In today's day and age, Spiderweb Software's games may seem like a novelty, but make no doubt that for the right audience they are exceptionally good games that offer a lot of bang for their buck. Avernum: Escape From The Pit is a modernized version of the Avernum series, and while the graphics are still not flashy the game more than makes up for it with good writing and solid turn based combat.

The game is a text heavy one, a blessing or a curse depending on the person playing. The writing is stellar and coupled with the low-key graphics it's one of the few games where you can really use your imagination if you so wish. It is worth noting that Avernum is an open-world RPG, so while I say the writing is stellar, don't expect a centralized story with deep characters--that's not what this game is. The game itself takes place in a huge underground cave complex, a joy for those like me who like underground fantasy settings and even for those who don't should still appreciate the unique and interesting world Avernum presents.

Avernum is lengthy, but if it's your type of game it will feel just right, making it a great game to pick up if you're on a budget. One playthrough alone will take about seventy to eighty hours if you are a semi completionist, and even if you aren't I would wager it would take a good fifty hours to beat. Throw in harder difficulties and achievements and you can easily extend that playtime twofold.

The combat is fairly atypical for a turn based game, but by no means bland. Each ally/enemy gets one turn per round and there are different types of characters your party can contain (priests, mage, etc.). The game is open world as mentioned and it lets you explore the world on your own, the game guides you very loosely but the bulk of the exploration is up to you to do. As thus, you can easily find yourself faced off against baddies that are higher level than you which can keep the game challenging even on normal difficulty.

Open world exploration in the deep caves of Avernum mixed with some awesome writing and very interesting in-game encounters made this game a blast, but one of the things I liked most was how seamlessly the keyboard was integrated into the game. With the exception of needing to use my touchpad to click on a few interactive objects in the game world and assigning character stats/equipping items, just about everything you need to do in-game can be done with just the keyboard. Conversations, looting, fighting, moving--can all be done with the keyboard. If you're playing at home on your desktop, this may not mean much, but if you want to play this on a laptop without a mouse handy, this game is the one. Very few RPGs can be played on low-end laptops and even fewer can be played without a mouse, but Avernum is perhaps the only game I've played that's required mouse/touchpad input so sparsely. I feel like I could have enjoyed an amazing RPG experience from any Spiderweb game, but this one stands out to me due to the stellar keyboard integration.

Avernum is right in your wheelhouse if you like games like Baldur's Gate and Divinity and are looking to experience that old school pen-and-paper RPG experience. I have not played all the rest of the games in the series and do not feel that I must in order to enjoy it on this one. Don't expect stellar graphics, but do expect everything else- like great game mechanics, a solid loot system, compelling story (with admirable writing skill), and a giant world to get lost in. I have yet to finish it yet, but from the first handful of quests, I know I am hooked well enough to come back to it. Another great thing about this game is it takes up less than 200 mb of space and has ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ly low system requirements, so it even plays on the ancient technological relics I keep around due to lack of having a proper gaming laptop to tote about. This game is also pretty nifty on iOS.
Anyhoots, I don't feel hasty in reccomending this.

At first you might be 'revolted' by the dated graphics. Then you might laugh at some 1990ish RPG your looking at. Force yourself to put at least a couple of hours into it and soon you will find yourself hooked. You got the crapiest equipment starting out and you will have to earn what you keep to survive. No freebees like modern games throw at you like candy at a parade. You will respect your CRPG awesomeness by giving this game a chance and then seeing if you got it to survive escaping the underdark to the surface! Good luck you will enjoy the journey!!!

My first experience with a Spiderweb game and boy did it deliver. Travelling around the "countryside" and exploring is just as much fun as interacting with the characters. Each town has its own personality and the missions were not all simple fetch quests. You can skip by a lot fo the dialogue but a lot of the humor will be missed if you don't read.

This is prehaps the best Dungeon Crawler/RPG (outside Legend of Grimrock, Dungeons of Dredmore) that Steam has to offer. It is easy to get into and hard to put down. What makes it so enjoyable is the non-linear progression of it all. You have a choice over everything, from doing quests to killing things. Your charators can be speced to your choosing. Want a warrior that hits like a truck and can shoot fireballs? You can do that! You want a rouge that can't be hit and is a master lockpick? You can!

All in all, this game is well worth the price, even more on sale (if the Summer Sale is going while viewing this review)
You won't regret. I've spent 135 hours on this game. Take it from me. It won't let you down!

Avernum: Escape from the Pit is overall a really solid RPG. It combines classic party-based tactical RPG combat with a large and deeply designed gameworld. The result is an expansive classic RPG with a modern user interface that is a delight to play. Combat is deep, but not slow or frustrating to go through. Dungeons are just the right length, with enough secrets to reward thoroughness and some backtracking. Character design is involving and interesting, with most character builds and party compositions working well. The presentation is functional, but for fans of CRPGs the breadth of gameplay will win you over.

Open World with exploration.Huge world full of secret. Nice Story and very cool atmosphere.total party customisation. If u dont mind the old\simple graphic its a gem!!

A great game for fans of old school d&d rpgs.

This game really brings me back to the old Gold Box D&D pc games (Dark Queen of Krynn etc). In an era of very limited graphics those games brought large worlds with epic stories and solid d&d party building and tactics combat. The Avernum series of games continues in that style with a large world full of unique lore to discover. The character and skill system is not too complex but has enough options to keep fights challenging and requiring planning while focusing on exploration and the story instead of large stat sheets. Over the Avernum series you can see steady improvements in the ui, engine and balancing quests and this is the best one I've tried yet.

While being mostly nostalgic, the game is amazign at what it does. The story develops constantly and perfectly fits the theme of the world and the game. Combat mechanics are dynamic and variable enough to have this feeling of your own party that slowly grows to your heart and makes you play further to beat everything the evil throws at you.

Concerning the negative points, the technical aspects are the biggest part here. The graphics, while aesthetically suiting, are pretty simple and there is not a lot of comfort built in the game. However, almost nothign of this has actually made me feel worse about the game, as the positive parts overweight so heavily. If you are interested in old-school party RPG's, you might sink way too many hours into Avernum.

8/10, as the game is nice, but has some tedious gameplay after time.

First of all I must say I am a big fan of role play games, that I started back at the date with Eye of Beholder: I consider the top of the genre Baldur's Gate (the first one), and this is the first time I play an Avernum game; I was therefore completely new to the lore, mechanics and rules used in the game.
From the beginning Avernum: Escape from the pit looks intriguing and catchy: from text to text and fight to fight, I found myself playing for 3-4 hours straight after installation without realizing it.
The art and the drawing are inspiring, there is a lot of text that really make us feel the story and the lore, dialogs are brilliant; character creation and advancement, fightings, divine and arcane spellcasting: everything it is intuitive and somehow innovative, taking clear inspiration from old paper rpgs and fusing it with "modern" skill trees.
Longevity also seems to be a strong point of this title: I played 4 hours and visited 3 cities, and I could understand from the world map how insignificant is the portion of underworld I explored so far.
The only negative feedback some people might point out is graphics, and on this I completely disagree: it is a simple retro 2d graphic but is not bad at all: on the contrary it is clear and fluent, does not disturb the eye and does not require big machines to run.
Also the music is fitting, with its epic tones: it is just a pity that there is not a bigger variety of tunes.
All in all, I would recommend this game to all rpg fans and to all retro gamers, giving it a solid 8.5 out of 10. There are not many better roleplaying experiences than this one out there :)

Almost 20 years and two remakes in, this game still rocks. If you can look past the graphics (which you should) and the odd clunky mechanic, this is a game that you will spend innumerable hours on. A vast (VAST!) world to explore with dozens, if not hundreds of secrets, a multitude of locations and quests, and three separate, intricate main plotlines make this game what I dare to call the Skyrim of isometric turn-based RPGs.

Let me begin... if you are not into reading lore, and saturating yourself with a game's story... you will be missing at least 50% of this game... and probably will not fully appreciate what this game has to offer.

For every 5 minutes of battle, you will spend an equal amount, if not more, reading into the story, conversing with the various characters that inhabit Avernum, and learning about the land from pop-up descriptions.

The skill-up system is nice. Though, classes are pretty linear. Mages mainly focus on mage, priest on priest, and so on. You won't really be seeing many priests dual wielding, or sword-and-board mages. BUT, you can really specialize in certain skills, so though, you can't really roam outside the realms of your specific class, you can specialize it pretty well.

The combat is classic, old-school, turn-based goodness. The difficulty is decent. If you don't know how to play these types of games (learning to buff and debuff prior to battles, crowd control, and so on) this game will prove difficult. Once you get a hang of it, it becomes fun.


AGAIN: If you are not a fan of engrossing yourself into lore, you will not get as much enjoyment out of this game as you could. IF you enjoy lore and character depth, you will thoroughly enjoy this gem.


9/10

I love this game and pretty much every game made by Spiderweb Software. They introduced me to RPGs.

A turn-based tactical RPG with a brilliantly original world full of nooks and crannies. Seriously rivals Skyrim in terms of exploration, and it's better written to boot. If you can look past the shortcomings in the visual and audio departments, you'll find a treasure trove of entertainment. Hell, I got 70 hours out of this one.

You'll never want to Escape From the Pit.

A well-written, content-rich, decidedly old-school RPG. Seems to have a thing for delicate mushrooms, and small, cute lizards. Would certainly reccomend to the right audience (that is, individuals like myself).

I wanted an old school turn based RPG like Fallout.
I didn't care so much for the graphics, and you won't see any eyecandy here. I wanted to have an exciting story.
The story starts up interesting enough. But after a while you don't really feel the game pushing you forward.
99% of the time the solution to a problem is to kill everybody and get the XP for it.
There are some interesting races in it and funny characters, but after a while I just really got bored with running around and simply killing stuff.
I found it pretty hard to get to an experience level where I could actually progress to killing the next big enemy, the solution for which is to find random enemies who are weeker and kill them by the thousands so you get enough XP to get to a level where you can take on the next bigger enemy.
The game has an interesting world and political and race stuff and magic going on, but it is a little bit too slow and too open for my tastes, meaning it should tell you a little bit more where to go next or what to do next, and not leave you so alone.
If you don't mind reading a lot and just going around killing stuff for like forever, then go ahead get this game.

Nice retro style game, not flashy but tons of RPG content.

The fight mechanics are good too, just the right amount of difficulty, sometimes you have to strategize carefully to win.

This game is great. I have always enjoyed Spiderweb Software games. Starting from the early 90's, they have filled the turn-based tactical RPG role in my game time. Keep making these Jeff.

Old School type Game. Played one of spiderwebs games years ago and never got to finish it... now I remember why. This game is long. At least its fun to play. Good game crappy graphics.

This is now the third time I've bought some version of this game. I think that says a lot about the enjoyability of the game. It's an old school RPG in a very memorable world.