Avernum: Escape from the Pit is a new RPG from indie developer Spiderweb Software, and for many of you that name alone is more than enough information. Spiderweb specializes in old school RPGs from the golden days of classics like Baldur’s Gate. Amongst their past hits are Avadon: The Black Fortress, the Geneforge series and, most importantly, the Exile series, which was remade into the Avernum series and remade again for the game this very review is focusing on. Spiderweb games are always focused on gameplay and world building first, and other things like graphics and UI tend to get shifted to the side. Fortunately for more casual RPG fans, Spiderweb took a big step towards making their games a little more user friendly and accessible in Avadon, and Avernum is another step in the right direction.
TouchArcade: Hello, everyone. I hope you enjoyed the magical and mysterious GDC week last week. Normally, the RPG Reload Pocast will go up on the first Monday of each month, but with GDC that didn't quite pan out. However, better late than never, and this time around, our main topic is Avernum: Escape From The Pit [$9.99 (HD)], which I covered in my RPG Reload column two weeks ago. It's a really interesting open-world RPG done in a classic style which is oddly coming back into vogue of late.
TouchArcade: This week, we're looking at Avernum: Escape From The Pit [$9.99 (HD)] from Spiderweb Software. It's a game with more history behind it than you might think at a glance. Released on Mac in late 2011, with Windows PC and iPad versions following a few months later, it's a remake of Avernum, released in 2000, which itself was a remake of the 1995 game, Exile: Escape From The Pit, Spiderweb Software's first release. Spiderweb Software has been consistently releasing indie RPGs for almost 20 years, a remarkable achievement all on its own. Ultima did not survive, Wizardry somehow transformed into a largely Japan-only niche series, Interplay and Black Isle are both essentially past-tense, and even Bioware seems to be less interested in the kind of games they used to make. Spiderweb Software, on the other hand, is still here, and the company doesn't look to be going anywhere.
Hardcore Droid - An RPG could be an enormous decade-spanning epic or it could have almost no plot at all. It could have a well-written main character or it could have a character that you created. It could be an open-world first person shooter or it could be a top-down, pixelated dungeon crawler—it’s the most experimental genre of games and the most diverse.
