Urban Dead
My latest waste of time is the massively multiplayer online game Urban Dead. It’s a primitive, browser-based game which pitches humans against zombies in the fictional town of Malton. While the gameplay is pretty primitive, what’s interested me about Urban Dead is the devotion of the players. The website features fully-featured Wiki documentation and various clans have formed, all of which are chronicled in extensive detail on various websites.
In a weird example of synchronicity, I discovered an article on the London Review of Books website by Thomas Jones that features Urban Dead quite extensively. Given that I used to work at the LRB and know Jones quite well, it’s almost enough to make you believe that there’s some sort of guiding force behind it all.
Or not.
Anyway, if anyone gets into Urban Dead and finds themselves bitten by a zombie called macguffin, it’s me. Mrrgh…
