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Howdy, I'm Rob!


ChaosRob

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Hey all!

 

So, I remember Exile from my childhood, i was recently watching a GDC talk on the indiepololipse and the owner from this studio was on there sharing his experiences and I had forgotten all about Exile until I saw him.

 

I was young living in a grouphome with a crappy-for-its-time pc and i had this disk id gotten somehow with 50 games on it, and i wanted to play games too badly so i got into some of them, most of them were pretty bad but i remembered really getting into exile it scratched a gaming itch i haven't really been able to scratch in a long time since, I know from the talk that everything spiderweb software does is pretty similar to that original setup, but with improved graphics.

 

i went and bought the steam 'gigantic bundle' and I'm about to try my hand at some of these games, but which should i start with?

 

are they all in-keeping to the same general lore and rules or is each series unique? i think id rather start on the earliest game and work my way through but maybe you have a better suggestion..

 

BTW im an aspiring artist and a game designer by trade now and I'm totally going to try to jam something in this style but with my own personality added on top ^^

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The Avernum series is the re-write and expansion of the Exile Series (Exile 1 has been remade as Avernum 1 which has been remade as Avernum: Escape from the Pit). Jeff is working on his second re-make of Exile 3 which should be out in a year of so. You could play Avernum 1 through 6 and get the whole story if you like. Geneforge is a completely different story with five games and Avadon with 3 games is also a completely different story that Jeff just finished.

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Avernum is the closest to Exile except the party size is 4 instead of 6.

 

Geneforge is mostly a single character with the ability to add to the party during the game. One difference is it is real time outside of combat, so the enemy can move into an empty screen if you look away too long.

 

Avadon is similar to Avernum in combat system, but has a smaller party and you can switch party members.

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I like the 'classic grind' nature of this, i can take out 80% of a dungeon and then have to remember that that 'Escaped Experiment' is in that cave and to go back and get it after ive made a level or two and there is no hand holding. I did see these fancy-pants sprites for colored crystal nodes, they look like you might be able to mine them, i came back with a pickax and thats not making any difference, can you mine for resources or is that just pretty art?

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I'm Still playing, im actually a little but hurt at the amount of grinding now, im so strong there is little to do in the main area, but any of the branching paths are too difficult. maybe i spent my level up points and coins wrong. I'm sure ill get better soon, and once i can tackle one of these paths im sure the levels will start rolling in and ill be able to do more, but it sucks right now. Just a little gripe, id have liked to see more places fitting to my level.

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Spidweb games, especially the Exile/Avernum series, are notorious for putting super-powerful enemies where they're way out of your league. There are usually a good number of encounters which you can reach early on, but which will pulverize you if you try. Sometimes you need to come back MUCH later, not just a few dungeons. Jeff doesn't ever include unstoppable enemies though. I think he actually toned it down for the newest version of the series, but I don't think he eliminated that feature altogether.

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The spiders who are not your friends make it obvious very quickly. They also do not think you are neat or cute, and will not offer to show you their pedipalps.

 

—Alorael, who welcomes you to this corner of the internet. Leave your sanity at the door, as the traditional greeting goes.

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I do encourage that everyone plays BoE! (And BoA I guess but I've looked very little into that myself.) Right now the editor has fatal bugs but the scenario launcher seems to function well, so you can go on over 300 adventures! I'd guess around half of the BoE scenarios are terrible or boring, but the ones that are good will give you hundreds and hundreds of hours of enjoyment for free. Good deal, I think. They have very "retro" graphics and engines, which puts some people off, but I think the graphics are beautiful, particularly the Exile graphics by Andrew Hunter and so many of the wonderful custom graphics made by the community to match.

 

Also, before Christmas, someone bought two shirts from the BoE promotional shop I set up. I don't know who that was, but it made me rather happy. Thanks, whoever you are!

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  • 2 months later...

100 great game? I remember that I'm new here too with a similar story, and we are lucky, we got a different version of exile 2 crystals souls. If that was the one you remember? did that disc have elvis in space too? and conquest and critical mass? Omg I remember those days and the addictive one was Y.A.A.C.

 

.Edit, the version I had had more conventional rpg graphics not the blue roads but grey brick, Also It had that knarly spiders nest just west of fort ganrick like exactly north of draco and west of ganrick. by the water.

 

 

Ps whats the deal with that version and why can't I find any info on it? is it owned by the makers of that CD? because it seemed to have more content than the other. I hope you didn't lose it somehow.

 

That nest was like my party tester.... I miss it. Also, jeff why did you go to a 4 person party?

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The original version of Exile 2 had different graphics from the most recent version. The same content, though; that aranea nest has always been there. I think maybe your memory isn't quite serving you right.

 

Jeff doesn't respond to these forums as a general rule. From what he's said in various places over the years, there were a number of reasons. The primary one was really balance; it's a lot easier to make his games work as intended for a party of four than a party of six. Also six characters moving in a line look more ridiculous and are clumsier to maneuver into combat than four; you can see that in Nethergate.

 

—Alorael, who would like to welcome you to the forums. And deliver a gentle warning: it's considered impolite to post in threads that are months old unless there's a real need to revive them. Try to stick to at least somewhat active topics, although the General forum hasn't been all that active overall recently. If nothing strikes your interest you can always create a new topic for a new discussion.

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Spiderweb doesn't distribute the old graphics anymore, but there is a large minority of fans who love Exile and love the older graphics in particular -- which had a certain atmosphere to them that hasn't been beaten yet, IMO. Somebody uploaded them somewhere, but I don't have the link handy. Maybe someone else does?

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Someone has helpfully provided downloads for various old versions of Exile for Windows. If you're using a Mac, well, these things are old enough that you're probably better off using some kind of emulation or virtual machine either way.

 

—Alorael, who supposes one could also download the Windows version, copy the graphics over the newer graphics in a Mac installation, and then feel successful without having to resort to having or emulating window.

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—Alorael, who supposes one could also download the Windows version, copy the graphics over the newer graphics in a Mac installation, and then feel successful without having to resort to having or emulating window.

This would probably be very difficult, given how the graphics are represented in the Mac version of Exile 1. (I think Exile 2 would be slightly easier.) First of all, both Exile 1 and Exile 2 store their graphics in the resource fork, so you'd need a resource editor... if you're able to play the Mac version, you can probably also run ResEdit, though. Secondly, Exile 1 doesn't really use tilesheets to the same extent as the Windows version - many of the graphics are split up with one tile per resource, and furthermore, if I recall correctly, even those that are on a tilesheet are not necessarily arranged the same as in the Windows tilesheets.

 

It's probably easier to just set up a Windows 3.x install in DOSBox and use the Windows versions directly, as I have.

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