What they're playing everywhere else: Puzzle Pirates

These guys are onto something. Justinsane recommended I check it out, and when I finally got a little time I downloaded the little Java client. IMHO this is genius.

It's a MMORG...you create a character, log it in, and interact with people and the world. There is status, reputation, money, banks, distant lands, water battles, etc. You can join a Navy, go on quests, the whole shebang. The graphics and UI are very simple, but colorful and fun.

but...

...you earn experience and defeat other players by challenging them to puzzles. You can have tourneys, there are crafting puzzles (you get better at craft skill by playing open ended puzzles and keeping them going), and so on. The game is insanely addictive.

It's not just skill in puzzles either. For example, one of the puzzles is sword fighting, and it's tetris like. Without going into detail, you can gain an edge over your puzzle opponent by spending time crafting/questing and getting a better sword (like an actual MMORG style "loot that sword" sword that you keep in inventory).

I'm pretty much amazed by it. Wish I had time to play.

Ideal for work too, since the client completely and instantly vanishes as soon as you click the close window button ;p

I played for 4 days...
First day OMG THIS ROCKS!
Second day: Nice i'm gonne get myself tones of gold and s hip
Thrid day: Um.. ya... same puzzel over and over...
Fourth day: I wonder what's going on in SL...

The game is really cool, I OWNED at the battles... but payin 10$ Us for 4 puzzels.. over and over... when I only liked saili and battles... bildge and crafts just suck and are boring!

My 2 cents! I'm never playing this again! well maybe if I can get a standalone of that battle game!

FYI I had to reinstall my Java client for work, it just highjacked it!

Well, the game is new...and they do indicate there's lots more to come...and you don't have to pay to get the hang of it.

What gets me is the concept. All they need to do is add more puzzles and overall content, but the mechanism is there to do it, and they've laid out pretty clearly how they intend to expand. I'm going to keep my eye on it. Sounds like you may not have explored all the crafting as well.

Interesting about the java issue; it's working aok for me.