The Kingdom of Philtopia

I’ve started using Steam for Mac the last couple months and I have been finding it very enjoyable. Steam’s best feature is it somehow gets into your head and throws stuff into featured that you’re likely going to decide to get.

So one day I log in and on the featured page is 8bit MMO, being a child of the 80’s and having used a C64, C128 , NES and SMS this of course immediately got my attention.

8bitMMO website

The world

The world in 8Bit MMO is almost entirely generated by players. It sort of works like a top down version of mine craft where you purchase or accumulate blocks and can assemble your own little 8bit world. When you start the game you go through a very helpful set of tutorial missions that get you used to the basics of the building system of the universe before even allowing you out into the wild.

Everyone is also give their own Pocket universe isolated from the main world where you can build whatever you want. This allows you to build in private before allowing anyone to see your accomplishments.

The world is broken up to cities and cities have mayors, those mayors are actually players and they decide who can and cannot build in their town. To build in a town you must talk to the mayor and ask if you can be a citizen. Some cities this is a straight up yes or no and others sell you plots of land to build on for gold.

Click here to see the world map

Currency

The games main currency is gold this allows you to buy blocks to build with and weapons to fight with. You get gold by completing Quests or killing monsters. Monsters tend to be a zing on society like “hipsters” and “game reviewers”

The other currency is called plat, this is a paid for currency that solely exists for supporting the developers. The prices for plat are fairly cheap and items that require it do not require very much. Having plat allows you to get Town stones and become a mayor. Other than owning a town and a couple gimmick items like a zombie character you do not need plat to enjoy the game.

Quests

Quests are also made by players. A player can make a quest later on in the game by buying a reward block and placing it in a dungeon of their own design.

Sound track

This is probably my favorite part of the game. No matter what you are doing or where you are there is always a wonderful 8bit soundtrack following you around from various musicians. I’ve heard NES like tunes, C64 Sid like tunes, arcade style. It’s all there and it’s great!

Downside

While the best part of the game is that it is all player contrib that is also on occasion the worst. You will on occasion run into a map that wasn’t designed very well and will find it hard to navigate or a quest description that is so vague that you’ll never complete it. However you can always abandon a quest with no penalty and it isn’t common so it’s only a minor hiccup to an otherwise enjoyable game.

Give it a try, it’s free, it’s fun, hell just have it running in the background for the music!