For those of you who were big Risk fans as a kid (or, lets be honest, as an adult), Warfish is a very addictive, very simple but very scalable online game that lets you play games of world domination against your friends online.
The idea behind warfish is just like Risk: you get a map, claim territories, place armies, attack and defend and try and take over the world. Warfish takes it up a notch by letting you customize games in a nearly infinite number of ways. You can customize:
- The number of players.
- Play in teams, or everyone for themselves.
- Limit the number of times you attack, number of armies per territory, number of transfers…
- How much cards are woth
- Whether territories can be “abandoned” so you don’t have to leave one army behind.
While you start with a very basic map, called the “Pre-Beta Board” (pictured above, and I have no idea where the name comes from, but it’s basically the same as an original Risk map), you can also play on any of the hundreds of boards that people create and post online. We’ve played on boards for WWII Europe, the Middle East, the White House floorplan, Metro DC, and a few completely random made-up maps. My friend Sean even created a Virginia Counties map (which was a lot of fun for a political dork like me).
The best part about Warfish is the timing element. While it can still be a major timesink, you don’t have to be online playing 24/7 to have a lot of fun. When it’s your turn, Warfish sends you an email with a link so you can logon and play. When you’re done with your turn, that’s it; you can log off, walk away and wait until it’s your turn again. Or, you can keep hitting refresh seeing what your opponents are doing……but that reintroduces the timesink element 
There’s a lot more to Warfish, including tournaments and profiles, but you have to sign up and experience it to really get a feel. Care to play a game? Sign-up for an invite using my recruitment network link (to keep Spammers away, Warfish is invite only).
Also check out the games I’m currently playing below (this is using a public google reader feed, so I apologize that it’s a giant pain in the ass to view. You can also see it in a new window.)
