Kill Time With The Continuum

Build and battle armies in your browser.

The Continuum is a free-to-play, massive online war game that lets you build and train armies, then pit them against other players. There's an optional mechanic that lets players add new, sometimes rare, characters to their army. But it's totally possible to play with your starting charcters and level them all the way up to their maximum. So if you're a cheapskate, The Continuum isn't going to try chasing you away with a bat. Yet.

The game just went live, but I was treated to a tour of the beta last week with Seven Lights CEO Tim Harris. The game is quite customizable. Played totally in-browser, the The Continuum gives you tons of tools for building your own armies (kinda like building a card deck). But on top tweaking your line-ups you can really get your hands dirty customize individual units. Each has its own talent tree that you can spec to your preferences. You can then name the guy whatever you want. Basically, you can take two identical units and tweak them to be quite different. The game also features equippable weapons and gear - a whole 'nother layer of customizability that will help make no two armies alike.

Once you've got your armies squared away, you pit them against other players in real-time online matches. Players hang in a lobby, challenge other players, agree on win conditions and other rules, then go to battle.

Because player interactions are vital, The Continuum's developers are serious about creating and maintaining a community around their game. Players can infuence the game's ongoing story: Already, several players have made their way into the comic book series that Seven Lights publishes to supplement the action that occurs online.

The game also records and reproduces your in-game statistics, rewards players with achievment-style tags and has its own in-game money, Element, that can be used not only to buy new characters, but also get access to exclusive content, enter tournaments and other nifty stuff.

Strategy-minded players who savor tweaking and building armies or card decks, then testing them against opponants are going to dig this ambitious game. It's meaty.

Go to The Continuum's website to sign up and start playing.

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