Hello there, everyone. This column's been away for quite a while, but now it is finally back and won't be leaving soon. From now on Indie Roleplaying will provide you with a steady stream of fun-filled, fantastically fabulous news, rants, articles, interviews, and abominable alliterations.

Today, I shall be presenting two wonderful indie RPGs. Both are available for free from their authors' homepages and I definitely recommend playing them.

The first RPG I want to present is Grenideer's DIVER DOWN. Diver Down is a near-legendary game that was in development for many years, and was finally released a few months ago. The first releases had a few bugs, but the current version is quite stable.

This is how the official site describes the game:

"Diver Down is an independently created role-playing game emulating the feel of the original classics. It was developed in Windows 98 with the verge2 engine, and will run on all 9x and XP machines. It is an rpg for rpg fans and is completely free.

Rather than mimic the usual stock of storylines, Diver Down attempts to break new ground with a non-cliche plot that could support a movie. There are the expected common activities of rpgs in this fashion but care was taken to create a believable world with politics and detail. If you've always wanted to play an old-school rpg that took itself more seriously than the others, give Diver Down a try."

This description is rather accurate, which is rarely the case with other games. Diver Down is a remarkable game in many ways. It is the first complete Verge2 RPG (Verge being an engine/toolkit for making RPGs) ever. It is a large and original RPG mostly developed by a single person (Grenideer). It is not a demo, or a half-baked or unfinishable game - it's the real thing.

There are many things to say about Diver Down. The story is very original and goes in many unexpected directions (I don't want to say too much, as finding out is part of the fun; it's a combination of dark fantasy and science fiction). I think this is the first time in an RPG where I've been really uncertain about whether my character was a good guy or a bad guy. I applaud Grenideer's courage for having Drek (the protagonist of Diver Down) do some really nasty things and for challenging the players' minds. This may have been done before in Interactive Fiction, but to the best of my knowledge, never in an RPG of this kind. With its story and characters, Diver Down stands above all other indie RPGs I've played. Other indie developers should take the cue and understand that games are an artform and can be used to tell truly interesting stories.

I should also like to mention that the game is well-written. There are some typos and a few turns of phrase that could've been improved, but it stands way above most console or console-style RPGs.

The graphics of the game are a bit of a mixed bag, but they're definitely not bad. The sprites are a bit simple at times (which didn't bother me, I'm just mentioning it) and some of the portaits don't look too good, but the images displayed during important scenes (think Phantasy Star IV) are brilliant and will impress just about everyone. All in all, the graphics of Diver Down range from mediocre to amazing, and they do their job very well. Congratulations to both artists, Metro and Arias, for their work.

All of the game's music is ripped, except for XMark's theme song, but this does not matter at all, as in most cases you won't recognize the tunes, and the music fits the game excellently.

Are there any bad parts? Of course there are, as always. Diver Down is a very hard game. Extremely hard at times. Survival in Minduul is not an easy thing. There's lots and lots of combat, and much of it cannot be avoided. Yet I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing; survival in Minduul is supposed to be hard, and if you don't give up you'll be rewarded by a good storyline in which you will become somewhat invested (because you'll have to work to get to it). Still, I suppose combat could've been a bit easier, or there could've been fewer random encounters. I'm glad to say, though, that the game does not suffer from consolitis, and you can save anywhere. Yay for free saving!

To summarize: Diver Down is a hard, original and interesting game, one of the best to come out of the indie RPG scene, ever. It is a labour of love, and it shows. I hope that it will inspire many other game developers not to give up on their dreams.

Grenideer deserves to be applauded by the entire RPG community for his effort and his contribution, the effects of which may turn out to be larger than we can anticipate.

For more information, visit http://diverdown.grenideer.com.

On to the next game. It's called AHRIMAN'S PROPHECY and comes to you courtesy of Amanda Fae of Amaranth Productions. It is quite different from Diver Down - a far lighter and happier game, with a nice fantasy story - less original, perhaps, but entertaining and at times quite effective. The game's description reads:

"In the great kingdom of Candar, Prince Zorom is exiled for the attempted assassination of his brother, the Crown Prince. Meanwhile, on the edge of the Kingdoms, two peasants must leave their village and venture onto the Mainland.

The royal family of Candar and the peasants are unaware that their fates are to cross in a desperate attempt to stop a dark prophesy."

It sounds simple, but Ahriman's Prophecy is a very well-made game. When people hear that it was created using RPGmaker, and its graphics and sounds aren't original, they may worry, but they're wrong. Amanda Fae has taken lots of freely available resources and put them together so well that they feel as if they'd been created just for this game. It's not just what you have, it's what you do with it - and Amanda has done an amazing job.

I don't want to say too much about the story, but I wanted to mention that the game is very well-designed and has some very original touches which I enjoyed enormously. The game's worldbuilding is also good.

I keep wanting to use the word 'well-made'. Nearly everything about this game is smooth and pleasant. It is easy and fun to play, beautiful to look at, and it will take you to places that seem familiar, but also feel real.

I had some problems with the sound and music refusing to play in some locations, but it probably has to do with my silly soundcard, and even if it doesn't, there were no crashes and the music played in most places.

Amanda Fae has crafted an excellent game that will entertain you for many hours. Thank you, Amanda.

For more info (and the free download, of course) visit http://www.amaranthia.com, the home of Amaranth Productions.

And now for something completely different: a news item. The RPG-development related site RPGDX recently organized a competition called the Chione Challenge. The participants had a certain amount of time to create small RPGs with the theme of snow. The result is six games that are now available for download. Voting for the winner is set to begin soon and will probably already have begun or ended by the time you read this. So head on over to RPGDX and have a look at these games, maybe even post a little review. Don't expect commercial-grade games, of course, but take a look and maybe you can have some fun.

That's it for now. Go download the games, and I'll see you again soon, with more indie-RPG info.

- Jonas Kyratzes
www.jonas-kyratzes.net