Coolcool re: Avernum 4 and 5. I’ll probably buy/play 4 after I finish Dragon Quest 7, which is next on my list after Avernum 3. It looks like I’ll have wasted my money on the original Avernum 1-6 on GOG, but it was only around $7 for all six games, or cheaper than one remake.

You are very shrewd in bypassing the Golem Factory. It’s an absolutely hellish, four-floor dungeon filled with laser beams that turn on and off that I had to look up a solution for. For one thing, you need a piercing crystal to get a key you need, then you need to creep around a giant floor with beams flashing on and off that you have exactly enough time between activations to run through (they can wound you occasionally, and can kill you in two hits) to get to a control panel with no indication of what (of ten) buttons to push. After that somehow impenetrable beams got turned on bisecting the floor and leaving me stuck in the half away from the stairs back down; I went back and forth pushing buttons and checking beams among constantly respawning golems. Thankfully I’m at a level where the beams are a much bigger problem than the golems, but I finally said fuck it and reloaded a save at the beginning of the floor to try it afresh. That’s sitting on my desktop right now, waiting for me to get less aggravated to try it again. I guess that’s tomorrow.

I’d go ahead to Blackcrag but I’m deep enough into this dungeon that I have to finish it, dammit. But the Golem Factory is the opposite of fun.