#91 A Tale In The Desert

MMORPGs are Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, which until recently, meant going online and playing the video game equivalent of Dungeons and Dragons with a thousand or so other nerds. The Sims Online changed all that, removing all the combat and spells, but the result game is pretty much a chat room with pictures. A Tale In The Desert is part game, part social experiment. The setting is Egypt and everyone playing is trying to help build the civilization. Player co-operation is a must and, unlike most games where players lurk just to give you grief, almost all of this game's population are incredibly cool. In addition, the game is independently published and has been created with a great deal of open source software. Lastly, the game is a free download with a $13.95 a month fee - no $50 package to cough up for before signing up. If you're a fan of resource building games and would like to play one with a bunch of really swell online folks I can't recommend A Tale In The Desert enough.