Although the Blue Tower does present some creatures to fight and treasure to grab, its heart is in the progression of brand-new adventurers through a lovingly detailed confined location with a remarkable sense of solidity. The Witching Hours has a slightly more active plot, inquiring into the depopulation of a village by wicked deeds.

A great world with an interesting new incarnation of its game system, the Dark Eye presents some design concepts that are seldom used in role-playing today, particularly with the amount of d20-inspired systems out there. I particularly appreciate the skills system, in which you roll multiple d20s and try to have each under a specific attribute to succeed your task. The original design concepts are what makes the Dark Eye RPG sometimes hard to understand, at least to me. But it's a great game, and I can't wait to try it out at my game table.