Skip to main content

Avadon Black Fortress - Can a retro rpg survive in 2012?

I have been playing a bit of "Avadon, The Black Fortress" from Spiderweb software. This is an unashamedly old school party based rpg that looks like it could have been made twenty years ago but hides a rich gaming experience underneath its ugly exterior. With its strong storyline and deep character development the game reminds me of the original Fallout and even Planescape Torment which is high  praise indeed. I have about twenty hours played and I am less than half way through my first play through so there is plenty of entertainment value in here.

Even as I was enjoying the game myself I did wonder if a younger audience would be prepared to see beyond the dated graphics and somewhat clunky controls. Happily Jeff Vogel the owner of Spiderweb software which created this game is a vocal member of the indie gaming community and he keeps an informative blog. Spiderweb is doing very well, thank you very much. Games like the Avernum and Geneforge sagas have been paying the bills since 1995 and they have actually seen a huge increase in sales since the recent release of their games on Steam and the Ipad. Perhaps the Steam buyers are old timers like myself but I doubt that is the case for the Ipad. I think it is safe to conclude that this is not just a nostalgia kick.

One of the most interesting things on Jeff's blog is following his reactions over time to the falling price of indie games. Spiderweb used to be a company that sold a small number of games at €25 a pop. Back in 2009 Jeff railed against services like Steam which were pushing the prices of indie games down to a few dollars. As Jeff says they were "creating the impression of insulting cheapness" through constant sales. Although Jeff maintained this line for quite a while he eventually gave in to market forces and experimented with discounted pricing on both Steam and the Ipad. Happily this was a success and Spiderweb appears to have successfully transitioned into a company which now sells a much larger volume of games at lower price points with overall revenues  increased. This sorted list of of Jeff's blog posts on pricing should allow you to follow the shift in Jeff's thinking.  Start at the bottom and work up for correct chronological order.

Many of Spiderweb's games are still $20 which puts them beyond impulse purchase territory for many gamers. They have sizeable free demo's however so just download one of their games and try it out to see if it is worth spending your cash. You can pick up a couple of the games on Steam for less than a tenner and Avadon itself is currently on half price sale so well worth it.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Android Tip 3: Sharing a Folder between multiple users of an Android device

Android has allowed multiple user logins for quite a while now. This is can be very useful for tablets which are shared by family members. Normally Android erects strict Chinese walls between users preventing them from using each others apps and viewing each others files. This is a useful security feature and ensures your kids don't mess up your work spreadsheets when screwing around on the tablet and should also prevent them from buying €1,000 worth of Clash of Candy coins on your account. Sometimes however you really do want to share stuff with other users and this can prove surprisingly difficult. For example on a recent holiday I realised that I wanted to share a folder full of travel documents with my wife. Here are some ways to achieve this. 1. If you have guaranteed internet access  then you can create a shared folder on either Dropbox or Google drive. Either of these has the great advantage of being able to access the files on any device and the great disadvantage of bein

Portal 2 two screen coop on one PC.

I mentioned before that I intended to try Portal 2 in "unofficial split screen co-op mode. Well split screen on a small computer monitor is a recipe for a headache especially when the game defies gravity as much as portal. However a minor bit of extra fiddling allowed us to drive two seperate screens from one PC. The Steam forums describes a complicated method of doing this that I couldn't get working so this simpler method which worked for me might be of use to someone. 1. First I followed the instructions in this post to get split screen multi-player working: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1847904 A minor issue not mentioned is that you need to enable the console from the keyboard/mouse options menu I am using keyboard and one wired Xbox360 controller as suggested. Getting the controller to switch to channel 2 was tricky at first but as Chameleon8 mentions plugging it out and in again during loading works. The trick for me was to do the plug / p

Lotro: The Forgotten Treasury

Throg joined a Kinship group for the Forgotten Treasury instance last night. It was an enjoyable change from the solo questing that the now level 55 dwarf champion has been mostly doing so far in Moria. Some members of the group had tried and failed to clear the Treasury before so we knew it would be challenging but we were lucky enough to have a well balanced group with Guardian, Minstrel, Lore Master, Hunter, Burglar and Champion (Throg). Throg (level 55) and the minstrel (53) were both below the 56ish level of the instance but the others were all higher so it more or less balanced out. [SPOILERs ahead] It is a well designed enjoyable instance set in a circular chamber with balcony around. As you enter, a boss absconds to a locked side chamber with his treasure leaving the fellowship to clear trash ringed around the balcony. Once the trash are cleared you have access to a puzzle which must be solved in order to open the locked door. Clearing the (including six mini bosses) also get