I know you're all a bunch of lazy people who never participate in anything, but it sounded like a fun idea anyway... so I thought I'd put it out there.
Idol and I had been toying with the idea of doing a "
Dwarf Fortress Month" for a while, where we just sat down and played it a lot for a month since it's so hard to get into, and then anyone who wanted to try it along with us could sort of learn the ropes as the rest of us did. That way it would end up being more friendly, and we could all share stupid stories of our horrible demises, etc. That seemed like a great idea, and we do plan to do that. However, I also thought... why not suggest a game every month or couple of months that we could try to get people playing all at once? Just sort of a fun way for people to play something unusual together and talk about it. Like most of my ideas, it will probably fail utterly due to lack of participation, but even if nobody's playing but myself, or Idol and I, it's not like there's any harm.
So here's what I've been thinking to start (without the months being definite, of course):
Feburary - Everyone Plays
Dwarf Fortress (free)
March - Everyone Plays
Freespace 2 ($6)
April - Everyone Plays
Depths of Peril ($20, has demo)
May - Everyone Plays
Mount and Blade ($30, has demo)
June - Everyone Plays
Hinterland ($20)
July - Everyone Plays
Age of Booty ($10)
The biggest expense is
Mount and Blade, at $30, which I imagine might dissuade some folks, but it's got a demo they could play instead to get a feel first, and if they like it they can pay to simply unlock the demo, or buy the game on Steam.
Hinterland is less of an investment, but it should be more obvious whether or not someone would like it. Same with
Age of Booty and
Depths of Peril (the latter has a demo).
DF is, of course, free. And
Freespace 2 is widely considered the best space combat sim of all time. All the games also have really low system requirements (with the possible exception of
Age of Booty which isn't out on PC quite yet, but I can't imagine them going too far with it).
Anyway, that's my current plan, though it could change with feedback. Join if you like, or simply observe.
