by Nathan H
How many of you in here like old-school RPGs? Alright, you guys stay in here because this article (and this game) is for you. Jeff Vogel has created games for years – most of them RPGs.
Lots of indie games that want to make a profit use shareware, which is when a developer releases an program or game that has limited features or something of that nature, and you must pay for continued usage. This method has been proved useful for quite some time, with games like Doom, Commander Keen, and later Exile, and Geneforge (which are made by Vogel.) This is no different, since Vogels runs on the shareware system and has been doing so for years.
I believe he is a fan of that method, and as such has started a game development business back in 1994 in Seattle, Washington called Spiderweb Software and has been selling games with quite a bit of success (his latest games got on Steam and the iPad!) Now, his latest game, Avernum: Escape From The Pit is a remake of his first game he ever sold for money, Exile: Escape From the Pit, to bring the older game back to life, and perhaps gain itself a new audience.
Promising new features, dungeons and more, it is out now for Mac computers (and in the Spring of 2012, the iPad and PC.) This would have been a review, had there been a version out for Windows at the moment because I have a Windows PC, but I guess we must wait till 2012 for that, unless someone else that has a Mac reviews it for this site.
The story revolves around you being sent to Avernum for some type of crime, and you have a choice with what you want to do: escape, get revenge or simply survive. Various features include, a huge and unique world (judging by that world map, he isn’t lying) to explore and a long quest, eighty towns or dungeons, lots of sidequests and items to collect, and a turn based battle system.
I know RPG fans seem to love the “unique world” type features. Oblivion was kind of beat up a bit (although still praised) over it’s generic fantasy world, but Morrowind was a classic because of it’s great atmosphere and world, which is almost alien. BioShock and Deus Ex are loved for the same reasons. For fans of any RPG type, however, I do recommend Vogel’s games. They always have things to do, and are very deep. You can spend hours just wandering around, exploring. If Avernum: EFTP is anything like his other games, we are in for a treat. And the graphics fit perfectly, which helps all the more.
I have played a lot of his games, and they are quite similar. Jeff Vogel lacks innovation as far as gameplay mechanics go (all his games use very similar systems) but he is consistent at making deep and involving stories and worlds. This is looking to truly be a great old-school RPG. Avernum: Escape From The Pit looks quite good, both in the gameplay and the beautiful graphics. I know I am pretty excited to play it.
Get it here, and check out his other games while you are at it: http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/
The site hosts quite a few demos, and in this case the demos are well worth the download: I’ve played full-length games that are smaller than these free demo versions. Hopefully that’ll give you some idea of the scope of the full game.
IndieGraph 