Din’s Curse

Along the years, at least two clichés have been created in the world of computer games: the clones of Doom and the clones of Diablo. We are not talking about FPS (First Person Shooter) games here to I will go back in time to Diablo, the series which has defined the hack’n'slash and has killed generations of rodents since 1997.

This recipe, as simple as popular, has inspired Steven Peeler also (ex Ritual Entertainment) to start a small independent studio, Soldak Entertainment. In 2004 we received from them RPG action from Depths of Peril and Kivi’s Underworld, and the odyssey continues with Din’s Curse.

The god of honor from the land of Alera is mad at you (the hero) because you have wasted your life with all sort of nonsense, so he revives you and ties you to a curse: not to rest until you wash away your sins through good acts. In this case, good acts mean saving a number of cities from evil threats which come from the underground, each city saved improves your reputation. In the end, when Din is declared thanked, you are free from your curse and that’s it. From this point of view, the story from Kivi’s Underworld seems more enthusiastic, something better than an excuse to send you in caverns to kill monsters (even though this is a good reason too).

The word to describe the game is “random”: all sort of root fells like a raining storm, the cities are randomly generated and so are the underground levels which can have nine, eleven or thirteen caverns, depending on your luck. The main missions come from the god Din and other three NPC, whose survival is essential for saving the city. From this point of view, a great trump is the dynamic world. Because the time in Aleria never stops even if you went to the city to sell some objects and fill your stock of potions.

On the contrary, at level 5 you can miss a mission because you did not manage to save a NPC, while at level 8 a riot may happen. Or you can go ahead and clean the level 3 when you suddenly realize that the city is attacked by level 10 Bloodsavage and you must go back fast, or else everything goes down. Also, all kind of characters come and go out of the city so you might run into a merchant in some underground corner.

Different missions can be met even without being accepted, like saving a NPC which is attacked by zombies or killing a boss. As the maximum quest number which can be accepted at the same time is only six, this approach helps to speed up the gameplay and gain a reputation.