Jeff Vogel

Founded Spiderweb Software in 1994. Has written many games, including the Exile, Geneforge, Avadon, and Avernum series. Avernum 4: Greed and Glory out now!

[Jeff Vogel @spiderwebsoft]

Avernum 4: Greed and Glory is out! The 31 year old cult classic Avernum series is back as a unique indie RPG set in a vast underworld nation.

Fight a monster plague. Explore the depths. Be loyal or treacherous. Get rich and famous! Huge & full of fun.

https://t.co/QOdFTgNvMu

[Jeff Vogel @spiderwebsoft]

Nerd Deep Housecleaning Update:

Way back in the 90s, hard drive storage was expensive. CDs couldn't be rewritten. Floppy disks were TINY. It was a real problem.

Then geniuses invented the Zip Drive. Like a floppy disk, but it could fit a magesterial 100 MB. Everyone adapted to them instantly. We stored everything on them.

A perfect system. Except that, occasionally, your zip drive would make a small 'click' noise and the disk would be completely ruined.

Anyhoo, hard drive space became cheaper and the zip disk was obsoleted.

We still had a ton of them. We use them as drink coasters now. I have a latte on one (containing an ancient backup of the original Nethergate code) as I type this.

[Jeff Vogel @spiderwebsoft]

When not working on our next game, I've been playing through the ol' indie games backlog. Tried Ball x Pit. (Pronounced 'balkspit')

It's Vampire Survivors if all the enemies came straight down instead of all directions. That was enough for me to burn 20 hours getting to the credits. I think I have enough dopamine receptors for one of these games every two years.

My favorite innovation is that you can unlock characters that play the game for you. You have to beat the final level with 8 different characters to win, and I was able to do a bunch of this while making dinner.

[Jeff Vogel @spiderwebsoft]

Post is here: https://t.co/8YEfVttdWJ

Also slowly getting back to writing games. There are delays, but I hope to have things to show by the end of Summer!

[Jeff Vogel @spiderwebsoft]

New Blog Post! After much disruption, I'm back to blogging with a short cheery post about creation. Video games are a young art form, and there is still so much to be discovered. You don't have to be a Capital-C Creator or hitmaker to take part.

[Jeff Vogel @spiderwebsoft]

@MaurogDark People like you keep me in business, on god.

[Jeff Vogel @spiderwebsoft]

This posters suffers from "Everyone should want what I like." syndrome. Vidya is a sprawling art form and fans want many different things from games.

"mindless chores" are what many players want for many reasons. I don't, so I play one of the 8 billion other games.

[Rooster @TheRooster]

"Dollar-per-hour" is the worst thing to happen to modern game design.

Devs stretch their games with mindless chores just to justify the price tag.

You refuse to pay full price for a 20-hour game, but data shows that less than 30% of players actually finish 60+ hour games.

I'd much rather pay for 20 dense hours with zero filler than 60 bloated hours of map clearing. The Uncharted series is a perfect example of this. Amazing pacing with zero fluff. Exactly as long as they need to be.

We need to start valuing density over duration again.

[Jeff Vogel @spiderwebsoft]

@systemchalk Yes and no. The dose makes the poison.

A game can be too short for the price. Angering customers is bad.

If you're charging over $5/hour, you are in the Danger Zone.

[Jeff Vogel @spiderwebsoft]

@HerringStudios @Kappische @notch Thanks! Though that quote is usually attributed to Steve Jobs.

[Jeff Vogel @spiderwebsoft]

@TheRooster "We" don't need to do anything. I also prefer quick, tight games, but lots of gamers legitimately want sprawling fluffy games for all sorts of reasons.

[Jake Birkett - Veteran Indie @GreyAlien]

LAUNCH ANNOUNCEMENT

Forbidden Solitaire is out now!

We are immensely proud to release this awesome game made by two veteran indie studios and we hope you really like it.

Steam: https://t.co/UJ53iYSVxo
GOG: https://t.co/sjwSdxAReE
Itch: https://t.co/f6XHUEBBdG

Plz share, thx!

[Jeff Vogel @spiderwebsoft]

"Some writers are only born to help another writer to write one sentence." - Ernest Hemingway

Alas, most of the 10s of thousands of indie games out on Steam each year won't succeed. Yet, this mass contains new ideas that will one day be taken and grown into great successes.

[Jeff Vogel @spiderwebsoft]

@sebastiansohn I think it's awesome. We are all helping to build our art form in our own way.

[Jeff Vogel @spiderwebsoft]

"Some writers are only born to help another writer to write one sentence." - Ernest Hemingway

Alas, most of the 10s of thousands of indie games out on Steam each year won't succeed. Yet, this mass contains new ideas that will one day be taken and grown into great successes.

[High North Studios @SkaldRpg]

I'm super excited to announce that you can now buy Skald and Avernum 4 in a great value-packed retro CRPG bundle on Steam!

I've always been a big fan of @spiderwebsoft so this one was a lot of fun!

So what are you waiting for? Go support some old men who make games⚔️ Link👇

[Jeff Vogel @spiderwebsoft]

I'm always very flattered when people take the effort to try to play our old, old games. For the very few interested, here's advice for getting Exile 3: Ruined World (from 1997) going on Linux ...

https://t.co/GwF4l83ABy

[Jeff Vogel @spiderwebsoft]

If you want to have fun playing with the earliest games of Spiderweb Software, reminder that you can get a nice, new, working copy of Blades of Exile (From 1998!) on itch. Users made tons of cool adventures for it, all still available!

https://t.co/ov8wdQ9dgJ

[Jeff Vogel @spiderwebsoft]

I suppose I should throw in "Good artists copy, great artists steal" (originator unknown) here.

[Jeff Vogel @spiderwebsoft]

Fun news! Avernum 4: Greed and Glory is now in a bundle with the excellent Lovecraftian turn-based RPG SKALD: Against the Black Priory! Two fun, cheap indie games, now fun and even cheaper together.

https://t.co/QOdFTgNvMu

[Jake Birkett - Veteran Indie @GreyAlien]

LAUNCH DATE ANNOUNCEMENT!

Forbidden Solitaire is officially launching NEXT WEEK, on April 30th!

We unearthed a new trailer from the archives - an advertisement that originally aired in 1995!

Wishlist on Steam and GOG:
https://t.co/b66XFR3wRF

https://t.co/obdrf1DfFh

[Jeff Vogel @spiderwebsoft]

Love this. Accurate. And, of course, 0% of people ever actually played the game this way.

AD&D/First edition as written was unplayable. Everyone redesigned the game from scratch when they arrived at the table. THIS is what people are nostalgic for, not the game itself.

[Oghma @Oghma_EM]

AD&D1e combat flow chart. For those interested.