Avernum 3: Ruined World - Jeff Vogel Blog
 

Jeff Vogel talks about his second remake of Exile 3:

Thanks Farflame!

More information.

It will be interesting to see if Jeff does a Kickstarter.

It's curious that he hasn't decided yet. He's been thinking about it for years. I hope he does, personally.

What do you think is stopping him? I think he is reluctant to commit to regular communication with backers and all the malarky that goes with Kickstarter. It can be a significant business cost investment but the potential payback is greater I think.

I suspect that you're right to be honest. Another possibility might be that he's decided to do it but doesn't want to take attention away from the recent release of Avernum III by "announcing" it.

Again a great read. Somewhat concerning that not having art for horses was enough to cancel hat feature instead of paying an artist a few bucks to create a few new sprites.

He has a pattern of strictly keeping things his way and on his terms. That’s my take on why he is hesitant to take money. I’m sure he has had dozens of opportunities to scale up over the years.

Yep, that also maeans that he wants to be as independent as possible, which limits the scope of any project quite a bit.

Something new from Jeff Vogel? Avadon didn't feel so new, and aside from that, Geneforge was the last time he did so. Looking forward to what he's going to 'steal' this time! ;)

Not sure that'd work…

Waiting for the religiously regular Avernum 3 patch v1.0.1 :D

After remaking games for so long, I have my doubts as to whether he could even follow through on an entirely new project. Complacency tends to ween out creativity.

*cough* Yeah…probably not. Corrected. ^^

It's always interesting to read what he has to say.

I trust in Vogel, I would happily throw some dollars his way. More dollars, I mean. Lots more!

Vogel has milked his recycled bletch for at least a decade now, I shudder to see what he has planned next.

I'm always excited to see anything new from Jeff. I'm sure I'll really enjoy whatever it is (and then enjoy each inevitable sequel less and less).

Jeff is currently doing an AMA on reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comme…oftware_since/

Some info as take away: Sounds like the new engine is icon based 2d, but top down and not isometric anymore.

And Kickstarter is coming early summer! \o/

Top down? No thanks

"top down and not isometric anymore"

Well, as long as it doesn't end up looking like something knocked together in Visual Basic forms, like that more recent Knights of the Chalice game :/

Really depends on the definition of top down and isometric.
Knights of the Chalice for example I'd still call isometric (in it's ugliest form)
Top down is Heros of Steel RPG or FTL but also the term "icon" frightens me. Don't want to play with symbols. ^^

If he decides to go into some abstract mobile friendly game format you can definitely count me out.

Top down/icons can be fine, if they are very detailed and artistically pleasing (which I'm sure they will be, at least a bit above the level of his current engine's graphics, otherwise why would he be doing it?)

Think IceBlink Engine with much more detail. I'd like that.

His current games are already very mobile-friendly. So are Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment and so on. I've played them on tablet, they're very good.

I expect it to be top-down done to a higher quality level than what you think of as a typical top-down game. That would be my guess based on what we've heard.

Think an improved Realmz. That would be dope, too, IMO.

I’m playing Escape from the Pit entirely on iOS. There is no need to dumb it down any further.

And Realmz would be a big step backwards. Just stick with the current engine

Not sure why you'd expect him to dumb his games down or make them look graphically worse than his current stuff. I'll wait to see what it looks like before jumping to conclusions that it's going to suck.

Well, it's not making games worse by intention. But remembering the late 90s lots of people apparently thought "Well, that Gabriel Knight game surely looks much better in 3D and it's totally modern".

I think with his low budget it's a very thin line between "still charming" and "cheapo crap"

I was referring to the "more recent KotC game" (KotC2?), which is definitely not isometric in any form. i.e. see here:
http://www.heroicfantasygames.com/Fo….php?f=5&t=656

The money he raises on Kickstarter will give him a huge budget compared to what he's used to. And I don't know if it could get any more, eh.."low budget charming" than what it already is.

Would it actually be possible to make his games look graphically worse? :)

That's what I'm saying, lol. Not only would that be impossible but I also wouldn't expect him to choose something that looks worse, either. Either way I'm excited as hell to see it. I have to play more of his stuff but I always get distracted with other games.

Yeah KotC2 looks pretty terrible. I've no idea why he chose to go down that route when the first one looked perfectly fine. But it won't stop me playing it, if it ever does come out - the game itself is likely to be awesome!

It's the same with Vogel for me. I quite like the current style; I hope the new style doesn't look worse. But whatever. I enjoy his games enough to trust him on this one. And, like Fluent, I expect it will look fine at the end of the day.

I do hope that the new IP has an interesting premise, I'm curious about where he's likely to go with it. I haven't read the Reddit yet - does he say anything about the systems or world for the new IP, it is it all about the engine and graphics?

Ok I've read it. Seemed a good enough excuse to delay going into work. :) He comes across as a good bloke, I enjoyed his answers. In relation to my question above, the answer is basically "no", but I've copied a few relevant quotes below that are scattered throughout the AMA.

We're making entirely new IP. New game system, new graphics, new world, new story. I hope (no promises) to do a Kickstarter early this summer with a full announcement.

It will still be a low-budget, turn-based, icon art fantasy RPG with a rich story. If you are expecting fancy tech, shiny 3-D, or big budget, nope. We're still us. Within those bounds, it is different from anything we've done before, and I'm very excited about it.

I think you will find our new game system incorporates a lot of new ideas and design elements of contemporary RPGs. I've been inspired by a lot of newer titles. It sure feels fresh to me.

I don't like repeatable quests. I definitely want to move away from grinding. I'd like the next game to ideally give the full experience in 20-30 hours.

Our next game will be a little less wordy than our older games

Many many new mechanics.

Turn-based and tile-based is pretty much permanently our thing

What I found very disappointing:

I don't like music in games. I like incidental sounds (rain, breezes, etc). It's my style. If you want music in your game, you can pick far better music for you than I can.

That's fair enough, I think. There are people on this site who think like that as well. Each to their own, etc.

I'll simply repeat what I always do with Spiderweb games: Make your own RPG oriented playlists and soundtracks for play in the background; compile them in accordance to what you think best suits the mood of the game. Certainly works for me at least. :)

To be fair 3d in the 90's wasn't that strong and had very little to do with things other then it was early stage 3d.

In other words, he can't make the music himself so like hell will he pay for it. Profit margins.

Out of the hundreds or thousands of games I've played, two have had acceptable music, to date. I'd much rather any funds go to improving the actual game rather than for crappy music, I can provide my own and it will be far superior.

From the hundreds of games I did play there are only 2 or 3 games which had non-acceptable music. One of them is Heroes of Steel RPG. And the other 1 or 2 I left as margin of error.

Icons likely means he is headed to a system similar to Battle Brothers. I don’t enjoy the abstraction. Cant get into it. So yes to me that is a step backwards.