Mistah Q

This week Avernum: Escape from the Pit is on sale on steam for $1.99. I grabbed a couple gift copies for friends.

I most recently watched Third Rock from the Sun and Coach on Netflix. But it's been a while now. I watched the documentary "Fat Head", which is sort of a response to "Supersize Me". And sort of a thing of its own. Hard to explain, worthy watch. When I'm home alone I might sneak in an episode of Fullmetal Alchemist or Pokemon or Gundam Wing. I'm a professional in my early 30s so most people consider this strange, and it isn't my wife's favorite thing to watch either. I tried to make her watch Escaflowne once and it just didn't go well. I don't have terribly much time to watch TV anyways. Come this fall I'll probably make time to catch the Steelers games, even though I've pretty well soured on sports over the years.

The first Warcraft games had a lot less depth than any Spiderweb game. "Kill the orcs" "Why" "They're attacking" "Why" "Because they're bad." "By the way here's some filler background story." And those have spawned quite numerous novels.

Or Posthumously like the Tawon.

The last refugees of Pralgad then did, in their inebriation, eastward sail for month on month... those Nephil few... until land did once again come into sight... ...but Svorgald was a silly place.

For sure, the little wall switches are not the only hidden little treasures. Maybe there should be a little thread dedicated to items like this, that you can only acquire at a very specific time window. Well there's always the synergizer lists but those things are huge lol

I think stealing was more fun in Avernum, where a whole town or even a whole religion would get pissed at you.

Are they marked "NY" (Not Yours)? Doesn't matter if nobody sees you get it. But sometimes I like to play through where I don't "steal" anything at all. Other times I'm as sticky-fingered as they come lol

Could always go the excessive narrative route. "He slowly, painstakingly picked up his sword and crept toward his foe as the dappled glow of the fungal light obscured the full scale of the strain upon his brow. This was no ordinary spider, but one that could understand him and even speak to him. These lot were friendlier than the ones he'd met before and a twinge of regret coursed through him as he understood he was about to strike down one of the rare creatures that didn't want to kill him back, but still, treasure... " I mean, Walt Whitman used a whole chapter just to say "the whale was white."

Geneforge Saga is on sale on Steam this week, $3.99 for the lot. Get it. I actually bought it on gog a month ago. But I like having it in my steam library.

I wonder if rather than a traditional novel, the Avernums and especially the Geneforges could function as... Choose Your Own Adventure Books. (Remember those? )

I think Geneforge could make quite an interesting novel... but I'll wait for the movie to come out.

I was an extreme loyalist my first playthrough. My second playthrough I kind of gave up, I don't think I found my development very satisfying I started a third playthrough where what I'm going to do is be loyal to Silkie and to my companions, the rest can come or go, but I'm not through with it.

For most games I use some combination of mouse and keyboard. For some games I'll prefer to plug in a controller... which is a good little point. I have a very generic cheap logitech usb controller that's quite similar to a PS2 controller. If anyone has suggestions for an improvement let me know. My current laptop has a touchscreen too and yet I still prefer the mouse in most circumstances. This actually happened to me on one of my Avadon 2 playthroughs - my mouse was beginning to malfunction just slightly. Like sometimes a click would register as a double-click. It was causing me to pick dialogues I didn't want (or rather, I didn't even know what I picked sometimes), to close windows, to miss messages... seems simple enough on a game like Avadon to just use the trackpad or, heck, just reach up and press "1" or "2" or "3"... but no, I couldn't function, and had to put off finishing until I got a new mouse.

I managed to beat Vardegras underground once, on casual difficulty. I doubt I could do it again any higher, even on just normal. You're meant to run from that fight... escape and you can come back and challenge dragon later with a normal party if you want. If you do manage to beat him underground it bugs the game a little bit. The dialogue with some people is as though you've done it, but he's still alive for you to go talk to (and fight again if you want). I'm not sure whether this situation gives you the flag for the game ending. But yes if you're talking about in his lair... I advise trying to run and escape.

and he better keep the Burma Shave joke.

I enjoy all the Spiderweb games but I have especially fond memories of Exile 3. I'll be buying Avernum: Ruined World, pretty much the second it's released.

I don't really like it either. Especially if a particular spell is the best way to handle a particular crowd, and you've been saving up for it... but then you can only do it once. I miss being able to put up an ice wall too

I think he went to chill with Shadow Tarkus.

One thing I never got around to. You can report her to Heart Callan... but you're basically going on a hunch. Is there something you can find that proves that she's guilty - or that she's clean?

This was classic spiderweb, one of the more fun little challenges of the game. What Lilith said. Almost a shame Avadon didn't get any doom guards.

I think it heavily depends on setting. My typing speed significantly improved once I did get used to it - but once I emerged from my basement cave and joined the real world, it became more of a detriment... and once I had to keep switching between the two I really slowed down in both. It was better for me to just relent to qwerty and "go with the flow".

Avadon 1 is on sale on Steam this weekend. I already have Avadon 1, but, it's a good opportunity to spread the word, I'm going to gift it to a couple friends and see if I can get them into Spiderweb Games.

Another holdover from the typewriter era is the qwerty/azerty layout - not the best layout for typing efficiency, but instead having commonly juxtaposed letters spaced out from one another for little reason other than to keep the type arms from getting stuck together. It's a construct we're still stuck with, decades after typewriters have fallen from common use. The dvorak keyboard is much more efficient and I had actually switched to it in my formative years with some success, but I had to go back to qwerty because I learned that in the workplace and in university computer labs, alternate keyboard layouts were not really an option.

If I were a vampire I would prey upon mellitus diabetics. They would tend to have two conditions - ketoacidosis and hyperglycaemia - which would both serve to sweeten the blood. Yummy yummy.