Correct.

Tried out the Eschalon freebie earlier this evening. It was okay, with some elements being pretty cool, and some being perhaps a little old-school for me. About the best thing I could say about it is that it has pretty good in-game help -- during character creation, there's mouse-over text describing pretty much every choice in every category (with an overlay you can bring up describing the interface itself).
The controls are pretty streamlined, too...sometimes a little too much so. But the biggest complaint I have based on the hour and a half I've played so far would be the movement. The game is turn-based (the sort where time stands still until you move or wait, at which point everything/-one else takes its turn(s) automatically) and takes place entirely on a grid viewed from an "isometric" perspective -- in other words, there is no good reason the player shouldn't be able to at least move (and probably attack, cast, etc.) with the keyboard; unfortunately, one has to click in a direction relative to one's character to move (there's a shortcut to allow the character to auto-move in the direction the mouse cursor is pointing, but it still only allows movement along more-or-less straight lines). "Click a spot to walk toward it" works okay in a lot of real-time iso games, but "click a spot to walk to it" would work far better for a turn-based title.
Movement is made all the more tedious by the fact that the PC seems to only have one movement speed: leisurely amble. Seriously, this is some of the slowest character movement I can remember having experienced in a video game. I really wish there was an option to just completely disable movement animations and have the character just be a motionless sprite gliding from tile to tile (and doing so faster than is currently the case), or to just have the game redraw the tiles in question: "You were there, now you're here", without even a glide animation, like in a lot of tile-based roguelikes; I honestly don't think it would harm the game. At any rate, movement is far too slow and cumbersome.
EDIT: To anyone else who might've been bugged by (or put off by reports of) the slow movement in Eschalon: Book I, I just found a very helpful post in the series forum that suggested switching from DirectX to OpenGL in the launcher to noticeably speed up the animations -- most significantly, the walking. It works beautifully! I'll have to try the game out some more tomorrow under these more tolerable conditions. :)

All that aside, it's a pretty OK little "budget-indie" RPG, with okay-but-by-no-means-original writing (I saw no obvious typos, at least), cheap-but-passable art (but this is coming from a player of roguelikes like Stone Soup, so my standards are not high =P), and suitable-but-somewhat-boring music. Of course, all this is based on my first impressions, so some of these aspects might turn out to be better (or far worse!) than I had imagined. (Maybe not the art.)

Anyway, thanks to Basilisk for deciding to make the first chapter free. I can certainly say I would not have tried any of the Eschalon games otherwise -- and while I'm still unlikely to buy any of the sequels, I'm at least more aware of the games now, and I'm sure this move will net them some sales from others who are more into what games like this try to offer. :)

I own the Avernum collection, and I have to say it is quite a bargain. Jeff Volgle's games are true the their classic crpg roots. He has created a unique world, and the games are open, but there is enough direction you never feel like you are overwhelmed. There is no music in the Avernum games - just ambient sounds, though I seem to remember that holds true for all his releases.

I also played a demo of the Geneforge games (4 I think), and I remember liking that quite a bit as well.

If you go the Spiderweb software site, you can download demos of some of his games. This will give you a good idea if you like what you are getting into.

Eschalon: Book I
Remind me to stop buying games that I won't play soon and it eventually becomes free... (ᵕ̣̣̣̣̣̣﹏ᵕ̣̣̣̣̣̣)

To the gog.com staff and people over at Basilisk Games - thank you! Eschalon book I has been on my wishlist forever! You once again demonstrate why this is the best games site ever!

Ok, thanks.

Guess I'll get the EE and see all the fuss is about being a less enjoyable game compared to OG.

Yes, I would also like to thank you, Basilisk Games and GOG, for the free game!

Already played and finished Eschalon: Book I, but this makes me think I should try to get around to playing the sequels.

Invest some time in it, if you haven't tried it before. In my opinion, it's a decent and fun experience (and a steal at this price).

Cheers for the new freebie GOG! :) I do still hope we get an old-school freeware title this year (as I've posted before) - SimCity 1/Classic, Halloween Harry/Alien Carnage, Heroine's Quest, Dreamweb, Death Rally, etc.

Is that a new feature that GOG's shopping carts miss for their owners? That e-mail made my day :D ಠ_ಠ

Don't mind me, just passing through...

Same here. :) The game sits in my backlog, waiting to be played already for a long time...

Still nice to see it given away for free to let people try the start of the series.

I paid $1.49 for Eschalon: Book I. I downloaded it and will give it a try. It's time to start clearing up the backlog.
But...
The Spring Insomnia Sale will be here soon ヾ(ﾟдﾟ)ﾉﾞ There will be more to buy!
'tis the life of a game horder...

Have you any idea of how long does it take to complete the game?

I started Eschalon Book One a few months ago and I've found it quite demanding.
1. My first hero was dead in few minutes.
2. The next one too.
3. The fird one was better, but there was no map available, so I had to start again, with cartography skill higher than 0 (yes, there is no automating here, if you have no skill for that).
4. The fourth one walked with basic map, but he was unable to wear armor and died soon, killed by bats.
5. So the fifth one has both cartography and wearing armor skills. The problem was that the armor I've found was heavy armor and I had only light armor skill (yes, it's not a matter of increasing "armor" skill; there are two separate skills for using light and heavy armors).

That makes me think that reading manual a few times would be good idea before I get into the game again (: