Spiderweb Games - Geneforge 5 Tidbits

Jeff Vogel has posted some tidbits about Geneforge 5 on his forums, confirming the end of this series and referring to interface changes, which will (hopefully) please many readers:

Now that I've spent two months working reasonably hard on Geneforge 5, I can start posting some monthly updates about it.As time goes on, I'll talk about the interface upgrades (considerable), the game system and spell system upgrades, and all the little things that will go into finishing this series.

This will indeed be the last game in the Geneforge saga. At last, you can bring the war to an end. Coming up with a plausible way for one lone person to help end this enormous conflict has been very difficult. The complexity of the game and the storyline is making me a bit dizzy. Still, I think I have it under control.

The storyline and game structure will be much closer to Geneforge 1 and 2. You will wander around and interact with five (FIVE!) different factions. Eventually, you can choose one to fight for. There are all of the options you probably predicted from the previous games, and others that might take you by surprise.

You will start, as usual, as a lone Shaper/lifecrafter. You will be able to choose to be either a Shaper character (the old three choices) or as one of the six different rebel classes. Yes, I am putting in the "missing" sixth character class from the rebel side.

The spell system will be mostly the same, but I am completely reworking how buffs work to make them more interesting and player friendly. I'll go into this more in later months. Suffice it to say for now that the "OK, this fight is tough, I'll put 12 buffs on every character. Zzzz." system had to go.

The big design question for me now is how to handle the "evolved" versions of the creations. Geneforge 4 had stronger versions of creations that started dying immediately so you had to use them quickly. They appear to not have been at all popular. I want to find a better way to approach this. (Note: Making creations during combat is not an option.)

I hope to release the game for the Mac in November. Since I've been making good progress, this seems doable.

- Jeff Vogel