Now Updated to Version 2

Vicky: What's that? It looks like Final Fantasy.

Me: No, it's a game called Aveyond.

Vicky (after watching for several minutes): It looks fun. Can I play?

Vicky's right; Aveyond does play a lot like Final Fantasy--maybe about V, since the graphics are 2D sprites in an oblique overhead view. It's a game you wouldn't be surprised to find on your SNES or Genesis.

Insect Warrior Tactics

Remember a few years ago when there was a spate of animated movies featuring bugs? There's a reason for that, actually; it's fairly easy to animate chitonous creatures in 3D, since the body sections are rigid. And it's also fairly easy even for an indie developer to use 3D, if what they're animating are bugs. Which no doubt was one of the reasons Wahoo/NinjaBee chose insects for the heroes of this title. The choice is a fortuitous one, though, since it lends itself to the developers' light humorous touch -- which was very evident in their earlier (and excellent) tycoon game, Outpost Kaloki.

Is it possible to design an online game so that communication, community, story-telling, and the genuine playing of roles is core and essential to the experience?

Of course it is. You just won't get the $40m budget you need for a big commercial title out of the philistines who rule our industry today unless you want, in essence, to imitate World of Warcraft.

Enter Skotos, and Castle Marrach.

Out-Compete Those Other Heroes

At first glance, Depths of Peril is a Diablo-esque RPG. You control a single character of the usual range of classes (warrior, mage, cleric, rogue); you go out on quests to surrounding areas, slaying lots of monsters, earning XP and money that you can use to improve stats and equipment. Combat is fast, Diablo rather than Final Fantasy, and there's the same huge range of variety in equipment and magic items.

But -- layered atop this are AI opponents that remind us of the opponents in Railroad Tycoon. You control a "covenant," which consists of you and up to 5 other characters you recruit (and incidentally, you can take one along with you when you go adventuring, which is extremely useful). Each of the other covenants -- up to 5 of them -- is busy adventuring and building up their own heroes' stats and equipment while you are.

The Best Puzzle Game of All Time

Or so says the Mathematics Association of America, and who are we to disagree?

To call it a puzzle game is inadequate, however; the DROD (Deadly Rooms of Death) games are sui generis, and about the only quick way to describe them is as "Gauntlet meets Sokoban."

Caravel Games describes the DROD (Deadly Rooms of Death) series as "dungeon crawls for thinkers," and that's what they are--an oddly compelling combination of puzzle solving and the dungeon experience.

The First True Interactive Drama

For decades, true interactive fiction--an application in which characters' responses to a player's input are determined algorithmically rather than via prescripted sequences, and in which valid stories emerge regardless of player action--has been a holy grail for AI researchers, digital artists, and game developers alike.

Most attempts to solve the problem have been "top down," that is, attempting to handle all sorts of stories, all sorts of personalities, and all sorts of potential actions. The results have generally been never more than mildly interesting.

Andy Stern and Michael Mateas, however, chose to try to solve a specific problem, rather than the general one. They chose a story with one setting (an apartment), two NPCs (a husband and wife), one basic conflict (their marriage is on the rocks), and a limited time frame (you are a friend of the family, visiting them over the course of an evening). By narrowing the focus this way, they were actually to solve the problem. Not, to be sure, in a way that solves the general problem--but in a way that makes of Façade the first really interesting work of true interative fiction.

Game Tunnel's 2006 RPG of the Year

FastCrawl is what the name suggests: a quick-playing dungeon crawler, perfect for a way to kill your lunch hour. One of the parameters you set at game-start, in fact, is whether you want a short, medium, or long game; short ones last about 30 minutes, while long ones last perhaps an hour.

The gameplay is Rogue-like, except that this is, of course, a game with an intuitive 2D interface with decent graphics, playable almost entirely with a mouse--almost like a NetHack designed for the casual game crowd. Dungeons, opponents, and items are randomly generated each time; each turn consumes a unit of supply, and while you can find more in the dungeon, the net effect is to limit the length of gameplay. And unlike most Rogue-likes, you control a party of characters instead of a single one. All in all, a nice, fast-playing hack'n'slash experience.

Q: What's Grendel's Revenge?

A: Grendel's Revenge is an online storytelling game created by Worlds Apart Productions in conjunction with Skotos Tech Inc. It first opened for beta release on May 6, 2002. It is a game set in a high fantasy world where monsters are the heroes and evil adventurers need to be put in their place. It contains strong roleplaying and achievement elements.

Excellent Total-Conversion Mod for Jagged Alliance 2

Urban Chaos is a first-rate mod for Jagged Alliance 2--and if you like that game and have played it through, what's not to like about essentially getting a whole new campaign to play for free?