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Avadon: The Black Fortress Features:Epic fantasy role-playing adventure in an enormous and unique world.

  • Four different character classes, with dozens of unique spells and abilities.
  • Uncover the fascinating history of Avadon and the land of Lynaeus.
  • Many different endings. Your choices will change the world.
  • Dozens of side quests, hidden dungeons, and secrets to discover.
  • Hundreds of magical items to find. Use powerful crystals to make your artifacts even more powerful.
  • Huge adventure with lots of replay value.
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The Mighty Bundle

News 3 comments

The Mighty Bundle from Indie Royale has 6 super strong games for you. We've got Waveform; Avadon: The Black Fortress; Zafehouse Diaries; Derrick the Deathfin; Tidalis and War of the Human Tanks.


First up in The Mighty Bundle is Waveform from Eden Industries. This fantastic game sees the player navigate the beauty and hazards of the solar system while riding on a wave of light in an innovative action-puzzle game. Gaming Nexus said "controlling a wave of light is executed flawlessly through beautifully rendered levels and a challenging, but addictive gameplay experience". Waveform is available on Windows and Mac from Steam, on Desura and DRM-Free for PC, Mac and Linux.


Next we have Avadon: The Black Fortress from Spiderweb Software. This epic role playing fantasy saga sets the player the task of protecting The Pact to save the day. RPG Fan said it "reminded me of some of the best games I've ever played" and gave it an Editor's Choice award. It's available from Steam & DRM-Free for Windows, Mac & Linux and on Desura. We've also got a hint book if you need it!

Next up is Zafehouse Diaries from Screwfly Studios. It's a tactical game of survival, planning, resource management and problem-solving. Zafehouse: Diaries uses a text diary-based interface for a game which is different every time you play it. We've got it for Windows on Desura and DRM-Free.

Following along in The Mighty Bundle is Derrick the Deathfin from Different Tuna. An underwater papercraft game that's also a fast paced arcade game. Derrick the Deathfin is available on Windows through Desura and Windows & Mac DRM-Free.

Another strong game in The Mighty Bundle is Tidalis from Arcen Games. A block-based puzzle game with casual appeal, hardcore depth, and an addictive "streams" mechanic. Eurogamer said "Tidalis is a charmingly lo-fi package that positively drowns you in content." The game is available for Windows from Steam.

Finally we have War of the Human Tanks from Fruitbat Factory. In this story driven strategy game that pits the group of Human Tanks commanded by the player against the opposing Commanding Officers and their forces. We've got it on Windows from Desura. It's also on Steam Greenlight now and we've got the soundtrack.

Those who pay $8 USD or their currency equivalent during The Mighty Bundle will get Darkman007's heavy chiptune album: Chiptunes 2012. This album is available in MP3 and FLAC format.

We've started to put interviews with some of the developers whose games we've featured in different Indie Royale bundles on our YouTube channel; check in for the latest videos.


You can find more information on The Mighty Bundle, including real-time statistics and its current price, on its official website or via its Facebook, Twitter and Google+ pages. Grab this bundle now while the price is still low (unless kind purchasers lower the price) so that you'll have hours of heavy-weight indie gaming fun to look forward to!

Avadon on Desura

Avadon on Desura

News 12 comments

Spiderweb Software brings you Avadon: The Black Fortress, the first chapter in a new, epic fantasy saga.

Avadon available for preorder

Avadon available for preorder

News 3 comments

Spiderweb Software brings you Avadon: The Black Fortress, the first chapter in a new, epic fantasy saga.

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Manual & Map

Manual & Map

Guide 4 comments

Welcome to the exotic and exciting world of Avadon!

Post comment Comments  (0 - 10 of 41)
ssokolow
ssokolow

I just got a response to the message I sent to Gameolith. Apparently, the exclusivity agreement was made prior to Avadon being ported and Desura added the Linux version without double-checking that it was OK or notifying Spiderweb Software that it had been done.

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Eddward
Eddward

I wonder if it's exclusive for a little while or if that's permanent. I'm sure Gameolith is nice and all, but I have the HIB version already. I'm just trying to get more of my eggs in Desura. It's easier to manage.

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ssokolow
ssokolow

The response I got from Spiderweb Software literally said

"Gameolith has an exclusive on the game for a few months."

However, they also said this in a previous message, so I wouldn't hold my breath:

"Thank you for writing and for getting our game! Sadly, our time is very limited right now, and getting Linux versions of our games integrated into Desura is a very low priority. Sorry about that!"

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jcassano
jcassano

Yeah, from what I've seen Jeff Vogel doesn't really give a **** about the Linux market. Makes the Linuxers who pirate his stuff totally justified IMO.

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Eddward
Eddward

No. Pirating will just create a circular justification. ("Why support Linux. They're all pirates".) Just favor those who offer better support.

He has it for sale on Gameolith. I'd rather manage it through Desura. I've been a physical media kind of guy. Desura is another piece that makes it a little easier for me to give up having the physical artifact.

I hope Jeff warms up to Linux. He has a history of writing the kind of games I like, but I'm not switching back to windows for that.

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PaBLoX
PaBLoX

Sad, I bought this game a couple of months ago on steam. In that moment as long as I remember there weren't any plan to release a linux edition.

After playing this game, I found that 10 usd is too expensive for a "new" game that tries to mimic/look/work as an old game, but without being a relic. Seeing old gems drm-free games on gog.com for the same amount or less (and a lot of deals) turns out impossible to buy it here =(.

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TehGary
TehGary

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.

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PaBLoX
PaBLoX

Thanks for your comment :). I guess here we're discussing about "likes" so it's a bit hard to reach a common point. I played avadon for a while, and found that it has little options to customize your character (no char creation basically) and a linear story. Also, the playability wasn't good either (I don't remember why, I just remember that I didn't like it).

About the story, after reading a couple of reviews I guess I didn't played enough to get into the "deep", so I can't argue that point -which seems to be a strong one.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't saying that it's supposed to be cheaper because of its "date graphics and sound". I honestly don't care too much about that point.

In general, I would say that I didn't find that the game fulfilled my expectations when I read the synopsis.

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TehGary
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

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PaBLoX
PaBLoX

No, at all. I'm not offended or anything :).

About your last paragraph, could be, sadly enough until the moment I played I felt the story was kind of 'meh', so it wasn't a good reason to overcome the playability issues I found.

I'm gonna take a look at geneforce, thanks for the recommendation.

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