Free games for the New Year: Deity

Deity Wizard Ambush

Deity places you in the hooves of a purple-horned demon whose realm is invaded by torch-bearing, sword-wielding fantasy types. On the surface, it's an isometric dungeon-crawler in the vein of Diablo: but there's no direct combat and no loot to find. Instead, this is a stealth puzzle game - the student developers at Digipen cite Batman: Arkham Asylum as one of their influences, and it shows.

It's entirely mouse controlled, with left click to move and right click to teleport between locations in a cone of purple mist. You're vulnerable to light, but by teleporting into wall-mounted braziers you can turn them to your side, gaining a little health and a place to hide in the process. Teleporting into enemies, meanwhile, causes them to explode into a shower of giblets.

Hitting a foe head-on, however, will cost you a chunk of health - so the trick is in orchestrating your movements to make sure you always attack from behind. When alerted, guards will always run to your location and try to face you. This is when Deity's 'chain' system comes in to play. You quickly unlock the ability to map out a series of jumps in advance, allowing you to loop around areas to escape or catch enemies unawares.

It's a great concept that's executed well over the course of Deity's short running time. We'd love to see the team take it further - but what they have achieved is an enjoyable experiment. Download it here.

Chris Thursten

Joining in 2011, Chris made his start with PC Gamer turning beautiful trees into magazines, first as a writer and later as deputy editor. Once PCG's reluctant MMO champion , his discovery of Dota 2 in 2012 led him to much darker, stranger places. In 2015, Chris became the editor of PC Gamer Pro, overseeing our online coverage of competitive gaming and esports. He left in 2017, and can be now found making games and recording the Crate & Crowbar podcast.