Glitch

You’ve probably heard about Glitch, the new bloodless MMO by tiny speck. It features a complex crafting system, all kinds of skill specializations and, most importantly, some very weird humor. I’ll admit, I had a laugh when I was first tasked with milking a butterfly, a task that required me to massage (with lotion!) said butterfly before. Otherwise it wouldn’t let me perform such an intimate act on it. You can also squeeze chickens for grain.

The game itself is made up of a variety of interconnected 2D sidescrolling platform levels. Unlike traditional platformers, you can’t fall into pits though and there are no enemies to hurt you. Instead your avatar just wonders the world, interacts with various animals, plants, and inanimate objects in order to produce a variety of goods. Food is needed to keep your energy up (which allows for more actions. If you run out of energy, you croak.)  Drinks influence your mood (of course) and other things do… other things.

I was initially intrigued by the reports of this non-combat MMO and the humor struck quite the cord (Hey look, I just discovered Soil Appreciation II!) but the game became boring and repetitive extremely quickly. The zones are all more or less the same with a vendor and a couple of crafting nodes / animals to interact with and a couple of XP goodies to collect. The research of new skills is done offline, EVE style, and the direction is pretty much nonexistent. I crafted a bit, learned some skills but quickly found me without any direction to go and nothing particularly sparked my interest.

The lack of any danger also means that there was absolutely no sense of accomplishment in anything I did. The game is cute and funny, but definitely not meant for the likes of me (no matter what the developers say.) I suppose it could be nice for kids, though they probably won’t get the humor and will still be exposed to all the social interaction issues that online games bring with them. It might also be something nice for the Farmville crowd – it is definitely more fun to play than your average Facebook game and far less annoyingly monetized (so far.)

If you are a “serious” gamer though… Check it out, have a laugh, then forget about the whole thing.