Avernum - Escape From the Pit Demo

Isometric role-playing games may have gone out of style in the last decade or so, but there are still developers who keep the tradition alive. Hence, these games do not put a lot of emphasis on the technical aspect, but they try to convey compelling stories and make the gameplay as exciting and engaging as possible, given the lack of eye candy-ness.

Avernum - Escape From the Pit is a top-down role-playing game in which you have to make tremendous efforts just to survive, not to mention having to overcome a variety of evil creatures along the way. However, the journey makes sense and there’s a solid story running in the background, with plenty of meaningful characters that affect the plot and interact with you.

In essence, the story starts when your character and a few of his friends get exiled from the kingdom, only to be sent into an underground complex from whence no one ever returned. However, given the heroic nature of your character, you manage to conquer this savage world and go through a lot of trouble to get out, only to return and reclaim your home from the ones who banished you.

Although there’s a lot of exploration involved in the gameplay, there’s plenty of action as well, which means you get to use swords, spells, and various other means of destruction. Whenever enemies are detected nearby, the game goes into the turn-based mode and every creature/character has one chance to spends its action points. Hence, whether you move, cast a spell or simply attack, your action points are allocated accordingly.

As far as the visual chapter is concerned, the game obviously doesn’t look anything like the triple-A releases from nowadays, considering the isometric point of view and the crude graphics engine. However, a lot of passion was put by the level designers into the environments, because the maps are filled with interesting objects that catch your eye. There are countless items to find and use along the way.

In the end, Avernum - Escape From the Pit is may not enjoy mainstream success, but if you are a fan of good video game stories and you do not mind the outdated look, this may very well be something for you to enjoy. The gameplay mechanics are pretty hardcore as well, which can prove to be quite the challenge even for seasoned players.