Realm of the Mad God is a chaotic mess. It's also a game that makes it hard to step away.

Described as a "co-op fantasy MMO shooter," it's a free-to-play browser game with an emphasis on loot. You wander around a pixelated landscape with dozens of other players, fighting evil snakes, pirates, and cubes, all in the hopes of meeting the Mad God himself. It's frantic and messy, but with its multiple classes to unlock, plentiful gear to collect, and perma-death, it's also a tense and addictive experience.

It all starts in the nexus, a hub-world that holds the various areas of the Mad God's realm together. Here you can buy new gear (using a premium, for-pay currency) and teleport off to areas to explore and battle. It's also something of a virtual flea market. Huddled masses of other players offer up goods for gold, and you can even find items for free if you're quick enough. Because ROTMG puts a severe limit on the amount of items you can carry—aside from four equipped pieces of gear, you can only hold eight other items—players will often simply drop goods on the ground to create space, creating a rush of scavengers looking to find out just what's in that brown sack on the floor. Most of it is junk, but there's always the chance you'll find a gem.

Once you transport to an area, the combat is simple enough. You move with the WASD keys and aim and attack with the mouse. At first it all feels pretty aimless. You simply wander around, attacking enemies as you come across them, collecting gear and experience points. Other players will wander around, too, but you have little interaction with them.

Occasionally a quest will pop up: an arrow directing you toward one of the Mad God's more powerful minions. The idea is that once players manage to defeat all of these quest bosses, they will eventually be transported to fight the Mad God himself. We never got that far, though. Because the thing about ROTMG is that when you die, you die for good.

This permanent death makes caution the preferable mode of operation. Rushing into an unknown situation feels all the more tense when you know that you could potentially lose a character and all of its gear for good. And this is where the co-op comes into play.

ROTMG doesn't necessarily feel like an MMO. You'll see other players rushing about, but the interaction is minimal. However, sometimes it's preferable to follow groups. It's easy to find yourself in a situation where you're overwhelmed by enemies, and sticking with other players is often a good idea. But once an enemy is dead, it's those same players who will be racing to get whatever loot drops first. It's a strange relationship; once there's loot to be had, it's every wizard (or necromancer, or knight) for themselves.

For all of its confusion and, well, madness, ROTMG has that same appeal of games like Diablo and Torchlight. Building up your character is a reward in and of itself, and it becomes even more important when you know that, with one wrong decision, that character could be gone for good. So when you see a high level sorcerer wandering around, it's hard not to find yourself in a state of awe. Just don't let it distract you for too long, or you'll be right back at level one.

Listing image by Opening image courtesy Wild Shadow Studios