It has all started at the Netvision conference. I was attending a lecture about advergaming (using games for advertising). The host gave a side example of an online game (almost a MMOG to be exact) called Tankmania. It’s not really an advergame, as there are no ads in the game. It was rather an example of how popular an online flash-based game can be. As soon as I had the chance I had logged into Tankmania to check it out. The next minute I was hooked. Two weeks have passed and I was playing it almost daily. The problems started appearing when the game stopped working. I could not connect for two straight days. I was desperate.
At the end of the second day I decided that it was time to try some other MMOG. Back in the day (in 1996 and 1997) I used to play Subspace. Very intensively, I might add. I could play for 12-13 hours straight. I stopped playing it when all of the official servers went offline. Back then I have thought that the game has been discontinued, but now I was on a mission to find out what has actually happened to Subspace. 10 minutes reading the Wikipedia entry and my hopes were up as the article was very clear that the game is still alive and doing quite good! And what’s more, it is still being actively developed and is completely free to play! The very next minute I was downloading the Continuum client. Upon firing up the game old memories started coming back to me. I was almost crying. Subspace, my only true love…
I knew my life has found a new meaning.
BTW: You can usually find me playing SSCU Trench Wars under the very meaningful nickname: XML over HTTP.
EDIT: If you want to know more about Subspace, you can watch this great introductory movie.