I'll be honest, I just assume Avadon was a remake of Exile similar to Avernum, cause it starts with an Av. Thanks for correcting that. I only played Geneforge 1 and a bit of Avernum 1 (the old remake one) so I wasn't sure how his catalog was organized.
Geneforge 2 - Infestation Kickstarter, December Update #6
Happy Holidays from Spiderweb Software! Before a brief end-of-year rest, we wanted to let you know what has been going on with Geneforge 2 - Infestation. We have some great news.
The game is done, for both Windows and Mac! Almost. There are a handful of unfinished bits of code and a couple pieces of art yet to be completed. Plus tons of testing. However, the game world is done. It is possible to play through the entire storyline. The first group of Beta Testers have played through every game path several times. Barring a considerable disaster, the game can ship in March!
This is always a big milestone. We finally get to switch gears from creation to distribution. Now we start configuring store pages, making installers, going hard on PR, tweaking game balance, fixing bugs, and completing the million steps to get a game out into the world.
But if you were worried that this Kickstarter might not make a game exist, worry no more! A game exists!
Now, at last, we can get serious about the details ...
Kickstarter Backer Surveys
At the beginning of January, we will send out the Kickstarter surveys. You'll need to give your email address for game keys and your physical address for physical rewards. Higher-tier backers can say how they want to be listed in the credits.
Watch for this at the beginning of January. If you haven't heard from us, check your spam filter.
Backer Beta Testing
Backers who can beta test the game should get a message from Kickstarter in mid-January. You'll get a bunch of time for your feedback to be incorporated.
And that is our update. Check out some of our new creation art below. We post new screenshots regularly on Twitter/X. If you wishlist us on Steam, it is very helpful for getting visibility. See you next year!
- Jeff Vogel
Two of the new creations for your army. On the left, the drakon is one of the most powerful creations, extremely durable and with highly damaging magical attacks. On the right is the stalkthorn, a mobile turret. You can run it into battle and plant it. It can spray out thorns and a variety of blessings and curses.
The game is done, for both Windows and Mac! ALMOST!
Geneforge 2 - Infestation Kickstarter, January Update #7
Happy New Year from Spiderweb Software! We are fast on the approach to shipping a new game, just in time for our company’s 30th birthday.
We are rapidly approaching “Finalizing the Game” mode. As release gets closer and closer, more thought goes into what changes to make. Every change you put in a program has a chance of creating a bug. Thus, a programmer has to start making tricky decisions about when to make changes. Is this error serious enough to fix right now, or should it be corrected in v1.0.1?
There’s also a million steps to get a game from my computer to online stores to your computer. Configuring a store page is like defusing a bomb, and every store has its own weird system and things that can go wrong. It takes a while. Also, PR needs to start, and that’s a job in itself.
But we’re getting there! Still looking at a release at the end of March. Now on to the news …
First Backer Surveys Out
If you backed the Kickstarter at any but the bottom two tiers, we have sent out your backer survey. We’ll need your name for the credits. If you’re getting physical merch, we’ll need your address. Please be sure to look for our message.
If you backed at the bottom two levels, your survey will go out in about a month. If you should have gotten a survey but didn’t, check your email spam filter. If you still don’t find it, contact us at support@spiderwebsoftware.com.
Backer Early Beta Access
The highest tier backers also get early beta access. If you are in this category, you should get your invitation before the end of the month.
Steam Next Fest
Steam Next Fest, Steam’s celebration of indie games and demos for them, is in early February. Just mentioning it. We may have an exciting bit of news for you in a few weeks.
And that’s a quick update, with a bit of promising news and progress. Welcome to a new year, and we’ll have more to say soon!
- Jeff Vogel
All of the art for the game is finally complete! A first look at one of the illustrations for the game, soon to be available as desktop art.
A first look at the laboratory of the city of Rising. Are they valuable allies or treacherous rebels? It all depends on your point of view.
Avernum and Geneforge creator Jeff Vogel says "sustainability is tricky" - even when you're a bottom feeder
As he plots his final decade or so of garage RPG development, Vogel is remastering past work
Image credit: Spiderweb Software
“I really fight being envious of Larian,” says indie RPG designer Jeff Vogel. “Or any other big company. Because everyone’s scared, everyone has hard times, and the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. I’ve had a very successful life where I’ve earned enough and gotten enough stability. And so I'm really happy with my choices. It would be awesome if I could write a big hit that everyone played, or had a big team and could do a big thing. But you know, I’m content. I’ve had enough people play my games.”
Like Larian, Vogel makes acclaimed Ultima-style RPGs. Unlike Larian, he makes them in his spare bedroom, with the assistance of his wife, Mariann Krizsan. As we speak, it’s 2am in Seattle, but that doesn’t bother Vogel. Almost all of his programming happens between noon and 6pm, or from midnight to 4am, to the accompaniment of Comedy Central on a nearby telly. To his credit, Vogel still gets dressed for the occasion. “I could work in my pyjamas or in a robe if I wanted,” he says. “But for some reason, I’ve just always been able to concentrate better with clothes on.”
Of the 30 years Jeff Vogel has toiled away as a game designer, just four months were spent at a AAA games studio. In 1999, he worked in a temp position for Microsoft as a designer on Mechwarrior 4. It didn’t work out, and he was fired. “They decided to swap me out for someone a bit less independent-minded for the long slog of implementing the game,” he says. “It was the right choice for everyone. I learned a huge amount about how to develop a game properly, which I immediately put to work making the first Geneforge.”
Today, Vogel is working on the remaster of Geneforge 2. It’s a dense and atmospheric western RPG with shades of early Fallout. You play as a Shaper, a wizard with the ability to turn gooey essence into disposable, subservient life - high fantasy scorpions or velociraptors who can step in between you and your enemies, like ethically-complicated Pokémon. Geneforge 2 - Infestation was Kickstarted in March to the tune of $76,777 by just 1,549 backers. That’s an average of almost $50 each, which tells you Vogel’s games are deeply adored by a passionate few. To them, his independent-mindedness is a virtue, not a flaw. They find that the Geneforge games support their independence, too.
“One of the trademark qualities of Geneforge is that you can learn about this guy on the other side of the island, who’s the bad guy,” Vogel says. “And you walk across the island and finally meet him, and he explains where he’s coming from. And if you go, ‘Actually, no, this guy kind of has a point,’ you can just switch sides and still get a perfectly satisfying ending.” These are games in which every ending is achievable without ever throwing a fireball or firing a dart. “I love putting choices in my games,” Vogel says. “Even if most people won't take them, because players appreciate knowing they had a choice.”
When the first Geneforge came out, it was unheard of for RPG developers to support pacifist playthroughs. “No one had ever done anything like it before, that I know of,” Vogel says. “Even now, Baldur's Gate 3 is a great game, but you still gotta hack your way through the thing from beginning to end.”
Image credit: Spiderweb Software
It’s undeniably fascinating to look at the histories of Larian Studios and Vogel’s Spiderweb Software in parallel. Larian launched its debut game, a Commander & Conquer ripoff named The L.E.D. Wars, in 1997 to no notice. At around the same time, Vogel had struck gold with the conclusion of his first fantasy trilogy, named Exile. He had earned enough to hire a team and build a company. “I thought about it a long time,” Vogel says. “And finally, I was like, ‘I don’t wanna do that. I like sitting alone in my room surrounded by weird nerd stuff, and making my oddball little low-budget fantasies. It’s very important to kill your ego.”
By contrast, Larian fought to make RPGs at scale. Teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and irrelevance for almost two decades, the developer finally pulled off their transformation into a AAA studio against the odds - and only thanks to the stubbornness of CEO Swen Vincke. Had Vogel taken the same route, it’s overwhelmingly likely that Spiderweb Software would no longer exist today.
“Larian had so many years where they could just barely keep the lights on,” Vogel says. “At any moment, with a flip of the coin, they’re out of business. I knew that if I followed that path, there would be periods of time where I’d be kept awake all night wondering if my business was gonna survive. I’ve made less money, I’ve gotten less fame. But in return, I’ve had a great deal more tranquillity in my life. Sitting here at age 53, looking back, that’s been valuable.”
There’s something especially appealing about the slowburn sustainability of Vogel’s career right now - at a time when the games industry at large has switched tracks from boom to bust. Embracer has reportedly cancelled a new Deus Ex - and many who worked on it will now be competing for new roles with an estimated 6,000 others who lost games jobs this January. The RPS layoffs tag is horribly stacked with recent news stories of games companies realigning, restructuring, and otherwise slashing frightening numbers of roles.
Image credit: Spiderweb Software
It’s the result of an all-or-nothing approach to business that leaves untold stress and even ruined lives in its wake. Whereas Vogel has trundled along for three decades without sacrificing anybody to get a game done or to stay afloat. That said, it’s not always romantic to be, as Vogel puts it, a bottom feeder. “I grab the little bits of meat that the big fish cannot bother themselves to eat,” he says. “Sustainability is tricky. Even in the best possible time it’s a cutthroat, bloodthirsty business.” He has survived by being relentlessly pragmatic - reusing assets without shame and learning to be happy with ‘good enough’.
If you read Vogel’s Substack newsletter - also called The Bottom Feeder - you’ll feel his tenacity, tempered by realism, on the page. You’ll also feel it in his games, which can’t help but be a reflection of him. Geneforge 2 wastes no time in tearing apart the lofty ideology of its Shapers - taking you to a failed colony where casually-created creatures run loose, and bowls of living matter sit unattended, like strange putty under the sun.
“I’ve been fascinated with politics since I was 14,” Vogel says. “Even when it’s really painful to read the news, I still do it. As I get older, I see that everything’s complicated. There are no solutions, only trade-offs. You just muddle through and pick the least bad thing.” It’s a worldview that’s become only more pronounced in his recent non-remaster projects, like the Queen’s Wish series - “a political muddle”. And it’s a flavour he suspects might be too sharp for some.
“The Queen’s Wish games are nowhere near as popular as the older games,” he says. “Every once in a while we’ll get an email like, ‘This game is really cool, because it’s not talking down to me. This is what life is like.’ But Geneforge I did a long time ago, when I was younger and had more idealism and less cynicism. And so you really can hack out a happy ending for yourself. I really want in these games for you to be able to feel you got away clean.”
Image credit: Spiderweb Software
There are a wide variety of happy endings available in Geneforge 2, in fact, and Vogel isn’t messing with those. But he has added new zones and large quest lines that expand on the Geneforge world and its lore, while respecting the shape of the original story. “A lot of these games I spent a year and a half writing,” he says. “And honestly, that’s not quite enough time. It gets the game off the ground, but it doesn’t make it shine. An extra year and a half for each of those games makes them really good, and that’s a lot of what I wanna do.”
Before retirement, Vogel intends to bring the Queen’s Wish series to a meaningful conclusion. But mostly, he’ll be remastering past work. Of the 18 original games in his rear-view mirror, there are six candidates that are “really cool, full of good design, and just don’t work anymore”. So he hopes to spruce them up and enjoy a further trickle of back catalogue sales into old age.
Some of Vogel’s friends, fellow designers and artists, can’t understand his choice to revisit old work. “They talk to me like I just said that I have a fatal disease,” he says. “And I don’t look at it that way.” Vogel is a huge fan of Billy Joel, “like all right-thinking people”. And like his idol, he’s content to tour the hits.
Especially when Larian has just introduced a whole new generation to the joys of Ultima-influenced RPGs. “There’s a lot of people who are gonna play Baldur’s Gate 3,” Vogel says. “And a few of them are gonna come to papa.”
Geneforge 2 - Infestation Kickstarter, February Update #8
We have lots of great news for all of Geneforge 2’s kind backers. We are thrilled to say, after all of your support and a ton of work, you can finally play the demo of the game!
Demo Is Available For Steam Next Fest
Steam Next Fest is an event where indie developers can show off demos of their work. For the third time, Spiderweb is taking part. On Geneforge 2 - Infestation’s Steam page, you can now download the first big chunk of the game and play it. The demo will be active for a week, and your saved game progress will carry over to the full game. The demo is at our Steam page.
You can watch the developer (Jeff) stream the game on February 7th (7 PM PST) and February 10th (2 PM PST). Go to the Steam page to see the stream. If you can wishlist it, it would be hugely appreciated. Have fun!
Release Date Announced
We have also announced the official release date. The game will be coming out March 27, 2024 for Windows and Macintosh! The iPad version will follow soon after.
All Backer Surveys Are Out
We are about to send out backer surveys for people who backed at the first two levels (game, and game deluxe edition). Watch your inbox for it. If you haven’t heard from us soon, check your spam filter. We have already sent backer surveys to all other support levels. If you haven’t gotten anything, contact us at support@spiderwebsoftware.com.
We have sent out beta test invites for all high tier backers. Again, if you haven’t gotten the message, contact us. We will write the hint book soon and send that to all beta testers as well.
Finally, if your backing tier included physical merchandise (pins and stickers), those will be mailed soon.
So, a short update with lots of news. The next month is wrapping up the game, doing PR, setting up the game on stores, and putting out fires. You’ll probably hear from us next when the game is actually out. Thank you again so much for your support, and the game you believed in is on the way!
- Jeff Vogel
Geneforge 2 - Infestation has a lot of gorgeous art. Some of it will become free desktop art. More will be available in the Deluxe edition. Both coming soon!
I would feel the same if I could get geneforge 2 to run anymore.
Geneforge 2 - Infestation review: bold and great like Baldur's Gate
Laptop-friendly roleplaying for the post-Larian age
Like the good works of Calvin Klein, these genes come pre-distressed. Geneforge 2 - Infestation is fresh from the rack, yet looks and functions like the CRPGs of the late 1990s. Where most isometric throwbacks these days offer a forced perspective over 3D scenes, Geneforge 2 is the real deal - its flat character sprites gliding across tiled backgrounds, with the elegant shuffle of Shōgun-era ladies-in-waiting.
This look is less a nostalgic affectation than it is simply practical. Geneforge 2, like all of Jeff Vogel’s games, was made in the spare bedroom of his Seattle home with the help of his wife, Mariann Krizsan - plus a handful of artists spread more broadly. It’s the latest in a long line of low-budget Spiderweb Software RPGs to achieve sprawling scale and reactivity by leaning on cost-effective and old-fashioned production values. Here there is no voice acting, nor any ambient noise that cannot be sourced from royalty-free soundbanks. In pastoral areas of the map, the impression of grazing livestock is conveyed entirely through a free sound effect called ‘Eating a rusk.wav’.
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Spiderweb Software
As a result, Geneforge 2 feels a bit cheap to begin with. In the moments where atmospheric bird squawks and howling winds give way, there can be little to sustain the illusion of a living world. But the gaps are soon filled by Vogel’s sharp prose and exquisite worldbuilding. The Geneforge universe - first conceived in the noughties, and fleshed out in Spiderweb’s current run of remakes - is one of the few truly original settings in the canon of western RPGs.
Its world of swords and sorcery is dominated by a sect called the Shapers, who have gained supremacy by turning pools of gooey essence into subservient lifeforms. Some of these genetically-modified creatures are monsters, meant for shoring up Shaper power and putting down insurrections. Others are Serviles, simple workers designed to find contentment in tilling fields and smashing rocks. Then there are the stranger beings, bred for highly specific purpose: the Servant Minds who manage mining operations from their trays, their stunted limbs rendering them little more than desktop computers; the sentient control panels trapped in granite, “alive and functional, though very, very bored”. The Shapers, having acquired their secrets through crude trial-and-error, now guard them closely and wield godlike social status among the common folk.
It’s a setup you might call science friction - oscillating between the highly advanced and the medieval, and lending itself to all sorts of social and moral quandaries. Should Serviles have rights? Try saying yes when your Shaper line manager is listening.
You enter this profound mess as an apprentice Shaper, lowly yet respected, sent to investigate a failed mountain colony and report back to your masters. Right from the off, you’re met with the consequences of genetic meddling gone wrong - rogue creations stumbling about the wilderness and wiry, weedlike trees cracking the foundations of dwellings. As Vogel pithily puts it, “The works of the Shapers consume the works of the Shapers”.
It’s Vogel’s voice that elevates all of Geneforge’s scenarios. He’s something of a shaper himself, bringing life to crude backdrops through text pop-ups that don’t beat around the twisted, misshapen bush yet contribute a sardonic twinkle to proceedings. “This tiny grove is no longer haunted,” he notes at the conclusion of a battle with some swampy ghosts. “Nothing helps exorcise an area of undead like a good, firm application of violence.” It’s the kind of individual flair that would only be diluted on a project with a larger writing team.
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Spiderweb Software
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Spiderweb Software
Geneforge 2 is explored in discrete chunks connected by an overworld map, in the style of the Infinity Engine games. As you trek high into inhospitable peaks, right at the limits of Shaper rule, you come across ever-more alarming breaches of the laws you know. The architects of these illegal activities look at you with a mixture of fear and eagerness - knowing you could bring an army of Shapers down on their heads, while hoping to persuade or manipulate you into their way of thinking. Deciding which factions to endorse or destroy - and when to show your hand by backing a side - ultimately becomes Geneforge 2’s endgame.
Obsidian’s Josh Sawyer has spoken before about his preference for gradual turns rather than dramatic twists - a dawning understanding, drawn from exploration and dialogue, that slowly shifts your perspective on the events unfolding around you. On that front, Geneforge 2 is a masterpiece. In no other RPG can you return to the starting town after 30 hours with a new and fundamentally different view of the place and its purpose.
Your investment in this conflict and intrigue is rewarded with the freedom to manoeuvre - dancing around problems rather than carving through them. Battles with groups you’d rather not face can be circumvented through dialogue or snuck around, provided you have the right skills. Many RPGs promise to support stealth and diplomacy, but few deliver so consistently as Geneforge 2. In that sense, it’s more comparable to Deus Ex: Human Revolution than its direct peers - at pains to provide you with alternate paths and opportunities to steal and sabotage. Geneforge even has its own take on the multitool - a tiny tentacled creature encased in metal, which can be jammed into locks and mechanisms. In this way, boss fights can be shortcircuited, and entire areas brought under your control through deadly electrical pylons.
As in the immersive sims of old, the cost of all this choice is a certain amount of depth - and you’ll occasionally ram your toes against the bottom of the pool. Stealth is no more advanced than in 1997’s Fallout, simply requiring you to keep your distance from hostile NPCs as you zigzag through a map. But the sheer speed of enemy movement lends these sequences an arcade-like tension, forcing you to adjust course quickly or trip into fights you’re not ready for. As in Baldur's Gate 3, there’s also the option to trigger turn-based battle mode at will - allowing you to strategically steer your way around unaware patrols when the occasion demands it.
Combat at first feels basic, but reveals more and more nuance over time. In keeping with the godless experimentation of the Shapers, you’re able to summon and dismiss creations at will, constructing and disassembling units within seconds to suit your needs. The monsters have a pleasingly cheesy sensibility about them - like the fiery dinosaur Fyoras, who swarm like velociraptors, and the Thahds, who resemble ThunderCats yet punch like Victorian pugilists.
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Spiderweb Software
All can be upgraded, to be tougher or faster or covered in exploding boils that burst and wound your opponents. Some monsters are designed to detonate on death, and to be happy about it. But the more powerful your creations, the less control you wield over them. It’s a factor you’ll learn to take seriously once an injured Thahd has turned on you in a high stress situation, delivering a roundhouse punch to your delicately robed abdomen.
With experience, you learn to right-click your enemies to check their resistances before engaging - then build up a fire-spewing or poison-spitting roster accordingly. There’s a satisfaction to steamrolling an area or solving a situational problem by throwing the right beasts at it. In one instance, I sent in some stocky creations one-by-one to distract a golem while I ransacked the chests it was guarding - then left my monsters to their doom. It’s the kind of mercenary attitude you could never apply to an RPG with named companions, whose deaths typically prompt an instant reload. And it’s a form of utilitarianism that speaks to Geneforge’s core themes, in a way most combat systems don’t.
By the time you’ve begun to appreciate these nuances and story synergies, you’ll have long since seen past Geneforge 2’s visual shortcomings, the UI that fails to upscale with higher resolutions, and the goofy main menu with its frankly teenage animated cursor. Even if Baldur’s Gate 3 triggers a renaissance age for the western RPG, Spiderweb Software’s output will be unignorable so long as it delivers such a distinct flavour of wry, complex, and open ended roleplaying. Long may Vogel be in vogue.
My understanding is they are mostly 1:1 with a few additional areas, quests, and some quality of life improvements. Basically the best versions to get if you're just jumping in but not worth the full price tag if you already have the originals.
