Torchlight 2, like a lot of ARPGs, has a secret weapon. I say 'The game sort of falls apart at this stage', but that's never actually happened with Torchlight 2. This way leads to misery.Д®xcept it doesn't, of course. I might start to ponder the value of helping Gulliver or Wisp. The morning fossil walk in Animal Crossing becomes five minutes of wandering for 15k or so, because inevitably Blathers will have everything by now.

Worse still, this thermodynamic thinking, this heat-exchange approach to games, can transfer from ARPGs.

The game sort of falls apart at this stage. That's 2000 gold in potions, 10 minutes of grind, for two levels. So I stock up and go, well, this will see me through a few floors, which means a level and a half if I kill absolutely everything. I start to think of them as a way of trading money and time for experience. I cease to see health potions as little bottles of liquid that will help me out on my heroic journey. It's sort of RPG thermodynamics, I guess. If I play any ARPG for too long in one go I start to think purely in terms of the trade-offs. For one thing, these ARPGs are so moreish that you can sort of chug through them forever while the rest of the world withers around you. I've been playing a lot of Torchlight 2 recently, which always has its dangers.

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