It's been humming along under the radar for months now, but Runic Games is about to take the wraps off its next game: a massively-multiplayer title based on 2009's surprise hit Torchlight.

Runic boss Travis Baldree is already talking up some of the game's features, however, telling PC Gamer "our vision is to have an MMO that plays as close to single player as we can get it. It will have the same focus on relatively fast action: carving your way through hordes of monsters with a large number of hugely devastating skills. The game has to be solo-able, but players will have to have skills that make them useful in a party and make them work together."

Baldree also says that the game, which is free-to-play, will of course feature microtransactions, but that these won't be necessary to get some enjoyment out of the game.

"I will never, ever buy a microtransaction item," he reassures. "I'm that kind of player. And the game has to be enjoyable for me, too. We don't want our monetisation stuff to offer ways to skip the game because the game is boring."

Torchlight MMO details in the new PC Gamer [PC Gamer]

We'd always thought Torchlight, the game that many have generously labelled as simply being inspired by Diablo, had been a cult hit for developers Runic. Thing is, 500,000 copies sold isn't a cult hit. It's a hit.

The developers sent word yesterday that the game had passed the half a million sales milestone, helped along no doubt by a retail release earlier this year (it had previously been downloadable-only), as well as shopfront distribution in Europe.

Well played, Runic. The game thoroughly deserves it, and with a Mac release now doubling the title's platform availability, things are only looking up, for both the game and the developer.

Valve Software has flipped the switch. You can now officially download Steam for Mac OS X. Do so now and Valve will throw in a copy of the original Portal for free.

The first-person puzzle hit can be yours for zero dollars or zero Valve Points until May 24, when Portal returns to its regular price. We'd say that's motivation enough to download Steam for Mac, but you may say differently. And you'd be wrong. Update: Portal is also currently free to Steam users on Windows!

Portal is the only Valve developed game available right now, sadly, but other developers including LucasArts and Telltale help to make up for the slim pickings. A full list of what's available for the Mac is available at the official Steam web site, along with a handy link to download the OS X version of Valve's digital distribution platform.

A long list of currently available games is also below, with Valve promising new games "highlighting an area of Steam functionality" every Wednesday. The following games are all Steam Play releases, meaning that you can purchase a title on one Steam platform, say Windows, and play it on another, like Mac OS X.

• And Yet It Moves
• Atlantis Sky Patrol
• Bejeweled 2 Deluxe
• Bob Came in Pieces
• Bookworm Deluxe
• Braid
• Brainpipe
• Chocolatier: Decadence by Design
• Chuzzle Deluxe
• City of Heroes: Architect Edition
• Civilization IV: The Complete Edition
• Cooking Dash
• Diaper Dash
• The Dig
• Diner Dash: Hometown Hero
• DinerTown Detective Agency
• DinerTown Tycoon
• Dream Chronicles: The Chosen Child
• Escape Rosecliff Island
• Fairway Solitaire
• Fitness Dash
• Football Manager 10
• Galcon Fusion
• Gemini Lost
• Guns of Icarus
• Hotel Dash Suite Success
• Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
• KrissX
• Loom
• Luxor
• Luxor 3
• Luxor: Mahjong
• Machinarium
• Mahjong Roadshow
• Max and the Magic Marker
• My Tribe
• The Nightshift Code
• Nightshift Legacy: The Jaguar's Eye
• Parking Dash
• Peggle Deluxe
• Peggle Nights
• Portal
• Professor Fizzwizzle and the Molten Mystery
• Quantz
• Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse
• Tales of Monkey Island Season 1
• Toki Tori
• Torchlight
• Trijinx: A Kristine Kross Mystery
• Unwell Mel
• Valarie Porter and the Scarlett Scandal
• Wandering Willows
• Wedding Dash 2: Rings Around the World
• World of Goo
• Zenerchi
• Zuma Deluxe

Valve's dominant games-downloading service Steam comes to Macs tomorrow, bringing with it Diablo-style indie hit Torchlight and Valve's very own first-person puzzle hit Portal.

If you bought Portal or Torchlight via Steam on your Windows-based PC then you may in fact already be the proud owner of tomorrow's releases. Portal (and possibly Torchlight — the press release is unclear) will support a feature called Steam Play, which, according to a press release from Valve today, "allows customers to purchase a game once and play it on all Steam supported platforms. Gamers who have previously purchased games on Steam will find them available in their account on the Mac as they are released."

Steam on Mac will launch new games each Wednesday, according to a Valve. The company's news today only mentions Portal and Torchlight for May 12. We're checking with Valve to find out which other games, if any, will be out through the service tomorrow.

While you await Steam's Apple debut, you can watch video of the program in action.

[PIC]