Okay, for the spiderweb games, I will class them into these 4 categories to address your questions.
Exile:
Exile 1: Escape From the Pit
Exile 2: Crystal Souls
Exile 3: Ruined World
Blades of Exile
Nethergate:
Nethergate
Avernum:
Avernum
Avernum 2
Avernum 3
Blades of Avernum
Avernum 4
Geneforge:
Geneforge
Geneforge 2
Geneforge 3
now we can make this handy table:
category genre view/style
Exile Fantasy(nonTolkein) 2D tiled, mixed top/side view tiles, turn based (think early Ultimas)
Nethergate Historical(Rome in Britain) 2D isometric, turn based
Avernum Fantasy(nonTolkein) 2D isometric, turn based
Geneforge ScifiFantasy 2D isometric, "real time"
For almost all of them, the playlength is 30-60 hours. Nethergate might be double that since you can play through as either the Romans or the Celts and experience different aspects of the same story.
For "
Blades of (Exile|Avernum)"
the playlength is effectively infinite - they are scenario engines allowing you to design and share scenarios and played ones made by other people. But the typical downloaded scenario usually maxes out around the 5-10 hour mark.
For all of them, the theme/closest-comparison-game/genre is "
RPG"
- Geneforge you play one character with (potentially) a party of summoned/controlled monsters, but the rest you play a party of 4-6 characters. You do the usual RPG stuff - kill things and loot them to get treasure and raise your stats so you can kill bigger things and get phatter loot.
Some notes on my "
table"
:
by "
fantasy/non-Tolkein"
I mean the setting is effectively medieval magic world, swords and sorcery, but there's no elves and dwarves (there are, however, cat-people and lizard-people which almost fill similar niches. sorta).
By turn-based v. real-time I mostly mean NPC movement relative to the characters. But Geneforge games do have a "
fight mode"
which restores turn-based mechanics. So, in a way, all are turn based (Geneforge is just a little easier to navigate in a point-and-click way).
Okay, that's all the things you asked. Here's some stuff you didn't:
Jeff Vogel (i.e. Mr Spiderweb) is apparently a fan of retro RPGs. Or at least sees the market for them. If you fondly remember Ultima4 (or Ultima6) you will feel very much at home in his games. If you have no clue what I'm talking about ... well, the games DO have free demos. But if you just dropped 1200 bucks on a dual PCIe cross-linked graphics card and want to test it out, you're looking in the wrong place by far.
None of the games feature the popular RPG concept of "
classes"
- you just have a skill list, skill costs, and points to spend. Geneforge games do, however, have 3 divisions of character which affect the cost of skills (for example, a "
Shaper"
spends less on "
shaping"
skills and more on physical combat skills, but is never prevented from having any skill or equipment)
Avernum1-3 are remakes of Exile1-3 with some mechanics changes (simplified spells and interface, slightly expanded side-quests, and of course the graphics change to isometric). Some changes were much lamented by hardcore Exile geeks, but you would probably be more at home ignoring Exile as _too_ retro. The only real reason to still love Exile is that there's like 10 years of excellent user-made scenarios for Blades of Exile. Some of which are all encompassingly excellent. There are still few scenarios for Blades of Avernum, and even some of the highly rated ones are subpar.
Geneforge1-3 are set in a world which is kinda sci-fi (in the Clarke's law sense of the word(*) ) and kinda fantasy (more swords and sorcery). The science elements usually come more towards the end of the game when you delve into the aspects of the Geneforge itself. Mostly it just feels like Very Very non-Tolkein fantasy.
In all cases, the game is solved usually mostly by combat (including magical combat), partially by collecting "
quest items"
and sometimes combining them, partially by employing non-combat skills (trap disarming and such), and partially by solving puzzles. And in the Geneforge games, there's typically different endings depending on some factional decisions you made in the game (support group X or Y? which seems more right? quests and rewards will vary) and some ethical decisions you make late in the game.
In any case, all the games have free demos. Might be worth a shot if you like RPGs which emphasize story over graphics and freedom over "
classes"
.
(*) Clarke's Law (from Arthur C. Clarke. If you have no idea who that is, you really need to consider seppuku): "
A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
(**)
(**) silver Harloe wrote something he calls the "
Zelazny Corollary"
based mostly on Roger Zelazny's books _Creatures of Light and Darkness_ and _Lord of Light_: "
A sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from godhood."
But Zelazny's corollary is not germaine to the discussion.
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[Last edited by silver at 05-15-2006 10:06 AM]
