Avernum 4 Wrap Report

RPG Vault has posted a four-page "wrap report" feature for Avernum 4, in which Spiderweb Software's Jeff Vogel offers some personal thoughts about the RPG's development now that it's been released to the public. Check it out:
I think the best decision I made was to revisit the world of Avernum in the first place. It was something I fought for a very long time. I wrote four games there and moved on to do other things. Abandoning the setting left a lot of money on the table, but I didn't want to return until I felt like it. It was about seven years ago that I first wrote an all-new game in this setting. It took a lot of time before I could get back into it.

The second good decision I made, I feel, was to make the world so big. It made the game take longer to make, and it was very exhausting for me (since I'm the sole designer). But I wanted to make something you could really get lost in, something with an air of mystery to it, and I think I succeeded.

Also, one thing I decided early on was that much of the game would be a journey. As I like to say, at the heart of it, the Lord of the Rings is basically about two short people walking a long way to drop a ring in a hole. The adventure comes from who you meet along the way.