Driftmoon: a charming, old-fashioned RPG released after seven years in development

Husband-and-wife team Ville and Anne Mönkkönen (AKA Instant Kingdom) have been working on the sweet-natured, lighthearted RPG Driftmoon for seven years, which in game development terms equates to at least an ice age. Thankfully, it's an ice age that has now come to a close, with the glacier thawing to reveal a massive, slick, isometric RPG featuring powerful modding tools - and with a big old demo to try out too.

I've had my eye on Driftmoon for years , so it was about time I finally had a go on the demo. I think the main thing keeping me from diving in was the game's dizzyingly shear top-down perspective, but that has thankfully been fixed via a recent patch. It's still possible to play in Ultima VII mode, if you move the camera a bit, but isometric is now the default viewpoint.

As for the game itself, well it's lovely, at least judging by my time with the demo. This isn't Planescape Torment; Driftmoon is a lighthearted role-playing adventure set in a detailed and imaginative but tongue-in-cheek world. I was reminded of Divine Divinity, goofy sense of humour and all.

Driftmoon is currently yours for €11.99/about a tenner - at least for a few more hours, after which the price bumps up to a still reasonable €15. 15% of the profit from each sale will be donated to the Red Cross.

Here's the launch trailer, if you catch my drift:

Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.