April Fools' Day

Each year on April 1st, things in the Kingdom of Loathing are a little different than normal.

In addition, as of 2009, the tiny costume wardrobe is available from Mr. Store, and since 2011, The Spectral Pickle Factory becomes accessible.

Dates

• April Fool's Day I: April 1, 2005 (Starch 7, Year 9)
• April Fool's Day II: April 1, 2006 (Jarlsuary 4, Year 13)
• April Fool's Day III: April 1, 2007 (Boozember 1, Year 16)
• April Fool's Day IV: April 1, 2008 (Petember 7, Year 20)
• April Fool's Day V: April 1, 2009 (Bill 4, Year 24)
• April Fool's Day VI: April 1, 2010 (April 1, Year 28)
• April Fool's Day VII: April 1, 2011 (Jarlsuary 6, Year 32)
• April Fool's Day VIII: April 1, 2012 (Boozember 4, Year 36)
• April Fool's Day IX: April 1, 2013 (Carlvember 1, Year 39)
• April Fool's Day X: April 1, 2014 (Bill 6, Year 43)
• April Fool's Day XI: April 1, 2015 (April 3, Year 47)
• April Fool's Day XII: April 1, 2016 (Frankruary 1, Year 51)
• April Fool's Day XIII: April 1, 2017 (Boozember 6, Year 54)
• April Fool's Day XIV: April 1, 2018 (Carlvember 3, Year 58)
• April Fool's Day XV: April 1, 2019 (Bill 8, Year 62)
• April Fool's Day XVI: April 1, 2020 (April 6, Year 66)
• April Fool's Day XVII April 1, 2021 (Frankuary 3, Year 70)
• April Fool's Day XVIII April 1, 2022 (Boozember 8, Year 73)
• April Fool's Day XIX: April 1, 2023 (Carlvember 5, Year 77)
• April Fool's Day XXX: April 1, 2024 (Bor 3, Year 81)
• April Fool's Day: April 1, 2025 (April 8, Year 85) (predicted)

2005

• Site Announcement:

  The announcement "In an effort to increase revenue, a small number of tasteful and unobtrusive advertisements have been added to the site." was posted and one of the following (quite hilarious) ads were randomly added to the upper left of the character pane each time it refreshed.

• Combat Sponsors:

  In addition, rounds of combat were preceded by the text, "This round of combat brought to you by:", after which appeared one of the following ads:

• Special Items:

  The emo roe was available for purchase in Mr. Store just for this one day.

• The Spectral Pickle Factory:

  Also, the Spectral Pickle Factory appeared in the the Nearby Plains, but was inaccessible.

2006

• Site changes:

  When accessing http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/, the page appearing was changed from the regular login page to a parody of an atrocious domain-squatting directory site. Clicking on its title led you to http://www.site-pimp.com/, a web site owned by Jick which contained even more hilarious content. Any of the "domain squatting" links on the fake "directory site" took you to the legitmate KoL login screen.

• Forum changes:
  • The Ring of Flame was pushed to the top of the KoL forums.
  • Several new, hybrid forums were created, such as "Gameplay-Ramblings", "Random-Discussion", and "The junk pile-mod forum". Anarchy reigned. Gameplay-Discussion and Random Ramblings were nowhere to be found.
  • When you posted in the forums, "the" would be changed to "TEH", "are" to "R" and "you" to "U".
• Special Adventures:
  • All ultra rare adventures were appearing in the appropriate areas at non-rare frequencies and "forgetting" to drop the rare.

  [icon] You acquire an item: Fatal error: Call to undefined function giveitem() in /var/www/virtuals/www.kingdomofloathing.com/htdocs/fight.php on line 5035

So many people were boasting about about finding ultra-rare monsters, then getting angry that the rare wasn't dropped "because of a bug", that the mods started getting sick of it and banning people who mentioned ultra-rares. This backfired when one player was banned for boasting about meeting an ultra-rare monster which actually turned out to be the real thing. He was unbanned after equipping the Talisman of Baio he had just found. (Also, due to a genuine bug, this was in fact the first ultra-rare that had dropped in three months anywhere.)

• • Among these ultra rare encounters was Count Bakula in the Misspelled Cemetary, who had never appeared before, and who appeared to drop a Talisman of Bakula (except with the above Fatal error message). The Count Bakula was later discovered to be a real ultra rare adventure.
• Special Items:

  McPhee's Grimoire of Hilarious Object Summoning was available for purchase in Mr. Store as April's item of the month. The grimoire grants the skill Summon Hilarious Objects which allows a player to summon (classic April Fool's) joke objects like whoopie cushions. It was thought to be specific to April Fools Day (Like the emo roe before it) but has since stayed in the store, making it a legitimate Item of the Month.

• The Spectral Pickle Factory:

  The Spectral Pickle Factory appeared in the Distant Woods, but clicking on its image had no effect. However, users who clicked on its usual location in the Nearby Plains (despite the fact that their mouse cursor did not change to indicate a link) were rewarded with the rare opportunity to explore the factory, battle its inhabitants, and gather the valuable spectral pickle ingredients within.

2007

• Kingdom of Loathing Announcement:

  "March 31
  April's Item-of-the-Day... er... Month is in Mr. Store.
  Also, click here to check out our exclusive sneak preview of NS13 content. It's exciting!"

• Supposed NS13 content:

  Lies ;)

• April's item of the month:

  Bad penguin eggs became available at Mr. Store. The KoL news announcement suggested that they were going to be available for one day only; that, too, was a lie.

• Special Items:

  The Traveling Trader appeared in town with Deactivated O. A. F.s on sale for 100 twinkly wads each.

• Weird summons:

  The skill Summon Snowcones yielded yellow snowcones only. Summon Hilarious Objects on the other hand produced regular snowcones.

2008

• Kingdom of Loathing Announcement:

"March 31
April's Item-of-the-Salad is now available in Mr. Store."

• Site changes:
  • During maintenance, the Kingdom became the Kingdom of Salad.
  • Most effect, avatar, monster, adventure and item pictures became replaced with images of a bowl of salad.
    • The Petite Porter, Scrawny Stout and Infinitesimal IPA drinks from the Gnomish Micromicrobrewery were unchanged.
    • The first and third forms of the Naughty Sorceress were replaced with the bowl of salad, however, the second form remained the same as normal.
    • K-mails sent with item(s) on this day retain the original salad picture even though the event is over.
  • In combat fumble messages, <body parts> were replaced with salad ingredients, like raspberry vinaigrette, fresh ground pepper, etc.
  • Random words in monster and item descriptions were replaced with "salad".
  • Players with a "KoL Player Pic" in their profile had their photo replaced with a photograph of a salad (one of five types -- a normal salad, a bread salad, a meat "salad", a fruit salad or a cheese "salad").
• Forum Changes:
  • The forums were changed to "Forums of Salad" and all of the public subforums had their names changed (e.g., Kingdom Community became "Fruit Salad" and the Ring of Flame became the "Circle of Friendship and Love")
  • Some moderators had their names changed to the names of infamous users; John Crerar became Pappabear (after Pappabear, a player who is banned from the KoL forums), and Hogulus became xsmootx (after xSmootx, another player who is banned from the KoL forums).
  • All the threads in RR were deleted and some users were jokingly banned.
• The Spectral Salad Factory:

The Spectral Salad Factory appeared in the Nearby Plains, in the same location where the Spectral Pickle Factory has previously appeared. The Salad Factory contained only one adventure, dropping one delicious salad per adventure.

2009

• Site Changes:
  • Every single holiday occurred, excluding the ones exclusively tied to the real world calendar such as Crimbo, Groundhog Day, and Talk Like a Pirate Day (though, oddly enough, including Friday the 13th).
  • Although Labór Day was announced on the main page, players did not receive the extra ten adventures.
  • Multi-colored text began appearing in chat. Early on it would just be a single word here or there, but as time progressed the frequency of colored words increased. In addition to colors, some words would occasionally blink. By rollover, practically all of chat was affected.
• Special Items:
  • The tiny costume wardrobe was first available for purchase in Mr. Store.

2010

• Site Changes:
  • Your familiar will transform into one of the April Fools' Familiars at the start of combat.
    • These include:
      1. Bank Piggy -- Takes 100 Meat every round, then returns the meat taken with 5% interest at end of combat (if you win. Try not to lose!)
      2. Egg Benedict -- Attacks you at the end of combat for 50% of your max HP. Even if your HP drops to zero as a result of its attack, you still win the fight.
      3. Floating Eye -- Paralyzes your foe or you, each turn. If you're paralyzed, your opponent will not miss, regardless of how high your moxie is. If you use a skill, the eye will always paralyze your opponent that turn.
      4. Money-Making Goblin -- Takes meat drops and either gives back double or loses everything.
      5. Oyster Bunny -- Drops an Oyster Egg at the end of combat.
      6. Plastic Grocery Bag -- Does nothing.
      7. Snowhitman -- Deals physical or cold damage, or gives 5 turns of B-b-brr! or Bruised Jaw.
      8. Vampire Bird -- Deals physical or hot damage during combat. Damages you at the end of combat and gains bonus experience based equal to the square root of your main stat, capped at 15.
      9. Worm Doctor -- Heals you or the foe.
    • Note:However, the Baby Bugged Bugbear was not affected by the April Fool's gag.
  • Usernames in chat changed color
  • The top pane slowly slid off the right side of the screen. If in compact mode, then the leftmost panel slowly slid downwards.
• Special Items:
  • The tiny costume wardrobe was available for purchase in Mr. Store.

2011

• A trophy called Noble Ascetic appeared at the Trophy Hut if a player has less than 10,000 Meat on hand, but could not be purchased, as a trophy costs 10,000 Meat.
• The Spectral Pickle Factory reappeared.
• Special Encounters
  • CDMoyer's butt
  • HotStuff's butt
  • Jick's butt
  • Mr Skullhead's butt
  • Multi Czar's butt
  • Riff's butt
• Some of the forum names at the Forums of Loathing were changed
  • "Kingdom Gameplay-Discussion" to "Wine and Cheese Bar"
  • "Kingdom Community" to "Banana Split Icecream Sundae"
  • "The Lair of Pretentious Artists" to "Cafeteria of Art Students With Abnormally Colored Hair"
  • "Contests" to "The Tournament Yard"
  • "Untitled-1.gfrm" to "Grues Are Making Everyone Silly"
  • "General Asymmetry" to "Specialis Proportio"
  • "The Queen Anne's Revenge" to "Bear Full Of Dens Piano"
• Special Items
  • The tiny costume wardrobe was available for purchase in Mr. Store.

2012

• The Spectral Pickle Factory reappeared.
• Special Encounters
  • Four-shadowed mime
• Special Items
  • The tiny costume wardrobe was available for purchase in Mr. Store.

2013

• The Spectral Pickle Factory reappeared.
• Special Encounters
  • Four-shadowed mime was a wandering monster for the first couple of hours: this was an error and subsequently removed.
• Special Items
  • The tiny costume wardrobe was available for purchase in Mr. Store.

2014

• The Spectral Pickle Factory reappeared.
• Site Changes
  • Added support for Australian browsers. (All the images in the game were flipped upside down.) May be toggled via Options->Interface->Miscellaneous Interface Options->Disable Australia Mode.
  • Multi-colored text began appearing in chat. Unlike the effects from 2009, this seemed to rarely affect most/all words in a single line of chat. It did not get more common over the course of the day, nor did any blinking text show.
• Special Items
  • The tiny costume wardrobe was available for purchase in Mr. Store.

2015

• The Spectral Pickle Factory reappeared.
• Site Changes
  • Multi-colored text began appearing in chat.
• Special Items
  • The tiny costume wardrobe was available for purchase in Mr. Store.

2016

• The Spectral Pickle Factory reappeared.
• Special Items
  • The tiny costume wardrobe was available for purchase in Mr. Store.

2017

• The Spectral Pickle Factory reappeared.
• Site Changes
  • Random words from adventure text were replaced by the word Salad.
• Special Items
  • The tiny costume wardrobe was available for purchase in Mr. Store.

2018

• A special Oyster Egg Day occurred, dropping unique, shining oyster eggs.
• The Spectral Pickle Factory reappeared.
• Site Changes
  • Random words from adventure text were replaced by the word Salad.
  • Multi-colored text began appearing in chat.
• Special Items
  • The tiny costume wardrobe was available for purchase in Mr. Store.

2019

• The Spectral Pickle Factory reappeared.
• Site Changes
  • Random words from choice adventure text were replaced by the word Salad. Other types of adventures are unchanged.
• Special Items
  • The tiny costume wardrobe was available for purchase in Mr. Store.

2020

• The Spectral Pickle Factory reappeared.
• Site Changes
  • Random words from choice adventure text were replaced by the word Salad. Other types of adventures are unchanged.
  • Multi-colored text began appearing in chat.
• Special Items
  • The tiny costume wardrobe was available for purchase in Mr. Store.

2021

• The Spectral Pickle Factory reappeared.
• Site Changes
  • Random words from choice adventure text were replaced by the word Salad. Other types of adventures are unchanged.
• Special Items
  • The tiny costume wardrobe was available for purchase in Mr. Store.

2022

• The Spectral Pickle Factory reappeared.
• Site Changes
  • Random words from choice adventure text were replaced by the word Salad. Other types of adventures are unchanged.
• Special Items
  • The tiny costume wardrobe was available for purchase in Mr. Store.

2023

• The Spectral Pickle Factory reappeared.
• Site Changes
  • Random words from choice adventure text were replaced by the word Salad. Other types of adventures are unchanged.
• Special Items
  • The tiny costume wardrobe was available for purchase in Mr. Store.

2024

• The Spectral Pickle Factory reappeared.
• Site Changes
  • Random words from choice adventure text were replaced by the word Salad. Other types of adventures are unchanged.
• Special Items
  • The tiny costume wardrobe was available for purchase in Mr. Store.