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I still haven't gotten around to playing this when I last bought the Genforge collection.

But spiderweb games are almost always good value for your money.

Avadon, Avernum, and Genforge are absolute titans of good writing with lots and lots to experience, explore, and interact with.

So definitely would recomend folks give these a look if they don't already own any of these great titles.

A couple things of note:
* This remake is not part of Geneforge Saga. Geneforge Saga contains the *original* versions of each game, not the remakes.
* As usual, there's a demo of the new remake available at Spiderweb Software's website. As usual, it's basically the full game, except with the majority of areas inaccessible (I'd expect the accessible areas to be the early game ones), and likely with little nag screens when you start and exit the game (to tell you where to buy the full version, and perhaps to mention that the demo's save file will work on the full version).

https://spiderwebsoftware.com/geneforge2/

And here's a bonus, folks! Jeff Vogel's games may not be pretty, but he's been designing games for over 20 years!

He's outlasted most studios and has a refreshing frankness about it all.

Please don't link to that site without at least mentioning that you're linking to a video.

It is a part of Geneforge Saga. It's just that there are two separate Geneforge Saga entries/bundles. One for the older ones (containing all 5 original games), and one for the remakes (so now containing the 2 new remakes). From personal experience he is indeed much more frank (refreshingly or otherwise) than most.

I purchased some of the older Spiderweb games directly from them, from even before they got on Steam.
Then they got on steam. And some time later (this story is still quite a lot of years back from now), I saw there a large sale/discount on a few more of their games that I wanted.

So I figured, I like the developer and games, and I already have an account and experience with buying directly from them, so I might as well go over and buy directly, give the extra percentage fees to the developer instead of the third-party store.
Except, on the Spiderweb site the same games weren't discounted (or discounted to a much smaller percentage? It's been a while as I wrote).

So I decided to write and ask them directly if this is a mistake, or if they do sales on different timings, and how/when I could buy for the same price (that they must agree is fair for them because they're actively selling on it) in a way that better supports them directly.

And I received a very... frank... reply. Startlingly frank and a lot more honest and blunt than anything I'd have expected.

Which was essentially that the people who buy directly from them are largely loyal customers who mostly are focused on their type/genre of games and probably aren't even paying attention to the larger platforms/store, so likely may not even be aware that sales are going on and they can get the same games for drastically less. Meaning that giving the loyal direct customers the same good offers would be losing money for no good reason. So it won't happen. The people who look for discounts and consider alternative games on other stores will get discounts, and the people who aren't and who are loyal repeat customers will pay more if they don't pay attention.

Which, yes, incredibly frank and clear on the business decision there. Which at some level I absolutely did appreciate. But also why at that point I decided to never buy any of their games (though I do like them so do get them all eventually) without a very significant discount.

Especially when on sale. ;) Will finally pick up Queen's Wish 2 and the Geneforge 1 remake before the sale is over ... What do you mean I actually have to play them? =P Yeah, even these games are piling up in my backlog since I always have way more games than time to actually play them. Whoopsie!

That said, I've been a fan of Jeff's games since I discovered them during my dark days when I tried to make gaming on a Mac work and someone pointed me to his stuff when I was looking for RPGs. That's how I discovered Geneforge and Avernum. Way before he had any presence on storefronts and was only selling them directly via his website. Good times. I was quite happy when the Spiderweb games eventually popped up on GOG. :)

A bit off topic , but only the Avadon and the Queen's Wish series that aren't a remake of any previous Spiderweb games ?

Yarp.

One of them should probably be renamed to avoid confusion, then.

If you hover your mouse over the renamed link, you see the site it leads to, in the lower left corner of your screen.

If that "link-preview" shows "youtube", it's (usually) a link to a video.

Yes, but that:
* Requires extra effort, which is something I have to think extra to do (in particular, it's easy to forget to do this)
* Doesn't guard against accidental clicks
* Is a pain on mobile, where "hovering" means having to keep the finger in place for some amount of time; this also slows things down

So, I know about that, but it doesn't solve the issue.

(Also, it's my opinion that nobody should make or link to sites that autoplay video, and youtube happens to be one such site.)

You'll have to pardon me, I nipped that problem in the bud years ago by simply refusing autoplay. I control playback, and nothing with audio ever automatically starts. I forgot; and GOG is partly to blame for not having embed support.

I haven't found a solution that works reliably, and in particular works on frequently visited sites.

(Also, even when it does work, as soon as I interact with the player in any way, even if it's just to go fullscreen, playback immediately starts, and I don't like that.)