Information Exile Series Available for Free from Spiderweb Software

[Crooked Bee]

Tags: Exile II: Crystal Souls; Exile III: Ruined World; Exile: Escape from the Pit; Spiderweb Software

As you may know, before Avernum, Geneforge and Avadon, Spiderweb Software's Jeff Vogel made the Exile series, and some continue to regard it as better and more complex mechanics-wise than his later efforts. Thankfully, all three games in the series have recently been made freeware and can be downloaded from the Spiderweb website, so now you can check them out for yourself:

Exile: Escape from the Pit
Exile II: Crystal Souls
Exile III: Ruined World

(I'm linking the Windows versions, but you can also find the links to Mac versions on this page.)

The games should run on any pre-Vista Windows system, but you may need to use Virtual PC to make them work on Vista or 7.

Thanks Awor Szurkrarz!

 

[index.php]

I wish Vogel would just give us the source codes like he did with Blades of Exile.

 

[MicoSelva]

I guess there could be some poeple interested in this, but I think most can be divided into two groups:

1. Those, who don't care about Spiderweb games. They don't want Exile, even if it is free.
2. Those, who care about Spiderweb games. They already bought and played Exile.

Anyway, still a bro move by Jeff Vogel.

 

[artakserkso]

Very cool. A lot of good things has been said about Exile III here.

 

[Roguey]

Better and more complex? In rose-tinted vision. Expect a lot of trash combat and tedious step-by-step movement.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I guess there could be some poeple interested in this, but I think most can be divided into two groups:

1. Those, who don't care about Spiderweb games. They don't want Exile, even if it is free.
2. Those, who care about Spiderweb games. They already bought and played Exile.

3. Those who don't want to pay 8 hourly wages for a game that is priced 2,2 hourly wages.

Anyway, it made me give Exile another try. I always found these games adorable but for some reason I never got to the end of the demo.

 

[TOME]

I liked Avernum, but I never got any of these to work. Will try again now.

 

[Minttunator]

That's pretty bro of him - I've never actually gotten around to playing any Spiderweb games yet (even though I think I've bought a few during various sales), maybe I'll give 'em a proper shot now.

 

[mindx2]

Liked these much better than his several remakes.

Now I have to make a VM of the Win98 copy I have lying around somewhere....

 

[TripJack]

should've been free 10 years ago

 

[Micmu]

Anyone tried to run them in WINE?
I'm definitely not going to run & install some virtual shit.

 

[Luzur]

i already have Exile, so im fine.

btw, whats the news about his latest game?

 

[oldmanpaco]

Anyone tried to run them in WINE?
I'm definitely not going to run & install some virtual shit.

Forget your fancy OS is there anyway to get them to run in regular old Win7x64? Compatibility modes don't work.

 

[Delterius]

Anyway, still a bro move by Jeff Vogel.

Its also smart, I mean the sales were probably down anyway so its free publicity.

Especially if you're right, even though I'm on the 'I forgot to buy the Exile games for years camp'.

 

[TOME]

Seems to work just fine in Vista.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Anyone tried to run them in WINE?
I'm definitely not going to run & install some virtual shit.

Works normally on recent versions of WINE.

 

[visions]

Anyone tried to run them in WINE?
I'm definitely not going to run & install some virtual shit.

Forget your fancy OS is there anyway to get them to run in regular old Win7x64? Compatibility modes don't work.

Reportedly you'll have to install Win 3.1 in Dosbox and run it in there, this should work.

http://www.harehunter.info/Exile1/index.html
http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=9405

Never had the need to try this myself though. The Exiles work fine on 32 bit Win 7 though, that I have tried myself.

 

[oldmanpaco]

Reportedly you'll have to install Win 3.1 in Dosbox and run it in there, this should work.

http://www.harehunter.info/Exile1/index.html
http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=9405

Never had the need to try this myself though. The Exiles work fine on 32 bit Win 7 though, that I have tried myself.

Well that seems like a lot of work. Thanks though.

 

[tuluse]

It works fine in virtualbox + WinXP, which is probably easier to set up (and find an image of).

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I loved this trilogy and really recommend it for those that haven't tried it and prefer roleplaying games with turn-based tactical combat that possesses a top-down look and tile movement. Be warned that the trilogy is very tough, but again I did find it worthwhile. Like others have mentioned, you might not like Vogel's more recent work (like the Biowarian and bland Avadon), but Exile has a lot of things going for it. A skill-based character creation and progression system, a strange and alien realm to explore, mysteries to solve, and great plot twists to keep players interested.

Really, you should give it a go.

 

[tindrli]

all three of them works fine in win 7 32bit

 

[J1M]

all three of them works fine in win 7 32bit

Sadly, they do not run on Win7 64bit regardless of how I tweak the compatibility settings.

That is odd, considering I remember having Exile 3 up and running on a 64bit system not that long ago. Maybe it was a Vista machine...

 

[Dehumanizer]

all three of them works fine in win 7 32bit

Sadly, they do not run on Win7 64bit regardless of how I tweak the compatibility settings.

They're 16-bit games, which 64-bit OSes don't run natively.

Of the options suggested here, I think the easiest would be VirtualBox + an old version of Windows.

 

[Kersey]

The Exiles remain the only things I've bought from Vogel. Never could get into the Avernums and haven't got around to trying Geneforge yet.

As for running the games on a modern system this did the trick for me, not much trouble at all:
Windows 3.11 for DOSBox, ready-to-run

 

[mondblut]

I wish Vogel would just give us the source codes like he did with Blades of Exile.

Or at least patched it to run on newer OS. Running DOSbox to run Windows in it to run Exile in it? Really?

(for some reason, I have problems with Virtual PC. It is just damn slow, with Win98 installed. The mouse cursor barely moves, and it generally behaves like a 386. It was this way back on a single-core 2005 era P4, and not a shit has changed on a relatively powerful modern pc. WTF?)