Din’s Curse may look like a generic Diablo clone which doesn’t have the same graphical chops that Titan Quest had, but peel through the layers of poor presentation(mainly the graphics) and what you find is quite a unique action RPG. It’s still pretty much the same Diablo formula but with a few interesting twists.
The key selling point of Din’s Curse is the Dynamic nature of the game world. Diablo and Torchlight offered dynamic dungeons that was built differently each time you visited them, Din’s Curse however takes this to the next level. Your entire town, its populace and all the quests in the game are generated.
Prior to starting the game, you set up how you want your town to be, from the starting monster levels to the overall difficulty of the generated world. Once that’s done, what happens next in the town depends on your reputation level and some randomness. The reputation system is really important as I assume it is what generates the type of quests you receive and even NPC’s in your town. Sadly in the demo, your reputation is limited to only 1, so you wont be seeing many other types of generated quests.
Each town has a dungeon which like Torchlight, is a multi leveled underground dungeon. The underground dungeons aren’t just littered with dangerous critters, but the dungeon itself is a health hazard. Earthquakes could happen and a lot of sections are held using supporting beams. It manages to put forth a convincing display of just how fragile and hazardous such places should really be, which is something lacking in most Diablo clones.
While you’re on your dungeon raids, you’ll get updated on what's happening back in town in a news ticker type thing. Just like watching the stock on Bloomberg or CNBC, you’ll be constantly updated on what's hot and what's not in your town. Maybe some trader has left the town or the town wants to build a statue, which often means a new quests and new stuff.
There’s more to the system behind how the denizen of your town decide to move out or move in. It depends on their happiness, wealth and prosperity of the town. This isn’t documented in the demo, but was mentioned by the developers here. This makes Din’s Curse a very replayable game as there is a lot of variety on the stuff that you can get in game. I only wished it showed how well a town was doing in a more direct manner(like a town prosperity screen or something). Perhaps I’m a little spoiled by all the strategy games I play.
What you wont get however is a compelling narrative(story) like what Blizzard does with its games. The incredibly dynamic systems means it’s hard to weave an interesting story with the NPC quests and the overarching storyline. The main storyline basically involves the God of Honour, Din, who has put a curse on your protagonist. You’ll have to do quests for him to make him end this curse. I have no idea how this story turns out(this is the demo after all).
The inventory system is a little more limited than other loot whoring games. You start out with a back pack that only has 16 slots. You can extend this by adding pouches which add another 4 extra slots each. You really have to think which items to pick up due to the limited space. I got used to this pretty quickly(this was a minor annoyance in the beginning when I expected this to be like all other loot whoring games).
Din’s Curse has got the same addictive formula that the best of this genre offers. I played this demo for a very long time until I realised the limitation on the reputation thing which kind of put a damper on things. The demo does a great job of giving you a flavour of what Din’s Curse is all about. It’s easy to get into and sink your teeth in. If you’re a fan of action RPG’s, you should check it out.
Download the demo here.
Din’s Curse is going for USD$19.99 and has a 30 day money back guarantee.
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