Aleria: A brutal world. Jorvik: The barbarian city. It’s your self-proclaimed duty to enthrone yourself as the singular ruling entity over Jorvik, although the other barbarian covenants within the city all share the exact same dream -- and it’ll be a frosty day in Tartarus before they relax their own drive toward earning the crown. And in barbarian-speak, “earning” comes through obliterating the other covenants. Well, there are more peaceful alternatives, if you consider greasy political machinations and outright skullduggery “peaceful.”

Depths of Peril is a single-player, strategy-heavy role-playing game from indie-house developer Soldak Entertainment. The 3D isometric view is familiar to the Diablo lineage, although the downright panic-inducing real-time strategy elements categorize Depths of Peril as a different kind of animal.

In the beginning, you select a class from the warrior, rogue, priest, and mage lineup. Each is scantily equipped to begin with, but the skills, abilities, and inventory built up during the course of the game can be carried forward into subsequent sessions -- even if you lose (which is especially heartening). And on the lowest adjustable settings, the number of times you fail at Depths of Peril will increase the thickness of your skin, or you’ll resort to more violent methods of coping with loss.

The blocky tutorial covers the necessary gameplay basics, but growing in personal skill comes with several courses taken at the school of hard knocks. But it’s easier to take it all in stride when the tutorial itself advises that (at least during raids) you will die a lot, and that “this is normal.”

Regardless, the expected RPG doctrines are fairly adhered to, with quests and monster mashing bestowing experience points. This process levels up your character so that a stack of points may be distributed over the landscape of attributes -- strength, intelligence, etc. -- and a separate stack of points may be distributed across a wide-spanning tree of skills. The quests are standalone in nature, with the overarching meta-narrative tucked away into a copious library of in-game tomes. The groundwork laid for the game’s lore is an urban sprawl of origin myths, war documentaries, racial character profiles, and short fiction, but the gameplay isn’t offended in the least if you ignore (almost entirely) the backstory’s scrolling depth. It’s there for those that need it.

The major impetus behind the gameplay is the presence of multiple non-player covenants moving about the map at break-neck speeds, hungry to rob you of your objectives, and motivated to diminish your wealth and influence. Monetary wealth is a largely closed affair between you and Jorvik’s merchants. Swords get longer, shields grow sturdier, and armor gains more and more metal rings attached. Copper, silver, and gold dropped out in the fields of battle, as well as traded for in the marketplace, work to narrow the gap between you and that next piece of slightly higher-grade equipment.

Most entertaining, however, are the missions handed out by potential recruits. They essentially place their fighting/healing/magic-using resume out on the table, and allow the competing barbarian covenants to win the recruit over. The recruit will make a certain demand -- collect X amount of materials, slay Y amount of beasts -- that you must fulfill in order to get the recruit onto your payroll. A timer starts counting down, and in case that isn’t enough time-pressure to place on a mission, it’s important to remember that the other NPCs are already out there, scouring the map, snatching up X amount of materials, or slaying Y amount of beasts. Prioritizing recruiting efforts, general quests, and controlling your inventory would be game enough. But Depths of Peril al...