The launch of Steam for the Mac came and went with all but one of Valve’s own games notable for its absence, and so the duty of providing a game that wasn’t possible to finish in three hours fell to the third-parties. The obvious winner was Torchlight, and not merely because of its price.

This is my first foray into this particular sub-genre of dungeon-crawling loot-whoring RPGs, having passed by the likes of Diablo, and I have to say that I’m very impressed. For a game that involves clicking for hours on end in order to get stuff that isn’t worth anything, it’s remarkably addictive; likewise, for a game that doesn’t look a long way beyond Warcraft III, it manages to look rather good. And the fact that such graphics mean low system requirements makes it a great game for an ageing laptop. Like Warcraft III, then.

The developer, Runic Games, deserves immense credit for creating such a wonderful little game and some successful early attempts to become one of those companies that’s impossible to dislike. Free updates, extensive modding support, and heartwarming stories like this:

Mere hours after a forum member mentioned that one of the game’s camera effects left her unable to play sections of the games due to an uncommon eye condition, a Runic developer patched in a user toggle for the option — at 8:00 am on a Sunday morning, no less.

Seriously, is it getting a bit dusty in here?

This game’s been a big time sink for me in the last week, able to vanish hours at a time with frightening ease, and this is without multiplayer beyond the promise of the upcoming MMO in the Torchlight universe. Oh, and that MMO? Free to play. God, I love you, Runic.

Diablo III is suddenly much higher up my wishlist, it must be said. But you never forget your first taste…