Kingdom of Loathing - Gameplay and Features

Gameplay and Features

Gameplay involves fighting monsters, completing quests, gaining skills and stats, and accumulating items and meat.

In KoL's turn-based gameplay, a player's character is supplied with a number of adventures each day. The game day resets at a time called "rollover". Characters are allotted forty adventures every rollover, though they can increase that number with various equipment and items. Additional adventures can be acquired by consuming food and booze. However, only a limited amount of each can be consumed each day, and drinking too much booze puts the character into a drunken stupor for the remainder of the day. During rollover, drunkenness and fullness levels are reset, and minor amounts of health points and magic points are restored. Although a character can accumulate a large number of adventures, the number is reduced to 200 at rollover.

Most actions in the game use up adventures, including crafting items and exploring the game world (adventuring). When exploring, players experience combat encounters, in which they fight monsters, as well as non-combat encounters. Combat is turn-based, meaning that the player and the monster take turns attacking one another using weapons, skills and items. Players who successfully defeat a monster receive experience points, pieces of meat (the game's currency), and various items. Non-combat encounters simply present the reader with a text description of an event, occasionally allowing the player to choose how to respond to that event.

After gaining enough experience points, players will gain levels, allowing them to access new areas and quests. Characters can combine items by using "meat paste" (a substance analogous to glue), and can also cook food, mix cocktails and smith weapons and armor. Characters may also earn trophies or tattoos for various in-game achievements. Puzzle-solving is an important part of the game, with the solutions often involving a certain item combination or the completion of tasks in different zones.