Take away everything that makes computerized strategy games fun and interesting, and you have Tribal Wars. Need I say more? Probably not, but a single sentence hardly qualifies as a decent post. Even with the lack of graphical eye-candy and redundant one-liners, Tribal Wars continues to hold my interest. Why? I don’t know for sure, but I think I might be a ‘level up’ junkie. Something compels me to go one more level, to get the next upgrade, to build the next building. I just have to know what makes the next level so desirable. By and large, I’ve been disappointed not so much in my performance but the lack of satisfaction in achieving my goal, so then I set another one, and another one, and so it has been going for the last month or so. I one point, I almost deleted my account. In fact I had put in the request, but it doesn’t happen instantly, and in three or four days, I was logging back in and it asked me if I really wanted to delete my account. The Junkie said ‘no’ .
Besides the level up prospects, I think they bait you with the allure of psuedo combat and above all a ranking system (I’m currently 15,933 with 2,306 points). The psuedo combat is solved Mathematically without any intervention or strategy on your part. Just choose the troops you want to send to a neighboring village and unleash hell. The combat is about as dry, I’d even go so far as to say dryer, than combat in the old text-based adventure games such as Zork. I know I’m going on and on about how boring and un-entertaining this game is, but at the same time I can’t stop logging in (at least for now). That brings to mind one other thing that makes this game, fun?, no, engaging?, no, easy? YES! easy to play. The fact that you can login and play for 5 minutes and the be done for the rest of the day, or hour, depending on the task you set. It’s still a strategy game at heart. Resource Management, Troop movement, Buildings, Improvements, Upgrades and DESTRUCTION! All with very little effort or time investment (mostly for the non-junkie minded).
This is not supposed to be considered a ‘review’ of the game, it’s creators or it’s participants. This is a simple commentary on what currently vies for the attention of my distractional behaviors.
