TORN: A Browser / Text Based Crime Simulation MMORPG
One of my Twitch viewers, MagentaOrca, mentioned a gamed called TORN the other day so I decided to take a look at it and give it a shot. TORN is both the name of the game and the name of the city in which the game takes place in. It is a sandbox MMORPG that is both text based and browser based, and it allows you to create a character and operate within the city of TORN. The game is open ended with what you can do in it and is dictated by various resource pools which restrict what you can do once you exhaust those pools. Each resource pool has a refresh period where it slowly replenishes back up to full, making the game a long-term project rather than a grind you can get done in a day.
The game has a steep learning curve, but luckily there is a tutorial that slowly introduces you to the game and its features. I highly recommend going through that tutorial and not skipping ahead (unless you enjoy exploring and don't care about the tutorial rewards). By going through the tutorial, you will earn some extra starter cash that can be helpful as you play the game, especially in regard to purchasing your own homes and properties as well as equipping yourself with better melee weapons and guns.
As mentioned above, there are various resource pools which allow you to perform actions in the game. These resource pools include Energy, Nerve, Happiness, and Life. Energy is used to perform most actions that are not crimes in nature. This includes working out at the gym to increase your stats which is a very important thing to do in TORN as it relates to the combat mechanic as you want your character capable to withstand getting mugged or attacked. Nerve is the primary resources pool to commit crimes and to gain money from those crimes. Happiness is depleted when performing any actions whether you use energy or nerve and essentially earns you more from your efforts when your happiness is high. Life is the amount of health your character has available to attack others or defend yourself with.
As mentioned, all of these resource pools rejuvenate over time throughout the day, allowing you to expend the resources and then check back hours later to manage your character's activity further. This is why TORN is a long-term project, because while it takes a relatively short amount of time to deplete resources, it does take some time to replenish them, so there are momentary limits to the progression you can get. TORN is essentially an incremental MMORPG game, similar to an Idle game, in this regard.
The image of the map above shows the various locations you can engage with in TORN city, and they are numerous, so much so that it would be impractical to mention them all in this blog post, especially when I am brand new to the game and learning as I go. I would recommend that if you were bored of the current MMORPG offerings and are looking for a more casual text-based game to work on during your small breaks at work, TORN would be a good option to give you that dopamine hit of progression that you may be interested in. It truly is a sandbox, and you can choose whatever path you decide to go on and make progress on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. As I learn more about the game myself, I plan to share further knowledge and information as I go.
Until next time,
Blackboa