Just started GeneForge for the very first time, and already I love it.

Pros:

Very intuitive navigation and UI all-around.
Original & deep story/setting

Cons:

Took me a while to get the hint during the tutorial that I can hit TAB to highlight all the buttons, would've preferred to be able just to hover my cursor like most games, but that's no biggie.
Would also like if during combat, it were more like the first two Fallouts where you can hover over an area to see how many APs it would take to move.

That's about it for now. I'm quite happy with it so far.

It's tough, but it's hard not to love.

Well, I've just started GF1 and I must say that so far I'm enjoying it a lot!

Hey there!
I just finished with Geneforge 1 and want to describe my feelings with
this game.

It was my first spiderweb game and also my first playtrough in G1. From
the three possible classes i choosed the Guardian, because i do not want
to fully rely on the summons but because the summons are kinda an unique
aspect of the Geneforge series, i also wanted to have some of them.
I wanted to focus on meele fighting with my hero and ranged attacks from
my summons.

The world itself is kinda big and the story and gameplay very un-linear.
On the one hand its very nice, but on the other hand its also kinda
confusing, because there are some points in the game, where you do not
know what to do exacly.
The questsystem is terrible in my opinion. If you get the quest, it will
be writen in your journal. If you accomplish some parts of the quest,
nothing of that is mentioned in the "questlog". So, if you have like some
days of not playing the game and than you return - it is possible that you
have absolutly no idea. Another positive aspect of the game is, that you
do not rely on quests. You can even finish the game without giving a
single F**K on the quests in the game. However, if you want to deal with
the quests, they are kinda straight forward e.g. KILL X, KILL Y, FIND Z.
The difficulty for me was OK. There were little parts that were "grindy".
At some point in the game, my skillbuild was not that well, so i had to
spend like 30 minutes of repetitive actions to go through a special area.
But stuff like that happened no that often.
The Skillsystem is pretty decent. Depending on which class you play, putting
points into a skill costs more or less. I want to share my distribution of points, but
its not recommended and do not see it as a "good" way to put your points. It was my
first time finishing this game.
I put 1lvl in fireshaping(this seems very unneccessary), not a single lvl in the magic
skills. Luck was @5, Leadership and Mechanics @8. More mechanic skill would make
some parts faster and not so repetitiv, but its not a MUST to win and finish the game.
I put 2lvl ups in INT, the weapon skills anatomy, quick action and meele were raised to
~10(quick action and anatomy were around 20 with equipment in lategame). Rest of the
points went in Strenght and Endurance. Strenght was raised up to 10 without equip.

The music and soundeffects are okay, but honestly i disabled the music quite fast and put my own music in the background. The Lore and story is really nice, how things turn is kinda predictable, but the description of the areas and characters is very nicely done! Especially the fact, that there are 3 "sects" on the island and everyone wants your aid - so who do you trust? The moral aspect of the game is pretty huge, it affected me alot and the game and how your character develops kinda changed also, how i play the game. In the beginning i was like a very nice person, and wanted to help and stuff like that. But the more power i collected through the canisters and the level ups, the stronger i got - i started to kill people, who wanted to have power on the island.

All in all, i am very satisfied with this game. I am really looking forward to play the sequel Geneforge 2. Guess i will choose an Agent for that one.

This is a fine game but I'm just not the kind of person to play it multiple times for various quests and endings. Nor am I a "power gamer" who manipulates the systems/factions to see and get everything. The faction I've aligned with have the fewest amount of quests, and the others won't offer much unless I join them.

For me, the worst aspects of the game are maps, quest descriptions, and quest giver graphics. The designer, Jeff Vogel, should have included a way to annotate the maps since It's no fun to wander about trying to find a place or person you've already encountered. The quest descriptions are vague and like the maps should allow for player annotation (in game). As far as graphics are concerned, something should've been done to differentiate certain people from the masses. Even a slight palette shift would've helped to locate important NPC's.

I have many technical/design nitpicks (many more than mentioned above), but I'm thrilled to be able to play these games and would recommend them to any old school CRPG fan.

Well you can use the Tab key and it will not only highlight what buttons do what but it will show the names of all characters/creatures on the screen, not ideal of course but given the games limits it does make finding key characters easier.

I finished GF1 a few days ago and really enjoyed it (well there were a couple of areas that just weren't fun).

Unless you like to fully replay these games, I suggest that you make a special save before committing to action in regards to a Mr. T****** near the conclusion of the game. I played out 4 different epilogues this way.

I bought this game set a while ago with some indie game promo. The budget for this game looks lower than Mathblaster 9-12, but there's something charming about it. The whole interface looks like it was made in flash, but again, there's just something about the whole package that feels... right.


Does anyone know what this game (I'm referring to the first one; not sure what the rest of the series looks like) was written in/game engine used? Never really seen a game that looks like this

Also, how long did it take to beat this game on a first play through?

The old system does offer a freedom that you normally cannot get, but it comes at a high price. Most people that play Avernum 1-6 and Geneforge 1-5 won't be able to complete the game if they don't get serious stat advice and don't make a superman build.

Ive restarted Geneforge 1-5 maybe a number of times each, sometimes with summons and other times not. All the time, I get to a 3rd of the game and it becomes unplayable. Either I make the wrong choices with my character, or something else. I asked jeff and he doesn't know what Im doing wrong. I usually play on normal but I can't seem to understand the tactics in the game. Almost to the point where I find all of Jeff's games before Avadon as trash. The lvling system that he uses is just not reliable and or fun to go with. Geneforge 1-5 aren't even playable for me on easy/casual mode.

The only hope we have is that jeff remakes the old crappy games and makes them playable like Avadon and Avernum Escape from the Pit which are awesome. Avernum 2-6 and Geneforge 1-5 need to be remade. Jeff even said on his blog he hates the old system.

If you don't believe me, play an agent on easy or normal and try and get past Geneforge 1. Worst decision you'll ever make.

The designer, Jeff Vogel, is pretty old school and probably created his game engine(s) from scratch using an Apple computer which was later ported to Windows.

I putzed around quite a bit so it took me 60 or so hours to complete. Keep in mind that since the game world is largely open ended, you'll have to prod and probe many areas to find zones appropriate for your power level.

Good thing my power level is over 9000. Yeah, I like how the game is presented. That's crazy that one guy made all of these games. Thanks for the information.

I honestly don't understand this... the Avernum and Geneforge games are definitely quite old-school, but as old-school games go I don't think they were especially difficult. Geneforge provides three basic archetypes for you, and if you use their strengths you shouldn't have too much trouble. Shapers are all about summons, so summon an army and have them help you out. Get more essence as you level for bigger armies, and be sure to seek out the special creations that are usually significant upgrades from the regular ones (and of course, upgrade to better regular creations as you level too). Guardians are melee fighters, so focus on that with a few summons to help you out. Agents are probably the hardest, as they rely on their own magic and skills more than anything, but that's why there are those trap-filled routes instead of combat-focused routes to take. Agents are great at defusing traps, so use those routes and avoid the tougher fights.

You are right that the free-form nature of the leveling system means you can make things hard for yourself, but if you stick to those basic strategies it shouldn't be too tough.


EDIT: Just saw in another thread that you've figured out a working strategy and are enjoying the games much more now. Awesome!

One rather small thing annoys me to no end and is present, I believe, in all Spiderweb games is the retarted "click character to pass turn" mechaninc as it's way too easy to misclick when enemies are next to you. It makes targeting needlesly hard. What on earth is that even for as it's more convenient to use space bar as, hell, every single other turn based game in existence.

Other thing lacking in GF series is the statistics of creations and spell effects as most creations have hidden statistics (as do some spells) and ONLY ways to to find them out testing them in combat or reading the scripts (only way of figuring them all). Also some of the descriptions are incorrect (jeff probably forgot to update them from previous game). I want to know exactly what powers and bonuses the creations have (to smallest detail) before I summon them. There should be ways to find same info about you opponents as well.

Geneforge 1 was trash. This developer must have been stillborn or something.

Remark uncalled for - if you don't like the game, fair enough but no need for insulting comments.