I Spent Sunday Evening Playing kdice
Michael Arrington
34 comments »
kdice is a free multiplayer online game that is similar to Risk, and I’ve just wasted an entire evening playing it (and mostly losing). It was created by Ryan Dewsbury using the Google Web Toolkit and has a Flash interface. Ryan also created gpoker, an Ajax Texas holdem poker game and one of the first applications built with the Web Toolkit. We covered gpoker here back in July.
kdice is a lot like the Risk board game, although the games go very quickly. Like gpoker, kdice also has real time chat between players. Not much else to say about it - it’s a fun application that makes me remember the hours and hours I spent playing Risk as a kid. If anyone knows of any other good online Risk-inspired games (besides Grand Strategy), let me know.
I played it…i was a loser.
Did you really play a lot of risk as a kid?
yes
Some of us have work deadlines and posting stuff like this doesn’t help!
Haven’t started playing kdice but this looks like a multi player version of dice wars. This is very exciting find.
Heres dicewars:
http://www.gamedesign.jp/flash/dice/dice.html
wish the computer was trickier.
Warfish is a great multiplayer risk game that i’ve been addicted to for months now. Invite only but very fun.
I was just coming to say warfish… joey, ya beat me to it.
It’s a pretty faithful risk. It’s well implemented, too… not a lot of chrome or gratuitous visuals, but it works very well.
so who wants to invite me? narf ey c*at*yahoo.com
just remove the spaces and such, thanks
techcrunch players need to stick together in this game
i like how you use the same login as his gpokr game
not as fast paced as the gpokr but the multiplayer aspect is great
If you like Risk, but desire a more strategic and historical game, I’d recommend Empires in Arms. It focuses on warfare in the Napoleonic era and has seven players each playing a major power (France, United Kingdom, Russia, Austria, Prussia, Spain and Turkey). You play each month individually, and they include diplomatic, reinforcement, naval, land, and economic phases. It was designed as a board game, but online versions can be found as well - though those are difficult to run, since it’s turn based.
Wikipedia has a list of some ongoing e-mail games
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empires_in_Arms
That’s pretty sweet (besides the losing part).
The best version of Risk available online is called Lux. You can download it here:
http://www.sillysoft.net/
Multiplayer. Active online community. Many maps. Good times. Good times.
The lead developer is a weasly Canadian named Dustin. Tell him Preacherman sent ya.
LOL.
I can’t stop laughing reading this article and the comments. This is surely fun.
(Matt_A: I’m sure we are all busy here. A little break from the serious stuff once a while is not a bad thing.)
This is almost identical to dicewars as mentioned by eric. Minus the multiplayer aspect of course.
Best free online risk variant with plenty of ajaxy features would be http://www.landgrab.net
Note I’m not affiliated with the creator desau but I did pay 60 bucks for the lifetime account. Its worth it.
Heck, I spent a significant portion of my teenage years playing board risk too, that was before computers were all over the place.
Wow Sivasankaran …now I cant remember why I originally came to post….
Best answer if you’re looking to recapture the joy of Risk is http://www.conquerclub.com/ not quite as Ajax an interface but a great recreation of the game with new maps, rule variations and a strong community.
OMG, I just read a book! O_O
Defcon is kind of a combination of Risk, the movie War Games and the game James Bond played in Never Say Never Again (Gawd, I’m such a geek). Not free, but the demo is and the full version is cheap. Man, I love this one. Simple but incredibly tough.
Mike,
Is there a way to prevent people like ’sivasankaran’ taking advantage of your comments function and posting ridiculously long stories?
moreover, what’s stopping people from posting their own company bios, specs ( i.e advertising ) in your comments section. While comments are not as valuable as blog writeups, they still get a lot of eyeballs and can be free advertising in a sense…..
Looks like sivasankaran really wants that digital camera.
http://www.DominateGame.com
^^Best Online Multiplayer Risk I know (with rankings and a bunch of user selected rule variations)
Preach cheats. He just sits there and roams in Asia while everyone else kills each other so he can get second
Lux is the best time, and has a great community of online players.
Not impressed. It seems to just sit there when I click on the interface. I guess all the TC readers are lagging it.
Michael, you should try Diplomacy - it’s like Risk but with more strategy, less luck and about 100x more fun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomacy_(board_game)
You can get in a game here:
http://www.redscape.com/forum/index.php
Laggy interface, frequently doesn’t take input and marks you as ‘away’. I am running IE7… maybe this is the issue? I’ll try FF.
On the game theory, I think there’s too much ‘randomness’… like where it puts the dice at end turn. For me, it always puts them ‘in the rear’ where they’re useless. Also there’s no way to take a ‘move turn’ and bring soldiers to the front.
But an interesting waste of time anyway… it’s better than Bejeweled!
Another good time waster:
http://www.websudoku.com/?level=4
Just wasted an entire day on this game…. Thanks!
The Java Settlers of Catan are pretty good.
Lots of sites host this game, e.g. http://jrh-xp.byu.edu/settlers/