Browser based games

[Dracos]

Just glancing around and I figure more than I get drawn into these sometimes...

http://www.forumwarz.com - I played this a few years ago.  Decent, with a few extension eps for 10 bucks each.  It follows a parody of internet forums and hacking, causing trouble around the net.

http://www.animecubed.com/billy  - started this a little bit ago.  Seems cluttered, but a few other friends are playing so giving a try.  Basically a Naruto parody, with various other anime stuff thrown in.

[Music-chan]

I'll throw a link up for the Echo Bazaar, also known as Fallen London.
http://echobazaar.failbettergames.com


EB is game that connects to twitter (or facebook, though I think it started with twitter).  It doesn't do anything to your twitter unless you tell it to so aside from "logging in" with it every day, it doesn't have to reflect in your social media at all.

I'm not sure I can do it justice to explain it, but here's a link to a wiki for it in case you want more detail:  http://echobazaar.wikidot.com

I will say that I find the story really engaging.  Every time I open up new stories, I'm always impressed by the quality of writing they use on the game.  There is a lot of personal choice about what decisions you make as well.  Most major story points have at least 2 or 3 options you can choose to progress and what happens next totally depends on what you decide.

If any of you guys decide to play, CyMage and I are connected with musicchan and thecymage through our twitter accounts.  I kind of hope you do because I'd love to have more friends to interact with.

[Dracos]

Just a heads up on that one (to help folks), you do need to have a twitter (or maybe facebook?) account in order to log in.  It doesn't have any 'create new character' type thing outside of that to look for.

[Merc]

New free browser game for the list: Castle Empire, a 'medieval' city-sim.

No social network needed to register (though it does support use of Facebook).

It's also technically in 'Closed Beta', but you can register and pretty much get a beta key right off the bat, and it'll still be free when it's out of beta.

Around level 12 you'll likely start to run out of resources, forcing you to wait and log back in later to hopefully more resources. Leveling to 16 can technically be done within a day as the first 15 levels are technically the 'tutorial', but it's a bit of a bother and you still have to wait some hours there.

In general, you'd probably log in once a day to manage resources and improve your settlement, or more likely get bored of it due to the waiting, but it might interest some of you guys.

That said, if you do find you like the city building and resource management aspect of the game (just not the pace), I'd recommend giving a look at Anno 1404 (UK version) or Dawn of Discovery (US version). It's by the same developer, but it's overall a better game and much prettier.

Anno/DoD does come with DRM (Tages) if that bugs you though, and I'd warn that support (both developer and mod) for the US version are pretty bad compared to the UK one.