Torchlight: I’m pretty sure my cat is skimming off the top
I like games that know what they are. They mix cliché into common tropes sprinkled with formula and don’t apologize for it. These game makers cherry-pick fun mechanics from other games along with designs that work well and put them into their own creations.
The game I’m thinking about specifically is Torchlight. An action RPG, the game can easily be accused of being a Diablo clone. In fact a couple of the staff at Runic Games, the developers of Torchlight, were among the designers of that original groundbreaking game. While comparisons are many, Torchlight is a tight, well-designed game unto its own.
I never really played Diablo. I’ve watched friends play but that particular genre never interested me; it’s too much like the classic game Gauntlet where you’re just whacking enemies to death without strategy. Torchlight isn’t much different, but after seeing that it was on sale for $5, I couldn’t resist picking up a copy.
What began as a purchase off of a whim turned out to be one of the best buys I’ve made in a while. Torchlight is very accessible and doesn’t require a lot of commitment: the perfect “time waster”. It’s a game that can be picked up and put down at any time as there’s no real story to it. You get into the action right from the start of the game.
Torchlight’s main focus is what draws me back into it repeatedly – collecting loot and earning experience points. You’re continually trying to find better armor, spells, weapons, and magic items. As you earn experience points from killing monsters, you level up and gain special powers to aid you in your fighting. The game is great at creating a feeling of “just a little further”; you want to delve a bit deeper into the caves and dungeons of Torchlight just to see what you can get next.
Games that incentivize players with loot are nothing new but Torchlight’s method for handling the sale of items you find uses a simple but fantastic mechanic. You have a pet cat or dog who follows you around and helps you fight monsters. You load your pet up with items you want to sell, send them back to town, and within a minute or two the pet returns with the gold from the sale (I can’t help but wonder if my pet cat keeps a cut for himself).
It’s a simple idea but amazing to anyone who’s played a RPG. In most games, once you reach the limit on the amount of items you can carry you have to stop what you’re doing and return to a town to sell them. Or worse, if you’re in a place where you’re unable to return, or return quickly, you have to start deciding between items as you find more stuff. In Torchlight you never have to sacrifice potential gold to avoid stopping your adventure.
Again there’s nothing particularly ground-breaking about Torchlight but that isn’t a bad thing. The game is fun, you can buy it for a low price, and you can pick it up and put it down at your leisure.
