Depths of Peril
Depth of Peril has a lot of great, even innovative, ideas behind it. The genre combination it represents are the types of revolutions that potentially define new genres, and turn others on their ears. As a student of game theory and design, I find this a fascinating experiment. It’s too bad that it’s so awful to look at.
The avatars don't have all their polygons in the right places.
It really is a good idea. Soldak, the developer, has taken a Diablo-esque dungeon crawl, complete with multiple classes, intricate skill trees, and equippable henchman and combined it with a diplomatic strategy element akin to what you would find in Sid Meier’s Civilization. There are between three and seven other factions (called covenants) which are adventuring in the same land as your own group, vying for the same monsters and cool items, earning experience, and trying to take over the land. The game is not won by finishing the story (of which there seems to be little), but instead, the goal is to rule the town, which can be accomplished either by killing all the other covenants or by allying with all the ones left alive. This is very similar to the diplomatic and strategic goals of a game like Civilization. Unfortunately, as cool as all this sounds, it’s not quite implemented well enough to meet the standards set by its contemporaries, even in the low budget/indie market.
The diplomacy screen looks like Civ I.
The first major issue is the artwork. I want to be clear: I’m not talking about the graphics. I’m not talking about the resolution or the rendering or anything based on the technology in the engine. That stuff is fine. It’s the artwork itself. The characters have plenty of polygons, but they’re in odd places, especially on their heads. The plants and walls and obstacles are all clearly rendered, and fade in and out at the right times, but they look out of place. The avatar’s costume changes color, but not basic design when you change armors. The colors on everything are too contrasting in many places (character costumes, flat landscapes), and not contrasting enough in many other places (obstacle strewn dungeons, area borders). There is no real customization of the avatar (not even gender or hair-color, now staples of the genre). The background and borders in the diplomacy screens look like they came directly from 1995. These are not issues that require better coding, or investment in better technology. These things could have been fixed simply with better art direction. There is no excuse for these kind of lazy visual design mistakes in a modern game, no matter the budget.
Much of the dialog is oddly phrased, stilted, or just grammatically incorrect. At first, I figured that it was an issue of translation, but the game designer is in the US, so it’s actually just alack of proofreading, another inexcusable problem for a modern game to have. Seriously, there are hundreds of great artists and writers out there who would volunteer to be part of a project like this.
What at first seems like bad translation is actually just careless proofing.
There are also a few issues with the controls. They’re little things, but there are several of them, and they are all things which could have easily have been done differently by the developer. For example, as in other games in this genre, the player can line up a sequence of spells and abilities in numbered slots on the bottom of the screen. Usually you can either click on the skill in the bar or push the corresponding number on the keyboard. In Depths of Peril, clicking on the slots themselves does nothing. This is so counter to the rest of the genre that at first I thought my PC was glitching.
Don't bother clicking on the skill bar. It doesn't do anything.
The campaign is odd, as well. The character is the leader of a covenant who wants to rule a barbarian city. The only way to do this is to kill or ally with the other covenants. The way to defeat other covenants is to go to their house, and destroy their life crystal, which stops then from respawning, and thus from being a threat. The battles for these stones, however are, for lack of a better term, lame: Run or teleport into the enemy house. Attack their stone. Die. Repeat thirty times. It’s simply boring, and since it’s such a major part of the game, this becomes a big flaw that stands out starkly against the awesome item management system, random dungeons and items, and many monsters that make the adventuring part of the game work. In fact, the destruction of the life crystal being such a major part of the game is one of the flaws in itself. Even in diplomacy games like Civilization, there are more ways to win than just kill everyone or make them work for you. This game is in desperate need of more ways to be successful.
The adventuring could be fun once you look past the visual flaws, but it’s difficult to get into it because the only reason to be out there is to gain an advantage over the other covenants, and the best strategy, if all you want to do is ‘win’, is to just repeatedly attack the enemy crystals until they explode, even if it takes a while. I played several sessions through without ever leaving the town.
Finally, I’m not sure I understand why the character wants to rule this town. The whole place is just eight covenant houses, and four merchants. Not much of an empire, and no hint that this is just an outpost of some kind. This is the whole thing.
The variety of items is great, and there are plenty of equipment slots.
The variety of items is great, and there are plenty of equipment slots.
Pursuit
The storyline is too straightforward, and doesn’t give the player much motivation to actually go adventuring. The Randomized locations are a bit wasted, as most locations are just big empty spaces with random scenery. The item system is cool, but the party management system could use more work.
Panorama
The graphics are okay, but the artwork and design are well below par, even occasionally reaching a point of being annoying.
Noise
The soundtrack is occasionally grating, as many of the sound effects are repetitive and harsh. There is only so many times I need to hear my character grunt with pain.
Reins
Some of the controls are a bit counter-intuitive, and the path-following leaves a bit to be desired in some circumstances.
Encoding
The dialog is awkward, and the back stories are full of grammar mistakes. The only bug I noticed was with one of the mission types. If you are sent to rescue someone, the monsters wont start attacking that NPC until you get close (which makes sense), but if you get close on the other side of a wall in a dungeon, you will often be unable to get to them in time to protect them.
Last Word
Pick this one up if the concept sounds really interesting and you think you can look past some of these issues to the neat dynamic underneath. Otherwise, wait for another developer to pick-up the idea and implement it better.
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