Depths of Peril - Completed

While it's nothing special in the graphics department, and some of the controls can be a bit of a pain, such as targeting in combat, Depths of Peril is a surprisingly enjoyable game. A combination of hack and slash adventure ala Diablo and Civ style diplomacy, the game has a fair bit of depth to it.

Your town is made up of a number of houses, each ruled by a hero like yourself, and each vying for supremacy, both in power and in influence. You can trade with each other, form pacts and alliance, fortify your base with NPCs and hired beasts, and of course, go to war with each other.

The dungeon crawling part of the game is pretty straight forward. You get random level appropriate quests from people in town, and venture into the wilderness and associated dungeons. You can meet NPCs fighting for their lives out in the wild and get them to join up with you or get them to join you by doing quests from town, and they can either defend your base, or one of them can join you adventuring, thus leveling themselves up in the process. Of course there the usual Diablo loot system to keep things interesting as well, which you can also spread the loot around to your NPCs which is a nice feature.

After each 'game', you start again with a different and tougher set of houses to beat, keeping your hirelings, money, and loots from the previous game. While none of the elements are perfect, the combination works really well, and makes for an engaging game with a fair bit of life in it.