This game is actually a remake of the first Avernum, originally released as Exile: Escape From the Pit. The remake runs on the most up-to-date version of the Avernum engine and features dramatically improved graphics.

True to the original, AEFtP features three separate quests that can win you the game, offering a degree of flexibility we seldom see in RPGs of any description. The basic plot premise follows:

You have been banished to the underworld, never to see the light of day again.

The surface is ruled by the cruel Emperor Hawthorne, master of the Empire. All of the known lands are subject to his brutal command. Everyone who speaks out, who misbehaves, who doesn’t fit in is cast into the dark, volcanic pits of Avernum, far below the surface. There, you are expected to die, a victim of starvation, horrible monsters, or simple despair.

But not all of the Avernites have surrendered. With magic and steel, they are forging a new nation deep underground. You can join them and fight for safety. Or freedom. Or even, if you dare, revenge on the surface-worlders who tried to destroy you.

For reasons unknown (perhaps simple bad luck), AEFtP was released on Wednesday, the exact same day as Legend of Grimrock, all but guaranteeing that it would be overshadowed in terms of news coverage. Luckily, a variety of sites have reviews up nonetheless. Most of the reviews are fairly positive, though one reviewer has inexplicably concluded that the graphics in this remake are unchanged from those in the original. (Um, no.)

You can pick up Avernum: Escape From the Pit for $20 from the Spiderweb Software web store if you want it on a Mac or Windows PC. (Worth noting: if you’ve purchased any other Avernum game in the past, you can get a $10 discount.) To get the game on iPad, you can nab it for $9.99 from the app store.

Avernum: Escape From the Pit is an epic fantasy role-playing adventure in a unique and deadly world. Fight to complete up to three game-winning quests. Explore a massive nation of tunnels and caverns, seeking out eighty towns and dungeons. Master over 50 spells and battle disciplines and hunt for hundreds of magical artifacts. Avernum: Escape From the Pit is a total, ground-up rewrite of the last century’s Indie hit Avernum. It will be ready for adventurers in Q4, 2011.

Hit the jump for more info about the plot and some screenshots showing off the game’s newly spiffied-up graphics.

Vogel summarizes the plot of Avernum thusly:

You have been banished to the underworld, never to see the light of day again.

The surface is ruled by the cruel Emperor Hawthorne, master of the Empire. All of the known lands are subject to his brutal command. Everyone who speaks out, who misbehaves, who doesn’t fit in is cast into the dark, volcanic pits of Avernum, far below the surface. There, you are expected to die, a victim of starvation, horrible monsters, or simple despair.

But not all of the Avernites have surrendered. With magic and steel, they are forging a new nation deep underground. You can join them and fight for safety. Or freedom. Or even, if you dare, revenge on the surface-worlders who tried to destroy you.

Although the Mac version is scheduled for release at the end of this year, Windows and iPad versions are not slated for release until the first quater of next year.

You are a servant of Avadon. The Black Fortress. Your job is to protect the Pact, five nations that have banded together in a fragile alliance. The purpose of the Pact: To hold back the waves of invaders that seek to destroy you.

Outside the lands of the Pact, there are limitless threats. Barbarians. Fading, jealous empires. Titans and unspeakable horrors. The warriors and spies of Avadon are charged to keep them at bay, weak and divided. You fight in the shadows, rooting out small threats before they have the chance to grow. Your resources are unlimited, and your word is law.

But a dark time is coming. Assassins are killing Avadon’s warriors, and a hidden enemy plots to unite all of your homeland’s foes. If you cannot discover and destroy this conspiracy, and soon, your people face total destruction. But beware. The defenders of Avadon are being picked off, one by one, and you are the next target.

While the plot sounds decidedly Baldur’s Gate-y, the in-game screenshots they’ve posted look an awful lot like Avernum VI, albeit with much nicer character portraits and GUI design. (This probably shouldn’t surprise anyone.)

I’ll start with a confession: Avernum 6 is the first Avernum game I’ve played. So I write with a fresh eye toward the thing, rather than seeing it as one in a series of gradually improving games.

The writing in Avernum 6 is truly the game’s backbone, and it ranges from competent to quite good.

Though Jeff Vogel’s characterizations occasionally lack consistency, he has a way with words, and his curmudgeonly narrative voice provided me with chuckles on more than a few occasions. You’ll spend a lot of time exploring, talking to people, and searching things. The dialog and descriptions you get of the game world will arguably provide most of your moment-to-moment entertainment value while playing, so it’s good that Vogel has taken the time to do this well.

Avernum 6, however, lacks a certain level of polish. The portraits for your party members are distractingly amateurish, particularly when compared to the beautiful hand-painted portraits of the other characters you meet during the game. Further, while many of the in-game graphics look pretty good in a still screenshot, few of them animate in-game. The few that do, such as campfires and basic attack animations, don’t look so hot. All in all, the lack of animation doesn’t hurt the experience too terribly, but it is a little strange to see your party members jump from space to adjacent space in short jerks, all the while remaining perfectly rigid.

Treating the in-game characters like playing pieces might work better if the game were more like a strategy board game. However, while the combat system is definitely turn-based (and actually, a bit reminiscent of older games like Dark Sun: Shattered Lands), it’s too simplistic to really give you the feel of playing a tactical board game. Vogel makes no apologies for this: “in a turn-based RPG, with a small number of dudes fighting a small number of dudes, there isn’t much in the way of tactics that is possible. The math isn’t there!” (I don’t think that’s true, personally, but that’s a discussion for another time.)

There isn’t really any music in the game, aside from a pretty neat track that plays while you’re on the title screen. Some people will find the stark silence that accompanies even fairly dramatic events (such as combat) disappointing. Music can do an awful lot to set the mood in an RPG, and not having any in a sprawling adventure like Avernum 6 is a wasted opportunity.

Avernum 6 starts off slowly, with you being gradually introduced to the setting and the game’s mechanics via an extended tutorial. Avernum is a gigantic underground region that has been colonized by people from the surface via a magical portal. However, a blight has afflicted all natural underground sources of food, forcing people to flee or face starvation. You are a lowly private in the Avernum armed forces assigned to guard a food storage area. When the game begins, you’ll find items, equip them, and fight (what else?) rats. Here you can get a peek at someone playing through the tutorial sequence:

I didn’t mind the introduction, though I found it strange that Vogel chose to start the player off as an insignificant peon forced to kill wildlife, considering his views on the subject. Suffice it to say that you are going to spend some time clearing trash monsters at the beginning of Avernum 6, mostly in the form of giant rats and goblins. (Vogel does do us the favor of giving the goblins some personality, however: their leader, Lord Trinket, is as funny and vibrant a villain as any I’ve seen recently in an RPG.)

I think the beginning sequence may be Vogel’s way of working through his feelings about the end of the series. He’s been quite vocal about his ambivalence over bringing Avernum to a close. Vogel is tired of writing the same games over and over, but he’s afraid to turn off the spigot of his success. In many regards, the first mission seems to echo that ambivalence, with Sgt. Nichols and the player both acting as ciphers for Vogel: one nervous and fully aware of the risk of moving on, and the other bored of staying in the same familiar place month after month.

For my part, I’ve fully enjoyed my time spent in Avernum 6. If you’re a fan of old-school turn-based RPGs like Fallout and Arcanum, there’s a pretty good chance that you will like this too. There is a large public demo available for the willing: I suggest you go give it a try and decide for yourself.

The Verdict: 4/5. Avernum 6 is a game that lives and dies by the strength of its writing, and the writing is pretty good. While it lacks a certain level of polish, it offers a solid old-school gaming experience that few games these days even attempt.

Vogel’s company, Spiderweb Software, just released the final chapter of his Avernum series, Avernum 6, on Friday.

The site describes Avernum 6 thusly:

Travel into the strange subterranean land of Avernum, full of dungeons, labyrinths, and constant warfare. A final set of disasters threatens to destroy your homeland in a spasm of famine and warfare. Only you can help your people to get to safety before everything falls apart.

So, it’s probably safe to assume that there’s going to be a lot of warfare involved. Demos are available for both Windows and Mac.