Avernum 4: Greed And Glory Is Out!

Before I start blogging, please forgive me a brief advertisement about a new electronic entertainment I am very proud of ...

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The day is here! At last, Avernum 4: Greed and Glory has been released! It is now out for Windows & Macintosh, with the iPad version coming soon.

Started in 1994, the cult-classic Avernum series is one of the great video game sagas. In this new, epic fantasy role-playing adventure, you explore and save (or betray?) an enormous underworld nation. Avernum has finally won its freedom, and seekers of fame and fortune have flooded in. However, the need for peace with old rivals and the assault of waves of horrifying monsters threaten to undo everything the people of the depths have achieved. Can you save them? And get your own bits of fame and fortune along the way?

Battle through huge dungeons, fight unique and cunning foes, collect, create, and bless hundreds of different artifacts, and enjoy a really cool story. Avernum 4: Greed and Glory is a remaster of Avernum 4, which came out way back in 2005. The entire game has been redone, with improved art, tons of new quests, characters, and other material, and an engaging tale of survival and alien diplomacy in the underworld. We are really proud of this game, and we hope you like it!

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Back? OK!

Avernum 4: Greed and Glory is the remaster of Avernum 4, a game that came out in 2005 that I was never that happy with. I have written two posts already (here and here) about what went wrong. Now I’ll say how I fixed it.

Avernum 4 had two big problems. First, I hadn’t really figured out the overall arc of what the second trilogy of Avernum games was going to be about. Second, the project was so big and exhausting that it left me too drained to write all the story the game merited.

So when I went into Avernum 4: Greed and Glory, I had two goals.

Goal 1: More Stuff!

Original Avernum 4 was full of underdone bits. Fan favorite characters that only got tiny scraps of dialogue. Major characters who said very little. Major plot quests that were very quick and almost boilerplate. Empty areas. Don’t get me wrong ... it was a huge game with tons of stuff. But only the skeleton was there. It needed flesh.

So I added stuff. Thanks to Kickstarter backers, I was able to add over 20 (!!!) new quest lines, plus four new major locations and piles of new characters. Every major character has enough new dialogue to make them seem alive. I added traveling envoys from the Empire you could do diplomacy with all through the game.

Plus, I redrew the entire world. I added many new terrain types and then reworked every location to make it seem more real, and used environmental storytelling to give a better idea of what being in Avernum actually felt like. I played with light a lot more than I usually do to give the caves a claustrophobic, spooky feel.

Months went into all of this content. Making this game ended up being almost as exhausting as the original. And honestly? I wish there was more. (But isn’t that always the case?) There are some really cool late game locations that just didn’t get as many new quests and options as I had hoped. When I work on a game long enough, I just run out of time, ideas, and energy. I apologize to everyone, including myself.

And yet there is SO MUCH now! In my mind, the Avernum of Avernum 4 just feels real. I can picture it in my head. It feels organic and makes sense in a way this world never did before. It is really cool, and I take great satisfaction from it.

Goal 2: An Actual Theme

Avernum 3: Ruined World had an ending that was, if not a cliffhanger, cliffhanger-adjacent. Avernum was trying to share the underworld with a race of creatures that was entirely alien and had recently been at war with them. This had to be resolved. That was the easiest thing about making the story of Avernum 4. I had so much unfinished business to resolve.

But what else was going on?

The first Avernum trilogy was about survival and winning freedom. At the beginning of Avernum 4, Avernum was its own nation. But what sort of nation would it be?

I see it as being the frontier. A place to explore and win fame and wealth. The place young peasant farmers dream of going to win a new life. Dangerous and terrifying? Of course. But when in our own human history has that scared explorers away? If humans here dream of going to the moon or Mars, why can’t people in my fantasy world yearn for the depths?

So that previous paragraph? When I first started planning the Avernum 4 remaster, that was what came into my mind almost immediately. That was the theme. The one idea that powered everything.

In original Avernum 4, you always start as soldiers. Privates in the Avernum army, waiting to take orders. YAWN!

In new Avernum 4, you pick one of four backgrounds, two from the surface and two from the underworld. This has an effect on the game, but not a huge one. You get different stat bonuses, and the choice changes what sorts of quests you have to do to get a good ending. It makes the right level of difference. You feel it, but it doesn’t detract from what is, after all, the main story.

This is a great theme for the game because it fuels a lot of story and dialogue. The underworld is full of Empire fortune seekers. This causes friction with the native Avernites. This enabled lots of fun dialogue and player choices. I added official Empire envoys to express their own opinions and ask their own questions.

This change also lets the player have more stakes. The main story is vital, but in a sense it’s also off to the side. When you’re not actively being a hero, you get to choose your own goal and chase after it. Some of the goals lead to some really wild endings. I had some dramatic ideas, and they made it into the game. You can, if you play your cards right, own some spectacular bits of Avernite real estate.

Did I do as much as I wanted? Of course not. I wrote tons of new dialogue, but time, energy, and ideas always run out eventually. I have to hope I made enough.

I’m very happy with the end result, though.

I Hope You Like It

And that’s the story of Avernum 4, which is now done done done. I will patch the bugs. I will make the iPad version. And then I will forget everything about it and start the next project.

Maybe I’ll fit in a little rest.

I hope you try out the game (there’s a demo on our web site), and I hope you like it! Thanks for reading, and next time I’ll hopefully and happily start writing non-PR blog posts.

Spiderweb Software creates turn-based, indie, old-school fantasy role-playing games. They are low-budget, but they’re full of good story and fun. Our new game, Avernum 4: Greed and Glory, is out! Take a look!

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