My Tribe

A number of years ago, before we had kids, Tannis and I got mildly addicted to Warcraft. Not World of Warcraft, the online epic. Just the original Warcraft. It was a simple little game you could play as a human or an orc. You would build homes, barracks, farms, etc and go about building your empire and conquering neighboring civilizations.

When I say mildly addicted, I may be selling it a little lightly. It had become the topic of conversation in every phone call during the day with each other. When I picked her up from work, we would talk strategy till we got home and could turn on the computer. It was stupid, really. There wan't much to the game. It was just so addictive. We eventually kicked the habit and stayed off the smack until Tannis started playing The Sims 2. But don't get me started on that.

Recently I was looking for puzzle type adventure games. My searches led me to http://grubbygames.com/. I downloaded a couple of trial games that were OK. Then I tried My Tribe. This dumb little game is even more simplistic than Warcraft was. Which seemingly makes it even more addictive. And if that wasn't enough, the game simulates operation while you are not playing it. So now, you can close the game, turn off the computer, go to bed, and wake up the next morning to find your Tribe members have starved to death.

There is no currency, but you need to gather wood, food and stone. These are your basic raw materials. You can also expect the odd piece of flotsam from your ship to show up while you are playing. It may contain food, or items to help you build or research new technologies. On that note, one of the structures you get to build is a science lab. Here you get to research things and conduct chemical experiments with the various elements you find on the island.

Producing offspring is as easy as picking up one of your tribe members and dropping them on a member of the opposite sex. They will then trundle off into an available hut, and emerge seconds later with an infant. You don't have to care for the children. As a matter of fact, you can't do anything with them till they become adults. They do nothing other than wander around.

I have not yet introduced Tannis to this game. I really want to, but if she gets addicted, she'll blame me. Perhaps soon.