Depths of Peril

Title
Developer
Publisher
Genre
ESRB Rating
Demo Release Date
Full Release Date
Platforms
Official Website
Demo Download Size
Review Date

Depths of Peril
Soldak Entertainment
Soldak Entertainment
Role Playing Game
Not Rated
16th August 2007
5th September 2007 Buy Now
PC (Reviewed), Mac
http://www.soldak.com
68MB
29th July 2008

What did I think before playing?
I had never heard of this and there was no description of what the download was when I got it.

What is included?
From their website:

"In the Depths of Peril demo, you can play all 4 characters, explore the first part of the world, play through part of the storyline, experience a lot of the dynamic world with consequences, and get a taste for the covenant gameplay and it's only around 70MB."

What did I think afterwards?
This is a Diablo-like game, but with a more strategic goal than just killing all the monsters. Your character is the sole member of a "covenant" which has to recruit more members to build up power so that you can raid the neighboring covenants to gain domination of the world.
I picked a Mage and played through some of the missions with most of my time taken up with tutorials and explanations of game mechanics/objects. Playing the demo felt like a tabletop game in that there was a lot to explain due to the relationships between covenants and the goal of the game, along with the characters, equipment, trading, etc.
Throughout the main menus there were lots of "Order Full Version Now" buttons. Clicking them minimized the game client and launched their website. Annoyingly, the game client did not shut down when doing this so you had to go back and properly exit the game. Upon quitting the demo the same website popped up anyway, so the "advertising" in the UI was pointless.

Would I buy the full game?
No, but I'm not a fan of this genre. This has a small, indie feel to it but with a play mechanic that could attract a nice little community. From the look of their website there seems to be a set of modding tools available too.

Demo Pros
Quite a bit to play through and experiment with. Tries to upsell the main game directly. Relatively small download.

Demo Cons
Nothing much to speak of, but the game bores me.

Demo Rating 8 / 10

Thoughts after playing the full game?
If I play the full game I will put comments here about whether I feel the demo was representative of the final product and if I am happy with the purchase.

Sales Figures
If I can find sales information about a game after it has been released I'll add that here. It may be useful to track demos to sales performance.