Swords and Potions

Link to Game

Edgebee Studios!  You owe me the month of August!

You see, I innocently stumbled onto Swords and Potions, a social flash game where you run your own store for the adventuring types out there.  Ok, so far so good.

The problem: its a Skinner Box.

Now, gameplay is simple to the point of tedium.  You sit in your shop and people come in.  They ask for shit.

Now, if you have the item they are asking for you can either agree to their offer, tell them to fuck off if its really low, offer them something else if you don't have the item or if you want to fuck with them, haggle if you don't like their asking price, or if the item was in queue by one of your four craftsmen tell them to wait and they will stand there until they get bored and leave or you click them again.

This is pretty much the entire game.  That and ordering your craftsmen to make shit or research how to make shit so you can keep your store stalked.

Now, it should be noted that a craftsmen can only do one thing at a time, as well as some items require multiple craftsmen to do it.  Now, you start the game with two craftsmen of your choice and you have to pay to earn the other two.  They being the carpenter, the blacksmith, the tailor, and the sorceress.

At the end of an in-game day your 'score' is talled up, and the amount of experience you get to level up depends on how much you sold in gold minus failed suggestion attempt.

Don't forget to buy commodities: except the ones on the right unless you have IRL money to burn

Course there is an improvement system where you can buy stuff with your gold and have guildmates put improvement points on them from their craftsmen... points they gain as they make shit alongside experience you can use to voluntarily level them.  If you don't have guild mates, don't worry!  You can just hop into the game chat on Kongregate and find a guild... or make temp guilds just for this purpose.

Arg... its a social MMO flash game that fucks up the social.  Even with a mechanics where you can hire thugs to go grief other player... for shits and giggles I guess - it still feels like a single player game.  These mechanics don't do anything in the game other than force you to think you are in a group while fearing bad people when it is a single player game that someone could grief you at anytime.

The only point of this game is to make money for the dev team.  I mean, you can buy tokens with Kongregate points, which you buy with real money, that you can use to buy recipes for rare items, improvements that don't need guildmates and special commodities.  Yes, you can get these things from the kindness of strangers (customers sell things to you) but it isn't that reliable to do.

Now, all the Skinner Box tactics are there: a bullshit level system, a day counter that makes you wait 30 minutes between days, cheery sound effects for when you get money, and no end in sight.

I am not shitting you, this game is crack.  Proceed with caution.