Over the summer I got really into business games. There was one game, called Swords & Potions, on Kongregate that I started playing like crazy. Basically, you run a shop that provides items for all of the would-be adventurers in RPGs. You have to coordinate your production schedules and balance your accounts and etc. It’s quite fun in the sort of, repetitive, min-max efficiency sense. I think it appealed to my inner power-gamer.

Once you progress significantly in the game, you need to find yourself a guild. You can build improvements for your shop, but only fellow guild members can build them for you. I hate this sort of stuff; I despise forced cooperation in video games. You end up having to deal with leeches and generally unpleasant people more than you would have to, otherwise. More importantly, however, it simply feels exactly like what it is most of the time, forced.

So, I decided to create my own guild. I kept the requirements strict and was very selective, and my guild rose through the rankings. We peaked at the #3 spot (there’s a couple hundred guilds) before I simply abandoned them a few weeks before going back to school.

Well. That was fun.

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P.S.: If you like business games, check out Chantelise. Quite satisfying.

Also, do you tend to play games in fits and starts? If I find one I like, I usually play it to death very quickly, then move on.