Video Game / Avalon (1998)

The Title Screen

Avalon is a freeware RPG for MS-DOS made in 1998 by Dutch creator Jeroen Derwort, under the name of his production studio, Mi G Outpost, created with the Turbo Pascal 7 programming language, With character portraits drawn in an Animesque style to invoke the feel of a classic 2D JRPG.

The creator describes it as follows: "Avalon is an RPG in the classic 2D style. A village in the far future is under attack by monsters, and you (sic) the only one who is brave enough to save it. Of course this is not an easy task, so you'll have to fight many powerful creatures and solve some puzzles to achieve your goal."

The protagonist, Mace, is a young man living in a colony on another planet in the year 3045 AD. When the colonists first landed, they detected no animal life on the planet, but suddenly a massive horde of alien monsters appeared out of nowhere and nearly destroyed their village. Mace is (apparently) the only one with the guts to try to trace the threat to its source and end it.

Although the combat system is rather simplistic, the art is hit-or-miss, and the plot is somewhat thin, it is a fun game, and there are some interesting and unexpected plot twists. The music is also quite excellent.

Not to be confused with any other media using the Avalon name.

It can be downloaded here. Note that you will probably need DOS Box or similar software to run it on a Windows PC.

A website containing info, downloads, and a walkthrough for the game can be found on RPGClassics.

A trailer for the game, featuring gameplay and music, can be seen here.

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This work provides examples of:

• Actually Four Mooks: You can never fight more than 2 enemies at once, but the enemies you run into on the map could be either individuals or groups of 2.
• Aliens Are Bastards: The Dark Force wants to wipe out humanity, seemingly just because they consider them inferior. We later learn their real motivation.
• Aliens Steal Cable: The only way to explain how the Syuglooc know all about Earth culture and have lots of Earth weapons and equipment for sale.
• All Swords Are the Same: More like All Weapons Are The Same. Aside from being more powerful, the only difference between each of the weapons (which range from knives to guns to lasers and rocket launchers) is the sound effect they play when used. You never get to actually see the weapons or their effects.
• Almost Dead Guy: Rednael, who dies after escaping from the castle dungeon, just in time to tell you where the master key to the castle is buried.
• Ambiguously Brown: The ending cinematic shows Mace, Fleur, and Lee all having much darker skin tones than their character portraits and sprites suggest everywhere else.
• Ancient Astronauts: The Sinnet ruled many planets including Earth in the past. The Sinnet that ruled Earth was known to humans as "God".
• An Economy Is You: Aside from Caddman and Rednael (both of whom you never actually see fighting, and the latter of which dies early in the game), Mace is the only one who actually fights the Dark Force, yet the shops in both the Human and Alien Villages sell weapons, defense, and items specifically for battle.
• Anti-Human Alliance: The Dark Force. Possibly not a straight example as many of the different aliens were under the direct mental control of the Dark Lord.
• A World Half Full: Caddman's speech at the end suggests that there may be other human colonies that have survived, and perhaps even Earth isn't completely ruined and humans may still live there.
• Badasses Wear Bandanas: Mace is constantly wearing a red bandana.
• Bee Afraid: One of the first types of enemies you will encounter are swarms of Attack Bees.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: In this case, none other than God Himself was an alien.
• Blob Monster: The Green Slime, and later the Slymco enemies.
• Broken Bridge: At one point, you need to find a pickaxe to break a boulder in your way to let you exit a dungeon. Much later in the game, you need to find a piece of wood to repair a broken ladder so you can advance.
• Cassandra Truth: Caddman warned the other villagers that the planet was home to hostile aliens, but they didn't believe him, and even exiled him when he wouldn't stop insisting on it.
• Chest Monster: There is only one in the entire game, towards the end, which arguably makes it a lot more surprising when you run into it.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: The twins Willy and Wally, who are supposedly very intelligent yet often say random and ridiculous things.
• Collector of the Strange: The alien Caw likes to collect things that 'tick', such as watches and clocks. You can sell the Swiss Watch to him for 2000 gold.
• Creator Cameo: Many of the characters are named after the people who worked on the game (both their real names and online aliases) and their family (sometimes with their names spelled backwards)
• Credits Gag: The ending credits thank both Michael Jackson and the Pope. While the former might have been an inspiration for the game's music, the latter's presence in the credits is a mystery.
• Cute Slime Mook: Averted. The Green Slime◊ enemy is rather creepy looking.
• Damage-Increasing Debuff: The "Defpen" (Defense Penetrator) items you can buy at the Alien Village lower an enemy's defense rating, so you can inflict more damage to them with your attacks. These are necessary to defeat certain bosses.
• Deflector Shields: The three strongest pieces of defensive equipment you can buy (the Force Field, Plasma Shield, and Matrix Overdrive)
• Degraded Boss: The second boss fight is against two Dark Guards, but once you gain access to the castle you can encounter them as normal enemies.
• Doomed Hometown: Subverted. The Dark Force attacks the village and kidnaps all of the villagers except for Mace and Caddman, but after you defeat the Dark Lord, all of the villagers are returned safely and the village is even expanded to include Caddman's house.
• Earth That Was: Part of the backstory. Humans destroyed the Earth with pollution and nuclear war, and thus needed to settle a new planet.
• Easter Egg: If you use the area scanner in the Gray Cave, you can make out the initials "Mi G" on the map, the name of the developer.
• Elite Mooks: The Sinnet Guardians in the White Tower, who practically qualify as bosses themselves. Fighting two at once is extremely dangerous, even when you've become as powerful as you can get in the game.
• Equipment-Based Progression: Leveling up only increases your maximum HP. To actually get stronger attack and defense stats, you need to buy (or find) new weapons and defenses.
• Everything Trying to Kill You: Justified, as all of the hostile aliens, down to the insects, are under either the command or the direct mental compulsion of the Dark Lord.
• Evil Overlord: The Dark Lord, obviously.
• Experience Points: Every defeated enemy gives you some. Each level requires twice as many EXP as the previous one, but all a level up does is increase your maximum HP.
• Fetch Quest: Your first mission is to retrieve Fleur's necklace which she lost in the forest when the aliens attacked. There's also the quest to get the Flower of the Eternal Roam to brew the antidote to the Dark Poison.
• Final Boss Preview: An odd example, as you actually defeat him in your first encounter without that much trouble, only for him to escape and come back to fight you again, stronger this time.
• Find the Cure!: Finding the Flower of the Eternal Roam to brew the Dark Potion, the antidote to the Dark Poison. A slightly irregular example because the Dark Poison doesn't kill Mace, and he actually seems to recover from it just fine. The reason that he needs the cure is so he can have it ready when Esor Amreh uses the poison against him again. Also, you only need to find one ingredient, while Caddman gathers the rest on his own and brews the potion for you.
• Fling a Light into the Future: The backstory has the colony ship being a form of this, escaping the devastated Earth in search of a new homeworld.
• Flower from the Mountaintop: The Flower of the Eternal Roam, which you need to collect for Caddman to brew the Dark Potion (the antidote to the Dark Poison).
• Fun with Acronyms: The space agency that built the colony ship is known as UNINSTALL (United Nations International Nuclear Space Technology Association at a Lethal Level).
• Giant Squid: The "Big Squid" enemy you can encounter in the sea fits this description. Oddly, it has a mouth on the front of its head (instead of the bottom) with human-like teeth instead of a beak, but this can be excused due to the fact that it's an alien.
• Glass Cannon: Mace becomes one by the end of the game, as the most powerful weapon you can obtain has a power of 500, but the most powerful defense only has a power of 60.
• Guide Dang It!: In order to unlock the main door inside of the castle, you must first enter the dungeon and speak with Rednael, then search through the castle to find the golden key which unlocks the castle garden. After that, you have to return to the Alien Village and speak with Kreznjerk, who tells you that you need a spade to dig up the key. Then, you have to travel all the way back to the Human Village (which has nothing of value to you at this point in the game, the shops there having been made obsolete by those in the Alien Village), enter a specific house, and speak with a specific NPC, who will give you the spade. Finally, you must return all the way to the castle garden, find the altar, and use the spade on the ground 10 steps to the right of it (or thereabouts) to dig up the key. Even after all that, you will find that the key won't open the main door, so you have to travel to another obscure, out-of-the-way locked door in the castle, use the master key to open it, and then take the access-card in the chest behind that door, and only then can you open the main door.
• Guns Are Worthless: Averted. Perhaps even inverted, because the early basic weapons like knives, swords, and axes are all vastly inferior to the firearms (and energy weapons) you can get later.
• Healing Potion: Comes in three varieties: The small medic kit, which restores 100 HP, the large medic kit, which restores 200 HP, and the media kit 2000, which restores all of your HP.
• Hellish Horse: The fire horse, a flaming horse-like enemy encountered in the Gray Cave
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Averted. There is one sword in the game that Mace can use, but it is quickly made obsolete by much better weapons. The strongest weapon you can get is the Vaporizer.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: The first fight against Esor Amreh. When you get him down to below 2000 HP, he immediately uses a "Dark Poison" that instantly knocks you out. Only after you find the antidote to the poison can you take him on again and win.
• Immortal Breaker: AIDS, strangely enough
• Immortality: The Sinnet had this. Before AIDS killed them
• The Immune: The Dark Lord, the only Sinnet who was immune to AIDS.
• Improbable Power Discrepancy: You would expect the guards and monsters in the castle to be the strongest the Dark Force had (next to the monsters in the White Tower), but hostile plant bulbs and trilobites in the castle garden, and slime blobs and pterodons in the mountains, are stronger, just because you encounter them later.
• Inexplicable Treasure Chests: A few, one found in the forest and another one outside of Caddman's house. Most others are in places you would expect to find them, such as treasure rooms.
• Informed Equipment: Not only does Mace's sprite never show the equipment he has, but there is no visual representation of any of the weapons or defenses at all. All you get are their names and descriptions and the sound effects they make. Their visual effects on enemies are all the same.
• Innocent Aliens: The Syuglooc, the only tribe of aliens that is willing to help you.
• Kill and Replace: Strongly implied that Esor Amreh did this to Tracer
• Last-Minute Hookup: Mace and Fleur
• Last of His Kind: The Dark Lord
• Level-Map Display: The Area Scanner, which you get rather late in the game.
• Level-Up Fill-Up: In this game, leveling up only increases your maximum HP and nothing else. But it also heals all damage you might have taken and instantly brings your HP to its new maximum.
• The Mole: Tracer, aka Esor Amreh
• Money Spider: Every enemy in the game drops gold when killed, even swarms of insects.
• No Hero Discount: Despite carrying the weapons and equipment that are key to saving them from the hostile aliens, and Mace being the only one who has the guts to actually use them, both villages still charge you full price for everything.
• Non-Lethal K.O.: Zig-zagged. Defeated enemies are randomly said to either die or "collapse".
• Noob Cave: The forest. It doesn't even have a boss encounter. Although you can still die here if you're not sufficiently prepared and careful.
• No Ontological Inertia: All of the monsters on the planet Avalon disappear for good once the Dark Lord is defeated. Caddman speculates that they may have been somehow part of the Dark Lord's being itself.
• No Such Thing as Space Jesus: Averted. One of the Sinnet race was known to and worshipped by humans in the past as God. Yes, that God. And then he died from AIDS. Really.
• Octopoid Aliens: The Sinnet appear to be a species of these.
• Oddly Small Organization: For a species that supposedly ruled millions of planets across the universe, it seems odd that there were only 52 Sinnet in total. Of course, that could have just been the number that were entombed in the White Tower, with more having died elsewhere on other planets.
• One Password Attempt Ever: In the White Tower, you have to enter the number of dead Sinnet (indicated by the coffins) to gain access to the final boss fight. The answer is 052. If you enter anything else, you instantly die.
• Orcus on His Throne: The Dark Lord relies on his minions to do all the work, only fighting Mace when he actually reaches him in his throne room. After losing there, he runs away and Mace has to hunt him down to finally put an end to him for good.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Spectres are enemies you can encounter on the Beach, which appear as wisp-like ghosts with glowing orange-yellow eyes, yet they seem to be physical beings that are just as vulnerable to mundane weapons as any other enemy in the game.
• Our Goblins Are Different: Like every other enemy in the game, the goblins here are actually aliens, and they patrol the inside of the castle along with other creatures. They seem to be carrying around a broom in their art, indicating that they're the equivalent of janitors. Strangely, despite this, they have a higher attack power than the Dark Guards.
• Palette Swap: A relatively weak monster you encounter early in the game on the Beach, known as the 'Atomic Waste', appears later, recolored yellow and grey, as the 'Burning Acid', a much more powerful enemy you encounter in the Gray Cave.
• Peninsula of Power Leveling: The Beach, filled with tons of enemies that aren't that strong, give decent exp and gold, and come right at you so you don't have to wander around to find them.
• Place of Power: The Dark Lord mentions that the Mausoleum of the White Tower was constructed using ancient power that humans can't understand, and says that some of that power still remained even after the death of the rest of his race, so when he fought Mace there, he got a significant powerup compared to his previous form.
• The Plague: AIDS, which, while definitely harmful to humans, proved much more deadly to the Sinnet, wiping out their entire species, save one.
• Poison Mushroom: The nuclear warhead. You might think it would be a powerful weapon, but using it just blows you up and gives you a game over.
• Precision F-Strike: Mace calls the first two Dark Guards he encounters "alien motherfuckers" before fighting them.
• Pre-existing Encounters: The game uses these instead of Random Encounters, as enemies are visible as worm-like blue blobs on the screen (or armored guards, when in the castle or the White Tower) so you can attempt to avoid them, although they will chase you down.
• Punny Name: The tribe of friendly aliens is called the Syuglooc. Now read it backwards.
• Regenerating Health: Mace's health regenerates slowly whenever he's in a village. Once you find the Life-Jug item, it will always regenerate when not in battle. This is necessary for some of the tougher dungeons, as many of the enemies there can and will kill you if you take them on while wounded.
• Schmuck Bait: The nuclear warhead, which is available to purchase at the alien village for 10,000 gold. The description warns you to never use it, and if you do, it causes an instant game over.
• Sdrawkcab Name: Used a lot, with names like "Neorej", "Rednael", "Esor Amreh", "Sram", "Knarf", the main villain belonging to a species called the "Sinnet", and the tribe of friendly aliens known as the "Syuglooc".
• Sequel Hook: The ending cinematic implies that Mace may have to fight to protect Avalon again, along with an ominous image of a snake-like being. Unfortunately, a sequel was never made.
• Settling the Frontier: The colony on the planet Avalon, founded by a ship from Earth.
• Shop Fodder: The Swiss Watch, found in a chest in the forest (if you can find the key). When used, it displays the current time (actually from your PC's clock), but its real use is to be sold to one of the aliens in the alien village, who will pay a hefty 2000 gold for it. What's even better is you can go back and get it and do this over again as many times as you like for effectively unlimited money, if you're willing to trek back and forth a lot.
• Shout-Out: Supplementary material reveals that the alien Sram called the translation device he invented a "Babel Fish", but he was not sure why.
  • The alien merchant claims that the Matrix Overdrive, the most powerful defensive equipment you can buy, was used by Rambo in Rambo MCIX.
• Sleeper Starship: The colony ship that brought the humans to Avalon.
• Snakes Are Sinister: Two of the bosses you fight are snakes, the second one tries to trick you as well
• Sound Test: There is a stereo available in Lee's house once you complete the game, where you can listen to all of the game's music.
• Superior Species: The Sinnet consider themselves to be this compared to humans, due to controlling millions of planets throughout the universe at their height and being immortal.
• Sword of Plot Advancement: The Vaporizer, the weapon you get after defeating Esor Amreh. It has an attack power of 500, compared to the 270 of the rocket launcher, the strongest weapon that you can buy.
• Temple of Doom: The White Tower is one, along with being the final dungeon.
• Treacherous Quest Giver: Tracer, aka Esor Amreh. At first he just hopes you'll get yourself killed fighting the Dark Force, but when you survive he decides to kill you himself.
• Treasure Room: There's one in the castle, which you can see immediately upon entering, but it takes a lot more exploring to actually reach. 5 out of the 6 chests there yield money or useful items, but the sixth contains a trap that instantly kills you if you open it.
• Trespassing Hero: You can enter almost every building in both the Human and Alien Villages.
• Turn-Based Combat: The combat system is completely turn-based.
• Underground Level: There are actually four of them, which is saying something since there are only around 12 dungeons in total.
• The Unpronounceable: Caddman's real name is "Nekerps et tiu Gitsal". Upon hearing this, Mace decides to just keep calling him Caddman.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The White Tower, where you face the Dark Lord for the second and last time.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: The Dark Lord does this the first time you defeat him.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Averted. Both Esor Amreh and the Dark Lord are more powerful the second time you fight them.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: The Living Trees. These are the first enemies that really require you to use Power Suckers, Defpens, and Paralysers to overcome.
• Warm-Up Boss: The Snake, the first boss you encounter. He's only slightly stronger than the enemies you've been fighting so far.
• Weaksauce Weakness: The Sinnet, immortal alien beings who ruled the universe and were worshipped as gods, were all killed by AIDS, except for one.
• When Trees Attack: The Living Trees, bosses encountered in the castle garden. A significant step up in difficulty from anything you've faced before.
• You Can Say That Again: Combined with Precision F-Strike, when Caddman hears that the Dark Lord escaped, he exclaims "shit", Mace replies with this line, and Caddman does indeed say it again.

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