You can instantly understand why the various issues highlighted in the game exist, from old border strife to uneasy alliances with necessary but unliked dragons. Like the best of fantasy, it is convincing because it is obviously realistic. It is an uneasy alliance at best, and one forced both by external threats and by internal politicking. The five nations have a long history of strife and the Pact exists more out of necessity than mutual love. You progress slowly along the story to find more and more hints that the Pact is not as untroubled as the opening areas would have you believe. The game does a good job of not making its long-term story goals obvious right off the bat, and refrains from rubbing its message in your face. But the Midlands Pact has more potential than is immediately obvious. And if you just play a bit of the game, you might get the impression the setting is really bland and unoriginal. As hooks go, an alliance of five nations in a typical high fantasy setting isn't the most interesting one. This makes it pretty clear that the Avadon franchise is focused on the Midlands Pact, its internal and external issues, and the position the fortress holds there.
The franchise is named for the large fortress that sits at the junction of three nations, a power independent of each nation that acts to see that every nation follows agreed-upon rules and to aid nations that need help with border issues. Where Avernum had its underground prison setting and Geneforge has its geneforging and rebellion, Avadon doesn't have an obvious hook. Even the world map looks like it could come straight from the inside jacket of a fantasy novel, with an alliance of five nations called the Midlands Pact sitting in the middle, bordered by fallen empires or wild lands threatening their security. Setting and Story Avadon gives us fairly typical high-fantasy fare, presenting us with magic-rich, medieval-type nations struggling with threats of wretches (goblins) and titans (giants), as well as upholding unsteady alliances with dragons and other powerful factions. The interface is intuitive and easy to use, especially for Spiderweb veterans. They are functional and sufficient for many players, but won't exactly tempt people expecting anything close to mainstream AAA graphics. The graphics are the best Spiderweb has done so far but there's still a lot of asset recycling. Like other Spiderweb games, it has no music but pretty solid sound design. Like older Spiderweb games, it's still a top-down turn-based RPG, with a heavy focus on exploration and turn-based party mechanics. One thing that should be kept in mind is that while there are a lot of of things that make Avadon different from Geneforge and Avernum, there are a lot of similarities too. Given a blank slate, I was very curious to see where Jeff Vogel would take his new franchise. In launching a new franchise, especially an indie one, there is little that binds you in that way. We always knew where a new Geneforge or Avernum would be set, roughly what character system it would come with, and how its progression would be structured. Crafting sequels for a franchise always creates expectations. The studio recently released Avadon: The Black Fortress for Windows, after finishing up their Avernum franchise with Avernum 6 a year ago.
AVADON THE BLACK FORTRESS NATHALIE OR SEVILIN FULL
Full of choice and consequence or more protective of the player. Still, within that genre there can be a lot of variations. In that time, he has always stuck to making top-down, classic-style cRPGs, and he still hasn't deviated from that basic framework. Spiderweb Software's Jeff Vogel is a veteran to the indie RPG industry of over 15 years.
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