Comments - TehGary

Yeah, the lack of character customisation is a real disappointment for me, and one of the biggest problems with the game for me. I can only think that the reason for this choice is to sort of attract more casual gamers who are put off by things like that, and get them hooked on Spiderweb so that they go and buy all of their other games. I think that, and the fact that it's $10 on Steam and Desura, might attract the sort of person that tends to trawl through lists of games and just buy a game they like the look of without having played it if it's cheap enough (which I've certainly done).

Something I didn't like (that I didn't have enough room for in my review, which was mostly negative despite me actually enjoying the game) is that there are only four classes, and you are forced into having four companions, one of each class. So the result of this is that by the end of the game you'll have had one character of each class up to level 30, and there's a character that can completely reassign your skill points, so you can experiment as much as you like with all four classes in a single play through, so there's no reason to replay the game from a character design point of view (which is part of the fun for RPGs for me - replaying as a completely different type of character).

The linearity is what allows the story to be deeper than it seems at a first glance. The gameplay can be kinda tactical later on if you bump up the difficulty. But if you haven't tried other Spiderweb RPGs and want to give something a bit deeper a go, they have pretty big demos on their site. I personally highly recommend Geneforge - combat is much more challenging and fun, and the basic geneforging concept is really cool.

By the way, I apologise if my comment above seemed aggressive or personally insulting or anything like that. I'm not a troll, honestly =D

The reason for the Linux (and Android) ports was so that they could get the game included in the second Humble Android Bundle, and they had to contract another company to do those ports. The possibility of future Linux ports depends on whether or not enough people buy the Linux port to make it worth their while.

As for $10 being too expensive, I couldn't disagree more. They're behind graphically, but they're not trying to mimic old games - when they started releasing isometric RPGs, major developers were still releasing isometric RPGs (such as the little known Baldur's Gate games, and Troika's first two games). It's not about nostalgia and bringing back a long-dead style of gaming (like, say, Legend of Grimrock), but more that, because they don't deal with publishers, they have no reason to focus on prettying up their games rather than focus on content and writing.

The other reason I disagree is that these are huge, deep games. Avadon is a step down in quality, but it's still a good game. On Spiderweb's site the game is priced at $20, and I think that's a bargain for a fun game in an under-served genre that offers around 40 hours of gameplay.

If you don't like the game and don't think it's worth $10, then that's a fair opinion. If you'd rather spend $10 on a classic isometric RPG than a modern isometric RPG, that's a fair opinion and I can't say that you're wrong for thinking that. But the idea that it should be priced less because its graphics and sound are dated, or because its interface was abandoned by major developers favour of 3D exploration and twitch combat is, frankly, ludicrous. The amount of content in the games, the fact that Spiderweb have been serving this niche consistently, and the fact that Jeff Vogel kind of needs to feed his kids, leave no doubt in my mind that $10 for Avadon is extremely good value.

I might come off as a bit of a fanboy in this post. I'm really not - I just think Spiderweb is a company that deserves support for its work.

According to some previous comments, there's an exclusivity deal for the Linux port with Gameolith.com, which is why the Linux port isn't available. Which seems really odd to me. Especially because, in the info-box at the top right of the page, it lists "Windows, Mac, Linux" under the available platforms.

I'd recommend trying to contact Desura's support folk before purchasing, just to be sure.

You chaps (well, you chap + business folk and artists) are my favourite RPG developer that still develops RPGs. I still can't believe that these huge games are mostly the work of one dude. I am looking forward to seeing more of Lynaeus.

If you install Desura on your Linux machine, it'll be listed under the Play tab, and you can install it from there.