A slow game (or is someone has a better name please do tell!) is a multiplayer game where you get some action points every day (or twice a day), that you spend on walking around and usually fighting monsters a la CRPG.
Played in a browser those games took like 5 minutes a day to play and were quite popular in the early 2000. Obviously people spent more time setting up groups going hunting or fulfilling some quest, often for weeks and weeks…
Have you played one of would you try one out?
I wouldn’t. I despise artificial time limits in a game just because… there’s no point other then to put in paywalls for extort money from the players
I understand the urge, but those games were not pay to play. Making each action quite important, like if you die in battle you might have to walk for two weeks to catch up with your group, or if a teleporter helped you out you could get there in 3…
Does Urban Dead count? I loved Urban Dead for a few years.
I also played something called the Most Wanted Game, which was a mafia/mob themed game where you could form gang coalitions with others and raid adversaries. I think this concept kind of changed into Mafia Wars on Facebook or Clash of Clans as technology progressed and the social proliferation of the Internet continued. (I could be wrong on that, I never played and Facebook games besides Words with Friends, and have never played Clash of Clans - I just assumed they were both different kinds of successors).
The only game like this I really play is Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket. I refuse to pay real money, so I get two packs a day. It’s good for a 15 minute burst of… not quite dopamine, and then you’re off.
Similarly, Pokémon Quest is a game that falls exactly into this category with a charge system that depletes after every short level and reacharges once per hour, to a max of 5 in the beginning. I played it when new and then just recently went back and played it quite heavily, again. That is until I accidently undid something that took me a week of RNG to get, so I quit.
Generally, I hate the mobile game charge system, though. At that point, I’d rather just pay for a full version. And paying for charges is not the same thing.
Yeah the dark pattern (ability to pay for “fun” / no “fun” if you don’t pay) is so bullshit. Usually they build the whole game around it too, like in your example.
I think I wouldn’t enjoy a CRPG that did this. But I kinda enjoy how it’s done with games like wordle because it encourages me to not overdo it
Not a CRPG, but I’ve played Blood on the Clocktower in text online format on discord. One day/night cycle usually lasts about 2-3 real days in that format, depending on how complex the game is. It was pretty good, but some of the roles had to be slightly changed from the original, since that was designed for in person play.
Reminds me of the book Wolf in White Van where the narrator develops a play by mail rpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_in_White_Van
Yes it is that John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats
BBS door games? Yeah, I still play VGA Planets occasionally.
Legend of the Red Dragon!
It does not sound like something I’d get into. But if I know the Internet then there is an (unfulfilled or I’ve just not heard of) niche market for that too.
