Furcadia is F**ked.

Woof. Furcadia is a free online RPG on a miniature scale that is played in a browser like Internet Explorer or Firefox. The graphics have not evolved or look like they have been upgraded since 1996. It does not have the saving grace of being an ‘E’ type of game for little kids either, even though the graphics are kiddy type.

At first look you might think that Furcadia is merely stupid, and childish. But the underlying deceptiveness of this chat based experience is not apparent right away. This is a game that looks like it is for 7 year olds, in reality it’s far from it. It does not carry a warning to parents or have a date of birth filter on it. By being free to play the game circumvents the requirements that supposedly protect kids from adult content.

Even though one shouldn’t judge game developers by what the players have done with their online game, at some point the developers do have to acknowledge what is being done with the user created content and deal with it in a responsible fashion. Players chat freely about real life, and more ‘adult’ content, unsuitable for minors takes place. That needs to be addressed with this game.

Game – Play

Navigation is annoying, as you attempt to move on a diagonal through a tiled landscape, similar to “The Sims”. While the world of Furcadia has a small core group of dedicated ‘Furres’ that are enthusiasts of the game, the game – play has not kept up with current gamers expectations. Positive comments about this game are rare to find. Since there is a glut of free games to play that are available for both kids and adults, Furcadia which has a nebulous target market, isn’t even worth your time to download. If you are interested in an online RPG to get started with, this one will not prepare you for any of the skills or abilities needed in modern online MMORPG’s. Furcadia has no classes and no levels. There is no experience system, and no actual death. Killing in Furcadia is not allowed. The only places that do allow it, are player made ‘dream’ areas where it has been scripted in.

The game allows almost every type of play imaginable without any restrictions which is fine in a world like Second Life, but Furcadia lacks any sort of organization or staff support. Most of the game play territory is user created. In order to level up, gain magical skills or have PvP fighting, you have to enter into someone else’s map. Those areas can be designed for anything that the users can imagine. The game is not rated by the ESRB, so the users determine what their map is rated.

Players create their own items and artwork using an editor which they call a ‘dream maker’. With a great deal of time and work areas like ghettos with guns and drugs, or even movie theaters have been built by players. A widely diverse array of themes have been created by users including horses, wolves, medieval taverns, sex, violence, pirates, and a hodge podge of everything else.

Graphics

It is all tiny, hard to see, garishly colored and overall just chaos. Furcadia has almost a top-down, isometric viewpoint, with a kind of 3rd person environment, if you can see it. The characters are very small. The widely varying areas in Furcadia create some widely different environments, from massive waterfalls, and wilderness, to pubs, clubs, and individual gaming zones.

If you enjoy tinkering and want to attempt some early scripting the editor is included in the initial download so if you are up for the challenge you could try to make Furcadia a better place… But why would you want to?

Enjoyment

If you like to chat, then you might have some interest in this world. In the very start designing an animal character may be fun but that is about it. New Haven is the central map through which other areas are accessed. The Challenges Map is for puzzle games and some require teams to play. Acropolis is Furcadia’s version of a Role-Play encouraged world. The RP is mostly informal. The Imaginarium is for strict Role-Play while it is still a player-created area. There is no plot or story line. FurrN is the adult area of Furcadia where the descriptions usually display sexual preferences the player-created areas in this zone have no holds barred.

Marketing to Women

The game was brought to my attention as an article suggestion based on this statistic that was provided. “Furcadia is a Massively Multiplayer Online Game, which players are predominantly female (nearly 60%, according to our latest player survey).” But a player survey, especially of an RPG, may not yield real life numbers of actual biological females playing it.

First of all it isn’t massive. There are only a couple thousand subscribers. didn’t see anything in Furcadia that would appeal to today’s savvy female gamers. It isn’t cute enough or retro enough to be entertaining. The ‘game – play’ if you could call it that, is entirely lacking in every possible way and that isn’t going to appeal to any girl gamers either.

Conclusion

Furcadia may have been a cute, friendly world at one time. It had good potential for player-built content. However the players have by in large taken it in other rather bizarre directions. The lack of functionality, the lack of the ability to animate the characters, the long weird loads, and the limited User Interface command-set won’t help to hold your attention. If what you want is a free game and being a critter is what floats your boat you’d be better off with Second Life or even Hello Kitty.

I give this steaming pile of outdated software a solid stinking 2 out of 10.

Pros: It is free
Cons: You get what you pay for.
Published by: Dragon Claw Studios
Developed by: Dragon Claw Studios
Genre: Persistent Online RPG
Release Date: US: December 16, 1996
Platform : PC