Yesterday I stumbled upon the alpha of a one-man indie MMO project called Love.  I must admit I hadn’t heard of it before, but reading about it definitely piqued my interest: Love is experimental and free-form, in which you can explore the world and build as you see fit.  Players can work together to build settlements, defend their settlements from hostile NPC outsiders, or even sneak into other settlements and act as a saboteur.  Set in a painting-like world, the absolute freedom gives room for griefers to cause trouble, but presents a fascinating canvas upon which to express oneself.

Of late, I’ve been thinking about playstyles.  MMOs lend themselves naturally to community-centric players, but out of necessity most MMOs also have to accomodate those who would rather hunt alone.  There are those who thrill in competition with others, and yet even in a game like EVE Online we find a majority of players who engage solely in PvE.  As for myself, I tend to explore (My all-time most played game is probably Oblivion, in which I’ve clocked an easy 500 hours discovering player-developed content through mods), and I require dynamic, exciting adventure.

Most games hone in on a selection of playstyles and reward them, encourage them, or build core game mechanics around them. Love has no reward system. Love offers the ability to explore all of these approaches to gaming. And, most important, Love imposes almost no restrictions on what the players can do. So, for the next four weeks, I will be trying out different playstyles in this void. Please, join me on my adventure in Love and Gaming.

If this intrigues you, be sure to check out Part 2, in which AJ tries on the boots of the Explorer in Love and reports his findings.

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