Murkon's Refuge online game
Developed by RinkWorks

In design, Murkon's Refuge is about as minimal a graphical fantasy role-playing game can get: a black-and-white dungeon crawl. The game is essentially one big Web page. You create six characters in a simplified version of the Dungeons & Dragons system, and go off exploring the corridors of what I am guessing is the refuge of Murkon.

Occasionally you'll come upon monsters, depicted with crude sketches in jpeg format. Click through the battle, get experience points and treasure, and move on.

The allure of the game is the fact that it is Web-based. You can spend an entire day at work playing it if you want to, and even continue it at home, long into the night. But this is also its downfall; I stopped playing when my Internet connection was temporarily interrupted. When you can't load up the next block of dungeon, the intrigue fades fast, and finding out what's around that next corner becomes of little importance.

There isn't much else to Murkon's Refuge. You level up your characters, make some maps so you don't get lost, and that's it. There seems to be some sort of goal in place, because there is a players' hall of fame, but I don't know what you have to do to get there. I don't feel like playing anymore now that the Internet is down.

Review by Illusion Master