It seems the third and final chapter of Vogel’s Avadon wRPG trilogy–that being Avadon 3: The Warborn–is now out, less than a month after its initial announcement! The premise remains: You are a Hand of Avadon, the Black Fortress. You are a warrior and spy, judge and executioner, with nearly unlimited power to fight the […]

Word reaches me that Spiderweb Software has released a spiffied-up remake of the classic wRPG Avernum 2, titled Avernum 2: Crystal Souls. The narrative premise: The end has come. Years ago, your people were imprisoned in the underworld, doomed to end their lives in the darkness. Then that was not enough. Your captors have invaded […]

As promised, Spiderweb Software‘s latest wRPG epic, Avadon 2, is now out for Mac OSX and Windows! The premise: You are an agent of Avadon. The Black Fortress. Your job is to protect your homeland from the limitless threats that surround it. Titans. Monsters. Barbarians. Fading, jealous empires. The warriors and spies of Avadon must […]

RockPaperShotgun has a new interview up with Spiderweb Software‘s Jeff Vogel where he shares his latest experiences in development, talks about his development process, and talks about the advantages of Steam and frequent sales. RPS: Spiderweb has been going an for amazing twenty years, and clearly has a large following of dedicated fans. But from […]

Jeff Vogel has written in to let me know that Avernum: Escape From the Pit has finally been released. (We last covered it this past July.) 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 […]

Jeff Vogel has released his remake of the original Avernum for Mac. If you’re a Mac user, the game can be yours for $20; if you’re a Windows user, you’ll have to wait for “Q1, 2012.” Either way, here is a trailer showing off the game in its new engine.

Today I scored an interview with Jeff Vogel, one of the great-grandaddies of the indie RPG world.Vogel has been developing indie RPGs for a whopping 15 years, and by all accounts, he’s been quite successful at it. We discussed the reaction to Avadon (his latest game), what his next move will be as a game […]

Earlier this week, Spiderweb Software released Avadon: The Black Fortress for Mac. The Windows port is “Coming in Spring 2011,” or “hopefully by the end of April”; sometime after that, an iPad port is apparently on the horizon as well. Avadon has had a remarkably short development cycle since its  announcement in May of last […]

It has been somewhat in vogue recently among a certain class of indie game designer to assert that games are not a good storytelling medium. Now, I have never made a secret of my views on dialog and other narrative techniques in games. While interactivity is of course central to any gaming experience, that is […]

Spiderweb Software posted a page for a new game slated for release in early 2011: 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 […]