MMO98

It's a fun incremental game. Short, well crafted for the price, and a neat aesthetic. Soundtrack is good and it doesn't spend too long at the "ugh I just need 1 more achievement that I have to wait ages for" phase. If you want to try a new incremental game, it's worth it. Won't take you long. The flavour is lacking though, feeling more like a skin than really baked into the gameplay. Sure you can open a dashboard and see players around a low poly market, and the little IRC is fun if a little repetitive, but it doesn't quite feel like you're developing an MMO in '98 so much as a bunch of fantasy games that happen to have an online chat. Sequels being the reset gimmick stands out the most to me. MMOs are ancient monoliths that last seemingly forever, they don't tend to get sequels (I don't think there's a top 5 MMO right now thats been out for less than 10 years). My indie studio in this playthrough has made 15. I would've preferred more focus on expansions, moderation, content patches than starting over - but this is a boring nitpick and also kinda goes against how incremental games work, so whatever. Overall the game is more focused on the '98 than the MMO, and I can't blame the devs because it's gotta be the more universally appealing part.