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the Dagon Knight4002 Posts
Game of the Year 2013
In January of last year, I added every single application I had to Steam’s list of “non-Steam games.” I had determined that I would use pure weight of hours played to determine my Game of the Year for 2013. Whichever game I played the most would be awarded the title of GotY, and reviewed accordingly. As someone who has so heavily invested in Dota, the result surprised me. Indeed, I had so thoroughly expected the winning game to be either Dota or Minecraft that I found myself stunned by the result.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/GApHi1o.png) 850 hours played since this time last year. Worth the entry price.
I’m pleased to announce, however, that my Game of the Year for 2013 is none other than Microsoft Word.
Word is a game of skill and accuracy, one that rewards a player’s judicious use of available resources.
On the face of things, Word’s main game mode is a Minecraft-style sandbox, but the vast majority of players choose to play in high-stakes games, with quests set by other players in the style of dungeon masters, instructors, lecturers, or editors. These quests will usually require the player to fully express an idea or analyse a text, often requiring players to cite prior criticism (who among us hasn’t had to fall back on a walkthrough at some point?), all without exceeding a set wordcount. It's a tricky gametype, and one that kept me distracted throughout college.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/sYhzvWe.png) People still message me, surprised that I’m enjoying Word after so many years.
Word is a tricky game of resource management that often pits players against one another, not directly, but by allowing them to compare their own save files to one another. Moreover, for those of you who’d like to try it out, you can simply import a replay file from a famous Word player, stop it at any point you’d like, and see how you’d have continued the story. My version of The Sun Also Rises (which ends with Jake and Bill mistaken for matadors and forced into a series of incongruous bullfights) rivals Hemingway's original.
Similarly, my sequel to Roald Dahl's masterpiece should be complete some time in the next six months, keep your eyes peeled for New Tales of the Wonkaverse: Shards of a chocolate Crown.
Word is one of those games that keeps being updated, time and time again, every sequel changing just enough to keep it fresh, without throwing it all away in an effort to appeal to a new crowd. Remember how much we all hated the “ribbon” interface? Man, it seems like so long ago now.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/gWbC4MC.png) The graphics are just beautiful. Is that some nice anti-aliasing on those letters? Gorgeous.
Room for Improvement:
Of course, there are other games like Word available. While Word is clearly my personal preference, it’s pretty obvious that it’s just not made with multiplayer in mind. When I want to get together and play with friends in a sandbox text editor, Google Docs is the only real option available. Google Docs is, of course, free to play on top of it all, which only swings the multiplayer further in its favour.
This is, of course, the fourth year in a row that Word has been awarded my game of the year, but with more and more Steam invites to collaborative Google Docs hitting my desktop, Word is going to need to seriously step up its game if it’s going to compete. Otherwise, 2014’s GotY could well end up being a serious upset.
Both also need to add some achievements. I'd have thought those were pretty standard by now.
Still, five out of five stars, for MS Word. I'd recommend it to anyone who has ever dreamed a dream, and then subsequently wanted to write about that dream in an environment that would underline a lot of it in red.
 
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Estonia4644 Posts
Dont forget about the indie spinoffs like OpenOffice
While inferior in UI, the featureset is pretty sick still and its free
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the Dagon Knight4002 Posts
On January 15 2014 01:16 fusefuse wrote:
Dont forget about the indie spinoffs like OpenOffice
While inferior in UI, the featureset is pretty sick still and its free
You filthy casuals are all alike. Pay2Win bro.
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1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
I use notepad like I still play Dune 2
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Okay I admit I was expecting something else when I clicked on this. 5/5, entertaining 
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Wow, really? Microsoft Word?
I'm an old-school WordPad 1.6 player. get skills noob
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That's still a shocking number of hours spent with word open.
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What did you hotkey backspace to?
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Over a month spend in word in the last year? Oh my.
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This game seems to be pretty unknown, i have never seen it be streamed on twitch. 
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The anti-aliasing only occurs in the mac version, will you do a separate review for the PC, XboxOne, and PS4 versions? I find that the online community ruined this game for me, whenever I try to do multiplayer MSWord I just get flamed by some 12 yo n00b whose avatar is a paperclip.
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But what is your wpm ?
You need at least 200 to be a competitive word player.
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your Country52797 Posts
On January 15 2014 02:08 Boblion wrote:
But what is your wpm ?
You need at least 200 to be a competitive word player.
mine is 90, does that make me about platinum level?
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Really unexpected. How can you rate this game so high? The development team never listens to community feedback, all they care about is implementing new and annoying UI features. It also has serious compatibility issues, for example, you can only load savegames created by itself. Even openoffice beats it with all its bugs.
Overall I find it cumbersome to use for shorsessions of gaming (notebook much better in that), while if I had to go pro I would play something serious like Latex.
But I can see how it appeals to the casuals.
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in the word image, it says "Check the anti-aliasing on those letters." but in the actual post it says "Is that some nice anti-aliasing on those letters?"
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the Dagon Knight4002 Posts
I used Word's "resume from replay" feature to edit the text later. Pretty sick, I know
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28088 Posts
SirJolt with another awesome blog, keep it up
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Notepad2 for lyfe.
Who needs fancy formatting?
Plain text is my path.
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On January 15 2014 02:36 The_Templar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2014 02:08 Boblion wrote:
But what is your wpm ?
You need at least 200 to be a competitive word player. mine is 90, does that make me about platinum level?
you can still be competitive you only have to type in khalani
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The best thing about it is you can make more money being a Word pro-gamer than in any other e-sport.
On a related note after reading this I think I'd pay good money to get your New Tales of the Wonkaverse savefile!
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not as good as WordStar (Pro not Trial!!!!!). George RR Martin uses to type his books! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar
Lets see you make your magnum opus using Word (on mac LOLLLLLLLL)
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Katowice25012 Posts
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You might have had better luck on clocking hours on dota if you had actually installed the game first :D
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On January 15 2014 04:07 Heyoka wrote:
Only Emacs for me.
gui or terminal?
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Word? What's that? Sounds like a LaTeX clone for Windows Phone.
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Italy12246 Posts
Fuck casual players and their shitty games with zero depth.
Latex>>>Word clearly.
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omfg hahaha sick blog
would play your replay again
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what about mozilla's "firefox" or google's "google chrome"
or the ever popular "DESKTOP.INI"
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With that much play time you must be botting or using macros. I wish Microsoft would ban all of you ctrl-v using scum.
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TLADT24920 Posts
Word? please. Corel Wordperfect is where it's at + Show Spoiler +or used to be 
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I'm still waiting for a stream...
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TeXnicCenter for lyfe! You can use sick cheat codes and it has dlcs too!
On January 15 2014 04:57 Teoita wrote:
Fuck casual players and their shitty games with zero depth.
Latex>>>Word clearly.
Yeah, show those casuals!
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Nothing better than a no-look edit-catch as you're puttering along. I always liked the learning curve of word as well: what you put in is what you get.
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Chrome my GotY, although Visual Studio pushed it close.
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I have to wonder how many of your hours played was actually spent alt+tabbed so you could find walkthroughs?
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Have you had any experience with mods for ms word? The visual basic interface can be hard to figure out, but it can really make the gameplay more interesting.
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Philadelphia, PA10406 Posts
Word is basically Typewriter with better graphics and way way dumbed down for casuals, I can't believe you play that shit. Typewriter was way more challenging, you didn't get do-overs when you fucked up, you had to live with your mistakes. And the mechanics were way less smooth, but that actually added to the experience. In Word it just all goes exactly the way you want it to and you don't have to pay any attention. How boring is that?
Filthy casuals.
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GrandInquisitor
New York City13113 Posts
Honestly I prefer the other games set in the Office universe -- especially the MMO spinoff.
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On January 15 2014 07:32 tree.hugger wrote:
Word is basically Typewriter with better graphics and way way dumbed down for casuals, I can't believe you play that shit. Typewriter was way more challenging, you didn't get do-overs when you fucked up, you had to live with your mistakes. And the mechanics were way less smooth, but that actually added to the experience. In Word it just all goes exactly the way you want it to and you don't have to pay any attention. How boring is that?
Filthy casuals.
Not to mention key jams! You have to type fast and accurate but, not too fast too avoid the keys jamming up!
I can't even believe it automatically does line breaks. WTF
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Korea (South)17174 Posts
haven't played that game for a long time
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the Dagon Knight4002 Posts
On January 15 2014 08:52 rebdomine wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2014 07:32 tree.hugger wrote:
Word is basically Typewriter with better graphics and way way dumbed down for casuals, I can't believe you play that shit. Typewriter was way more challenging, you didn't get do-overs when you fucked up, you had to live with your mistakes. And the mechanics were way less smooth, but that actually added to the experience. In Word it just all goes exactly the way you want it to and you don't have to pay any attention. How boring is that?
Filthy casuals. Not to mention key jams! You have to type fast and accurate but, not too fast too avoid the keys jamming up! I can't even believe it automatically does line breaks. WTF
You guys liked manually pressing space twice after a full stop? You're stuck in the dark ages, folks. It's time to move on.
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MS Word is a game made for casuals while the true hardcore fans and playerbase sticks with pen and paper. MS Word introduced a bunch of features that took all the skill out of what differentiated the good writers from the noobs: Auto-formatting, multi-character selection, and smart spellchecking all built into the game. The skill ceiling is so low now anyone can compete with the best, it doesn't mean anything to be an A+ writer anymore.
Edit: Meh I was beaten to the puch, oh well.
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Bisutopia19231 Posts
I still play "Stone Carvings". I wish I had money for fancy gaming like you do.
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Reminds me of the time I added Microsoft Visual C++ Express to my Steam. I tricked quite a few friends and family there.
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Wait what? Honest question, how does your "none steam game" game time gets recorded? I have Starcraft 2 added on it but while it does show "Starcraft 2" when I play it, it never recorded play time !?
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I know it's a dumbed down version of Word, but all my friends use Google Drive, so that's what I end up playing mostly.
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I know it's getting a bit old at this point, but I still play a shit ton of emacs.
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i think i got trolled by reading this or did i miss something?
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Can't believe you casuals still play Word. Men play Scrivener.
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Baltimore, USA22254 Posts
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On January 15 2014 17:38 EvilTeletubby wrote:
All I see is an emoticon worshiping an Evil Teletubby!
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On January 15 2014 08:52 rebdomine wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2014 07:32 tree.hugger wrote:
Word is basically Typewriter with better graphics and way way dumbed down for casuals, I can't believe you play that shit. Typewriter was way more challenging, you didn't get do-overs when you fucked up, you had to live with your mistakes. And the mechanics were way less smooth, but that actually added to the experience. In Word it just all goes exactly the way you want it to and you don't have to pay any attention. How boring is that?
Filthy casuals. Not to mention key jams! You have to type fast and accurate but, not too fast too avoid the keys jamming up! I can't even believe it automatically does line breaks. WTF
you think that's tough? try playing pen and paper.
if you want to go old-school, use a quill pen. that's what real gamers do...
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i can't believe nobody heard the awesome thing called excel!
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Russian Federation823 Posts
People really are enjoying this kind of humour it seems.
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Baa?21242 Posts
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
Oh jesus, it's Word for Mac too!
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I bought that game, too. But after my first play through I got bored. Was fun while it lasted, though! Would definitely recommend it to friends.
Recently i switched over to sublime text 2 with that crazy community plugin called "mark down plugin"
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FuDDx
United States5008 Posts
Poor SirJolt some one buy him a game or two...and a controller... then break the keyboard of his!!!
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5003 Posts
How can you vote a game without live spectating option as the GOTY?
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Netherlands6181 Posts
Your screen shotting skills are pretty good SirJolt. wp, wp
MS Word good game. Is it the next e-sport?
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MS Word casual game
Vim is where the skill's at. The skill ceiling is waay higher
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Have you guys tried exporting savegames over from other similar games? I hear you can find pretty cool artifacts that way.
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Will you stream your next session ?
Damn now i want to install steam at work add Talend and notepad++ to see how many hours i would have on those.
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The best things about Word are its replayability and open world gameplay. Its in-game universe is literally boundless. Some new players may not understand all that it has to offer, and so they give up early on, but there really is a lot to explore if you know where to look. No two playthroughs are ever the same. Overall I give this game a 4/5. For what it brings in gameplay, replayability, and graphics, it is rather lacking in music.
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United States7483 Posts
You should really live stream some of your runs SirJolt.
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On January 16 2014 08:45 Whitewing wrote:
You should really live stream some of your runs SirJolt.
That Monty Python sketch where Thomas Hardy is writing a novel anyone?
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I liked pages much better than word until apple decided to downgrade its own software for iOS compatibility. sigh
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United Kingdom3482 Posts
Personally I'd have to say LaTeX is my game of the year. Its a similar concept to Word but lets you feel superior to the casual Word players because at a glance it kind of looks like you are coding.
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Netherlands6181 Posts
I think based on sheer usage, one of my work programs had got to be most used. In going to guess excel and pages are my most used apps, followed by maybe notepad++ from when i thought i was cool enough to do my own websites hardcore. Skype too if we're counting social interaction apps. Actual games i would say dota and starcraft are my most played this year with an unimpressive 300 hours each i think.
Edit: make that last year.
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On January 15 2014 21:00 goody153 wrote:
i can't believe nobody heard the awesome thing called excel!
Pretty decent game, reminds me of the various manager games paired with EVE. It's pretty good.
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What have you paid to remove all the red line and green line, that are in mine, DLC ?
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What do you think of the latest sequel?
Personally, I don't like how they flattened the UI. The fact that they also excluded Mac gamers kind of made me annoyed too...
Then there's that yearly pay2play subscription model. What were they thinking?
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the Dagon Knight4002 Posts
On January 16 2014 22:46 JacobDaKung wrote:
What have you paid to remove all the red line and green line, that are in mine, DLC ?
I actually paid thousands a year for the optional "literature degree" DLC. It comes with an option to turn off the red lines, but I wouldn't say it was worth it in the long run.
On January 16 2014 23:46 jcr2001 wrote:
What do you think of the latest sequel?
Personally, I don't like how they flattened the UI. The fact that they also excluded Mac gamers kind of made me annoyed too...
It's okay, I think that the usual arrangement is that we get Word a year late, but when we do we basically get it with all the patches and DLC for free, which isn't so bad. Still frustrating to know that all of my friends are already competing in the newest version of Word and I can't download their replays properly 
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Oh man, Sir Jolt, I love your blog posts!
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That got me pretty hard. Ctrl-z'ing makes you a hacker in this game btw.
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On January 15 2014 01:23 lichter wrote:
I use notepad like I still play Dune 2
notepad for life.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On January 15 2014 01:16 fusefuse wrote:
Dont forget about the indie spinoffs like OpenOffice
While inferior in UI, the featureset is pretty sick still and its free
Im all about that openoffice life.
Fun blog =]
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Very good writeup! I, however, feel the need to point you towards the latest expansion of the ad-on(?); SharePoint 2013, witch (if used in conjunction with the application) adds some multiplayer features such as co-op multiplayer.
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5/5 would read again!
However, I am surprised no one has mentioned the balance issues yet. I feel like wordart is not strong enough for beginners. Furthermore, fonts such as Helvetica and Comic Sans are just ridiculous.
MS Word killing esports!
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On January 15 2014 03:07 SirJolt wrote:
I used Word's "resume from replay" feature to edit the text later. Pretty sick, I know
Oh wow. Did you go through the campaign though? I even increased difficulty via enabling "pictures" (great mod!)
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All you people hating on either word or google docs. I play both games and think both are fine.
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I hate when casualware like this diminishes the real games, like vim. Much higher skillcap, far more customizability, free to play while staying high quality. I guess word works for some people though.
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Rofl wow, i didnt know you could even get word on steam.
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They keep releasing new versions every year though. Feels like they don't get much better than the next and the series is just trying to get our money.
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Yeah but on top of heaving new features, you can still load up your save files from earlier versions of word and still play them. That alone is amazing, what other games allow you to do that?
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This whole thread made me giggle like a baby.
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Haha SirJolt so good. I personally use more lightweight games like Text Edit (Don't hate me because I'm Mac) and Sublime Text. Personally I am more of a modder when it comes to games so I like to keep it open source so I can customize it. Multiline select and write for the win!!!! Boosts my WPM like no other.
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EPT
