each game lasts about 20 minutes, and I've liked to play it maybe 2-4 times before reading before bedtime.

However... at some point last year, the people who created the game sold it to one of those cryptocurrency companies, FTX. I'm not really sure what the point was, except that the game is free so the creators needed some way to make money at some point, and maybe the FTX people were financing their plan to turn it into a mobile app? There were rumors that somehow the game was going to get connected with cryptocurrency in it, and the player base was outraged - I kind of ignored it though, since I had no intention of getting involved with that aspect.

Unfortunately, that FTX company then had a really high profile crash and bankruptcy. They stopped updating the game (which I didn't mind at all, since most of the changes were to the art for the cards and background, and the changes were seldom improvements. But then it was offline for a couple of days, and the players were going "ack" (including me), and then it returned. Whew! But... nope! A few days ago, they announced that today would be the last day; they had found no way to extract it from the bankruptcy proceedings to save it.

So I played it a bunch this evening. I got my rating into the 3700s, the highest ever, and my final ranking among the players was something like 2221! I know that doesn't sound impressive, but out of thousands of players it's pretty good for someone who only plays a few games a day. J logged on and played a game too - we managed to get into the same game (8 players play at a time until they're all eliminated but one). So that was fun. I finished 5th and he finished 2nd.


My final seven games, before they shut it off:
Hoard Dragon, finished 5th (and J was Merlin, finishing 2nd)
Pup the Magic Dragon, finished 3rd
Skip the Time Skipper, finished 3rd
Peter Pants, finished 4th
Pup the Magic Dragon, finished 7th
The Fates, finishsed 5th
Zippee the Zombie, finished 6th

(I was hoping to get Mihri King Lion, my definite favorite.)

(Each character has its own special ability. 1st-4th is considered "winning" though of course 1st is the most impressive winner. I had 18 total first-place finishes out of ~1300 games, and J had 70-something.)

So now it's gone. That's a bummer.

Meanwhile, DG won $500 today playing Magic Online. At least that's not going away soon - too bad I have no interest in playing it!

Comments

[claidheamhmor]

I feel sad about the games I played years ago, that I no longer have. And Guildwars, which I played and loved for so long; it's still online, and I pop in for a look every now and again.

[eve_prime]

D. does that too - he pops in to see Guildwars and Runescape and Realm of the Mad Gods. Miraculously, the game where J and I met is still up and running. :)

[claidheamhmor]

Wow, that's impressive! Which game was that?

[eve_prime]

Oh, it's a DikuMUD named Gizmo. :)

[claidheamhmor]

Aww, haven't heard of that one. So cool though.

[eve_prime]

Even at its height, there were only maybe 30-40 regular players.

[claidheamhmor]

Wow, that's tiny!

[eve_prime]

It was a spinoff from another MUD, named Ronin. I think a lot of the MUDs were pretty small!