Wishlisting for now. The original Avernum, series was pretty good. The engine upgrade is noticeable, but largely unneeded. So I'll hold out until a sale. But glad to see this get released and brought here!

I agree. After all - in previous games of this developr - we got manuals included into the game's package.

EDIT: I wonder if A3's manual is in any way superior to previous ones?

Haha.. you are right of course.
Still that leaves me a little bit of time to play cRPGs. Speaking of which, I haven't played the last Avadon game yet :)

Only the last one ? i need to play and finish all the games , and the game before this one was very demanding on my system, all the old games work a charm but the later versions seem to hogging my cpu, maybe its because the 'engine' or whatever they call the code for a game is getting cpu hungry compared to the old titles.

Anyway i read the 'engine' has changed so i am curious how much hogging this code will do, ( the last game , the one before this one is quite a hogger) i mean a game like that should run a charm on a quad core 2,67 ghz and 8 gb ram and GTX 750 ti with 2 gb ram.


I will try the demo first.

Ohh... that solves it for me.
When I played the old Blades of Exile demo, I reached a point where an ant was blocking the path. It asked for a code before it would let me pass.
I never saw any code, so I looked and look everywhere and found no code. So I gave up.

I always wondered if that was some in-game task that I missed, or some too clever way of asking for some registration code. It really seems like the latter.

So your qualification for the quality of the game is that you throw a fit if a single guy who has been making games since the 90s decides to put the entire manual in the game not only in the game, but also as a PDF file that comes with the game? I'd send a screenshot attached here, but I think you get the idea.

A game which, I might add has a dedicated tutorial area to specifically teach you how to play the game in the first place?
Additionally, I decided to take a look. The ingame help is the exact same as the PDF manual that comes with the game.

This isn't a game where you need to keep a hardcopy of the manual. You don't even have to make a map, or take notes on your quest because the game provides for all those frustrations of things that take away from the game.

You're complaining about things from a dead era of gaming where if you didn't have the feelies, Larry Laffer wouldn't be able to complete his quest or you'd not be able to build more than two locomotives in Railroad Tycoon.

Ohh... that solves it for me.
When I played the old Blades of Exile demo, I reached a point where an ant was blocking the path. It asked for a code before it would let me pass.
I never saw any code, so I looked and look everywhere and found no code. So I gave up.

I always wondered if that was some in-game task that I missed, or some too clever way of asking for some registration code. It really seems like the latter.

Yeah, the idea is that I'm throwing a fit, which I am not, and that the pdf comes with the game, which it doesn't. What I am doing is stating my opinion on not including the manual with the game, but as a paid for extra. I'd ask you to take a long hard look in the mirror, since you became this defensive about a simple critisism of a game someone else did. The extras already contains some sort of 'Hint book', which I am totally fine with. The manual, however, I see as a core part of the game.

So does most games produced since the mid to late nineties.
So why isn't it being provided for normal customers? If it's all there already, it's not really much extra work now, is it?

Depends on how you like to consume your games. Like I said, I know people who want to read the manual, and who wants to do it in paper format. This is easy enough, with a printer and a pdf.

I'm complaining about things from an era when games virtually always came with a manual, that you could read without playing the game, yes I am. I'm not asking for the hint book to be part of the base game, and I consider must have walkthroughs to be appaling game design. What I don't see is why putting a pdf of the manual in the extras section is too much to ask.

Just saw a screenshot of the Avernum 2: Crystal Souls Demo Demon encounterl the demon says "This is almost as far as you can go in the Demo Demon...", making it clear that you've actually reached the end of the demo. So, in other words, the message you get should be more explicit about why you can't continue.

The Avernum: Escape from the Pit demo, after including an in-world excuse, includes a parenthetical comment something like "This is as far as you can go in this direction in the demo".

So, in other words, Spiderweb Software has learned to make the end-of-demo messages more clear.

The .pdf does come with the game actually. It's included in the default download, not as an extra, you just need to open the game folder and it's called "Avernum 3 instructions" instead of manual, but it's there.

So, what's the point in calling it a "manual", and including it in the Extras that are sold separately? Kind of feels like trying to justify the price point with more content, given that besides the Hint Book one gets wallpapers and something vaguely called "exclusive desktop art" - what is that even supposed to be?

I have no idea, sorry, I never buy extras or "collector's edition" because I don't really care about artbooks, soundtracks or any of that stuff, certainly not enough to pay for them. My best guess is that what they call manual might be some kind of strategy guide or hintbook.

All I can tell you is that the "instructions" .pdf file is a pretty decent manual at 34 pages, more than enough to explain what you need to know about the game.

My question wasn't directed specifically at you, sorry, I quoted you because you were the first one to clearly state that a "manual" is present in the game folder.

The hintbook is not only separately listed, but also described in detail: What purpose and content would a separate strategy guide have?


Could a blue-text shed some light on what the differences between the "Avernum 3 instructions" pdf and the manual are, if there are any, and what that "exclusive desktop art" is/includes?

So one doesn't have to pay extra for the manual. Good, all is well in the world. Except that people might not know that the game comes with a manual based on the store page. I'm also curious as to the difference between the default manual and the paid for manual, though if the default one does it's job I'm not complaining.