Game News You may now try to escape from the pit on PC too

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: Avernum: Escape from the Pit; Spiderweb Software

The PC version of Spiderweb's latest game Avernum: Escape from the Pit has been released and is ready for you to try the demo.

Epic fantasy adventure in an enormous underworld.
Huge outdoors and eighty towns and dungeons.
Three separate game-winning quests. Seek safety, escape or revenge. Do just one of them or all three!
Unique races and settings make Avernum different from any adventure out there.
Dozens of side quests and hundreds of magical artifacts.
Rich game system with over 50 spells and battle disciplines and a multitude of beneficial character traits to choose from.

 

[commie]

I'll wait until the 7th remake...

 

[Charles-cgr]

I'll wait until the 7th remake...

Only a complete noob would remake his game 7 times....

Wait...

Never mind :D

 

[sea]

I've been playing a bit. It's got the same strengths as Avadon: decent visuals and a good engine/interface (for basically a one-man game anyway), and it's very fast and smooth to play. There's also a good deal of skill use that determines getting quests, finding secrets, and opening up alternate ways to solve problems.

However, it also has a ton of fetch quests, dialogue is quite pared back, the towns all basically feel identical, and save for wandering around and fighting mobs there isn't a lot to do. Combat isn't really any better than Avadon, still too easy and still too hack/slash with no real tactics or strategy involved. There's no more auto-regenerating HP after combat, but you fully heal up automatically when visiting towns, so you can always just run away and come back to no ill effect. Hopefully the attrition becomes a bigger deal later on. Also, for a game where apparently survival is so tough and life is so hard, you sure find a lot of loot, food and other supplies. Dungeon crawlers should have a survival element and I'm not yet seeing it in Avernum.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Sea, the thing is, Avernum games are supposed to be largely like that. They're supposed to be hack 'n slashey games that are easy to pick up and play (Jeff was comparing them to Might and Magic on his blog a while ago). He got better at designing encounters though, so a bit later in the game there should be some more challenging fights. You almost implicitly seem to say that the game is bad because it's not what you wish it was.

Anyway I quite like it, it's very polished and as fun as ever. Only 7,99$ on Steam as well, so the decision on whether or not to purchase it is too easy.

 

[sea]

Sea, the thing is, Avernum games are supposed to be largely like that. They're supposed to be hack 'n slashey games that are easy to pick up and play (Jeff was comparing them to Might and Magic on his blog a while ago). He got better at designing encounters though, so a bit later in the game there should be some more challenging fights. You almost implicitly seem to say that the game is bad because it's not what you wish it was.

Anyway I quite like it, it's very polished and as fun as ever. Only 7,99$ on Steam as well, so the decision on whether or not to purchase it is too easy.

Oh, I'm not saying it's bad by any means, it's just very basic and barebones. I never thought systems design and interesting combat was Vogel's strength, and building a game based largely entirely around that isn't the best choice in my mind. Not to say there's no character interaction (quite a lot of it in fact), it's just very dry and to the point... only 3-4 NPCs per town, for instance, and most of them are merchants with 5ish lines of background information, maybe a fetch quest to give, etc. The gameplay, in my mind, just isn't strong enough to support the otherwise paper-thin premise. Again, this is only based on about 3 hours of play, so hopefully that does improve later on.

I've also been told that Torment difficulty gets much more tactical and challenging. I might try that out, but since I'm reviewing the game I feel like I should use the default normal difficulty.

 

[tindrli]

can anyone with experience of old exile:escape from the pit explain the difference between that and this new one??? is it the same with better graphics?? is this one dumbed down as last avadon ??

 

[mindx2]

can anyone with experience of old exile:escape from the pit explain the difference between that and this new one??? is it the same with better graphics?? is this one dumbed down as last avadon ??

I'm curious about this as well. Although, I'm having a blast with Legend Of Grimrock and not in a hurry to get this one anyway.

 

[PorkaMorka]

$7.99 on steam, $20 to purchase it directly.That's a very significant premium that he is asking me to pay to avoid dealing with steam. He must think I'm some kind of sucker.

I think that I will punish Vogel for this impudence by not purchasing his game (or even bothering to pirate it). A true "escape from the pit" if you will.

 

[Metro]

Just seems like his latest stuff is catered to the iOS crowd. Very shallow and bland. Won't even buy this at $1. I don't see how characterizing this as a 'hack and slash' saves this from being a sub par game. If I want a hack and slash I'll go play Torchlight or Diablo or pick up Darkstone for $6 on GOG. I thought Vogel's games were supposed to be a 'rebirth/homage' to true turn based cRPGs like the Gold Box series, etc. These aren't 'hack and slash' games they're just crappy and watered down bastardizations of cRPGs.

 

[mondblut]

Is it any different from the original Avernum besides gfx? It's not like I am going to play it anytime in the distant future, I still have about 10 Spiderweb games to play first, but I wonder if it has *any* redeeming qualities at all for someone who played through a half of Exile 1 and the whole of the original Avernum.

 

[Roguey]

$7.99 on steam, $20 to purchase it directly.That's a very significant premium that he is asking me to pay to avoid dealing with steam. He must think I'm some kind of sucker.

I think that I will punish Vogel for this impudence by not purchasing his game (or even bothering to pirate it). A true "escape from the pit" if you will.

He justifies it by saying he offers full refunds if you're not satisfied and Steam doesn't. Plus he usually has a sale every October.

Just seems like his latest stuff is catered to the iOS crowd. Very shallow and bland. Won't even buy this at $1. I don't see how characterizing this as a 'hack and slash' saves this from being a sub par game. If I want a hack and slash I'll go play Torchlight or Diablo or pick up Darkstone for $6 on GOG. I thought Vogel's games were supposed to be a 'rebirth/homage' to true turn based cRPGs like the Gold Box series, etc. These aren't 'hack and slash' games they're just crappy and watered down bastardizations of cRPGs.

Have you played the original Exile series? They're awful. I'm surprised he actually sold enough copies to eventually make a 15+ year business out of it, but RPGs were dead at the time...

 

[sea]

can anyone with experience of old exile:escape from the pit explain the difference between that and this new one??? is it the same with better graphics?? is this one dumbed down as last avadon ??

I don't know how intact the rules are. Four attributes, probably 30ish traits that level up, classless system with about 20ish skills, 20ish spells in mage and priest schools... it's definitely way better than Avadon but I wouldn't say it's "complex." You have a lot of choices but the game is very friendly towards min/maxing..

From what I know content-wise, there is a new tutorial dungeon, a few new quests and NPCs, a new town, a few new dungeons, and of course it uses the newer engine with updated visuals and sound.

 

[Metro]

Have you played the original Exile series? They're awful. I'm surprised he actually sold enough copies to eventually make a 15+ year business out of it, but RPGs were dead at the time...

Nah. First Vogel game I tried was Avadon that I got in a recent indie bundle. I think you might have posted in the thread, but yeah, I thought it was mediocre at best and ultimately boring. Seemed like the vast majority of people agreed. I just don't see the appeal of his games.

 

[OSK]

can anyone with experience of old exile:escape from the pit explain the difference between that and this new one??? is it the same with better graphics?? is this one dumbed down as last avadon ??

I haven't played the latest remake, but Avernum was pretty much a dumbed down Exile: two less party members, fewer spells, fewer skills, no blunt weapons, easier combat and food is less important.

 

[ArcturusXIV]

OR I COULD JUST STAY IN THE PIT THAT'S A GOOD PLAN TOO.

 

[Stabwound]

What's the consensus on this game vs. Avernum/Exile?

I've only played through Avernum 1 and 2, and not the Exile games. I'm assuming the answer is no, but is there any chance that this 3rd remake is more fun than the previous 2 incarnations?

It does seem like this is primarily for the iOS crowd, which he seems to be doing very well with. You can't knock a guy for making a living, I guess. It must get mind numbing to constantly remake the same games over and over though.

 

[Trash]

Seriously surprised at how few people have played the older Avernums and Exile games. Splendid exploration and hack and slash rpg's. Looking forward to give this one at least a try.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

You can't close doors in this one because Ipad users accidentaly closed doors in Avadon.

 

[DwarvenFood]

I played through the shareware-part of the original Exile, and enjoyed it greatly. But since then I have not touched any of his games.

 

[Monocause]

I thought Vogel's games were supposed to be a 'rebirth/homage' to true turn based cRPGs like the Gold Box series, etc. These aren't 'hack and slash' games they're just crappy and watered down bastardizations of cRPGs.

wut. JV never claimed to attempt a 'rebirth/homage' to the Gold Box series, which is reasonable considering that when he released the first Exile goldbox games weren't exactly oldies. Also, while I got bored with Avernums, the Geneforge series is easily one of the best indie RPG offerings ever - or even simply one of the better RPGs in the history of the genre. The second part of your post is just over the top.

Have you played the original Exile series? They're awful. I'm surprised he actually sold enough copies to eventually make a 15+ year business out of it, but RPGs were dead at the time...

wut even more. Exile series were far from awful. If only the exact games with exact mechanics were ported to support modern resolutions and had a few convenience UI tweaks I'd purchase them in a split second. These were simply good games, with a decently-written and fairly innovative and interesting world&lore, decent exploration, decent party-based combat that provided a fair amount of challenge and options. Avernum 1-3 were also decent, the series started going downhill when he switched to the Geneforge engine which stripped the games of many features without giving much back except for a 'seamless world' which the series was worse off for.

The new remake is a nice return to the style of Av 1-3. I can't get into it much as it turned out that I still remember Exile 1/Avernum 1 too well to really enjoy it, but still.

 

[Johannes]

Is it any different from the original Avernum besides gfx? It's not like I am going to play it anytime in the distant future, I still have about 10 Spiderweb games to play first, but I wonder if it has *any* redeeming qualities at all for someone who played through a half of Exile 1 and the whole of the original Avernum.

Haven't played neither Exile 1 or Avernum 1 fully, but there's some better and some worse aspects.

Firstly UI is much much better.
Character system and combat are pretty meh early on (not necessarily worse than the earlier iterations but...), but looking at the descriptions of the higher level spells and abilities it should get better eventually, but hard to say by how much.
There's also new content, a kind of tutorial dungeon at least, but probably a good deal more.

Then the negatives are the quest compass, secret passages turned to shit, world feels less dangerous because of no food management and auto-revival on arrival to town (and probably also because I'm not a kid anymore).



Longer version:
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...eased-on-april-11th.70965/page-2#post-2048772

 

[Humanity has risen!]

It is cool and pretty fun.

I also like that it supports Steam cloud saves, I have it installed on my laptop as well as my desktop, and can pick the game up right where I left it on either of my machines.

 

[Roguey]

wut even more. Exile series were far from awful. If only the exact games with exact mechanics were ported to support modern resolutions and had a few convenience UI tweaks I'd purchase them in a split second. These were simply good games, with a decently-written and fairly innovative and interesting world&lore, decent exploration, decent party-based combat that provided a fair amount of challenge and options. Avernum 1-3 were also decent, the series started going downhill when he switched to the Geneforge engine which stripped the games of many features without giving much back except for a 'seamless world' which the series was worse off for.

The new remake is a nice return to the style of Av 1-3. I can't get into it much as it turned out that I still remember Exile 1/Avernum 1 too well to really enjoy it, but still.

My Exile experience: Pored over the manual, studied the pregenerated characters, set up my my own. Noticed the utterly terrible inventory and character management GUI. Noticed the tedious step by step movement with input lag and towns that are too spacious for their own good so moving about is a drag. Went into the first dungeon, wrecked everything mostly by setting up two fighters at a chokepoint and letting enemies impale themselves on my weapons, got annoyed by the high respawn rate, quit.

My Exile 2 experience: Saw that it used the same GUI, never touched it.

My Exile 3 experience: Appreciated the addition of a functional GUI. Did the manual/character gen stuff again. Still annoyed by the "tap... tap... tap..." movement. Killed about a thousand creatures, but stopped shortly after the alien slime boss because the "set up two fighters at a chokepoint and let enemies impale themselves on your weapons" worked ~90-95% of the time and out of those thousand creatures I killed there were only about a half-dozen that I thought were trying. Worse filler:killer ratio than any Bioware title (no wonder he loves them so much).

I did eventually play the Avernum 6 demo and liked it much better. I would have purchased it if not for the fact that several his "tougher, optional" fights involved unenjoyable attrition (i.e. repeating the same actions while keeping your health up to survive long enough). Yeah I know they're optional and there was nothing that bad on the critical path, but I don't care. I have the Geneforge 5 demo installed by haven't had the motivation to get into it since the single-character aspect makes me wary.

 

[Achilles]

It's better than Avadon, though still rather far from Vogel's best work.