Game Review: The Kingdom of Loathing

The Kingdom of Loathing is an online roleplaying game by Asymmetric Publications. At time of this blogging, it is listed as being in open beta.
The game's premise appears very much to just have fun and do a little adventuring in a unique land.

Summary of analysis
Effective new player experience, a fresh take on roleplaying genre gameplay through its presentation to the player, semi-complex but well-implemented interface with mostly mouse-driven controls, surprisingly well-chosen graphics, no sound or music.

Tutorial/New player experience
While at heart the game comes across as significantly less than serious, there's actually quite a bit of mechanics going on behind the scenes and like many roleplaying games a lot to teach to a new player. Thankfully, the overarching theme and succinct tutorial system keeps things rolling along nicely and even though I've had to pause to get through a bout of laughter, it's a welcome slow down.

Gameplay experience
For a run down in detail of gameplay elements, I recommend the Kingdom of Loathing Wiki.
Definitely a one of a kind experience, from fighting off laughter to fighting absurdities, it's fully embraced the roleplaying game meme of random encounters. The game adheres to a lot of the genre conventions: random encounters and level grinding, stat management, inventory systems, etc but it was still somehow refreshing to play through due to the colorful descriptions and comical interpretation of pretty much everything.

Interface & Controls
Like many roleplaying games, there's numerous interface elements to interact with and I'm grateful to see them introduced as they're being placed on the interface (with some exceptions). The mouse appears to be the sole means of controls in the game, at least from what I've found from playing so far though I expect from my research that the keyboard becomes important once a player gets into the social elements of the game.

Graphics
Stick-figure style characters, objects, and environment. Though many games would have a hard time pulling this one off, I think KoL actually benefits its themes and the overall gameplay experience having gone this route.

Music & Sound
No sound or music at the time of this blogging, though I'd love to see it implemented one day when it's in full release.

Commentary
I expected from creating a character that I'd be in for quite a lot of puns and some occasional campiness. Just a few actions in and I realized I was going to be needing a week's rations, a tent, some flint and steel, fifty feet of rope, and a standard issue ten foot pole (actually 11') because this was going to be an adventure into the heart of camp. It's obvious that the developers meant for everyone involved to have fun with the game including themselves and should be credited for taking a job and making it enjoyable (seen far too many game developers that try to discourage others from the industry and barely enjoy what they do).
I'm definitely going to be keeping an eye on this game as they've managed to be innovative without the need of a multi-million dollar budget and provide players with recreation through silliness in a well-structured set of mechanics.