GameBoomers has published a new interview with Soldak Entertainment's Steven Peeler about Din's Curse, the company's upcoming action RPG. In Din's Curse players take the role of an adventurer cursed to walk the lands in a quest for redemption. The game features 141 possible class combinations, an infinite number of dynamically generated towns, and a game world directly impacted by player choices.

Q: How do foes and boss characters level in comparison with your character and can we expect some particularly interesting challenges?
A: Monsters will of course get progressively tougher as you progress through the game. They don't auto scale with the player though which is what this question reminds me of.

Oh, there will be plenty of challenges. To me, the interesting part is that each game's challenges will be different. In one game, the undead might get out of control and infect the entire town. In another game, after preparing for a tough boss fight, the boss might get overthrown by a different, harder boss. In another game, you might run into an entire group of unique monsters at the same time.

Q: In reading the summary of Din’s Curse, it sounds like the game’s environments are randomly generated and your interaction impacts the game as you progress; I’ve always found that style of gaming fascinating. Can you tell us something about the creative process that goes into building such a game world?
A: Yes, the environment is randomly created and randomly populated with items, monsters, quests, and objects that are appropriate for that particular area. You will never see the same setup multiple times.

Once setup though, your actions, NPCs' actions, and the monsters' actions are what progresses the game. If war is brewing and you are asked to stop it before it breaks out, your actions really will impact what happens. If you are successful, you will save the area from becoming a war zone. If you fail, the area will be ravaged by a war. Players need to remember that lack of action is also an action. If you don't stamp out an uprising in time, they will likely find something interesting to do, like raid the town.

From the creative side of things, this type of game is a bit different from creating a linear game. In a linear game, you have full placement control and you are explicitly setting up interactions, so you know what to expect. In a game like ours, just about anything can happen. I have to think about all of the pieces individually and collectively. Is this going to be fun and cool? How is this going to impact everything else? If these two objects are placed next to each other will they interact like the player expects? What happens if the player ignores this quest for too long? What happens when they succeed? What happens if they fail a quest? Can they fail this quest? In general, how does this quest lead to other quests?

GameBoomers: Din's Curse Q&A

Soldak Entertainment (add to watch list)

Din's Curse (add to watch list)

Buy Din's Curse

Search for other Mac games news stories or browse our Mac Games News Archive.