The best thing about old school gaming is that no matter how old I get, it stays just the same. RPG MO, which sounds like the gaming equivalent of the twenty pound bag of generic cereal you can buy for $1 at the grocery store, is an in-development MMO heavily reminiscent of RuneScape Classic that has taken up a lot of my time this past week.
If Andrew Gower had begun developing RuneScape classic a couple of years ago, what he created would look a lot like RPG MO. Graphically, the game is as basic as it gets without being fully text. Characters have no animations and slide across the tile board which is presented at a maximum of 16 by 16 squares. Performing actions is displayed with a simple thought bubble above the character’s head, and the most complicated graphical design on the menu is a health bar with a light gradient.
Functionally, RPG MO is just as basic as its graphics. As with RuneScape Classic, combat is a one on one back and forth of watching your fighters smash each other with swords until somebody dies. Mobs do not roam currently and won’t chase you if you decide to run from combat. They will initiate attack if you walk by them, however, and can only be run from after three rounds of combat, during which you also cannot eat. Death means losing all but your two most expensive items.
As a stat-based game, leveling is a matter of grinding various skills to improve your character, from making him more powerful in combat to equipping more powerful gear and gathering/crafting better stuff. It’s pretty impressive just how faithful RPG MO is to older games, with little details like needing to equip raw fish in your hand in order to cook them, or equipping tin and copper in both hands to smelt bronze. More intricate crafting is done using a Minecraft-esque tiled box, placing specific reagents in patterns.
There is also the built in mod system, allowing you to activate one of any number of officially sanctioned mobs to make your experience all the more user friendly. The mods vary from simple UI enhancements to an in-game wiki menu and more informative menus.
Ultimately, there is a lot to do in RPG MO, like raise pets, build a house, fish, cook, make weapons and armor, punch cows, and more, which makes it even better that this game runs on just about anything down to a toaster. I even got the game working flawlessly on my Chromebook on a wifi connection that can barely run Youtube in low definition.
I also just want to point this out, you can throw ten pieces of ham onto an anvil for a 1% chance at turning it back into a live pig to keep as a pet. There is a lot more to talk about with this game, and hopefully I’ll be able to dedicate more Beta Perspective articles to it and perhaps grab a chat with the developer, but for now I really recommend you check it out at http://mo.ee/
MMO Fallout 