Computer games: Torchlight

Torchlight is a lot like Diablo but more appealing. The Torchlight of the title is kind of mining town that might be found in  a cowboy western. The mine, though, has a substance in it called ember. This ember is a slow poison which is going to make your character first more powerful and then die. Your character then goes on various quests which mainly involve killing all the monsters in your path in order to reach some object or other. The harder the quest, the deeper into the mine you go, down to the remains of ancient cities and so on.

In Torchlight, you also get to have a pet. It's a smart pet. You can give it spells, which it will use to help you fight your way through the monsters, and small items of jewelry which help empower it. The best thing, gamewise, about the pet though is that it has a backpack, so when your own backpack becomes full you can place items into the pet's pack and then, when that is full of things you want to sell, you can send the pet back to town to sell everything while you continue on your quest. This is good because you don't have to fight your back up all the floors you've come down, and then fight all the way back down again to where you left off. All you need to do is send your pet, who can accomplish the trading mission very quickly.

Of course, you can use the portal scrolls to step back to town and return, but it's easier just to send the pet.

Another thing you can do with the pet is feed it fish. When fed a fish, the pet turns temporarily into a monster with monster powers to fight the enemies. The pet I chose was the ferret, which is cute, especially with its backpack and goggles. 

Cheers
Terry