Alone in a MMORPG (Or, Playing Book of Travels)
I got a mini PC last week to play video games. I'm a very late bloomer when it comes to gaming, and I suck at almost everything, but I like playing them nonetheless. Many years ago, I got fascinated by the concept of Book of Travels. A beautiful, serene, MMORPG, that was being advertised as a "tiny" MMORPG, a "cozy" online game. In short, all the keywords that attract me. The art style looked beautiful, I watched one or two YouTubers playing it, and the whole concept of it had me on a chokehold.
Back then, though, I didn't have the money, the time or the machine to play BoT. But I never forgot about it. The game stayed on top of my Steam wishlist for years, until last month, when they had it on sale and I was already planning on finally purchasing a "gaming" PC (more on the quotation marks later).
And yesterday I finally played it for the first time.
It was everything I expecting it to be. Without even realizing, I clocked 5h of gameplay in a day. However, there is something remarkably different about playing BoT (beyond its more laid-back gameplay style): it's abandoned. It's abandoned by players and devs alike (apparently there was some huge layoff a few years back), so I was absolutely alone in this beautiful online world.
What an experience. The NPCs are fun though -- they really populate the area, and the town spaces feel lively with the background chatter and passersby. Everything is breathtaking, every frame really is a painting.
It's such a shame it's been abandoned. I'll keep playing it though, at least up until they shut down the servers and pluck the game out of my cold dead hands.
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