Fate

Fate is a fantasy action role-playing game. This type of game is also known as a dungeon crawler, in which the player takes their character through progressively difficult levels of a dungeon, fighting monsters, completing quests, collecting valuable items and gold, and improving the character's attributes and skills along the way. The dungeon in Fate has a randomized layout for each level; treasures found within each level are randomized, as are the number and type of monsters. Fate is rendered fully in 3D, allowing the player to zoom in and out of the action as necessary; however, the camera can only be rotated selectively.

There appears to be an effectively indefinite number of levels to the dungeon, although in reality this is capped at 2,147,483,647 (231 – 1), which is the highest number representable by a signed 32-bit integer.

The game starts in the town of Grove, where on the outskirts of town the ancient Dungeon Gate leads would-be adventurers to multiple levels of fame, fortune, and death. The player assumes the role of one of these adventurers, and is assigned a randomized quest at the beginning of the game that will take them to approximately the 40th–50th level of the dungeon. Along the way, randomized side-quests are made available to the player by the townspeople of Grove. Eventually, the player completes the primary quest by defeating the randomized boss monster.

Designer and programmer Travis Baldree intended Fate to combine elements from games like Diablo and NetHack and make them accessible to a casual gaming audience, while also maintaining a level of appeal to hardcore gamers. He eschewed a grim and gritty style, in favor of a more inviting atmosphere. Although Baldree had considered the idea for several years, production of the game began in October 2004, with a total development time of about five months.

Fate offers no multiplayer elements. Multiplayer was considered, but the developers could not add it because of the game's extremely short development time.

Fate was positively received by critics, garnering an average review score of 80% at GameRankings and a score of 80/100 at Metacritic.

Greg Kasavin of GameSpot called it "a high-quality game that delivers well on a concept that isn't ambitious but is well known for being fun and addictive," while pointing out its strong resemblance to Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo. Writing for GameSpy, William Abner praised the game as "elegantly designed" and singled out the charm and personality of the game's graphics and pet animations. Both reviewers cited Fate's low price as a selling point but criticized its lack of multiplayer features.