so I thought I would make a thread about Spiderweb software's new game Avadon: The Black Fortress which should be out early next year for mac and if history is any indication for windows a couple months later. For those that don't know about spiderweb software they are a very small indi developer or old school style CRPGs for Mac and windows, that have been making great RPGs for the last 15 odd years. They use a shareware business model offering a good chunk of the game free as a demo with the ability to pay to unlock the rest of the game. So there is no excuse for not trying their games lol.

Avadon is set to be the first chapter in a new, epic fantasy saga. You will serve the keep of Avadon, working as a spy and warrior to fight the enemies of your homeland. As a servant of the Black Fortress, your word is law. Experience an exciting fantasy role-playing adventure and battle a conspiracy to destroy your people.

the official feature list may help to tell you more about the game than I could so I will add that lol.

• Epic fantasy role-playing adventure in an enormous and unique world.
• Four different character classes, with dozens of unique spells and abilities.
• Uncover the fascinating history of Avadon and the land of Lynaeus.
• Many different endings. Your choices will change the world.
• Dozens of side quests, hidden dungeons, and secrets to discover.
• Hundreds of magical items to find. Use powerful crystals to make your artifacts even more powerful.
• Huge adventure with lots of replay value. 

for more info head over to http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/avadon/index.html or check out this interview with Jeff Vogel the main man over at spiderweb http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=205.

the second part of the dev diary...

Here is another long overdue developer diary for our next game, Avadon: The Black Fortress. These articles are about the ongoing process of developing our new series of games. The first installment was about the source of the idea and the basic framework of the plot, which came together fairly quickly.

We recently gave a long interview about Avadon, with a lot of information about the storyline and game system. If you haven't seen it already and want some hard information about what the new game will be like, it's a good place to start.

So I Had the Basic Idea

Now I needed to decide what sort of game I was going to write. So the next step was to decide on the theme, the mood, and the choices. This process took weeks of thought and is worth attention. It might be a little bit technical and vague though, so if you aren't interested in the artsy parts of game design, you should probably wait until the next part, when I get into the game system and the cool number-based hacky-choppy stuff.

Once I had the skeleton of a plot and setting, I think about how the game will "feel". What will the player be doing? How will I get the player emotionally involved? What gripping choices will the player make? You see, I make small budget games. Fancy graphics and sounds aren't going to happen. My main weapon is the ability to tell a good story, so I focus on that. For Avadon to succeed, I have to make it interesting. How do I do that?

The Theme - You Have Power. How Do You Use It?

So first, I need a Theme. This is a set of vague questions and ideas that determine the choices and quests the player will face. When I am designing a new area or town or set of characters, these are the questions I go back to for ideas and inspiration.

So you are a citizen of the Pact, five nations that have banded together to keep the barbarians and monsters at bay. And you work for Avadon, a secretive and powerful force that hunts down and destroys those who would disrupt the safety and stability of the Pact. Avadon's word is law.

Role-playing games work best when they are, at some level, power fantasies. You are a hero (or villain). You have power, and you get to choose how to use it. This has appeal to a lot of gamers, myself included. So the first step is to place the player in a position of power and responsibility. You need to protect your people, and you are given a lot of leeway for how to do it.

But there are also hints that your power is too great. Your word is law, and that isn't necessarily a good thing. Well, it's great for you, but not so hot for everyone else.

Maybe you want to play a thug or a bully. Or maybe you want to resist the temptation to misuse your power, which is satisfying in a different way. And the story of Avadon is about all of the same sorts of choices. Avadon can do what it wants. Will you guide it to do the right thing? And, for that matter, should a group with so much power exist?

That is the theme. Power. The option to misuse it. What will you do?

This is a theme I go back to a lot. I think it leads to interesting games, and a good theme makes coming up with ideas and writing dialogue a lot easier.

The Mood - How Does the Game Feel? Light or Dark?

The next thing to decide is how the game will "feel"? Will it be dark and grim? Bright and cheery? Will there be humor? Will there be detailed descriptions of horror and chaos? How many nice people die?

Based on the theme, Avadon could go very dark. Mass Effect 2dark, easily. But I decided early on that I don't want that. I like writing humor, and I think games that are too unrelentingly grim aren't very fun.

I decided that Avadon will have a lot of humor and some areas that are fairly cheery. Some of the characters will actually be happy. Sometimes, you will be able to squish evil and make choices you actually feel good about. There will be more confused, cynical moments, of course, but a little of that goes a long way.

A lot of this will show up in Redbeard, the all-powerful master of Avadon. He has much responsibility and power, but I am making him a cheery character, with a lust for life, a macabre sense of humor, and someone who takes true delight in his reach and authority. This character will be the spine of the series, so I want him to be fun to write. And he is.

Of course, these are big games. That makes it easy to have some areas that are light and some areas that are grim. And I will. But, when you are laying down the whole plot, knowing what mood you want at the start helps you get the balance of Neat! and Yuck!right.

The Choices - How Does the Player Change the World?

Finally, choices. I think the most important quality of my games, the thing that adds interest and keeps me interested in writing them, is the ability to make choices that affect the ending. Of course, I'm not the only developer that does this. Bioware is better at it than I am. But it is still something very important to me.

Happily, now that I have the setting and theme, the choice comes naturally. Avadon has almost limitless power, and it can use that power however it wants. Sometimes it uses it for the good of the land, but sometimes corruption sinks in. Avadon has many enemies. The player's choice will be whether to serve Avadon or reject it. Whether to work for Redbeard, master of Avadon, or fight him. Or even plot to replace him.

Choices like this make writing a game much easier. Whenever I design an area and the conversations in it, it provides me a North Star to sail toward. I always skew the choices and conversations toward that final choice, the final destination.

And Then I Have To Write a Game

All of this is a little vague and metaphysical, I know. It is supposed to be. This is all stuff that has to get settled before I write a single line of code. It takes months of thought. But when I'm lost in the wilds, when I have a thousand bug reports and fifty dungeons to design and I'm going crazy, that is too late to figure out what I want the game to be like. I need to put firm clear principles in place so that, when I am exhausted and distracted and just trying to wrap the game up, I have as many questions already answered as I can.

The next diary will be about the next step, the game system, the actual nuts and bolts mechanics of what the game will be like.

part 3

Time for another developer journal about the creation of the first game in an all-new series, Avadon: The Black Fortress. The first article was about the unusual way in which I first came up with the idea for the series, and the second article was about the long and dry process of choosing a mood and theme for the game.

Next came the fun part. The game system. The gritty details of the numbers and abilities and treasures and other things that help make role-playing games fun.

Designing a whole new game system is both fun and terrifying. It's a chance to do something new and exciting, but if you have too many changes your fan base will be angry. It's a chance to correct all the mistakes you made over the previous years, and then go and screw up in a whole new bunch of ways. And there are a lot of decisions to make. Lots and lots of decisions, and a lot of time spent balancing each one.

So, before I got too far, I had to make several big choices:

1. Class-based or skill-based system?


All of Spiderweb's games have had skill-based systems. All characters were able to train in the same pool of skills. Warriors could learn to cast spells. Wizards could learn to use a sword. It's worked very well.

And yet, Avadon will throw all that out the window. Avadon: The Black Fortress will have four character classes, each with entirely different pools of abilities. The classes are Blademaster, Shadowwalker, Shaman, and Sorceress, and each plays very differently.

Your party will have up to three characters. One will be your main character. The other two will be selected from characters in the game, each with their personalities and issues and each of which is one of the four classes.

Three party members. Four classes. Thus, you will always have to do without at least one of the classes. Also, sometimes the characters will be off doing their own business, so you will have to play someone else. Because of this, you will need to shift your tactics occasionally.

So why change? Why throw out a system that's been working great for fifteen years? The answer is: Because I thought it would be fun to write a class-based system.

That's pretty much it. After fifteen years, I need to occasionally try new things to stay interested and keep my brain fresh. Otherwise, burnout, writer's block, and disaster. I've played a lot of good games over the years with class-based systems, I had a lot of fun with them, and I wanted to write my own. And the classes match very well with the different cultures and nations of Lynaeus, so they will be an organic part of the world.

2. How much healing?

All of our games so far have followed a fairly standard computer RPG way of handling damage. Monsters do tons of damage. You have a tank to sop it up and a healer to heal, heal, heal. We've done this a lot. It's fine. But I think it could be more fun.

Instead, for combat, I've been a bit more inspired by the way Dungeons & Dragons and Dragon Age have handled healing. There is not much of it, and it's almost all from potions. Everyone in your party focuses on doing damage. You and the opponent wear each other down, and the first side to fall loses. There is some healing (from Shaman skills and consumable items) for long, tough fights, but combat is now more about being slowly worn down by many blows.

3. How Often Do You Need To Return To Town?

All of our games so far have required frequent trips back to town to rest. As you cast spells, you spell points fade away. Eventually you run out and need to either use precious potions or go back to rest. This system has its points, mainly because it requires you to conserve your power. But walking back to town to rest isn't that fun.

So in Avadon, you will need to return to town far less often. After battles, your health will return quickly. There are no "mana" or "spell points." Abilities will have cooldowns. When you use an ability, you won't be able to use it again for a certain number of turns.

However, as you use more demanding spells and abilities, your fatigue will slowly increase, and when it gets too high you can't use those abilities. However, fatigue really does increase slowly, and there are items that will revive you. The result: Far fewer trips back to town and more time having fun.

4. How Difficult Will the Game Be?

The opinions of my fans has been nearly unanimous on this point. Spiderweb games have gotten too hard. I am completely revamping game balance with this in mind.

The normal, default difficulty will not be tough. Unless you go picking fights with dragons, Avadon will be far less tough that previous games. At the same time, I will make sure that the higher difficulty levels push back at you.

There Are Some Basic Principles

These are the decisions I made early on, which informed everything that came after them. Next month I'll say more about the game system and the character classes.