Geneforge 1: Mutagen Update #7

Spiderweb Software’s Jeff Vogel brings us a new progress report for the upcoming remaster of the original Geneforge. In short, Spiderweb’s small but dedicated team is currently busy adding new terrain types, quests, and interactions. They’re also working on a general overhaul of the game’s text that should make it more fun to read.

The current plan is to launch the game in January of 2021, and with that, here’s the whole update:

Greetings from Spiderweb Software! We are managing solid, consistent work on Geneforge 1 – Mutagen. Day by day, we are churning through all of the old towns and dungeons and adding new ones, giving everything the full remaster treatment.

We have completed 27 out of 81 sections. This includes the three main cities and the factions they rule. This was a lot of dialogue, quests, and lore to go through, and we’re relieved to have finally waded through it all.

What is involved in remastering? Original Geneforge had very few terrain types and we weren’t used to creating huge quest lines and complicated game environments. A lot of the sections were really plain, and a lot of storylines were patchy and incomplete.

We are going through every location, every item, and every bit of dialogue. Editing. Rebalancing. We are reworking the text to make it read better (which mainly involves removing a lot of unnecessary words). All quest and faction dialogue has been expanded, adding more lore and useful information.

For example, the angry, rebellious Taker faction from the original game has had its dialogue doubled. They are a really interesting, rage-filled bunch, but I didn’t originally do a good job of having them explain themselves, and they needed more quests to help define who they are and how they worked. They have had their roles and activities expanded, and they’re a lot cooler now.

We are still hoping for Geneforge to be ready by the end of January, 2021.

Backer Update

We sent out Kickstarter surveys to people who bought physical objects, and we’re going to start making those soon. The Certificates of Absolution have new art that looks terrific.

We will send surveys out to everyone else in the next 2-3 months. The longer we wait, the fewer problems we have with dead email addresses.

As for the kind Backers who are contributing material to the game, I think we have heard from everyone we are going to hear from. The world has been fully designed and a third of it implemented. If you haven’t submitted your idea yet, you really should let us know. We’ll try to fit your stuff in as best we can.

More creature art, of two of the toughest creations you can make, is below! Soon, we will be able to expand to providing screenshots, views of the interface, and other such meaty details. We may even make a Steam page soon! See you next month!

– Jeff Vogel