Din’s Curse: Demon War Review

Din’s Curse and its expansion, Demon War, have been the subject of the review treatment yet again, this time courtesy of RPGFan, which seems to be favorably impressed with Soldak Entertainment’s efforts, and awards the package a very solid 80%. Sampling ahead:

All elements of a town, from its name and the names of the NPCs to the villains and the quests, are randomly generated. Nothing about the town is static. If you just stand around, all kinds of stuff starts to happen. The villain on the 8th floor of the dungeon down there? He’s not just sitting there waiting for you to come kill him. He’s building some horrible thunderstorm machine. Or raising undead. Or opening gateways to more demons. That NPC there? He’s not just standing around. He might actually be starving. Or he might see the arrival of the hero, once you’ve proven yourself a bit, as a good chance to get a mining operation started.

Each town really does live and breathe in Din’s Curse, and perhaps even more importantly, each dungeon. When you set foot in your first dungeon you’ll probably see a major difference right away between Din’s Curse and Torchlight or Diablo or other hack and slashers like this there is an entire ecosystem at play here. The enemies aren’t just waiting for you to kill them. In many cases they are fighting each other, gaining their own experience and getting stronger themselves! Even the townsfolk can manage to fend off a stray demon or two.

In this sense, Din’s Curse provides the player with a true sense of urgency. While you need to take time to gather loot, prep in the town, and take care of the occasional starving NPC, at the same time every second you spend doing one of those things is a second you are giving evil to grow stronger.

There are endless stories to be found here because of this gameplay. The story above is adapted from a town I miserably failed to save while playing for this review (names have been changed to honor the dead/hide my shame). But if you give Din’s Curse a try you’ll have many moments like this yourself. Moments where you are so very close to finding that key villain to stop him from building some earthquake machine, only to receive word that two more townspeople are starving AND a demon horde just broke through a few levels up and is storming toward the dungeon entrance. Do you turn around and stop them? Do you plod forward and hope the townsfolk can hold them off long enough for you to kill the source?